loran16
02-07-2011, 10:50 AM
Well, over the half the season is now gone for most teams in the ACC and it appears that the four traditional Tobacco Road schools (if we're nice and include Wake and NC State) are both on top (Duke-UNC) and on bottom (NC-State, Wake).
Lets take a look at the numbers.
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Below are the current efficiency numbers for each ACC team in conference play thus far. These numbers used to be kept track of publicly by basketball prospectus' John Gasaway, but he's currently putting them behind the site's new pay-wall, so I'll be posting them here all season.
These numbers go beyond win-loss record to, over time, show who truly is the best, and then second best team in the ACC team, and so forth. They're better at doing so than win-loss records, as they truly show which teams are actually beating up on opponents and which are lucky to skate by. Early on of course, they're skewed by outliers (games against Wake Forest), but they're still quite interesting.
The relevant numbers are as follows:
Tempo: Possessions per Game (A measure of how up-pace a team plays.)
Offensive Efficiency: Amount of points scored by a team's offense per possession.
Defensive Efficiency: Amount of points allowed by a team's defense per possession.
Efficiency Margin: The amount a team will outscore it's opponent per 1-possession-each (basically O Efficiency minus D Efficiency)
For ease of reading, I've added a final column, which shows how the Efficiency Margin of each team translates into that team's average margin of victory (or defeat) in an average ACC game (67 Possessions). This is just for display purposes....a team like Duke which plays faster than that will win by more, while a team like UVA which plays slower will win by less. Another week, and 2 games for everyone have passed except for UNC, so time for another look at the efficiency rankings.
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http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jpHBaQhAbHI/TVANldDD82I/AAAAAAAAAL0/RQKOxiJoNBs/s1600/ACC%2BStats%2BWeek%2B5.png
Thoughts:
1. Duke is a clear #1: Last week, Duke was #2 on offense and #3 on Defense. This week, Duke is #1 in the Conference in both offense and defense, exactly what you want to see from a team that should be a step above any other team in the conference. The end result is the highest efficiency margin of the year for Duke in-conference, keeping Duke with a nice margin above a surging UNC.
2. UNC is a clear #2: UNC beat down FSU at home and now has a bunch of separation from VT and Clemson in efficiency numbers as well as their actual record. They're still nowhere near as efficient as Duke, but they're currently a clear #2. And the clear #2 to Duke's #1 last year (Maryland), did manage to take a game from Duke...though of course, that was AT Maryland.
3. NC State has ALSO achieved separation....establishing it as the clear worst non-Wake team.: I talked about this last week, but NC State only made it more obvious this week with a not-close loss to VT and a blowout loss to Duke. The gap between NCState and #10 UVA is bigger than the gap between UVA and #8 Miami. They're just at terrible team.
Now a few weeks ago I noted how Wake was terrible and a clear outlier that affected the results. Now that we've gotten to this part of the season, I though I'd take a look at the ACC if we removed Wake from the equation and all of its' games from the results of other ACC teams. Those numbers are below:
Wake-Free ACC Efficiency Numbers
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_jpHBaQhAbHI/TVANuPVjKBI/AAAAAAAAAL8/5gpJnFFltjM/s1600/ACC%2BStats%2BWeek%2B5%2Bwithout%2BWake.png
Wake has played all but 4 teams (UNC, Clemson, BC, and Miami) and has played Maryland twice, so all but those 4 teams are affected by Wake's removal. The end result of course is that NC State falls like a stone to last place as their most convincing win is removed from their record. Removing Wake increases the gap between UVA and State by a ton, making the gap equivalent to the gap between team #10 (UVA) and team #4 (VaTech). That's just ridiculous. State is just simply a bad bad team.
Maryland is also hurt by Wake's removal as MD is the only team to play Wake twice...turning from a team with a decent efficiency number to a team with a negative number.
Meanwhile, losing Wake also reduces the Gap between Duke and UNC, but not enough to make the two comparable...Duke is still a clear #1 and remains #1 in O and #1 in D in the ACC.
Lastly, take a note at how many of the teams in the non-Wake chart are inefficient and have negative efficiency numbers. SEVEN out of the 11 ACC teams are negative in efficiency...in other words, have been bad teams in ACC Play. This is because of the large advantage held by the top teams (Duke, UNC, and Clemson-sort-of) over the bottom teams, resulting in a whole bunch of teams that are poor but not god-awful and only a few teams that are good teams...but these teams are really good.
