While the Ivy League graduated a number of talented players this past offseason, there’s still a bunch of talent in the league and it is augmented by the return of Kyle Casey and Brandyn Curry at Harvard. Figuring out where they fit on the Harvard roster, let alone the all-conference pecking order is quite the task. Continue reading “Ivy League All-Conference Team”
Two very smart people have released preseason college basketball ratings that span the entire breadth of Division I. Even though Ken Pomeroy and Dan Hanner use different methods to make their predictions the results were quite similar last season. Still, there are some outliers. Here are a few of the more interesting one. Continue reading “A Quick Comparison of Pomeroy and Hanner Predictions”
Ken Pomeroy released his preseason rankings during the weekend. This is great news because it means that it’s once again time to crank up 10,000 sims. The idea behind this method is that even if teams play to a certain strength there’s so much that happens during a college basketball season teams can end up doing far better or worse than the numbers might suggest.
These sims provide a baseline. Just because Harvard is ranked 51st in Pomeroy doesn’t mean the Crimson are running away with the league title. At least not yet. Here are their chances are using Pomeroy’s predictions.
| Name | Solo Win % | Tie % | Avg. Margin | Avg. Win Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard | 76.2% | 11.5% | 2.8 | 11.4 |
| Princeton | 9.0% | 9.1% | 1.6 | 8.8 |
| Yale | 1.1% | 1.7% | 1.4 | 6.7 |
| Columbia | 0.6% | 1.1% | 1.3 | 6.3 |
| Brown | 0.4% | 0.9% | 1.3 | 6.2 |
| Pennsylvania | 0.3% | 0.6% | 1.2 | 5.7 |
| Cornell | 0.2% | 0.4% | 1.4 | 5.5 |
| Dartmouth | 0.1% | 0.3% | 1.1 | 5.3 |
Well that’s pretty darn convincing, isn’t it? Harvard wins at least a share of the Ivy League title 88% of the time. The fourth column in the table is the average margin for seasons in which the team wins the title. If the Crimson take the title it’s possible it could be in blowout fashion. The big question though is what are Harvard’s chances of going undefeated? The bad news is the odds are around 5%. Any Ivy League loss will potentially be a “bad loss” as far as NCAA tournament seeding is concerned. At least one is likely. Because of how evenly matched the teams at the bottom of the rankings are there were only 22 winless seasons in the 80,000 team seasons that were simulated. Everyone is going to get a win somewhere.
One of the more surprising conferences from Pomeroy’s rankings is America East. There Stony Brook is ranked 74th, with Vermont a close second at 104th. This leads to a projection that is somewhat similar to the Ivy League’s, which is why I’ve chosen to combine those two leagues for this post. Here’s the same chart for the nine-team America East conference.
| Name | Solo Win % | Tie % | Avg. Margin | Avg. Wins |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stony Brook | 48.9% | 18.1% | 2.1 | 12.9 |
| Vermont | 27.0% | 17.3% | 1.9 | 12.2 |
| Albany | 2.1% | 3.4% | 1.3 | 9.5 |
| Hartford | 2.0% | 3.2% | 1.4 | 9.5 |
| Maine | 0.1% | 0.1% | 1.0 | 6.5 |
| New Hampshire | 0.0% | 0.1% | 1.8 | 6.5 |
| MD Baltimore County | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0 | 5.3 |
| UMass Lowell | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0 | 5.0 |
| Binghamton | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0 | 4.5 |
This race is much, much tighter. Unlike the Ivy League, which ended in a tie 12% the America East race ended in a tie 20% of the time. Most of this is because there’s a big difference between Stony Brook and Vermont and the rest of the league. In fact, almost half the league has a less than 0.1% chance of winning the outright title according to Pomeroy’s preseason rankings. Even the “sleepers” Albany and Hartford’s percentages aren’t high, even if their final win totals of between nine and 10 wins suggests a fairly successful conference season.
How this race is constructed is going to make the two Stony Brook vs. Vermont games all the more important. Both teams should already be circling Friday, Jan. 24 and Thursday, Feb. 27 (subject to TV of course) because that’s how the America East regular season title will be won.
Once again because of the parity at the bottom of the conference there were very few winless seasons. Of the 90,000 team seasons that were simulated just 48 ended in a winless conference season. Something would have to go drastically wrong for one of the teams at the bottom to find a way to lose every single game. Stony Brook went undefeated just 2% of the time, while Vermont went undefeated 0.7% of the time. The America East is more a two-horse race than the Ivy League, but both should be intriguing all season long.
Ken Pomeroy’s preseason rankings are out. We don’t have a fancy Q&A for those because Ken explains most of the process on his site every year. Still, there are definitely a few things worth pointing out. Continue reading “Brief Thoughts on Ken Pomeroy’s Preseason Rankings”
The Ivy League is Harvard and then what? That what we’re going to find out. Josh Verlin of City of Basketball Love and I worked together to give our best shot at what the league standings will look like when the final buzzer sounds on March 8th and one team earns an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Also, check out COBL’s conference primer. Continue reading “Predicting the 2013-14 Ivy League Standings”
Paul Cormier says that Dartmouth is no longer an Ivy League doormat. Continue reading “Dartmouth Transitioning to Ivy League Contender”
One way some Ivy League teams are going to be able to separate themselves from the pack is by the development of key players. While the rotations at Harvard and Penn are well established due to their large number of returnees, the remaining schools have tons of opportunities. Continue reading “Ivy League Breakout Candidates for 2013-14”
Right now the general perception around the college basketball universe about the Ivy League is that it’s Harvard and everybody else. The second through eighth positions in the league are wide open. Where will the separation start to show? Non-conference play. Yes, the Crimson have to win some marquee games in order to challenge for a Top 25 spot, but the rest of the league will be attempting to establish some bonafides before beating up on each other during the 14-game tournament.
When Brian Barbour went from an elite starting point guard to just another name in a long list of Columbia’s distinguished alumni, the Lions seemed poised to begin a long rebuilding effort. Continue reading “Grant Mullins Is On Point For Columbia”
I spent last night calculating returning possession minutes in the Ivy League. I know that Michael James has been putting out some great stuff on Twitter @ivybball and with students returning to class and preliminary rosters being announced for 2013-14 this is the time to dig in. A list of the returning possession minutes for the league with a few other interesting roster notes I remembered/found while digging in.
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