Where Does The Ivy League Really Stand?

Anyone who has looked at the RPI realizes that the Ivy League had fallen from its recent perch, squarely in the teens, first to the absolute bottom of the list before rebounding to the high 20s.

While the league has struggled this season, the binary win-loss nature of the RPI is currently punishing the Ivies far too much for their close losses, something which should even out and lead to the league's rise over the next month.

Pomeroy tells a different story, as the league sits 15th nationally, primarily on the strength of the overly generous preseason rankings, which are still biasing the team ratings in his system.

The ultimate answer likely lies in between the two. Massey's composite rankings, which look at a wide ranging group of ranking systems, have the Ivy League in 21st, and Sagarin's predictive model has the league 25th. If forced to pick a narrow range within which the Ivies would be likely to fall, those boundaries sound as good as any.

Opening Weekend Preview

It's finally here.

All eight Ivy League basketball teams will open their seasons this weekend with actual games that count in the actual NCAA record books. (Rumor has it that a lot of these teams have already "played" a couple of "games" against other Division I "schools" over the past 10 days or so).

That's the good news. The bad news is that the grand re-opening of college basketball in the Ivy League could be a bit of a letdown.

Harvard and Brown kick things off on Friday night with MIT and Johnson & Wales, respectively, which both hail from outside the Division I ranks. Columbia and Dartmouth have the exact opposite problem, as each take to the road to visit a Big East school - Connecticut and Rutgers, respectively. The Big Green has the best projected winning percentage for any of the underdogs in those four games at a mere four percent.

The Great Unknowns

Penn is the epicenter of this debate.

Senior point guard Zack Rosen is on pace to become the second most productive Ivy player of the past 10 years. Flanking him are fifth-year senior Tyler Bernardini, a streaky but at times lights out shooter who can add value at both ends of the court, and sophomore Miles Cartwright, an uber-athletic slasher who could vault to All-Ivy status if he could hold onto the ball a little better.

Even if you like the Quakers' returning depth at the guard position behind those three stars, there are two gaping holes at the four and five left by the graduation of Jack Eggleston and Conor Turley. Internal candidates do exist - the ever fragile Mike Howlett and sophomores Fran Dougherty and Cameron Gunter - but the true hope rests on the shoulders of heralded freshmen forwards Greg Louis and Henry Brooks.

How reasonable is that expectation, though? Brooks is the 19th most highly rated recruit of the past 10 years. Louis is 43rd most highly rated over the same span. Both are in the top 10 percent of the over 400 recruits from that timespan. But do the ratings even matter?

Does Defense Matter

The advanced stat movement in basketball has a long way to go to catch baseball.

Various hurdles exist along the path. The popular parlance notes that baseball is an "individual sport masquerading as a team sport," whereas basketball outcomes are much more of a product of five interwoven parts. Then, there's the issue of whether basketball even collects enough data, or at least the right data, from which to draw conclusions.

The latter is especially concerning on the defensive end of the court. Dean Oliver, the godfather of the "Pomeroy" stats, suggested an expanded boxscore, which would include forced field goal misses to allocate defensive stops more appropriately, rather than just giving credit to the player that ultimately rebounded the miss. Without such a change, Oliver's defensive rating disproportionately favored big men, who could rack up huge numbers of rebounds and blocks, while guards saw their ratings primarily dependent on the only other input to the rating - steals.

Critics of Oliver's defensive rating launched a bevy of arguments, including the lack of a "forced miss" statistic and the circular nature of assignments (even if you could single out defensive performance, the best defenders draw the best offensive players, which would cause the best defenders to look more average than they actually are).

Shorting Harvard

The Crimson is a Top 50 team. It's a lock to grab the Ivy League title. It'll be a tournament sleeper.

But locks don't have gaping flaws. This Harvard team might.

Offensively, the Crimson is already one of the best teams the Ivies seen over the past 15 years, posting top six Adjusted Offensive Ratings for both the whole season and during the conference slate. Losing no one, adding a stellar recruiting class and getting a full year of Kyle Casey at 100 percent should at the very least guarantee the same, if not better, production during the 2011-2012 campaign.

The Value of Returning Possessions

The praise has been lavish.

Some have gone so far as to make the 2011-12 edition of the Crimson a pre-season Top 50 team, while almost all have made Harvard the prohibitive favorite in the Ivy League.

What is it, exactly, that separates the Crimson from Princeton, with which it shared last year's Ivy title and the latter of which secured the league's automatic bid?

The simple answer is returnees. In this case, Harvard returns everybody from the last campaign, while the Tigers lost two of their top four players off of a team that was already among the shallowest benches in Division I basketball. While that simplistic response is, in and of itself, correct, it hardly quantifies the impact of retaining and losing players. It is that task which we will undertake in this analysis.

