Sunday, June 23, 2013
The Doldrums of Summer
When I was growing up baseball was always my favorite game and the Yankees my favorite team. Baseball was where I started my fascination with statistics and eventually math. My brother and I would play Strat-o-Matic and keep the stats on sheets of paper. I've come a long way. Over the past several years basketball has edged its way up the ladder, long ago overtaking football. But now, with the Yankees hovering near unwatchable, another summer with LeBron James as Champion, and the Celtics entering another decade of despair the summer seems to be moving a bit slower than normal.
After spending an inordinate amount of time on this blog for four months then watching the college basketball tournament and then the NBA playoffs I'm a little beside myself with no basketball. Mini hoops in the pool will have to do.
Monday, March 18, 2013
State Champions
Section 2 had an outstanding year in the State tournament this year with 4 State Champions at 4 different levels in both boys and girls basketball. Congratulations to the Troy girls, Watervliet, Lake George and Argyle boys for their title run through the state. It's an amazing accomplishment and also really hard to do.
I was able to watch the three boys finals thanks to Time Warner Cable. Agyle was so impressive in their win and it was unbelievable the rebounding advantage they had over a much bigger and taller team. It just shows how with hustle and hard work you can still outplay someone who might be bigger faster and stronger. To that point, no one showed more resolve in the Sectionals and State Tournament than Lake George. I picked them to lose to Berne-Knox, who they beat by two, and Hoosic Valley, who they beat by three in sectionals. In the State tournament they beat Moravia in OT after being down by 7 midway through the fourth quarter and beat Pine Plains for the title who started 5 kids 6'4" or taller. Even the announcers on TV were amazed Lake George was even in the game.
After watching the first half, I still wasn't blown away by Lake George's athleticism (other than Joel Wincowski), but it's amazing how well they play together as a unit. I don't mean to knock them and I hope it's not coming off that way, they are incredible athletes, it's just that they play better than athleticism would suggest (again, it's really hard to win a State title and you have to be really good to even get the chance to play for one). It's a credit to each of the players on that team and their coach that they are able to play to a level greater than the sum of their parts. It's something only a few teams can say and they were rewarded with a State title.
The Watervliet game had me worried, especially since I thought they would blow it open in the second half. You have to admire their poise in the final minute of regulation to keep their head, make baskets and play outstanding defense. Also their ability to shrug off losing a 16 point lead and having to go to overtime where they outscored Babylon by 12.
On the whole, I couldn't be more proud of the athletes from these four teams hailing from the section I where I live and was born and raised and from the classification, Class C, to which I belonged. Congratulations again to everyone for an outstanding season!
I was able to watch the three boys finals thanks to Time Warner Cable. Agyle was so impressive in their win and it was unbelievable the rebounding advantage they had over a much bigger and taller team. It just shows how with hustle and hard work you can still outplay someone who might be bigger faster and stronger. To that point, no one showed more resolve in the Sectionals and State Tournament than Lake George. I picked them to lose to Berne-Knox, who they beat by two, and Hoosic Valley, who they beat by three in sectionals. In the State tournament they beat Moravia in OT after being down by 7 midway through the fourth quarter and beat Pine Plains for the title who started 5 kids 6'4" or taller. Even the announcers on TV were amazed Lake George was even in the game.
After watching the first half, I still wasn't blown away by Lake George's athleticism (other than Joel Wincowski), but it's amazing how well they play together as a unit. I don't mean to knock them and I hope it's not coming off that way, they are incredible athletes, it's just that they play better than athleticism would suggest (again, it's really hard to win a State title and you have to be really good to even get the chance to play for one). It's a credit to each of the players on that team and their coach that they are able to play to a level greater than the sum of their parts. It's something only a few teams can say and they were rewarded with a State title.
The Watervliet game had me worried, especially since I thought they would blow it open in the second half. You have to admire their poise in the final minute of regulation to keep their head, make baskets and play outstanding defense. Also their ability to shrug off losing a 16 point lead and having to go to overtime where they outscored Babylon by 12.
On the whole, I couldn't be more proud of the athletes from these four teams hailing from the section I where I live and was born and raised and from the classification, Class C, to which I belonged. Congratulations again to everyone for an outstanding season!
Monday, March 11, 2013
The Long Winding Road of Data Entry
So I've started compiling all of the box scores I have into a spreadsheet so I can list each player's stats on the site and update them annually so you too can see how many points each player has scored over their careers. The problem is, it takes forever. I have completed 3 of the 180 plus section 2 teams' schedules. It's not as bad as it sounds because I'm putting both teams in at once for each box score so by the time I get to Watervliet there won't be any games left to input. Still it's slow going.
