10,000 sims: CAA

This post concludes our 10,000 sims series – though if someone has a specific request for another conference it’s relatively easy, so shoot me an email/comment. There are a lot of fun scenarios that the CAA could produce this season. Let’s look at all of them.

After running the totals here are a few probabilities for things occurring this season:

• Drexel wins outright CAA title  – Pomeroy: 70%, Hanner: 58%
• A team ineligible for CAA tournament wins regular season title (ODU, Georgia State, UNCW, Towson) – Pomeroy: 2%, Hanner: 12%
• Someone goes undefeated (mostly Drexel) – Pomeroy: 2%, Hanner: 0.6%

The places the computers and Brian Mull really disagree: Georgia State. Let’s start with the Panthers, because boy are they a fun case. Why is GSU so hard to predict? Well they lost a lot of production from last season. Still, both Ken Pomeroy and Dan Hanner have Ron Hunter’s team finishing sixth or higher. Hanner has them second! (By a small margin, as we’ve previously discussed.) What’s most interesting to me here at the end of the series is that Pomeroy and Hanner’s roles have flipped. This time it’s Ken that’s really bullish on a team (actually a unit – Drexel’s offense) and giving us the more brash prediction. As we’ve done for every other conference, here are the percent chances of a team winning the conference title, including ties.

Pomeroy:

• Drexel – 83.6%
• George Mason – 14.4%
• Delaware – 10.0%
• Old Dominion – 4.2%
• Northeastern – 2.6%
• Georgia State – 2.5%
• James Madison – 0.6%
• William & Mary – 0.1%
• UNC-Wilmington – 0.09%
• Hofstra – null
• Towson – null

In these simulations, 15% of the seasons ended in at least a two-way tie for first. As noted above, though Drexel is projected to at least tie for the conference title in more than 80% of simulations, the Dragons only went undefeated 213 times in the 10,000 simulations using Pomeroy’s ratings. Why is that? The schedule makers didn’t do Drexel any favors. They play at Georgia State, George Mason, Delaware and Old Dominion. The one team they don’t play on the road? UNC-Wilmington. Still, 18 games out of a possible 20 for a true home-away series isn’t enough to cause anything too crazy.

Hanner:

• Drexel – 74.3%
• Georgia State – 13.7%
• Old Dominion – 11.3%
• Northeastern – 9.4%
• George Mason – 6.2%
• Delaware – 5.6%
• James Madison – 2.7%
• UNC-Wilmington – 2.3%
• Hofstra – 0.3%
• William & Mary – 0.02%
• Towson – null

Every Hofstra fans that reads this blog is now thinking… “So you say there’s a chance.” (I personally like to imagine Defiantly Dutch happily daydreaming about a title.) Let’s be clear that these include ties, of which there were a lot. More than 20% of the 10,000 simulations with Hanner’s numbers ended in more than one team taking home the CAA title. Still, Hofstra won the title 11 times, so I guess you can dream. For once Hanner is the more egalitarian of the rankings systems. This distribution of titles is a little kinder to some of the non-Drexel factions. Also, now you understand why it’s so likely that the league’s winner could come from the ineligible teams. Georgia State and Old Dominion are #2 and #3 here. They combined to win over 1,150 sims. That’s pretty good odds.

The other thing we always note are teams that went winless. The three tiers the league presents according to the predictive analytics breaks down nicely to the point where almost every time everyone beats someone, with one caveat. The numbers don’t believe in Towson’s resurgence  The Tigers went winless in 14.5% of the combined 20,000 simulations. (If you must know, Hofstra and UNC-Wilmington made up the rest, which was only eight total.)

Now let’s get this season started!