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pfrduke
03-09-2010, 10:47 PM
Since the advent of the unbalanced schedule, I've looked annually at how each team's schedule stacked up. One of the more unique aspects of the method I use is to treat the conference as if it had 24 teams, rather than 12; that is each team has a "home" and "away" version, and for the teams you play once, you only get credit for the version you play (so, for example, Duke played the "away" version of Wake and the "home" version of Virginia). So let's look at that information first (all numbers are in points per hundred possessions):


Home Team Off. Def. Margin
Duke 116.65 87.97 28.68
Maryland 121.32 100.10 21.22
Clemson 103.75 88.76 14.99
Virginia Tech 104.50 96.15 8.35
Georgia Tech 98.48 90.78 7.70
Wake Forest 102.14 94.91 7.23
Boston College 104.64 99.88 4.76
Florida State 96.30 92.53 3.77
Miami 108.84 108.14 0.69
Virginia 101.04 103.38 -2.34
North Carolina 99.63 102.26 -2.64
North Carolina State 99.28 102.57 -3.29



Road Team Off. Def. Margin
Duke 106.46 100.20 6.26
Maryland 102.74 100.25 2.48
Florida State 98.90 98.60 0.30
Virginia Tech 97.60 101.50 -3.89
Wake Forest 94.55 102.95 -8.39
Georgia Tech 102.60 112.14 -9.54
Clemson 93.76 103.63 -9.87
Virginia 92.63 103.75 -11.12
North Carolina State 96.27 107.75 -11.47
Boston College 96.88 110.71 -13.83
North Carolina 91.93 105.85 -13.92
Miami 91.64 109.06 -17.42


To no one's great surprise, everyone's a lot better at home than on the road. Only three teams - Duke, Maryland, and FSU - were better than their opponents both at home and away. The Noles were the most road-immune team (although one could say that's because they were no great shakes at home), while Clemson had the most disparate home/road results.

The strength of schedule is derived from figuring out the collective offensive and defensive ratings of the 16 teams you played, with your own performance factored out (so UNC's schedule doesn't look harder because it stank, and Duke's easier because it dominated). I figured out both the offensive and defensive degree of difficulty for each team. The disparities may look small, but keep in mind that the teams averaged just shy of 1100 total possessions in ACC play this season, so a difference of 2.00 in margin is 22 points over the course of the season.

Opponent offenses, from toughest to weakest:

Opp Off
Florida State 102.74
Clemson 102.50
Virginia 101.98
Duke 101.88
North Carolina 101.65
Georgia Tech 101.63
Miami 100.22
Maryland 100.13
NC State 99.87
Wake Forest 99.65
Boston College 99.64
Virginia Tech 99.04


Opponent defenses, from toughest to weakest

Opp Def
Maryland 98.70
Boston College 98.71
North Carolina 100.31
Clemson 100.48
Duke 100.53
Georgia Tech 100.54
Miami 101.01
NC State 101.39
Virginia Tech 102.01
Virginia 102.12
Florida State 102.29
Wake Forest 102.77


These two performances come together to make the opponent's scoring margin. A perfectly average schedule would be zero - anything positive is tougher, and anything negative is easier:


O Marg
Clemson 2.02
Maryland 1.43
Duke 1.35
North Carolina 1.34
Georgia Tech 1.10
Boston College 0.92
Florida State 0.45
Virginia -0.14
Miami -0.79
NC State -1.52
Virginia Tech -2.97
Wake Forest -3.11


As you can see, Wake and Virginia Tech were the beneficiaries of very easy schedules. Each team played twice against Miami, UVA, UNC, and State, who were very clearly the 4 worst teams in the league. Clemson, by contrast, had to double dip against Duke, Maryland, FSU, Georgia Tech, and BC, and go on the road to play Wake and Virginia Tech. That's road games against every one of the top 8 road teams - the only way they could have had a harder road schedule was to go to Miami instead of NC State.

So with all of this information, we can adjust performance to see how the teams would have performed against an average schedule. The unadjusted performance looks like this:


Margin
Duke 17.59
Maryland 11.71
Clemson 2.69
Virginia Tech 2.32
Florida State 2.06
Wake Forest -0.45
Georgia Tech -0.60
Boston College -4.68
Virginia -6.80
NC State -7.42
North Carolina -8.41
Miami -8.50


Adjusted, we get a bit of movement, especially with VT and Wake:


Margin
Duke 18.95
Maryland 13.15
Clemson 4.71
Florida State 2.51
Georgia Tech 0.50
Virginia Tech -0.65
Wake Forest -3.56
Boston College -3.75
Virginia -6.95
North Carolina -7.08
NC State -8.93
Miami -9.29


Finally, based on the adjusted performance of the teams this season, here are the tourney odds. Duke is a prohibitive favorite; mostly because of how good they were (they're a 70/30 favorite over even Maryland on a neutral court) and secondarily because the 4/5 matchup is really a 6/7 matchup based on the teams' schedule adjusted performance.