As far as the State Tournament goes, we still have four of the five boys teams remaining and all of those that won did so by healthy amounts and the one who didn't kept it to a handful only losing by five. The girls didn't fare as well with only two of the five advancing, but even in defeat they held their own averaging five point losses as Scotia did in the boys. It's also nice they are on television because who wants to drive to Onondaga Community College or Plattsburgh? Not I.
Good luck to those who remain and congrats on a great season for those who don't. Keep watching.
As far as the State Tournament goes, we still have four of the five boys teams remaining and all of those that won did so by healthy amounts and the one who didn't kept it to a handful only losing by five. The girls didn't fare as well with only two of the five advancing, but even in defeat they held their own averaging five point losses as Scotia did in the boys. It's also nice they are on television because who wants to drive to Onondaga Community College or Plattsburgh? Not I.
Good luck to those who remain and congrats on a great season for those who don't. Keep watching.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Final Standings and Season Wrap-up
While there are still games to be played in this basketball season, we have now passed the Section 2 playoffs. What this means is that almost all the student athletes that participated during the season are now spectators like the rest of us. It also means we can now fully evaluate the Section 2 season with regards to the Sectional Forecast this blog is mainly based. Before I do that though, a quick word on the two AA finals that happened last night.
In the first game, Albany ended the Suburban's streak of AA championships in impressive style. Unfortunately for Bethlehem it doesn't appear as though they played their best game, but losing to a team as good as Albany should not be viewed negatively. Making the finals of any class in any section is a great accomplishment and also, by the way, really hard to do. After the first game I was wondering if Green Tech could pull off a twin killing in ending the Big 10's AA championship streak as well. While they fell short, there was a bit of vindication for Troy's decision to play in the AA sectionals instead of their rightful A bracket based on enrollment. Early in the season I said how they must feel like they are good enough to win it all or they wouldn't have made that decision and they proved it last night.
Overall the season was a good one and though I didn't accomplish all the goals I had set out at the beginning of the year, I can only be happy with how everything turned out. The forecast did really well and as good as I could expect. If only I could do that well in the NCAA tournament I'd be a lot better off. I look forward to seeing how the girls' model responds to another full season's data and 5 more data points from this year's sectionals. I was a bit worried about even presenting it this year, but considering its flaws due to lack of data I think it can only go up from here. I've tried to be as transparent as possible about the math and its limitations and again, if you haven't, I encourage you to read the methodology page. Without further adieu, the final sectional standings:
In the first game, Albany ended the Suburban's streak of AA championships in impressive style. Unfortunately for Bethlehem it doesn't appear as though they played their best game, but losing to a team as good as Albany should not be viewed negatively. Making the finals of any class in any section is a great accomplishment and also, by the way, really hard to do. After the first game I was wondering if Green Tech could pull off a twin killing in ending the Big 10's AA championship streak as well. While they fell short, there was a bit of vindication for Troy's decision to play in the AA sectionals instead of their rightful A bracket based on enrollment. Early in the season I said how they must feel like they are good enough to win it all or they wouldn't have made that decision and they proved it last night.
Overall the season was a good one and though I didn't accomplish all the goals I had set out at the beginning of the year, I can only be happy with how everything turned out. The forecast did really well and as good as I could expect. If only I could do that well in the NCAA tournament I'd be a lot better off. I look forward to seeing how the girls' model responds to another full season's data and 5 more data points from this year's sectionals. I was a bit worried about even presenting it this year, but considering its flaws due to lack of data I think it can only go up from here. I've tried to be as transparent as possible about the math and its limitations and again, if you haven't, I encourage you to read the methodology page. Without further adieu, the final sectional standings:
Boys
Sectional Forecast Rating 64 9 .877
Sectional Prediction Rating 62 11 .849
Section 2 Committee 60 13 .822
Section 2 Committee 60 13 .822
Common Opponents Analysis 52 21 .712
Girls
Sectional Prediction Rating 55 12 .821
Section 2 Committee 55 12 .821
Common Opponents Analysis 53 14 .791
Sectional Forecast Rating 50 17 .746
As previously stated, there is another element I’m tracking as well and that is for the two regression models. Since they base things on how far a team advances, I wanted to see how well it’s doing when teams crossed those thresholds. In order to advance to the second round, the model would have to give you a score of 0.556. To get to the semifinals, a 0.778 is needed to be achieved. The table below shows how those teams did. For example, there were 17 boys’ teams that had a rating above 0.556, which 16 of them won in the first round. (These ratings were calculated using all the regular season games including those after the brackets were released and none of the sectional games.)
