Previewing the 2021-22 MIAA Season

All eight MIAA men's basketball teams have completed their non-conference schedules and will move to conference play beginning on January 5.

Coming into the season, Trine was the heavy favorite after returning nearly everyone from the team that went 17-1 (5-0 MIAA) and won the conference tournament in the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season. That expectation has perhaps shifted after a non-conference season that saw Trine lose four games (and record a few uncomfortable wins against inferior competition).

Calvin has seemingly supplanted the Thunder as the league favorite as league play begins on Wednesday. Here's a look at where each team stands in the efficiency ratings I run for all of Division III men's basketball:

 

D3 Rank	Team	AdjEM	AdjO	AdjD
25	Calvin	22.4	113.8	91.5
72	Albion	13.8	104.7	90.9
70	Trine	14.0	101.4	87.5
77	Hope	12.6	108.5	95.9
167	Olivet	3.0	96.8	93.8
258	Kalamazoo	-3.7	101.3	105.0
267	Adrian	-4.5	97.2	101.7
297	Alma	-8.1	96.6	104.6

A quick explainer for those who haven't followed my ratings: Adjusted efficiency margin is the difference between a team's adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency ratings (the 'adjusted' means the calculations are iterated to account for quality of opponent). This is the number of points they'd be expected to outscore an average D3 team in 100 possessions. The offensive rating (AdjO) is how many points they'd be expected to score (per 100 possessions) and the defensive rating (AdjD) is how many points they'd be expected to give up (per 100 possessions).

So based on results* to date, we have something like four tiers of teams forming in the MIAA. Calvin is alone in tier 1 as a (fringe) Top-25 caliber team, Albion, Trine, and Hope are bunched up very tightly in tier 2, Olivet is in their own tier a bit above D3 average, and Kalamazoo, Adrian, and Alma are in the fourth tier a bit below average.

*I only calculate data from D3 vs. D3 games so nothing against D1, D1, or NAIA is included here.

The cool thing about these efficiency ratings is that we can use them to predict scores for individual matchups. If we add in a few points for home court advantage, we can predict the outcome of any game. So, for example, my computer favors Calvin over Albion in Wednesday's conference opener 74-72 and gives Calvin a 59% chance of winning the game. If I run these percentages for all 56 conference games, I get the following expected standings:

 

Team	Expected Wins	Expected Losses	Expected PF	Expected PA
Calvin	11.8	2.2	1148	957
Albion	9.5	4.5	1061	969
Trine	9.5	4.5	1000	910
Hope	9.1	4.9	1078	1001
Olivet	6.0	8.0	1060	1098
Kalamazoo	4.0	10.0	967	1076
Adrian	3.4	10.6	1065	1203
Alma	2.7	11.3	960	1124

Now, obviously, the standings won't end up exactly like this. Someone (Olivet) is going to win some games they're not supposed to win and we'll likely end up with more bunching towards the middle as teams get familiar with each other. But that's the way the computer sees the league shaping up before we play the games.

For Calvin in particular, they're going to have to make hay the first time through the league schedule as they have Hope, Trine, and Olivet at home and only Albion on the road of the other MIAA teams with a positive adjusted efficiency margin. They'll really need to be 5-2 (or preferably better) in those first seven games to feel really good about their chances to win the regular season conference title.

Looking ahead to the NCAA Tournament, the MIAA is most probably a one-bid league. It's not likely that the tournament runner up will have the resume required to receive an at-large bid. Most of the league is exiting non-conference play with a strong strength of schedule, but the league's overall non-conference record means those SOS numbers are going to decrease as we go.

I see Calvin, Hope, Albion, and Trine all staying a fair bit above the .500 strength-of-schedule Mendoza line that is the de facto requirement for NCAA Tournament selection, but not so far above that they'll be a strong contender unless they're also touting winning percentages in the .850 range (or so). That's... probably not going to happen. The best case for an at-large berth from the MIAA is for one of these teams to go 12-2 or 13-1 in conference play and then lose in the conference tournament final, and even that might not be enough to escape the bubble.

Turning our attention to opening night on Wednesday, it looks like we have a great slate of competitive games. Here's what my score predictor expects:

Away		Home		Home %	Away%	Pace	Line	Total
Olivet	86	Adrian	83	40%	60%	89	+3.0	169.5
Trine	66	Hope	68	60%	40%	69	-3.0	134.0
Kalamazoo	72	Alma	73	53%	47%	69	-1.0	145.0
Calvin	74	Albion	72	41%	59%	72	+2.5	146.0

All four games are 60%-40% or tighter and none of the expected score differentials are wider than one possession. The winners -- particularly of Trine-Hope and Calvin-Albion will have a leg up in the conference race. It should be a good night of basketball. 