Quarters Semis Finals Win
1 Duke 100.00% 96.28% 90.99% 69.98%
2 Maryland 100.00% 86.36% 66.36% 22.95%
6 Clemson 87.12% 50.28% 16.01% 2.92%
3 Florida State 100.00% 47.56% 12.40% 1.84%
4 Virginia Tech 100.00% 65.37% 5.56% 1.21%
7 Georgia Tech 74.31% 12.03% 4.76% 0.57%
5 Wake Forest 67.63% 26.87% 1.64% 0.26%
8 Boston College 61.80% 2.68% 1.15% 0.18%
9 Virginia 38.20% 1.04% 0.32% 0.03%
12 Miami 32.37% 7.76% 0.33% 0.03%
10 North Carolina 25.69% 1.61% 0.30% 0.02%
11 NC State 12.88% 2.16% 0.16% 0.01%

loran16
03-09-2010, 10:55 PM
Thank you so much for this. I was guessing basketball prospectus was going to do a similar percentage bit tomorrow, which i love.

airowe
03-09-2010, 11:41 PM
I'm somewhat surprised at how much worse our defense is away compared to at home.

I wonder if we're really that bad in other gyms, or if we're just that good in Durham?

loran16
03-09-2010, 11:59 PM
I'm somewhat surprised at how much worse our defense is away compared to at home.

I wonder if we're really that bad in other gyms, or if we're just that good in Durham?

I suspect that if you take away the GTown and NC State games that D Efficiency gets into at least decent (under 1.00 OPPP) areas.

But those two had to hurt.

pfrduke
03-10-2010, 12:34 AM
I suspect that if you take away the GTown and NC State games that D Efficiency gets into at least decent (under 1.00 OPPP) areas.

But those two had to hurt.

Well, Georgetown isn't factored in, since this is ACC-only.

But here are some away from home DRatings from our games:

NC State: 125.09
Maryland: 116.13
Miami: 107.52
Georgia Tech: 103.95
Boston College: 103.07

We did shut down Clemson, UNC, and UVA on their home courts.

juise
03-10-2010, 01:00 AM
I'm somewhat surprised at how much worse our defense is away compared to at home.

I wonder if we're really that bad in other gyms, or if we're just that good in Durham?

I would guess that the subpar shooting that Duke often experienced has something to do with it (leading to transition buckets and such). I don't have the numbers for to support that statement, of course.

loran16
03-10-2010, 01:45 AM
In case you're curious, Basketball Prospectus' Odds are for the most part similar:

Seed Qtrs Semis Final Champ
1 Duke 100 92.7 80.6 63.2
2 Maryland 100 71.9 43.6 15.2
3 Florida St. 100 55.5 25.8 7.2
6 Clemson 76.6 38.9 18.3 5.2
4 Virginia Tech 100 59.9 11.1 4.4
7 Georgia Tech 67.2 21.8 9.3 2.1
5 Wake Forest 60.2 26.5 4.1 1.4
8 Boston College 59.9 5.0 1.9 0.5
12 Miami FL 39.8 13.6 1.6 0.4
10 North Carolina 32.8 6.2 1.7 0.2
11 NC State 23.4 5.6 1.2 0.2
9 Virginia 40.1 2.3 0.7 0.1

http://basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=980

Similar result, though I happen to agree that a 90% chance to make the finals is a bit high in yours.

airowe
03-10-2010, 08:13 AM
I would guess that the subpar shooting that Duke often experienced has something to do with it (leading to transition buckets and such). I don't have the numbers for to support that statement, of course.

Its a bit of a chicken and the egg scenario though, is it not? Good defense (turning teams over) leads to easy buckets and a higher shooting percentage for us which in turn leads to less possessions and thus less baskets for the other teams. The only game that really stands out to me is NCSU, but that was such an aberration I don't think anything meaningful can be gleaned from it.

I'm a bit surprised at the Miami numbers as we completely shut them down in the 2nd half.

Forgive me for asking pfr, as you may have already answered this, but how did you come to your numbers? Is it points per 100 possessions?

Troublemaker
03-10-2010, 08:28 AM
Awesome stuff, pfr. The scheduled-adjusted numbers really support what many are thinking about Duke's ACC tournament draw, which is that it is nice. Hopefully Duke's NCAA tournament draw turns out this well. (But regardless, still gotta win the games on the court).

pfrduke
03-10-2010, 11:56 AM
Forgive me for asking pfr, as you may have already answered this, but how did you come to your numbers? Is it points per 100 possessions?

Yes, it's all points per 100 possessions.

pfrduke
03-10-2010, 12:06 PM
I'm a bit surprised at the Miami numbers as we completely shut them down in the 2nd half.

Miami scored 37 in both halves of that game, although a lot of their second half scoring came in garbage time due to some foul-and-extend tactics (and poor defensive rebounding) - Miami had 59 points with 2:45 to go in the game, and then scored 15 points in the last 9 possessions.

Prior to that run, our defensive rating up until the 2:45 mark was 98.62; not stellar, but better than it ended up.