College Football Rankngs

After 5 weeks of play, its time for preseason projections to be removed from the program's system.  Team's are who they are now, no longer can fans be buyoed by the small sample size of games and plays. 

Top 10:

1. Alabama
2. USC
3. Oklahoma
4. Michigan
5. Ole Miss
6. Boise State
7. Stanford
8. Georgia
9. Baylor
10. Texas A&M

The only two here in the Top 10 that I really have any issue with are Boise and Georgia.  Boise I think is sneaking in by virtue of blowing out a bad Virginia team, and following it up by blowing out Hawaii.  Georgia is a very dangerous team, but Lambert has been a mixed bag.  When the game has been close, he's been quite good completing 67% of his passes for over 8 yards per attempt.  But he's also only thrown for more than 150 yards once this season, and when his team really needed a great performance against Bama he fell very flat. 

The Bottom 10:

1. North Texas
2. Georgia State
3. UTEP
4. New Mexico State
5. Wyoming
6. Kansas
7. Charolotte
8. Old Dominion
9. Idaho
10. South Alabama

Both of the bottom two schools are currently rated as worse than an average FCS opponent.How far the Mean Green have fallen.  In 2013 this team was able to average more than 30 points a game, and play solid defense.  This year they gave up 62 points to Iowa, and are currently averaging just .216 points per play.  I'm very disappointed in Georgia State.  I really thought this fledgling program could take a bit of a step forward, but a loss to an FCS school after dropping the opener to FBS newcomer Charlotte has doomed this campaign to never reaching the 3 win mark.

College football Over and Under Achievers So far

So, I really should post more.  However, life continues to get in the way, as work schedules and house moving have conspired to keeping my normally free weekends quite packed.  I have however carved out enough time to look through some of the programs ratings, and see how far some teams are from the preseason projected rating, for better or for worse.

At the Top:

1. Air Force
2. UNLV
3. MTSU
4. Boston College
5. Ole Miss'

Most of these teams are playing much better than the program had predicted them to be, which is most of them were supposed to be pretty dreadful instead of slightly above average.The Falcons have certainly looked like a very solid team in the first three weeks, crushing FCS Morgan State, and running away from San Jose State.  However, it was probably the absolute stuffing of Michigan State's run game that has brought the most shock, as Sparty managed just 1.8 yards per carry and suffered 8 tackles for loss to the Falcons surprisingly stingy defense.  UNLV is really a surprise on this list, but its mostly because the program expected them to be god awful, and they've only been miserable.  The small sample size is also probably helping them with that 80-8 win over Idaho State surpassing what they should have done against an FCS school.  Ole Miss is here largely for beating Alabama (predicted National Champion) handily.

Those at the bottom:

1.  Oregon
2. North Texas
3. Washington State
4. New Mexico State
5. Georgia State

 As Bill Connelly mentioned in his article, Oregon's defense has yet to stop anybody.  The offense is averaging an acceptable .443 points per play (only good enough for 45th in the nation), while ranking 108th by allowing .543.  North Texas has the distinction of being one of the five teams rated worse than an FCS school (on a neutral site, an FCS school would be favored), and is the second biggest underachiever by just a small margin.  Wazzu actually lost to an FCS school, at home this year, and Georgia State opened the season by dropping a game to FBS newcomer Charolotte.  That loss is really disappointing, since I had Georgia State going over 2.5 wins this year, and its going to be tough to get it now. 

Best Bowl matchups

The folks over at the SBNation main site released their big college football preview.  One of the most interesting pages that they do annually is their bowl projections.  I went ahead and categorized the matchups they gave by how close the projections put the bowl game being, as well as what the spread should be.

