Yes, today's title is a total rip off from John Gasaway. You should obviously read Basketball Prospectus (and follow him on Twitter). You'll notice over there the Horizon League isn't mentioned. But I've got your numbers here!
Here is the Horizon League in its tempo-free glory:
Rank. Team - Efficiency Margin
- Butler - 0.23
- Wright State - 0.11
- Detroit - 0.10
- Cleveland State - 0.04
- Valparaiso - 0.01
- Milwaukee - 0.00
- Green Bay - 0.00
- Loyola - (-0.13)
- Youngstown - (-0.15)
- UIC - (-0.19)
Thoughts on these numbers and some other observations after the break.
The first thing I noticed when looking at these numbers is that the league pretty easily breaks down into three tiers. There are the top three teams (led by Butler's dominating numbers), the middle four and then the bottom three. For the most part those teams are starting to slot themselves into the areas most observers expected before the season began. Butler's pythagorean record projects the Bulldogs to win 92.7% of their games, so they aren't out of the woods yet in terms of a perfect regular season. Of course, Butler has the highest efficiency margin of any team I've seen in conference play.
Another interesting thing is that the two Wisconsin schools - Green Bay and Milwaukee - have efficiency margins of 0. In fact the Phoenix have been outscored by 2 total points during conference play (12 games). The interesting thing is that only 4 of those 12 games have been decided by 5 points or fewer. All of the others were blowouts one way or another. Most of this has to do with Green Bay playing at home versus on the road. Milwaukee, on the other hand, has outscored opponents by 1 point in 11 games. The Panthers have scored 737 points and allowed 736 points in 740 possessions. They are about as close to a context neutral Horizon League team as you can find. 7 of Milwaukee's 11 conference games have been decided by 7 points or fewer.
The other stat that I've been tracking this season has been luck. Wright State and Detroit are the two unluckiest teams according to efficiency margin, but that appears to be correcting itself as the Raiders and Titans assert their dominance at home. Green Bay and Loyola are actually tied as the two luckiest teams in the league, and with Youngstown on Thursday the Ramblers have a chance to add another victory.
Note: For the remainder of the regular season I'll be updating these every Tuesday.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Tags: Horizon League, Loyola-Chicago, statistics
