Something's Fishy at the DFP

On Saturday, January 20, I wrote in a blog post called "Lady Luck":

[...] Turns out Ken's got an interesting theory on why BU keeps losing these tight overtime games: they're just unlucky.

Pomeroy has calculated a statistic that estimates "luck" - or something close to it. Do NOT ask me how it's calculated, but it has something to do with the difference between the number of wins a team has, and the number that are expected to win by another of Pomeroy's extremely complicated formulas (which he gets from offensive efficiency, defensive efficiency, turnover percentages, etc.).

Bottom line: Pomeroy's formula says that BU is the 328th luckiest team in the nation, or the 9th unluckiest. And that makes sense, considering the string of overtime defeats. According to the numbers, BU's lack of luck means they have lost 2.3 games that they SHOULD have won. [...]

On Wednesday, January 25, Nick Cammarota of the Daily Free Press wrote in an article called "Luck Certainly Not On BU's Side":

[...] At some point it might be safe to say that the Terriers have just had some really bad luck.

Turns out, Ken Pomeory of ESPN.com actually keeps a statistical category that measures just that. Out of 336 college basketball teams in the country, BU ranks 325th

(-0.108) in terms of worst luck. And that was before last night's game. Stony Brook University is the next closest America East team to BU and it's still over 100 times luckier than the Terriers, ranking at 176 (+0.002).

The technical formula for calculating a team's luck involves taking the deviation in winning percentage between a team's actual record and their expected record and plugs it into an even more complicated formula called the Correlated Gaussian Method.

Is it a coincidence? I don't know, maybe. Pretty obscure stat to come up with 3 days apart though.

Out of Our Way

It truly feels like the Terrier's are picking up some momentum. Our three game winning streak was ended by a loss to Stony Brook, but we bounced back with an exciting win over UMBC on Sunday. It came down to the wire, as every game seems to, but we stayed strong in the final minutes, and kept our composure. It looks as though our players are learning from their rookie mistakes early in the year, and our collection of freshman, along with a couple Seniors and a Sophmore or two, are working as a team to win games.

The best evidence of this is that on Sunday, we pulled off a strong win, a comeback win, without the help of Corey Lowe. There's no word as to how he is, but we saw a boot on his right foot as he sat out the game. We're worried about him, but the team did overcome his temporary (we hope) loss.

The Big O lead the way with 19 points, 14 rebounds, 4 blocks and 2 steals. He was a monster out there, and played nearly the entire game. He came out minimal times, once because of a slight unknown injury, but he returned and continued to rock the house.

In the closing minutes, Omari and Scott Brittain refused let the Retreivers get the ball near the hoop, while Tyler Morris was clutch as usual, nailing every free throw down the stretch. Hey - maybe we won because we made our free throws? Maybe.

Props to Brian Macon, who has drawn much attention to himself so far this year, but managed to sink two extremely clutch 3-pointers in the second half. I'm going to make a bold guess and say that Macon will fill a very key roll as we make our charge towards the tournament.

The top four teams are all within a game and a half, and seven teams have three or more wins. Right now is a very exciting time of the season. Sooner or later, the dominant team is going to emerge, and we're going to know who to fear in the play-offs. Who will it be?

An intense battle between BU and Albany, numbers 2 and 3, will go down Wednesday night. If you can't be there, you can find it on NESN. It's one that you won't want to miss.

Lady Luck

I spent a little time reading Ken Pomeroy's fascinating site today to see if I could take anything positive from BU's latest infuriating overtime defeat, this time to bottom-feeding Stony Brook. Turns out Ken's got an interesting theory on why BU keeps losing these tight overtime games: they're just unlucky.

Pomeroy has calculated a statistic that estimates "luck" - or something close to it. Do NOT ask me how it's calculated, but it has something to do with the difference between the number of wins a team has, and the number that are expected to win by another of Pomeroy's extremely complicated formulas (which he gets from offensive efficiency, defensive efficiency, turnover percentages, etc.).