Team 1	Opponent	Team 1Win Chance	Average Spread	Departure from Even
Michigan State	UCLA	47.40%	-1	2.60%
Western Michigan	Appalachian State	52.90%	1	2.90%
Georgia Tech	Texas	53.00%	1	3.00%
Wisconsin	Arizona State	45.40%	-2	4.60%
Michigan	Georgia	44.60%	-2	5.40%
Oklahoma	Southern California	56.00%	2	6.00%
Central Florida	Bowling Green State	56.00%	2	6.00%
Kansas State	California	56.90%	3	6.90%
Minnesota	Arkansas	41.50%	-3	8.50%
Nebraska	Texas A&M	40.80%	-3	9.20%
Utah State	Utah	40.10%	-4	9.90%
West Virginia	Missouri	39.30%	-4	10.70%
Oklahoma State	Louisiana State	38.50%	-4	11.50%
Louisville	Tennessee	38.30%	-4	11.70%
Alabama	Oregon	62.70%	4	12.70%
Texas-El Paso	New Mexico	35.80%	-5	14.20%
Boise State	Notre Dame	33.90%	-6	16.10%
Virginia Tech	Penn State	66.40%	6	16.40%
Toledo	Georgia Southern	67.00%	6	17.00%
Duke	Mississippi State	31.90%	-7	18.10%
Iowa	Arizona State	31.40%	-7	18.60%
East Carolina	Louisiana-Lafayette	69.70%	7	19.70%
Florida State	Auburn	70.40%	7	20.40%
Baylor	Mississippi	72.20%	8	22.20%
Arkansas State	San Jose State	72.90%	8	22.90%
Houston	South Carolina	25.20%	-9	24.80%
Temple	Rice	75.50%	10	25.50%
North Carolina State	Stanford	23.20%	-10	26.80%
Northern Illinois	Colorado State	77.20%	11	27.20%
Cincinnati	Western Kentucky	78.90%	11	28.90%
San Diego State	Texas State	79.40%	12	29.40%
Ohio State	Texas Christian	79.50%	11	29.50%
Pittsburgh	Memphis	81.00%	12	31.00%
Maryland	Air Force	83.60%	14	33.60%
Miami(FL)	Marshall	85.80%	15	35.80%
Middle Tennessee State	Akron	86.10%	15	36.10%
Old Dominion	Brigham Young	10.90%	-17	39.10%
North Carolina	Navy	93.20%	21	43.20%

The best matchup in their projection is a battle of old school powers in Michigan State and UCLA, while the UNC-Navy game would be one to skip.

NFL Preseason to Regular season correlation

So, there have been a few posts over on MileHighReport talking about the team's preseason performance so far.  There's been some speculation that in recent years defensive stats have been a decent indicator of regular season performance.  I wanted to test this a bit, checking to see if there was any real link between the two.

Going back to 2012, I found total yards allowed per game in pre and regular season, as well as yards per play.  The results were not encouraging.  In the following chart, we'll see Yards per game has an R^2 of just .11, an extremely basic correlation.

 

Yards per play is even worse, with an R^2 of just .03.

We shouldn't expect there to be any real predictive power for preseason play.  Schemes offensively and defensively are vanilla through and through, with no game planning to attack weaknesses.  You also get extreme variance with a lot of guys playing extended snaps, who will likely be selling cars in a few weeks.

College football Top 25 Projection

This summer has been busy.  I have managed however to find some time to tweak the formulas I've used to predict team strength and come up with some composite rankings.  The changes centered a lot on removing some emphasis on turnover luck (it really has a very low significance for explaining year to year variability), and redid my returning experience formula.  It should help give a much better view of a team over a season, since the formula had a new reduced standard error equal to about half of what it had been.

In season I'll be making a few tweaks to what happens for a team afflicted with injuries, which of course will as the old military adage goes, ruin this ranking at first contact.

Team	Ranking
Alabama	1
Ohio State	2
Southern California	3
UCLA	4
Oregon	5
Oklahoma	6
Baylor	7
Stanford	8
Florida State	9
Notre Dame	10
Georgia	11
Texas A&M	12
Texas Christian	13
Mississippi	14
Arizona State	15
Clemson	16
Oklahoma State	17
Michigan	18
Texas	19
Missouri	20
Texas Tech	21
Michigan State	22
Florida	23
Arizona	24
Miami(FL)	25

It loves the Pac-12, which I think will continue to shine.  I do doubt though we see USC, UCLA and Oregon in the top 5 or so at the end of the year.  I'm also not nearly as high on Florida, but they could be a darkhorse with that defensive secondary.