The Worst All-Ivy First Teamer (UPDATED)

In a proper ordering of the thoughts conveyed in this piece, it is important to stress that being the worst All-Ivy First Team member is akin to being the dumbest member of Mensa.

Any criticisms of either need to be placed within the context that the achievement in question is one of extremely high quality, and doubting whether a candidate cleared the necessary bar is hardly analogous to taking the negative side of a binary good-bad argument.

Noruwa Agho is a 6'3 shooting guard who just completed his junior season at Columbia. He led the Ivies in points per game, which was enough to get many, but not all, league coaches to vote him to the Ivy League's First Team.

In so doing, however, Agho became one of the worst First Teamers of the past 15 years, joining a group that includes Yale's Emerson Whitley, Cornell's Ka'Ron Barnes, Dartmouth's Shaun Gee and Harvard's Dan Clemente (twice).

While the casual Ivy observer will recognize some of those names, it's a lot to expect that all but the most fervent supporters will remember each of their individual league campaigns, and for that reason, we'll focus on Agho, who was by almost every aggregate metric the worst All-Ivy First Team member of at least the past five years.

Top Freshman Campaigns Last 15 Years

They get imaginary minutes before ever stepping on the court. They often represent the hope of a fanbase looking to rise from the league's depths. They are the great unknown from whom so much is expected.

And yet, they're just freshmen.

With the explosion of twitter and recruiting sites, college basketball fans have been brought closer to the window, looking in on one of the most intense battles waged in sports as coaches jockey for the nation's top talent. Even in the Ivy League, which more often than not gets second choice among a pool that's artificially small to begin with, fans watch intently as their school locks down high schoolers from across the country.

Bests, Worsts of Last 15 Years & What It Means For Future

The 2010 Cornell team that buried three after three en route to the Sweet 16. The 1998 Princeton squad that snagged the league's highest seed (5) in the 64-team era. Or how about the 2003 Penn group led by the dynamic Ugonna Onyekwe?

Which team was truly the Ivy's best over the past 15 years? Which squads had the most potent offensive attacks and played the stingiest defense? Which were the years were the best for the league, and which were the worst? And most importantly, what can the past tell us about the future?

The 14-Game Tournament's 2011 All-Ivy Team

The Ivy coaches have spoken, and their results have been posted here.

Now it's time for The 14-Game Tournament's All-Ivy Teams and Individual Awards. The awards listed below are based, exclusively, on performance during the Ivy League season and, unlike those from the league office, will come with some brief explanations. Also, the teams will be restricted to the same size as the Ivy office's (4 Honorable Mentions, 5 First- and Second-Teamers).

With that housekeeping out of the way, let's reveal the picks:

And Now It's Official: We're Playoff Bound

Behind a huge second half from Kareem Maddox, Princeton defeated rival Penn 70-58 last night and earned its own share of the Ivy League title.

The Tigers, which scored just four points over the final 10 minutes of the first half, exploded for 51 points after the intermission, as Maddox dropped in 21 of his 23 in the second stanza.

After Princeton took an early 15-4 lead, the Quakers ripped off a 23-4 run to grab a 27-19 advantage with 19 minutes left to play. From there, it was all Tigers, as it took Princeton just two minutes and an 8-0 run to pull even. The two sides traded baskets until the eight minute mark, when the Tigers used a 13-2 run to put the game away for good.

NOTEBOOK: Harvard Clinches Share, Princeton Can Join Tomorrow Night

From the moment Tommy Amaker was hired at Harvard in April 2007, this moment was seen as a foregone conclusion - a point in the future that existed without a definite date, but with a definite presence.

Amaker would lead the Crimson to an Ivy title, at some point, and Harvard's big gamble would pay off. At least a few people, however, would have been skeptical that it would happen this soon.

The progression has been steady each year, starting even from the first. With a young, but ultimately decently talented roster, recovering from loss of All-Ivy talents Brian Cusworth and Jim Goffredo, Amaker led Harvard to its first marquee win, knocking off Michigan at home, during a tough 8-22 campaign.

The following year brought the Crimson's first win over a ranked opponent (Boston College) and Harvard's first win at The Palestra in 18 years. Last season brought the Crimson's first 20-win campaign ever and its first postseason tournament berth since 1946. In year number four, Amaker delivered on his initial promise and brought Harvard its first ever Ivy League title.

NOTEBOOK: Week 17 Powerpoll, Adjusted Efficiency Margin

The second straight league leader couldn't survive the Saturday night portion of the Connecticut/Rhode Island road trip.

This time it was Yale doing the damage, as it dropped then-Ivy leading Harvard 70-69 at Payne Whitney Gym. A Brandyn Curry layup at the buzzer never quite made it over the heel of the rim, allowing the Bulldogs to hang on and with the Cornell win at Penn, seize control of third place in the league.

