Predictions for 2023-24 With A Twist

[Bluebird96]

At the moment ESPN.com gives UB a better than 50% chance to win only 2 of their remaining games this season:  home games vs EMU & WMU.  Home games vs Niagara, Miami & NIU are the only other games with >40% chance to win.  Based on what we’ve seen so far, this doesn’t seem like a stretch.

A 4 or 5 win season would be in stark contrast to WBB last year under Coach Burke where she had a couple months to build a roster and basically had 6 players all season, yet still managed to field a competitive team, win 12 games and take #1 seed Toledo to OT and lost by 1 in the MAC tournament.  GH3 has a long ways to go

[C1ubP1fanaticM7]

Kenpom only goes back to the 01-02 season, but the worst year that we had was the 02-03 season, ranking 259 at year end. We are currently ranked 333 out of 362 teams. Never in a million years did I think we would be as bad as we are. 

[capencaper]

1 hour ago, Bluebird96 said:

A 4 or 5 win season would be in stark contrast to WBB last year under Coach Burke where she had a couple months to build a roster and basically had 6 players all season, yet still managed to field a competitive team, win 12 games and take #1 seed Toledo to OT and lost by 1 in the MAC tournament.  GH3 has a long ways to go

Out of principle I'm not going to judge GH3 (or any new coach) on one season. 

[Bluebird96]

31 minutes ago, C1ubP1fanaticM7 said:

Kenpom only goes back to the 01-02 season, but the worst year that we had was the 02-03 season, ranking 259 at year end. We are currently ranked 333 out of 362 teams. Never in a million years did I think we would be as bad as we are. 

It’s pretty bad when UB ranks last among the 4 D-1 SUNY schools:

Binghamton 257, Stony Brook 280, Albany 303, UB 333

I don’t know if we’ve ever been any worse than 1 or 2 on that list at any point.  Not sure we’ll deserve to call ourselves THE “flagship” after a year like this in MBB and football.

[Bluebird96]

1 minute ago, capencaper said:

Out of principle I'm not going to judge GH3 (or any new coach) on one season. 

Nor will I, and it’s only been 6 games so obviously way too early to give up on him.   Just thought it’s an interesting comparison to BB’s first season

[DocCas86]

Here is an early read on a couple of aspects of the season.  I have created charts showing how UB's performance against their opponents stacks up against other games played by their opponents.

First is an offensive category that everyone was worried about heading into the season - turnovers.  This chart summarizes the turnover rate (percent of possessions with turnovers).  

Overall, this has been a problem for the team.  The best performance was in UB opener against FDU.  Hofstra and Iona were our two worst games  Hoping the Hofstra and Iona games are not the norm.

Now a defensive category - Barttorvik calls it efficiency (roughly a measure of points per possession).  This chart is from the perspective of how our opponents did on offense vs their opponents  - so is a measure of how our defense compares to other teams.

The Louisiana game was UB's best defensive performance (in line with Toledo).  The Hofstra and Iona games stand out again as the outliers.  Hoping as time goes on this season games like Hofstra and Iona are again not the norm.

Bottom line these are two areas that the team should focus on from now until the end of the season.  How competitive they are in MAC conference play will be dependent on how much improvement they make in these two areas.

Edited November 29, 2023 by DocCas86

[trueblue32]

FWIW 3P% defense is one of the least sticky defensive metrics (i.e. over a large sample 3P% allowed is more a measure of the caliber of shooters you played than your ability to defend). UB is currently 358/362 allowing opponents to shoot 43.4% from 3. The worst team in the country allowed 41% percent last year, and shooting generally improves significantly as the season goes on. I think they're due for significant positive regression which will make the defense numbers look a bit better. That said, that would be a lot more encouraging if we were losing by 5 instead of 20.