The program also generates odds for a team to win a range of games, which I'll sort by below, going from the best chances to win at least 11 games in the regular season.

Team	Ranking
Ohio State	1
Florida State	2
UCLA	3
Alabama	4
Southern California	5
Oklahoma	6
Notre Dame	7
Baylor	8
Marshall	9
Nebraska	10
Boise State	11
Penn State	12
Georgia	13
Cincinnati	14
Stanford	15
Oregon	16
Massachusetts	17
Texas Christian	18
Wisconsin	19
Michigan	20
Northern Illinois	21
Michigan State	22
Clemson	23
Texas A&M	24
Oklahoma State	25

Yetisburg

 Sometimes you see a game at the store and the name just begs you to buy it.  That game a couple weeks ago was Yetisburg, a civil war combat game with a fantasy setting twist.  The Union and the Confederacy square off with the aid of melee combat specialist Yetis and long range artillery Mastodons.  

Each player has access to identical armies, each with infantry and cavalry (regular and elite troopers, the elite being able to withstand more damage before needing to head to the hospital), Generals, Mastodons and Yetis.  Game play is pretty straightforward.  Each player has 5 columns of troops, 3 rows deep.  The first and second rows, the front and reserve lines, are face up and can make attacks or take advantage of abilities.  The third row is the supply line, face down cards that will be used to replenish the first two rows when when those cards are killed in combat.  Player's take turns attacking by playing a card from their hand, and ordering all troops of that card type to attack.  Results of the attack are created randomly, by drawing a meat token and flipping it over to see what direction the shot went, and what the range of the shot is.  Damage is dealt by counting the number of rows in the direction listed, according to the units ability. Regular troops all deal one damage while yetis and mastodons deal damage equal to the range. Killed troops are sent to the discard pile, and lines are replenished.  This goes back and forth until both players have either exhausted all their troops or both players pass their turn to attack. After that, players can use their Generals in the field to refresh troops for the next turn, swap positions, or bring troops back from the discard pile into the fight. The game continues on until someone cannot reinforce their lines from the supply line, or when drawing cards for their hand cant draw anymore.  

 Yeti combat is a little different from regular troops. They move to a row in between the players front lines called the trench.  Yetis crash through their own lines, killing friendly troops to get into the trench, and if their is an opposing Yeti in the trench for their column, they will knock them back to the opponents front lien, killing any troops that are there.  If a Yeti gets hit by friendly fire, they swap sides, going under control of your opponent until they get hit again.  Yetis only deal damage to the units directly next to them.

My game group has played this game now a few times and has come to a pretty much unanimous consensus: The game is a a fun, quickly paced short game, but the randomness doesn't leave you really wanting to play it again and again.  The combat mechanic makes it extremely likely you're going to on more than one occasion shoot your own troops, especially those at the left and right of them.  If there was a way to somehow get a little more strategic control of how units were shooting the game would be a bit better for replay value, especially since the artwork on the cards is so fantastic.

The one thing Kavitha Davidson gets right

Normally, I find Bloomberg's top sports writer pretty awful.  Kavitha doesn't dwell on the actual games, or the stories inside them that focus on the bright side of sports.  No, she only pontificates on how misogynist the players are, how unfair the leagues treat the unions, or whatever other progressive agenda needs to be shown the limelight to Bloomberg's readers.  However, I do think she takes the right stance on Qatar's bid for the 2022 World Cup to be re-opened in the wake of the FIFA bribery arrests.  

Many agree that if FIFA is serious about transparency and reform, its next president must take a stand against a country that jails journalists reporting on World Cup construction abuses and its kafala system of labor, which amounts to modern-day slavery. Too bad that many of the front-runners to succeed Blatter were just as supportive of Qatar's bid.