Bottom line: Pomeroy's formula says that BU is the 328th luckiest team in the nation, or the 9th unluckiest. And that makes sense, considering the string of overtime defeats. According to the numbers, BU's lack of luck means they have lost 2.3 games that they SHOULD have won.

And for comparison, here are the "luck" rankings of the rest of the America East:

20 Albany

55 Hartford

64 Vermont

76 New Hampshire

124 Binghamton

162 Stony Brook

244 UMBC

256 Maine

328 Boston U

Turnaround (Bright eyes....)

Soooo... at the beginning of last week, we had just lost our sixth game in a row, this one the most demoralizing yet. Despite the rejuvenation of Carlos Strong, we lost our first conference game of the season in double-OT to Hartford, even though we led by 18 halfway through the second half.

Fast forward one week: BU wins their next 3 games over 5 days, each in more convincing fashion than the last.

First, BU hangs on for dear life at home against Maine, in a game that was way too close to the Hartford game for comfort. Maine's Kevin Reed couldn't miss, and the other four Black Bears were comatose the entire game. In the process, the Wolffman picked up his 100th career win in the Roof.

Next was BU's most impressive win of the season, in one of the conference's toughest playing environments. The boys went down to Binghamton, home of several parking garages and some guy named Phil who let us sleep at his house, and took a win from a dangerous Bearcat team. No word on whether any of the fans did the retarded pizza box thing.

Finally, the legendary Wolff defense basically sewed UNH's assholes shut and held the Wildcats to an embarrassing 29 points. Astoundingly, no UNH player scored over 5 points during that BU victory. Corey Lowe finished off his AE Rookie of the Week-winning stretch by leading the Terriers in scoring for the third game in a row.

And that's how the boys put together their first winning streak.

Wish I hadn't used "Sigh" as the last title...

I'm not sure how much more I can take of this. BU has played 4 overtime periods in their last 4 games, all losses. These guys have been playing their hearts out, and have nothing to show for it.

This latest loss, a double OT heartbreaker against Hartford, hurts real bad because we were up by 18 at one point midway through the first half and because it was our first conference game.

It's getting hard to keep waiting for the team to put all the pieces together at once, but that's all we can do. They are obviously competitive and learning at a fast rate. They just need to learn to win.

Second in-conference chance against Maine tonight.

Sigh... Time to start over.

I don't even need to say anything about the Holy Cross loss. I'll just say that it was nice to see Corey and Tyler have great performances on the same night and that I'm pissed that Tyler's game-tying heave didn't make Sportscenter's Top 10 Plays. The radio guys went absolutely nuts and I think the High Roller had an aneurysm.

This could easily be a 6-6 team. Umass, St. John's and Holy Cross are all games that might have gone the other way if not for a missed free throw there or an offensive rebound there. I'm not saying we should have won them, but it means we will be very competitive in conference play.

Which brings us to today's game against Hartford. Every time we play the Hawks, you have to immediately think of two games:

The Near-Shutout: This one actually made national headlines.

The Shot: Eerily reminiscent of the end of the Holy Cross game, but the stakes were higher and the outcome better. And this one DID make Sportscenter's Top 10.

As the High Roller mentioned in his outstanding analysis of the rest of the AE, Hartford comes in with low expectations but has been surprising people. They've got a 7-6 record, and won 3 non-conference road games (they had a total of 8 in the past 9 years). They've got a stud frosh in Joe Zeglinski and BU will try to prove that their frosh are better.

Conference games starting means it's a new season. The march to a 16 seed starts today.

Looking Ahead

Everyone still recovering from their weekend? It's amazing what four days letting loose in NYC will do the human body. Yes, we lost both games, and yes they were heartbreaking, but that didn't stop Tall-boy and I from making the most of an extended weekend in a city that doesn't completely shut down at 2 o'clock in the AM.