Alma Preview

	Game Twenty Two (11-10, 6-4)
Who	Alma Scots (7-14, 3-7)
Where	Van Noord Arena
When	Wednesday, February 8 -- 8:00 PM
Audio	Stretch Internet
Video	Stretch Internet, MIAA Gameday
Stats	Live Stats, MIAA Gameday

When We Last Met
Calvin recorded their first win away from home with an 85-77 win over the Scots in January. The win came before Calvin's string of improved shooting percentage arrived (the effective field goal percentage for the game was just .426), but the Knights were +10 on the boards, and +5 in the turnover column.

Tom Snikkers had 25 points, but he had limped out to something like a 1-7 start, so his shooting efficiency numbers left something to be desired, but Alma had no answer for him in the second half. Bryan Powell was the offensive hero of the game. He dropped 24 on the Scots and used the game to introduce us to his new-and-improved mid range jumper. Brian Haverdink also reached double figures with 13 points.

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Stats-and-More Versus Alma

Win Probability

Alma took a 9-3 lead about four minutes into the game, but it was a steady climb from there on to the win. Despite the student webcast announcers calling the game a ‘nail biter’, nothing really exciting happened in the final twelve or thirteen minutes.

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Better Than the Really Bad Teams

Calvin 85, Alma 77 (box score)

After Calvin’s 64-59 loss to Albion a week ago, I was thinking that even making the four-team MIAA Tournament might be more than a bit of a stretch. I’m more optimistic at the moment. Not that either Kalamazoo or Alma are any good, but beating the bad teams – and not really struggling with either one – is still a good sign. I would have loved to see Calvin keep the double-digit final margin on Saturday, but I’ll take the eight point win on the road, especially since the final twelve minutes or so were spent with Calvin up by 11 (or so). Making the MIAA Tournament will still be a chore for the Knights, but they’re “in the hunt” along with Trine and Albion (I’m assuming Hope and Adrian are shoe-ins). I still think Albion is the weakest of the three, but they have a leg up on Calvin with the early head-to-head win; the rematch at (historic) Kresge Gymnasium looks like a must win for the Knights.

But anyway, this is supposed to be about the Alma game. The Scots had been a team that shot the ball really well from the floor, but due to turnovers, iffy free throw shooting, and poor rebounding, they really didn’t score all that many points. The Scots hit a fair number of their free throws on Saturday, but Calvin controlled the glass and forced a lot of tough shots, and so Alma only managed an effective field goal percentage of .460 (which looks good to us, but is 80 points below their season average) and an offensive efficiency rating of 94.6.

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Alma Preview

	Game Fifteen (6-8, 1-2)
Who	Alma Scots (4-10, 0-3)
Where	Art Smith Arena, Alma, MI
When	Saturday, January 14 -- 3:00 PM
Audio	Stretch Internet
Video	Ustream, MIAA Gameday
Stats	Live Stats, MIAA Gameday

When We Last Met
Calvin trounced Alma 115-65 at the Van Noord Arena on Senior Day last year. Five Knights reached double figures in the scoring column but, unfortunately, none of those players are playing this year (last year’s four seniors plus Jordan Brink)

About Alma
Alma's a little bit of a weird case. They're the second best shooting team in the league (their .540 eFG% is just .007 below that of Hope), but they don't rebound well, they turn the ball over a little too much, and they don't get to the free throw line all that well. Consequently, their offense ends up looking only average.

As far as defense goes, Alma's never heard of it. They've allowed nearly 84 points per game this season, and while that's inflated a bit due to their relatively fast pace, it's backed up by their league worst 108.6 defensive efficiency rating.

Throw an average offense and a really bad defense into a hopper, and out comes a 4-10 Alma squad.

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Top Ten Moments: Introduction and 10. Andy Draayer En Fuego

I wanted to come up with something to pass the time until basketball season began, and my Top Ten Moments list was born. I'll be counting down my favorite memories as a Calvin basketball fan. I gave myself one criterion: I had to be at the game to count it. My apologies to the old-timers, but this list won't contain anything pre-2004.

When it comes down to it, this list is the reason this blog exists. It's the reason I am what I am.

I'll start off with some of the moments that didn't make the cut (all you get is the could-have-been title).

(in no particular order)

My First Game (Or, At Least, The First One I'll Ever Admit To)
Calvin Throttles Olivet by 47
The Old Girl's Final Song
Everything's Right On Senior Night
A Snowed-out Rivalry
Meeting J.J. Jumper

Those stories are all good, but they didn't make our list here. Anyway, without further ado, I present my Top Ten Moments:

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The Replacements



Yes Woody, Seniors will have to be replaced.


Zac and I (and our wives, and my child) drove out to Minneapolis for Memorial weekend, so we had lots of time to discuss sports (mostly Tigers baseball and Calvin hoops). We left Friday after work (with an expected 3:00 AM (EST) arrival time, so we needed to keep conversation going to ensure the driver stayed alert.