I also agree with her that its likely too late to do anything about the Russian bid, even if they find some serious stuff there.  The logistics just won't allow it, without even taking into regard the geo-political ramifications of a US lead investigation removing a symbolic games from the Russians.  Qatar poses its own issues, but with the years to be able to build the case, and the overall issues with safety, weather, and the whole slave labor issue the case should easily be made to revoke their hosting.

NBA Finals Charts, and Winners

So we have reached the end of the road here for the NBA season.  The Cavs were able to overcome their slow start and other issues of melding a team together to surge past a banged up Eastern Conference favorite Hawks.  Can they get past the now battle tested Warriors, who have made all the right adjustments in their series to win?  The Program has a resounding no, giving the Cavs under 20% chance to win the series.  I can't neccessairliy disagree.  The Warriors will play the best defense the Cavs have seen, and are far deeper.  They also have the star power to counteract Lebron having his way. 

Golden State vs Cleveland

Warriors Chance to win at Home: 71.8%

Cavs Chance to win at Home: 41.6%

Warriors win series 82.3% of the time

Most commonly in 5 games

Team	EFG%	Tov%	FT Rate	OReb	DEFG%	DTov%	D-FT Rate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Cleveland Cavaliers	52	13.4	21.6	26.8	50.2	12.6	17.7	74.7	111.1	106.3	92.3
Golden State Warriors	54	13.1	18.4	24.1	47	14.3	21.7	74.5	111.6	101.4	98.3

NBA Conference Charts and Predictions

The semifinals for each conference provided some pretty entertaining basketball.  The Warriors and Grizzlies played a truly gritty series, but the Griz didnt have the talent to counter one of the best coaching moves we've seen in the last 15 years from an NBA coach.  The Cavs were able to advance despite some vintage Derrick Rose moments, and did so in part because Lebron showed why a lot of coaches don't really matter in the modern NBA.  The Hawks looked DOA, but have continued to roll on (if John Wall and Beasley are healthy this series probably goes 7, and the Hawks might have been headed home).

For the program, it correctly picked three of the four series.  And it did also have the Clips and Rockets with the most competitive series.  On a game to game basis the program struggles a bit in the playoffs, just because it uses seasonal data.  I'm wondering if there needs to be a real weighting for the previous round/ games in this series to improve it.

Atlanta Hawks vs Cleveland Cavaliers

Hawks Win Chance at home: 57.7%

Cavaliers Win Chance at home: 56.8%

Cavaliers win 50.7% of the time

Most commonly in 7 games

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	DTOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Atlanta Hawks	52.7	13.5	20.1	21.4	49.2	14.9	18.5	73.4	108.9	103.1	93.9
Cleveland Cavaliers	52	13.4	21.6	26.8	50.2	12.6	17.7	74.7	111.1	106.3	92.3

Golden State Warriors vs Houston Rockets

Warriors Win Chance at home: 74.9%

Rockets Win Chance at home: 38.2%

Warriors win 83.7% of the time

Most commonly in 5 games

 

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	DTOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Golden State Warriors	54	13.1	18.4	24.1	47	14.3	21.7	74.5	111.6	101.4	98.3
Houston Rockets	51.2	15	22.3	26.8	48.6	14.6	20.8	72.9	107	103.4	96.5

In summation, it looks like we will be seeing the Warriors in the finals, but its basically a complete toss up with the Cavs and Hawks.  If Kyrie Irving cant go, I think its definitely the Hawks stepping forward.

Los Links May 7th

Is there anybody out there

Dreamliners problems remain a nightmare

1690s problems

NBA Regular Season Ratings Charts

I always love playing around with stuff in R, especially the plotting.  I'm currently working on a way to use R Charts and incorporate some interactivity in the future, but for now here's how each team stacked up in terms of ratings during the season.