Now the table is set for an interesting final (extended) weekend. Harvard can clinch a share of its first ever Ivy title with a home sweep of Penn and Princeton. The Tigers can clinch the title outright by sweeping the road trip or can clinch at least a share with a loss at Dartmouth and a win at Harvard.

If the Crimson sweeps or splits but beats Princeton, then the Tuesday showdown between the rival Quakers and Tigers would suddenly add a level of intensity, as Princeton could either clinch its share of the title or the outright NCAA berth at The Palestra.

CURRENT STANDINGS

Princeton	10	1
Harvard	10	2
Yale	7	5
Penn	6	5
Columbia	5	7
Brown	4	8
Cornell	4	8
Dartmouth	1	11

ADJUSTED EFFICIENCY MARGIN

Team	OffEff	DefEff	AdjEff
Brown	1.007	1.054	-0.047
Columbia	0.945	1.010	-0.065
Cornell	1.040	1.097	-0.058
Dartmouth	0.871	1.069	-0.198
Harvard	1.082	1.001	0.082
Penn	0.987	0.978	0.009
Princeton	1.009	0.929	0.080
Yale	0.974	0.994	-0.020

The Adjusted Efficiency Margin didn't change at all from last week, despite the shakeup in the standings. Harvard and Princeton remain a tight 1-2 at the top, while Penn and Yale are a tight 3-4 after a pretty significant gap.

The next bunch - Brown, Cornell and Columbia - remains clumped together in the same order as last week - 5-6-7, respectively. Finally, despite its strong showing at Yale, Dartmouth remains mired in a distant last.

While the Crimson remains in the lead for now, given the razor-thin margin, it is likely that whichever team wins the league will also win the conference-only adjusted efficiency margin race. The Ivy adjusted efficiency margin leader has won the league every year since 2004, when Penn's +7.5 stunningly lost out to Princeton's +3.1.

POWERPOLL

8. Dartmouth (8)
Looked frisky in New Haven and could have sprung the upset. Have to balance that against the stinker in Providence the next night, though.
7. Columbia (4)
The Lions are 3-7 now in their last 10 with two of those victories coming against the aforementioned Big Green.
6. Brown (6)
Can't take away the talking points of "Beat Princeton" and "Led Harvard by 39 points combined over two games." Would have been better if the Bears had nailed down a 2-2 record against the league's top two, though.
5. Penn (3)
Embarrassing and costly mistake at home against Cornell. Now the Quakers must win out to extend their season - a highly unlikely proposition.
4. Cornell (7)
Probably a spot too high for the Big Red, but it has gone 4-3 after a rough league start and could save a miserable season with a home sweep to reach the 10-win mark.
3. Yale (5)
Don't look now, but with two RPI Top 50 wins, the Bulldogs could be a road sweep away from the CBI or CIT.
2. Harvard (1)
The Crimson better hope that 80% Opponents FT percentage regresses to the mean hard this weekend. It's making an otherwise above average defense look very average.
1. Princeton (2)
The team with the easiest path to the title. Beat Harvard on Saturday night for a share and pick one of at Dartmouth or at Penn for the outright NCAA bid.

What If Middling Majors Played Mids Schedule (Part II)

Climbing back on that precarious bubble, it's time to follow up last week's post about Mids and Middling Majors by flipping the script and re-running the analysis in reverse.

This time, the Middling Majors get to join the Horizon League or Conference USA or The Valley and try their luck at the "cupcake" schedule of a Mid Major. As a refresher, the six Mid Majors selected for this analysis were picked on the basis of being on the Bracket Matrix's bubble as of February 16th (UAB, Butler, Duquesne, Colorado St., UTEP and Missouri St.). The nine Middling Majors were selected in the same way and include Michigan St., Boston College, Virginia Tech, Baylor, Oklahoma St., Alabama, Kansas St., Georgia and Marquette.

The methodology was quite simple - take each Mid Major team's offensive and defensive rating and the relevant variance and co-variance metrics and generate win probabilities against the various opponents on the substitute Middling Major team's schedule. Then, run 1,000 simulations to see what the Mid's profile would look like if it had played the Middling Major's schedule.

Who Should Win & Who Will Win Ivy League Awards

With 70 percent of the Ivy season behind us, there is enough of a sample size with which to project out the contenders for and likely winners of the league's various coveted awards.

As with most awards and polls, the results tend to be more fitting of a beauty contest, rather than having a backing in the actual numbers (or usage of correct numbers - I'm looking at you Points Per Game!). So, in order to serve the two facets of the public - those who like advanced statistics and those that like predictions - I will provide, for each award, an argument for the player that should win and then the name of the player (often different) that will win.

