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).

Final Ivy Composite Schedule

At long last, here is the full and complete Ivy slate. Tip off is in less than two months. (Games in yellow are placeholders for a tournament format. Actual opponents will depend on results in the tournament games.)

UPDATED: Ivy Composite Schedule (As of 9/15)

We're getting closer to the full release of the Ivy schedules, but for now, here are the announced/expected games and dates, where available. Cornell, Harvard and Yale's schedules are officially released. Each of the other schools has at least half of its non-conference games on this list (Brown and Columbia at around 50%, Dartmouth and Princeton at about 65% and Penn at about 80%).

Games in yellow are either part of a tournament - thus the pairings are mere placeholders depending on game outcomes - or in the case of Penn and Princeton, guesses at game dates based on traditional scheduling.

Excluding the non-Division I games (all of which are denoted DIII, regardless of whether the opponent is DII, NAIA, etc.) and based on last year's Pomeroy finish, Princeton currently has the toughest expected non-conference strength of schedule at .674. Penn is a close second at .644. The Quakers are easily in front when considering DIII contests into the SOS, and one should expect Penn to end up with the toughest SOS even when excluding the DIII games after the remaining dates on each of the Quakers and Tigers schedules are revealed.

Following Penn and Princeton, Cornell has the third toughest schedule with Dartmouth, Harvard and Brown right behind. Expect the Bears and Big Green to see their SOS slip as more games are released, though. Finally, Yale and Columbia bring up the rear as the only two teams with SOS ratings below .500.

(UPDATE: Brown's full schedule has been released and sure enough, the Bears have slipped to the weakest league schedule. Expect Columbia to challenge for that title when its full slate is released.)

(UPDATE 9/9: Columbia released its full schedule and sure enough, it now has the weakest slate by a landslide. Excluding non-D-I games, the league's SOS sits right at .500 now. We have 90 percent of the games on the schedule with just Dartmouth, Penn and Princeton yet to release. The Tigers still lead in the SOS category, but assuming they actually want to play at home during the non-conference slate, their SOS will probably take a tumble as the remaining games should include enticing some cupcakes to play at Jadwin.)

(UPDATE 9/15: Down to just 10 or fewer games to go - depending on whether teams max out their schedules. Dartmouth and Princeton have four left and Penn has two. Those are also the only three with schedules remaining to be released. The Tigers are still hanging onto the top spot in the SOS battle with Penn close behind. Cornell and Harvard remain in third and fourth, then a huge gap before getting to Yale, Dartmouth and Brown and another huge gap to get to last place Columbia.)

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?

Initial Draft of Preseason 2011-2012 Rankings

It's been almost four long months since Brandon Knight beat Kareem Maddox off the dribble and finger-rolled in the game winning shot that sent Kentucky past Princeton in the First Second Round of the NCAA tournament.

The Wildcats used the 59-57 win as a springboard at the start of a Final Four run, while for the Tigers, it was merely the first loss of many.

First was the known reality that seniors Kareem Maddox and Dan Mavraides had exhausted their eligibility and would be need to be replaced. Second was a more troubling and unexpected departure, as Coach Sydney Johnson left to take the same position at Fairfield.

Ironically, it was the latter which was the easier fix. Princeton once again stayed inside the family, hiring another BCS assistant who was with the Tigers in their mid-90s glory days - Mitch Henderson. Trying to replace a legitimate All-Ivy candidate and the team's best offensive and defensive player in Maddox as well as the team's best three-point shooter in Mavraides will likely prove to be a much taller task.

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:

Ivy League 2011 All-Ivy Release

Player of the Year
Keith Wright, Harvard (Jr., F, Suffolk, Va.)

Rookie of the Year
*Sean McGonagill, Brown (Fr., G, Brookfield, Ill.)

Defensive Player of the Year
Kareem Maddox, Princeton (Sr., F, Oak Park, Calif.)

First Team All-Ivy
Noruwa Agho, Columbia (Jr., G, New City, N.Y.)
*Keith Wright, Harvard (Jr., F, Suffolk, Va.)
Zack Rosen, Penn (Jr., G, Colonia, N.J.)
*Kareem Maddox, Princeton (Sr., F, Oak Park, Calif.)
*Greg Mangano, Yale (Jr., C, Orange, Conn.)

Second Team All-Ivy
Chris Wroblewski, Cornell (Jr., G, Highland Park, Ill.)
Kyle Casey, Harvard (So., F, Medway, Mass.)
Brandyn Curry, Harvard (So., G, Huntersville, N.C.)
Ian Hummer, Princeton (So., F, Vienna, Va.)
Dan Mavraides, Princeton (Sr., G, San Mateo, Calif.)

Honorable Mention
Tucker Halpern, Brown (So., F, Brookline, Mass.)
Brian Barbour, Columbia (So., G, Alamo, Calif.)
Christian Webster, Harvard (So., G, Washington, D.C.)
Jack Eggleston, Penn (Sr., F, Noblesville, Ind.)

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.

Potential Ivy League Playoff Game Announcement

If Princeton defeats Penn at The Palestra tomorrow night and forces a tie with Harvard a top the Ivy League, then a playoff would be held this Saturday at 4 p.m. at Yale's Payne Whitney Gym. The game will be streamed live on ESPN's online content provider, ESPN3.com. ESPN3 will also be streaming the matchup between the Quakers and Tigers tomorrow night.

More information, including how to get tickets for the playoff game, will be made available on Wednesday morning.

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.

14-Game Tournament: ESPN The Ocho (err, 3)

The back-and-forth continues.

A week after Princeton took a tumble in the final game of its four-straight road contests, Harvard did the same, dropping a 70-69 decision at Yale. The Tigers' loss dropped Princeton from two-thirds to win the Ivy title to just one-third. The Crimson's defeat the following weekend deadlocked it with the Tigers right at 50/50.

And so we venture into the league's final weekend - the ultimate outcome in severe doubt for the first time since 2002. Both teams seem to have their own advantages - Harvard merely needs a home sweep for a share and in so doing, would force Princeton to win at Penn for its share. Meanwhile, the Tigers only need to win in Boston on Saturday night to clinch a share and only take one of their other two road games (in Hanover and Philly) to take the league outright.

Both the Penn and Princeton games at Lavietes are sold out and have been for weeks now. ESPN3 hopped on board to broadcast the Saturday night showdown between the Crimson and Tigers over the internet. If Harvard survives Friday night unscathed, it could be the most consequential night in the Ivy League in nine years, only to be topped, in the event of a Crimson victory, by a potential playoff game the following weekend.