Its amazing how far ahead the Warriors were all season long.  They started out at the top and just held on there all season long.  You can also see the Mavs, and Raptors downward trend all season long.  The team I'm going to watch really closely this off season is the Jazz.  Their trend all season was just progressively getting better, and they're a team with a good young core.

NBA 2nd Round Charts and Series Predictions

Well, the NBA playoffs march on, with only a few real surprises in the first round.  The Raptors again have had a disappointing exit from the post season, and there will certainly be some questions after the utter meltdown by Kyle Lowry in their sweep at the hands of the Wizards.  Lowry shot at less than 30% in the series as the Raptors struggled to get into an offensive rhythm, and allowed the Wizards to eat up the Raptors defense.

The program's biggest whiff was the Blazers in their series.  Some elements of that team were a little nicked up, but for the most part the Blazers looked completely incompetent against the Grizzlies.  Aaron Afflalo, a favorite of mine from his days in a Nuggets uniform was plain awful in his limited action, while the rest of the offense just couldn't find its stroke.

The rest went to chalk, with most of the west being pretty competitive (including the Warriors and Pelicans being better than expected), and the East being sweeps.  So, onto the 2nd Round.

Atlanta vs Washington

 Hawks Win Chance at Home: 68.7%

Wizards Win Chance at Home: 44.5%

Hawks win: 73.4% of the time
Most Commonly in 6 Games

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Atlanta Hawks	52.7	13.5	20.1	21.4	49.2	14.9	18.5	73.4	108.9	103.1	93.9
Washington Wizards	49.9	14	19.2	24.9	48.1	12.9	21	77.3	103.7	103	93.7

Chicago vs Cleveland

Bulls Win Chance at Home: 51.6%

Cavs Win Chance at Home: 60.4%

Cavs Win series:58% of the time
Most Commonly in 6 games

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Chicago Bulls	48.9	12.9	23.8	27	47.3	11.3	18.2	74.4	107.5	104.3	92.8
Cleveland Cavaliers	52	13.4	21.6	26.8	50.2	12.6	17.7	74.7	111.1	106.3	92.3

Los Angeles vs Houston

 Clippers Win Chance at Home: 64.7%

Rockets Win Chance at Home: 49.3%

Clippers Win series: 68.5% of the time
Most Commonly in 7 games

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Los Angeles Clippers	53.3	11.6	21.5	22.8	49.3	13.2	23.1	75.7	112.4	105.5	94.7
Houston Rockets	51.2	15	22.3	26.8	48.6	14.6	20.8	72.9	107	103.4	96.5

Golden State vs Memphis

 Warriors Win Chance at Home: 73.4%

Pelicans Win Chance at Home: 38.7%

Warriors Win series: 82.5% of the time
Most Commonly in 5 games

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Golden State Warriors	54	13.1	18.4	24.1	47	14.3	21.7	74.5	111.6	101.4	98.3
Memphis Grizzlies	48.9	12.6	21.4	24.7	49.2	14.5	18.3	75.3	105.7	102.2	92

To recap, The Warriors should be able to move through their series without much issue (especially if Andrew Bogut continues to play well).  The Clippers should advance, but watch Chris Paul's health heading forward.  I'm not certain I like the Hawks prediction so much, they looked just average against the Nets, and the Wizards played very well against Toronto.

NFL Combine: Running backs edition

Its draft season in the NFL, and everyone here in less than a week will be gathered in Chicago to see the next crop of potential stars.  Two of the top players hoping to hear their names called on Thursday will be Melvin Gordon and Todd Gurley.  Both players dominated their competition throughout their collegiate careers.  However, this competition was different for each player, as were the offensive schemes they played in.  One of the most level tools draft evaluators have is the NFL combine.  The question most folks have though is how valuable is combine data for projecting future success.

In 2008 FootballOutsiders published their work on running back statistics and the NFL combine.  Their original findings indicated that a back's 40 time was the most likely indicator for success.  This lead to the development of their Speed Score Metric, which accounts for a player's size in relation to their 40 time.  Speed Score has had some success in unearthing later and mid round players, it only accounts for about 20% of the variability of running back statistics. 