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Later in the day, I'm going to add Home/Away numbers. Any thoughts?
Lets take a look at the numbers.
------------------------------------------------------------
Below are the current efficiency numbers for each ACC team in conference play thus far. These numbers used to be kept track of publicly by basketball prospectus' John Gasaway, but he's currently putting them behind the site's new pay-wall, so I'll be posting them here all season.
These numbers go beyond win-loss record to, over time, show who truly is the best, and then second best team in the ACC team, and so forth. They're better at doing so than win-loss records, as they truly show which teams are actually beating up on opponents and which are lucky to skate by. Early on of course, they're skewed by outliers (games against Wake Forest), but they're still quite interesting.
The relevant numbers are as follows:
Tempo: Possessions per Game (A measure of how up-pace a team plays.)
Offensive Efficiency: Amount of points scored by a team's offense per possession.
Defensive Efficiency: Amount of points allowed by a team's defense per possession.
Efficiency Margin: The amount a team will outscore it's opponent per 1-possession-each (basically O Efficiency minus D Efficiency)
For ease of reading, I've added a final column, which shows how the Efficiency Margin of each team translates into that team's average margin of victory (or defeat) in an average ACC game (67 Possessions). This is just for display purposes....a team like Duke which plays faster than that will win by more, while a team like UVA which plays slower will win by less. Another week, and 2 games for everyone have passed except for UNC, so time for another look at the efficiency rankings.
------------------------------------------------------------
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jpHBaQhAbHI/TVANldDD82I/AAAAAAAAAL0/RQKOxiJoNBs/s1600/ACC%2BStats%2BWeek%2B5.png
Thoughts:
1. Duke is a clear #1: Last week, Duke was #2 on offense and #3 on Defense. This week, Duke is #1 in the Conference in both offense and defense, exactly what you want to see from a team that should be a step above any other team in the conference. The end result is the highest efficiency margin of the year for Duke in-conference, keeping Duke with a nice margin above a surging UNC.
2. UNC is a clear #2: UNC beat down FSU at home and now has a bunch of separation from VT and Clemson in efficiency numbers as well as their actual record. They're still nowhere near as efficient as Duke, but they're currently a clear #2. And the clear #2 to Duke's #1 last year (Maryland), did manage to take a game from Duke...though of course, that was AT Maryland.
3. NC State has ALSO achieved separation....establishing it as the clear worst non-Wake team.: I talked about this last week, but NC State only made it more obvious this week with a not-close loss to VT and a blowout loss to Duke. The gap between NCState and #10 UVA is bigger than the gap between UVA and #8 Miami. They're just at terrible team.
Now a few weeks ago I noted how Wake was terrible and a clear outlier that affected the results. Now that we've gotten to this part of the season, I though I'd take a look at the ACC if we removed Wake from the equation and all of its' games from the results of other ACC teams. Those numbers are below:
Wake-Free ACC Efficiency Numbers
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_jpHBaQhAbHI/TVANuPVjKBI/AAAAAAAAAL8/5gpJnFFltjM/s1600/ACC%2BStats%2BWeek%2B5%2Bwithout%2BWake.png
Wake has played all but 4 teams (UNC, Clemson, BC, and Miami) and has played Maryland twice, so all but those 4 teams are affected by Wake's removal. The end result of course is that NC State falls like a stone to last place as their most convincing win is removed from their record. Removing Wake increases the gap between UVA and State by a ton, making the gap equivalent to the gap between team #10 (UVA) and team #4 (VaTech). That's just ridiculous. State is just simply a bad bad team.
Maryland is also hurt by Wake's removal as MD is the only team to play Wake twice...turning from a team with a decent efficiency number to a team with a negative number.
Meanwhile, losing Wake also reduces the Gap between Duke and UNC, but not enough to make the two comparable...Duke is still a clear #1 and remains #1 in O and #1 in D in the ACC.
Lastly, take a note at how many of the teams in the non-Wake chart are inefficient and have negative efficiency numbers. SEVEN out of the 11 ACC teams are negative in efficiency...in other words, have been bad teams in ACC Play. This is because of the large advantage held by the top teams (Duke, UNC, and Clemson-sort-of) over the bottom teams, resulting in a whole bunch of teams that are poor but not god-awful and only a few teams that are good teams...but these teams are really good.
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Later in the day, I'm going to add Home/Away numbers. Any thoughts?