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4 minutes ago, Bluebird96 said:

Final score 82-48.  Ohio now 5-5, and seem  to be in a similar state as UB somewhere in the middle tier of the MAC. 

Probably should fire Boals. Teams aren't allowed to have bad games, especially when they have a 75% new roster. Their players all suck too.

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2 hours ago, skrabukes said:

Probably should fire Boals. Teams aren't allowed to have bad games, especially when they have a 75% new roster. Their players all suck too.

Pretty sure Boals took Ohio to the tourney and knocked off UVA 2 years ago. Had Whitesell done that with the insane talent he inherited for his first 3 seasons, nobody would be calling for his head after losing multiple times to midmajors by 30.

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8 hours ago, clodney said:

Also, I'm thrilled that I finally achieved the rank of "Community Regular". I've only been posting on ubfan consistently for 18 effing years.

It must be promotion week! I became a "Veteran" earlier in the week. Not sure exactly how all that works, but it was cool to get a new sticker. 🤣

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10 hours ago, clodney said:

Also, I'm thrilled that I finally achieved the rank of "Community Regular". I've only been posting on ubfan consistently for 18 effing years.

Not sure how their ranking works - but I joined more recently, and I have achieved the rank of experienced (11/14).  Personally, I don't pay much attention to that stuff.  Either way - glad you are here and voicing your opinion.

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A couple of interesting MAC team's games tonight that should provide some perspective heading into MAC conference play.

Kent St vs NM State - Kent favored by 4 pts - 7:30 p.m. - appears to be a listen only option.

Kent St (Net Rank - 34; Kenpom 70; Torvik 48; Massey 90; Sagarin 57)

New Mexico St (Net Rank - 83; Kenpom 104; Torvik 101; Massey 95; Sagarin 87) 

A win will solidify Kent as the team to beat in MAC while a loss would reduce the perceived gap between them and the rest of the MAC.  Kent has been winning by playing terrific defense, opponent eFG% is 44.2% and forced Turnover Rate (24.5%), both stats are in top 25 in the country.

Ohio @ Delaware  - Ohio is a 2.5 pt underdog - 7:00 p.m. - ESPN+

Ohio (Net Rank - 168; Kenpom 194; Torvik 179; Massey 149; Sagarin 165)

Delaware (Net Rank - 172; Kenpom 174; Torvik 174; Massey 148; Sagarin 163) 

On paper these are two very evenly matched teams.  A win by Ohio could narrow the perceived gap between them and the top 3 of the MAC (Kent, Akron, and Toledo)

The rest of the MAC slate is not all that interesting.

 

 

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7 hours ago, DocCas86 said:

A couple of interesting MAC team's games tonight that should provide some perspective heading into MAC conference play.

Kent St vs NM State - Kent favored by 4 pts - 7:30 p.m. - appears to be a listen only option.

Kent St (Net Rank - 34; Kenpom 70; Torvik 48; Massey 90; Sagarin 57)

New Mexico St (Net Rank - 83; Kenpom 104; Torvik 101; Massey 95; Sagarin 87) 

A win will solidify Kent as the team to beat in MAC while a loss would reduce the perceived gap between them and the rest of the MAC.  Kent has been winning by playing terrific defense, opponent eFG% is 44.2% and forced Turnover Rate (24.5%), both stats are in top 25 in the country.

Ohio @ Delaware  - Ohio is a 2.5 pt underdog - 7:00 p.m. - ESPN+

Ohio (Net Rank - 168; Kenpom 194; Torvik 179; Massey 149; Sagarin 165)

Delaware (Net Rank - 172; Kenpom 174; Torvik 174; Massey 148; Sagarin 163) 

On paper these are two very evenly matched teams.  A win by Ohio could narrow the perceived gap between them and the top 3 of the MAC (Kent, Akron, and Toledo)

The rest of the MAC slate is not all that interesting.

 

 

Ohio playing well tonight, up 17 at the half

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7 hours ago, DocCas86 said:

Watching a bit of Kent / UTEP game,Kent is down 1 point with little less than 6 minutes left.  It is a petty ugly game, Kent shooting about 30%, but UTEP has turned it over more than 20 times.