I decided to re-run the correlations for all the players that have attended the combine from 2008-2013, see if there was any update.  What I ended up with is in the tables (in the read further section to keep this clean).  The comparison ran twice, once pairwise and once list wise.  Excluding options pairwise gives a result that I think is a little too limited, since may combine participants will not do every test, and that can skew some of the results (Players like Anthony Alridge, who was never going to be a running back in the traditional mold for example).  So, with a list wise exclusion we end up with some new results.  First, Speed Score continues to be a decent indicator for being able to identify potential large contributors in the draft.  Its correlation score of .3 was the highest amongst the other metrics for average rushing yards per season.  It also shared a .342 score for total offensive touches.  Pure 40 times were no longer as solid of an indicator of rushing yards, trailing the 3 cone drill and being in line with the broad jump (one an indicator of good agility, the other pure lower body power).  The three cone was also the second highest score for total offensive touches, with the 40 showing third there.

What does it all mean?  Basically the NFL combine is what most people think it is: not a great indicator of potential success.  But, it is pretty useful in identifying players that have the athletic ability to make it in the NFL.  Of the players that scored at least 100 on their speed score, 80% went on to have more than a single NFL touch.  Players that failed to had only 60% contribute at some point.

NBA Playoffs: Raptors vs Wizards

Checking in on the NBA playoffs, the program so far is holding strong. The Warriors and Cavs have really taken care of business, while most other series that were supposed to be tighter have been (I'll wait for that game to get through both games beofre I pass my judgment on why the Blazer). The only one so far that I've been shocked by is the Raptors and Wizards. Simulations that I'd run had the Raptors with a 64% home win chance in each game (I won't update the simulations inputs until after both sets of home games), so finding themselves down 0-2 had only a roughly 13% chance of happening.

What's been the difference maker? In part, its that the Raptors aren't getting to the line as often as they normally did during the regular season. Theyre drawing a free throw attempt on only 18% of their field goals, down about 7% from the regular season.  This has meant leaving around 15 points a game off the scoreboard. This inability to draw fouls has also hurt their overall effective field goal percentage. They also have struggled to hit long shots, as the Wizards have done a good job of protecting the perimeter.  During the season, the Raptors made 35% of htier three point attempts.  The Wizards have forced this down to just 27% (which is somethign to watch, since during the season the Wizards allowed a 35% three point make percentage).

The true kicker though has been on the offensive glass. The Raptors this season were an average rebounding team cleaning up about 73% of opponents misses. This series though has been rough, as in the first game they allowed 19 of the 60 misses to get back as second chance opportunities, as well as 10 of 35 in the next game.  All of these things together has pushed the Raptors into a corner, one of which they can still come back from, but its going to be much tougher going forward.

NBA 1st Round Charts and Series Predictions

Much like the NCAA Tournament charts, these NBA charts will help give a nice visual of each teams strengths and how they stack up.  I'm going to include the typical chance of winning a home game, and the series prediction as well. 

Atlanta vs Brooklyn

 Hawks Win Chance at Home: 77.9%

Nets Win Chance at Home: 34.3%

Hawks win: 89% of the time

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Atlanta Hawks	52.7	13.5	20.1	21.4	49.2	14.9	18.5	73.4	108.9	103.1	93.9
Brooklyn Nets	49.1	13	20	23.9	50.6	12.9	18.5	73.7	104.4	107.4	92.7

Boston vs Cleveland

 Celtics Win Chance at Home: 43%

Cavs Win Chance at Home: 70%

Cavs Win series: 78.9% of the time

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Boston Celtics	48.9	12.5	17.6	24.7	49.4	13.7	20.8	75	104.7	104.5	95.8
Cleveland Cavaliers	52	13.4	21.6	26.8	50.2	12.6	17.7	74.7	111.1	106.3	92.3