Boys – Sectional Forecast Rating
1st Round 16 1 .941
2nd Round 7 1 .875
3rd Round 1 0 1.000
4th Round 0 0 n/a
Total 24 2 .923
3rd Round 1 0 1.000
4th Round 0 0 n/a
Total 24 2 .923
Boys – Sectional Prediction Rating
1st Round 16 1 .941
2nd Round 7 1 .875
3rd Round 2 0 1.000
4th Round 0 0 n/a
Total 25 2 .926
4th Round 0 0 n/a
Total 25 2 .926
Girls – Sectional Forecast Rating
1st Round 10 3 .769
2nd Round 6 0 1.000
3rd Round 1 0 1.000
4th Round 0 0 n/a
Total 17 3 .850
4th Round 0 0 n/a
Total 17 3 .850
Girls – Sectional Prediction Rating
1st Round 8 2 .800
2nd Round 7 0 1.000
3rd Round 2 0 1.000
4th Round 0 0 n/a
Total 17 2 .895
4th Round 0 0 n/a
Total 17 2 .895
There is one other analysis I’m tracking and that includes the teams the models did not have with necessary rating to advance, but were seeded to advance. So this is a situation where a team had a 0.500 rating, but was seeded 6th for instance. The one caveat here is that, since my seeds aren’t used, I could have teams that played each other even though I have them both advancing. This analysis counts that as both a win and a loss.
Boys – Sectional Forecast Rating
1st Round 12 3 .800
2nd Round 10 2 .833
3rd Round 8 1 .889
4th Round 5 0 1.000
Total 35 6 .854
4th Round 5 0 1.000
Total 35 6 .854
Boys – Sectional Prediction Rating
1st Round 11 5 .688
2nd Round 9 3 .750
3rd Round 7 1 .875
4th Round 4 1 .800
Total 31 10 .756
4th Round 4 1 .800
Total 31 10 .756
Girls – Sectional Forecast Rating
1st Round 5 4 .556
2nd Round 10 4 .714
3rd Round 7 2 .778
4th Round 1 4 .200
Total 23 14 .622
4th Round 1 4 .200
Total 23 14 .622
Girls – Sectional Prediction Rating
1st Round 9 4 .692
2nd Round 5 4 .556
3rd Round 4 4 .500
4th Round 2 3 .200
Total 20 15 .571
Along with some of the items I mentioned in my last post I also anticipate doing a bit more in terms of analyzing how the model and I'll be posting those items when I get them done. I'll also be updating the championship pages and the enrollment page for next year when they come out. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later.
3rd Round 4 4 .500
4th Round 2 3 .200
Along with some of the items I mentioned in my last post I also anticipate doing a bit more in terms of analyzing how the model and I'll be posting those items when I get them done. I'll also be updating the championship pages and the enrollment page for next year when they come out. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Sectionals are Over
I just watched James Allen's live coverage on my computer while putting kids to bed and making sure the dog had enough outside time. The Section 2 season is over and though I'll be watching and probably posting some thoughts on the State Tournament, for the most part, my job is done here.
I'll be posting a wrap-up post with all the final standings and thoughts about tonight's games probably tomorrow night. I'm also considering trying this with baseball which will be even more fun because hardly anyone posts baseball box scores anymore. I'll also finish up the leading scorer tally at some point and I'm going to try to put up a list of the the final stats for each player in my database, so stay tuned.
In the meantime, (mostly just before tomorrow's post) I want to thank everyone for reading and commenting and for your overall general interest in something I worked so hard on. Only one night this season did I not feel like dumping scores into the database, but I did it anyway. I thoroughly enjoyed doing this and I hope you enjoyed reading it. Thank you, and I'll see you again tomorrow.
I'll be posting a wrap-up post with all the final standings and thoughts about tonight's games probably tomorrow night. I'm also considering trying this with baseball which will be even more fun because hardly anyone posts baseball box scores anymore. I'll also finish up the leading scorer tally at some point and I'm going to try to put up a list of the the final stats for each player in my database, so stay tuned.
In the meantime, (mostly just before tomorrow's post) I want to thank everyone for reading and commenting and for your overall general interest in something I worked so hard on. Only one night this season did I not feel like dumping scores into the database, but I did it anyway. I thoroughly enjoyed doing this and I hope you enjoyed reading it. Thank you, and I'll see you again tomorrow.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Championship Thoughts
I didn't have the chance to visit either Glens Falls or Hudson Valley today, but I watched the scores on the TU website most of the afternoon. While my scouting ability might not be top notch, so far, the forecasting model is doing very well. For the boys it had 9 of the 10 teams to make the finals and is four for four thus far on the champions. For the girls it also had 9 of the 10 finals teams, however it only had one of the four champions. A second years' data should help improve those numbers for the girls next year.
Looking through the final brackets I can't help but be impressed with what the Watervliet teams have done. Both the boys and girls have had to deal with suspensions to starters with the girls having one during sectionals as well as an injury to another starter. Both teams overcame adversity and should be commended for their accomplishments. The Troy girls also made a great second half run to defeat Holy Names today. After being down 11 and giving up 19 points in the first quarter, they outscored Holy Names by 13 in the final period to secure their first title in a long time.