Kent (#63 Kenpom) squeaked out a 47-46 win over the #201 ranked team. Shooting 4/25 from 3 almost did them in. Further evidence that the top tier of the MAC may not be as far out of reach as UB’s current #192 ranking would indicate.

Edited by Bluebird96
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31 minutes ago, Bluebird96 said:

Kent (#63 Kenpom) squeaked out a 47-46 win over the #201 ranked team. Shooting 4/25 from 3 almost did them in. Further evidence that the top tier of the MAC may not be as far out of reach as UB’s current #192 ranking would indicate.

This game, and Kent performance so far this season underscore the importance of defense.  UTEP had 22 turnovers - if there were 3-5 less turnovers, UTEP probably wins.  Here is a game log - what jumps out is opponent shooting percentages and opponent turnovers.

image.thumb.png.1cb7bdd71a72da70f8f2a340a6a7caad.png

When you play Kent this year - you better be prepared for a grind.  Also, it looks like Kent opponents spend a lot of time shooting free throws, so be prepared to hit them at a good clip.

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5 hours ago, DocCas86 said:

When you play Kent this year - you better be prepared for a grind.  Also, it looks like Kent opponents spend a lot of time shooting free throws, so be prepared to hit them at a good clip.

Only allowed 70+ pts to 2 opponents (both losses). Hopefully UB’s up-tempo style can give Kent some trouble.  First chance comes 1/27 on the road, with 7 games under our belt in MAC play to that point.

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OOC schedules are mostly done from a D1 perspective, only Ohio vs Chicago State, and Buffalo vs Michigan State remain for the top six teams.   While I could wait to get one more observation for those two teams - I decided to go ahead and analyze now.

Here is a snapshot of normalized margin (i.e subtract 3 points when played at home; add 3 points when played on road) vs rank for the top six teams:

image.png.3e732ee1c72e7721860b63b551e35d6e.png

It is a little hard with the above chart to get a perspective, so I did a linear fit by team to get a little more clarity:

image.png.d62267f68646a3441ce4998fec79ab87.png

You can think of this as a predicted point spread on a neutral court.  For example, if Kent were to play a team ranked 100 on a neutral court, my prediction would be they would be favored by 5 points.  Kent has clearly performed the best in OOC play.  Toledo is a bit of mixed bag, as they had a good win over UAB (#41), but also a couple of bad losses (UMKC and East Carolina) which contributes to a poor fit and very little differentiation of spreads.  The fitted line for UB is consistent with most ranking sites which have UB as sixth best in the MAC at this point.  I played with the data a little and made JMU and Tulane 8 point losses to get an idea of how much those poor games hurt ranking.  With 8 point losses in those games, UB would have been bunched up with Akron, Ball St and Ohio, ranked closer to 140-150. 

Finally here is table of some common rankings:

image.png.77aea57d9a59dcdf17fc1911d984b0e4.png

The last row would be the ranking indicated by my crude linear fit.  Other than Toledo, it is fairly consistent with the other ranks. 

What I would take from all this - is that Kent is the team to beat, Buffalo will need to play better in MAC than they did in 10 D1 OOC games to date, but I think they will be bunched up with Akron, Ball St. and Ohio and seedings for MAC may depend on how they do against those teams.

Finally - my fitted point spread (reminder crude - so I won't be using this to place big wager on game) for the game against Michigan St (~50) would be 19 points.

 

 

 

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55 minutes ago, DocCas86 said:

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/playbyplay/_/gameId/401483370

CMU beat Michigan 63-61!  I did not see that coming.

Former CMU star Dan Majerle’s son Max is a freshman at CMU. Only scored 2 tonight but if he’s anything close to the player his dad was (and if he sticks around there 4 yrs like his old man did), the Chips might have something going the next few years. We’ll see for ourselves on Jan 14 if they’re for real. Going to be an interesting MAC season.

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Ball State beat Toledo at home and Kent with a relatively narrow 8-Pt win over 300+ ranked WMU.  If UB plays defense like they did tonight (minus a couple of lapses) the Bulls should be able to compete with anyone in the MAC. 

Edited by Bluebird96
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