Chicago vs Milwaukee

 Bulls Win Chance at Home: 65.3%

Bucks Win Chance at Home: 50.1%

Bulls Win series: 64.1% of the time

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Chicago Bulls	48.9	12.9	23.8	27	47.3	11.3	18.2	74.4	107.5	104.3	92.8
Milwaukee Bucks	49.9	15.5	19.5	25.4	48.7	15.9	22.1	73.3	102.7	102.2	94.1

Dallas vs Houston

 Mavs Win Chance at Home: 55.6%

Rockets Win Chance at Home: 58.8%

Rockets Win series: 55.6% of the time

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Dallas Mavericks	51.5	11.9	19.7	23.6	50.3	14.7	20.4	72.2	109.5	106.4	95.2
Houston Rockets	51.2	15	22.3	26.8	48.6	14.6	20.8	72.9	107	103.4	96.5

Golden State vs New Orleans

 Warriors Win Chance at Home: 79.6%

Pelicans Win Chance at Home: 31.9%

Warriors Win series: 91.2% of the time

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Golden State Warriors	54	13.1	18.4	24.1	47	14.3	21.7	74.5	111.6	101.4	98.3
New Orleans Pelicans	50.1	12.5	19.8	27.1	49.6	11.7	19.5	75.1	108.2	107.3	91.4

Los Angeles vs San Antonio

 Clippers Win Chance at Home: 58.5%

Spurs Win Chance at Home: 56.2%

Clippers Win series: 50.1% of the time

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Los Angeles Clippers	53.3	11.6	21.5	22.8	49.3	13.2	23.1	75.7	112.4	105.5	94.7
San Antonio Spurs	51.7	13.1	20	23.4	48.4	13.3	19	77.3	108.5	102	93.8

Memphis vs Portland

 Grizzlies Win Chance at Home: 54.6%

Blazers Win Chance at Home: 60.1%

Blazers Win series: 58.4% of the time

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Memphis Grizzlies	48.9	12.6	21.4	24.7	49.2	14.5	18.3	75.3	105.7	102.2	92
Portland Trail Blazers	50.8	12.6	18	24.2	47.6	11.3	18.2	76.2	108.2	103.7	94.2

Toronto vs Washington

 Raptors Win Chance at Home: 64.1%

Wizards Win Chance at Home: 50.6%

Raptors Win series: 62.5% of the time

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Toronto Raptors	50.8	12	23.2	25.6	50.6	13.4	20.8	73.3	111	107.7	92.8
Washington Wizards	49.9	14	19.2	24.9	48.1	12.9	21	77.3	103.7	103	93.7

To recap, we have the Hawks, Cavs, Bulls and Raptors all comfortably advancing in the East, whereas out West the Warriors should cruise, but everyone else might be in line for a 6 or 7 game death struggle.

Los Links: April 16th

2025, the date by which we'll find aliens : I've always believed that we'd find Alien life.  But for the most part its pretty terrifying, because its all too likely those Aliens would be far superior to us technologically, and we;ve seen for the most part how thats worked here on earth.

Ultra fast aluminum batteries : This is one of the most exciting things I've seen in terms of battery technology.  Super fast recharge times, nearly indestructible, and with orders of magnitude greater charging cycles.  

GPS without satellites  Those boys at DARPA.  What will they think of next?
 
Quantum teleportation on a single chipQuantum computing is getting closer by the day. 

The Tommy John Epidemic

I came across a pair of ESPN articles the other day, both relating to the current "epidemic" of Tommy John surgeries.  Its interesting, because one posted last year I believe has the answer for why we're seeing more and more pitchers opt for this rout.  Matt Harvey wrote What we missed about Tommy John surgery, in which he details some new findings about the true success rate of the surgery and some potential reasons why we're seeing more players go under the knife.  On that front, I actually think  Jayson Starks' Tommy John Epidemic article hits the nail on the head.  He discusses the fact that shoulder issues just a couple of season ago were the reason most pitchers spent time on the DL.  However, the surgery payoff for those injuries has been pretty low.  The oft discussed number though for fixing UCL injuries is 80%, so it makes sense more players would risk the surgery when the odds are that good of returning.  Harvey does point out though that rate of players returning for 1 game is 80%, but those returning for 10 or more is just 67%.  I think what we're seeing is the sort of revolution though that we've seen in the NFL in regards to ACL injuries.  In the mid 90s an ACL tear was career ending.  Today there is a 96% recovery rate.