For all analysis, I will be using the conference-only numbers. While it is my personal belief that "year" means entire season, the voting coaches seem to apply the term universally to the calendar sort, giving league play undue and almost blanket influence over the results. In order to keep the playing field level for the "should" and "will" win projections, this piece will stick with the Ivy-only stats.

Let's get to it and project out some hardware!

NOTEBOOK: Adjusted Efficiency Margin Tells The Story

The weekend's events have shuffled the Adjusted Efficiency Margin standings, as Harvard closed the entire 5.6 point gap with Princeton and took a minor lead.

The Crimson has jumped ahead despite a 12.2 percentage point gap in free throw "defense," though that was much larger before Brown sank 25 of its 27 attempts Saturday night.

Team	ORAT	DRAT	DIFF
Brown	98.7	104.4	-5.8
Columbia	95.7	102.5	-6.7
Cornell	103.1	109.1	-6.0
Dartmouth	84.9	104.9	-20.0
Harvard	107.8	98.7	9.1
Penn	99.4	97.7	1.7
Princeton	100.8	92.7	8.1
Yale	95.8	97.2	-1.3

What If The Mids Played A BCS Schedule? (Part I)

It started as a Twitter flame war.

ESPN had just done its seemingly annual "which is more NCAA worthy: Mids or Middling Majors?" debate, forwarding the same points and generating the same conclusions as it always has. Mid-Majors are cute and cuddly but just can't compete with the meaty resumes of even the most mediocre of BCS level squads. Meanwhile, the defenders of the little guys point out how they seem to outperform their seed expectation pretty routinely, suggesting that they're characteristically under-slotted in the tournament field and fail to garner the respect they truly deserve.

After bemoaning the contrived nature of the ESPN debate (don't get me wrong, it's hard to write anything novel on the subject), Andy Glockner - Bubble Watch guru for SI.com and that site's resident Bracketologist - picked up the baton and added the important point that BCS schools had better rack up a handful of quality wins, because they get so many chances to do so.

It's almost as if the Middling Majors are given every opportunity to fall hind-parts backwards into marquee victories. In response to Glockner, I mused that the Middling Majors' resumes should be compared against what a generic bubble team could have done with the same schedule.

Then, John Ezekowitz of the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective asked the logical follow up question. If only we could give the Mid Major bubble teams a Middling Major schedule, we could see what kind of profiles they could generate and then compare them against the resume that specific Middling Major actually compiled.

Why Princeton's Adjusted Efficiency Margin Might Be Deceiving

The best team in the Ivy League at the 14-Game Tournament halfway pole?

Both the simple metrics (standings) and more complex statistics (adjusted efficiency margin) agree: It's Princeton.

The only place they differ is by how much. The Tigers hold a slight half-game lead (one game in the loss column) over Harvard in the league standings, but Princeton's +11.1 adjusted efficiency margin is double the Crimson's +5.5.

In this case, however, the win-loss stat may be closer to the real story than the efficiency one, due to a wildly divergent, yet uncontrollable underlying factor.

Is "Best" Always The Best?

With just about two weeks to the tip of the first conference tournament, the Ivy League will once again have its run as a popular footnote, since the Ivies are the only Division I conference not to hold the event.

Instead of giving the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament to the conference tourney winner, the league hands it to the team that survives the 14 game round robin Ivy schedule. There are a variety of reasons for this, including but not limited to: logistics and class, necessity as it relates to the Ivy athletic mission and a sense of merit.

In a previous post, I raised the point that while 14 is a larger sample size than three, it is hardly sizeable enough to guarantee that the best team wins the league. In fact, the odds of the 14-Game Tournament selecting the best team versus a simple 1-8 seeded conference tournament were only about 9 to 20 percentage points better depending on the amount of parity and whether the games were staged at the higher seed's gym or on a neutral floor. When you consider that quite often the Ivy champion would at least be in the discussion for an at large bid, especially as the tournament continues to expand, some of those unlucky teams in that 9 to 20 percentage point delta might wind up getting picked for the Big Dance anyway.

Inside The Numbers: A Change At The Top

Round One of the Ivy Heavyweight Battle went to the home team, as Princeton downed Harvard 65-61 on Friday night.

It took 50 minutes and a couple of bizarre events, but the Crimson managed to rebound from the loss at Jadwin by defeating Penn at The Palestra in double overtime 83-82. The end result pretty much matched expectations - sweep for Princeton, splits for Harvard and Penn - but the ride was quite the wild one.

We'll take a look at how those results affect the Ivy race and give you some next-level stats in a moment, but first, a public service announcement from the Please-God-Everyone-Notice-Jack-Eggleston-Is-Extremely-Talented Fund.