Despite what the model was saying, I always thought the Hoosic Valley girls were the best team in the C bracket, though I really didn't think there was that much space between them and everyone else as today's score would seem to indicate. Now that I think back on it, I made a point about how Waterford and Maple Hill each beat Taconic Hills by 2 and 4 points respectively (and Maple Hill had beaten Berne-Knox by 4) arguing that they shouldn't be that far apart in the seedings. While I didn't realize it at the time, it seems apparent now that their proximity was a sign of Maple Hill and Berne-Knox's weakness, rather than Waterford's strength. Fort Edward finished off a perfect Section 2 run by beating Fort Ann for the third time this season. It's always cleaner that way.
In the boys', Scotia finished off their own perfect Section 2 season by beating Glens Falls by 6. Scotia has had a fantastic season but I do wonder if teams were starting to catch up as the season went on. Five of the eight teams they played more than once lost by less the last time they played them than the previous game by an average of 14.6 points. Luckily, from this point on, they only play everyone once.
I was wrong in my analysis of Lake George in one key respect, Joel Wincowski was the best player on the floor and he proved it today as he was the difference between them and Hoosic Valley. Luckily for me, the model is better at predicting than I am. I'd rather the model be right anyway since that's what the blog is based on. I also have a feeling this may not be the last time we see these two teams facing off in sectionals. Joel Wincowski is a Sophomore as is John Rooney and Mike Pierre is a Junior. We'll see what kind of supporting casts they'll have with them, or maybe it won't even matter.
Finally, Argyle took care of business in the D bracket and settled the discussion of how the CHVL's best would compete against them. I don't think anyone is shocked or surprised at how this one turned out. Congratulations to all the winners today and good luck at the State tournament. I don't have a forecast model for that one so I root for all the Section 2 teams, not just the ones I pick.
Looking through the final brackets I can't help but be impressed with what the Watervliet teams have done. Both the boys and girls have had to deal with suspensions to starters with the girls having one during sectionals as well as an injury to another starter. Both teams overcame adversity and should be commended for their accomplishments. The Troy girls also made a great second half run to defeat Holy Names today. After being down 11 and giving up 19 points in the first quarter, they outscored Holy Names by 13 in the final period to secure their first title in a long time.
Despite what the model was saying, I always thought the Hoosic Valley girls were the best team in the C bracket, though I really didn't think there was that much space between them and everyone else as today's score would seem to indicate. Now that I think back on it, I made a point about how Waterford and Maple Hill each beat Taconic Hills by 2 and 4 points respectively (and Maple Hill had beaten Berne-Knox by 4) arguing that they shouldn't be that far apart in the seedings. While I didn't realize it at the time, it seems apparent now that their proximity was a sign of Maple Hill and Berne-Knox's weakness, rather than Waterford's strength. Fort Edward finished off a perfect Section 2 run by beating Fort Ann for the third time this season. It's always cleaner that way.
In the boys', Scotia finished off their own perfect Section 2 season by beating Glens Falls by 6. Scotia has had a fantastic season but I do wonder if teams were starting to catch up as the season went on. Five of the eight teams they played more than once lost by less the last time they played them than the previous game by an average of 14.6 points. Luckily, from this point on, they only play everyone once.
I was wrong in my analysis of Lake George in one key respect, Joel Wincowski was the best player on the floor and he proved it today as he was the difference between them and Hoosic Valley. Luckily for me, the model is better at predicting than I am. I'd rather the model be right anyway since that's what the blog is based on. I also have a feeling this may not be the last time we see these two teams facing off in sectionals. Joel Wincowski is a Sophomore as is John Rooney and Mike Pierre is a Junior. We'll see what kind of supporting casts they'll have with them, or maybe it won't even matter.
Finally, Argyle took care of business in the D bracket and settled the discussion of how the CHVL's best would compete against them. I don't think anyone is shocked or surprised at how this one turned out. Congratulations to all the winners today and good luck at the State tournament. I don't have a forecast model for that one so I root for all the Section 2 teams, not just the ones I pick.
Scoring Updates on the TU website
If you're like me and couldn't make it up to the Civic Center or HVCC, the Times Union has frequent scoring updates on their website. The links for the boys and girls are below.
http://blog.timesunion.com/sidelines/2013/03/02/saturdays-boys-basketball-championship-scores/
http://blog.timesunion.com/sidelines/2013/03/02/saturdays-girls-basketball-championship-scores/
http://blog.timesunion.com/sidelines/2013/03/02/saturdays-boys-basketball-championship-scores/
http://blog.timesunion.com/sidelines/2013/03/02/saturdays-girls-basketball-championship-scores/
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