The most interesting part though from Harvey's piece is the interviews with youth coaches and parents, an astoundingly large percentage who felt preemptive surgery was a good idea.  That the surgery would somehow bring an uptick in velocity is beyond me.  Harvey shows for the most part velocity drops a little (or is at best not significantly worse).  This mindset that this injury is going to happen, and so you might as well do the surgery I think is putting pitchers at risk going forward.  At the youth levels guys should not be throwing curves, they should instead be working on correct pitching mechanics and strengthening the major muscles.  If this is a sign of things to come, its going to cause a talent drop in baseball, as we've seen largely in the NBA.

The last battle

“We've got radar contact!  Three Bogeys dead ahead.” The call came over the comm link, snapping the pilot of the TIE interceptor back to reality.  He had been drifting through a patrol of a far off grid on the edge of the empire, looking for rebel raiders.  He had pulled enough of these routine patrols that he didn’t need to focus on piloting the ship; it was just second nature now, avoiding minor debris and running scans.  He could easily let his mind wander to thoughts of life after this tour of duty, back to the core worlds and a nice retirement to spend with all his back pay from the empire.

Championship 2015

So we come to the final game of the season.  The program wraps a pretty successful season, going at about 70% in terms of outright wins, and about 60% against the spread.  It needs some tweaks for the power conferences playing against mid majors, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with its performance.  The tournament certainly needs some tweaking, but that's more accounting for wide variability. 

Duke vs Wisconsin

Expected Outcome: Wisconsin by 1

Wisconsin has a 54% chance to win

 

Team	EFG%	TOV%	Free Throw Rate	OReb%	DEFG%	TOV% Forced	Defensive Free Throw Rate	DReb%	ORtg	DRtg
Duke	56.86	16.76	37.44	40.16	47.36	18.75	30.05	25.01	122.03	96.13
Wisconsin	54.57	12.42	31.94	35.58	46.7	16.71	23.73	21.06	124.7	94.26

Final 4 Charts,Data,Win%

Almost there.  Its been a pretty solid tournament for the program, and an overall very good season.  We'll see if it can get back on track with picking the Finals teams after getting beaten up in the Elite 8.  I again think here the program has picked a winner in each game.  The program has underestimated Michigan State all tounrament though, so it might be closer than it thinks.  I do think Kentucky gets past the Badgers in better fashion than 4 points.  Good offenses going cold in the tournament is far more devastating than a team giving up points on defense. 

Duke vs Michigan St.

Expected Outcome: Duke by 6

Duke has a 76.5% chance to advance

Team	EFG%	TOV%	Free Throw Rate	OReb%	DEFG%	TOV% Forced	Defensive Free Throw Rate	DReb%	ORtg	DRtg
Duke	56.86	16.76	37.44	40.16	47.36	18.75	30.05	25.01	122.03	96.13
Michigan St.	53.82	17.89	34.63	31.90	45.69	17.03	25.96	37.67	114.12	96.07

Kentucky vs Wisconsin

Expected Outcome: Kentucky by 4

Kentucky has a 67% chance to advance

 

Team	EFG%	TOV%	Free Throw Rate	OReb%	DEFG%	TOV% Forced	Defensive Free Throw Rate	DReb%	ORtg	DRtg
Kentucky	51.78	16.45	40.42	43.79	39.71	21.82	31.64	31.59	119.73	85.82
Wisconsin	54.57	12.42	31.94	35.58	46.70	16.71	23.73	21.06	124.70	94.26