Even though I'm still recovering, I don't mind finding a few minutes to explore what we can expect for this season's conference play, when things start heating up and the games get interesting.

Some teams look to have improved since last year. Some lost leadership, others retained it, and some were lucky enough to have brought in an invaluable freshman class. Had to throw that in there.

Here's a quick look at the teams in the America East tournament:

Albany:

It's clear, despite losing Lucious Jordan and that goofy bastard of a German, that Albany will be a powerhouse once again, and have their eyes set on another conference championship. We all rememeber the shellacking they gave to the Catamounts last year, which, while amusing, proved that Albany played at a completely different level than the rest of the league. Will it happen again this year? With Jamar Wilson at the helm of the offense and his brother from another mother Brent Wilson causing damage from the outside (he already has 29 three-pointers), Albany will make it deep into the playoffs. Beating them in Albany will be considered a major accomplishment for any team that can manage to pull it off.

Binghamton:

Picked to finish sixth in the preseason coaches poll, the Bearcats have turned some heads with a 7-5 record, thanks in part to the leadership of veterans Mike Gordon and Duane James, best known for not playing high school ball. That, or his uncanny ability to "accidentally" lock arms with the nearest oppenant and drag them away from the ball whenever it's up for grabs. Of course, their best win was against Miami. Still, don't let up on these guys, especially in Binghamton. Their security somehow allows/encourges crowds of fans to line up on the end line with pizza boxes in hand to distract visiting players during their free throws. If you were at the tournament last year, then you know how friggin' annoying that can be.

Hartford:

They kept it close against Penn State and Georgetown earlier this year, but the departures of hired gun Kenny Adeleke and shooting threat Aaron Cook left a large hole in Hartford's offense. The thing with Hartford is that those two outshadowed everyone else on the team last year, so I don't even know who their returning stars are. Who will step up and emerge as their key player this year? My money's on Rich Baker to be their new shooting threat.

Maine:

The preseason coaches poll had Maine finishing second, but they don't seem to be playing to their full potential as of yet. If Kevin Reed can stay healthy, the Black Bears just may finish in the top half of the conference this year. Personally, I think they'll be the disappointment of the season.

UMBC:

Now this is a team that I love to root for, and not just because of their dance team and their band that make it to the tournament every year. They play with a lot of heart and refuse to quit. Everyone will look to Brian Hodges to lead the Retrievers, but UMBC is team-oriented. Everyone needs to know their role and they'll have a productive season. If they don't, well, 3rd year coach Randy Monroe just might lock them out of their locker room again.

New Hampshire:

Aussie Blagov Janev will once again be carrying a good portion of the weight this year, but he's got a fairly good team to play along with, and a fairly good coach with a fairly good head on his shoulders, so it would appear that UNH will have a fairly decent season. So far, it's been pretty unfulfilling. Not to be harsh in any way, but when your best win is against Elon University, that doesn't bode well for you once conference play begins.

Stony Brook:

Ah, the perennial underdog. To be honest, I don't think that their conference play is going to go as smoothly as they'd hoped, but come tournament time, anything is possible. We all remember how a certain Stony Brook team ruined a certain blogger's spring break a few years back. It's a bummer about Beauford being red-shirted this year, but they still got Popokooooooooooo!

Vermont:

Last, not least, obviously. It was a thrill, as I mentioned earlier, to watch them get pounded by Albany last year, but we will see a different team this year. Klimes and Triboli are another year older and another year wiser, and the Catamounts have a coach who runs his games as a collective effort rather than an alcoholic cheerleader who can only remember only two players from his coaching days. They drew a lot of attention to themselves with a big upset over BC already, and that's not all they'll do this year. Not by a long shot. Watch out for them, like always.


Conference play starts Wednesday night, although BU will be hosting Holy Cross. I encourage anyone unlucky enough not to go somewhere for Christmas vacation to show up, the Terriers will need our support. My attendence estimate: 230.

See you there.