Anyway, one of the topics that came up was the outlook for the 2012 MIAA season. Who will be the favorite? Who’s going to fill out the top four? We couldn’t really decide, so we played a rousing game of “better or worse”. Our reactions for each teams was as follows:

Adrian: lots of young players – “better”.
Albion: losing two starters – perhaps “marginally worse”.
Alma: can’t get much worse – “even”.
Calvin: losing good players, but there’s a core of young talent – a biased “marginally better”.
Hope: losing Bowser, Dickerson, and Tanis – “worse”.
Kalamazoo: losing Ryan Clark – “worse”
Olivet: losing “everyone” – “much worse”
Trine: lots of young players – “better”

I’m not saying that this is accurate, but that’s what the gut told us without looking at rosters or playing time or scoring averages. We eventually figured the standings would look something like this:

1 – Calvin – The slight favorite, but not a lock.
2 – Hope – still a very good team. Could win the league or end up third.
3 – Adrian – Will be top three. Could challenge the top two, but they were “only” 7-7 last year.
4 – Albion – Because they’re always in the top four.
5 – Trine – They have enough young players to make a jump in the standings.
6 – Kalamazoo – Hard to replace Ryan Clark, but they won’t be at the bottom.
7 – Olivet – It’s going to be a long year. Losing a ton of talent.
8 – Alma – Still bad.

But I wanted to get a real look at who’s staying, and who’s leaving to get a better of idea of how difficult it will actually be for each team to find replacements. So I crunched some numbers.

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How Do You Win By 50? One Basket at a Time

Matt already gave his thoughts on Saturday's big win over Alma. I don't mean to rehash those but I thought such a wild game deserved a little more commentary, so here goes.

I was struck by how consistent Calvin was over the course of the game. They didn't seem to be prone to the feast or famine offensive trends we've seen so much this year. The Knights got to 115 points, the most they have scored since putting up 115 in a sectional final game against McMurry in 2000, by steadily pouring in baskets from beginning to end.

Most blowouts happen when one team makes a run or two while the rest of the game is played relatively evenly. That is how a team puts together a 20 point blowout victory. 50 point victories take blowouts to a new level. To test my impression of Calvin's consistency, I plotted their lead over the course of the game. See the graph below (click for larger view):



There are certainly stretches of the game that look more impressive than others. On the positive, Calvin did a quick job of building a double-digit lead. On the downside (it just doesn't feel right to use that word when talking about a 50 point win!), Alma was able to keep their deficit around the 25 point mark for the last few minutes of the first half and the first part of the second half.

The solid black line is a linear trendline set with an intercept at zero (since a game starts with a zero point differential, duh). The trendline produces an r-squared value of 0.9454. A data set which is perfectly described by its trendline produces an r-squared value of 1. In other words, nearly 95% of our data set (Calvin's lead over time) is explained by the fitted linear trend line. Calvin very clearly set a pace and stuck to it for 40 minutes.

Senior Moments

Calvin 115, Alma 65 (box)

It was the first bit of fun that anyone related to Calvin basketball has had since halftime of the Hope game two weeks ago. Everyone (including me) needed to loosen up a bit. The Knights had dropped three of the previous four, and you could see the frustration building amongst the players and fans. Saturday was a break from all of that. It was senior day. It was 100 points. It was smiles from the players. It was smiles from the coaches.

It was fun, and that's what basketball is supposed to be.

Sure, it was "only Alma", but the Knights weren't interested in taking prisoners. They came out of the gate looking for the kill, and they never let up.

It was fitting that the first four Knights in double figures were Danny Rodts, Trent Salo, Brent Schuster, and Brad Schnyders, the Seniors. It was their last regular season game on the home floor, and they all had very nice games. The four seniors combined for 62 points on 21-31 shooting (11-15 on three pointers) in only 79 combined minutes.

I'll thank you four for your contributions to this program, but I'm going to do it after the season. There's five games left to win and then a national tournament. Go get it.

Stats

Player	%Min	%Shots	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	Ar	TO%	Rb%
Powell	0.38	0.32	0.375	0.81	0.50	0.25	0.09	0.00
Salo	0.53	0.17	1.083	2.17	0.00	0.21	0.25	0.05
Rodts	0.38	0.28	0.857	1.71	0.00	0.20	0.00	0.17
Snikkers	0.53	0.23	0.125	0.55	0.75	0.22	0.27	0.12
Schuster	0.58	0.26	0.900	1.84	0.30	0.07	0.08	0.15
Brink	0.50	0.15	1.200	2.32	0.80	0.07	0.22	0.20
Rietema	0.18	0.09	0.000	0.00	0.00	0.31	0.00	0.07
Haverdink	0.35	0.13	0.500	1.00	0.00	0.33	0.00	0.04
Schnyders	0.45	0.27	0.625	1.36	1.00	0.26	0.00	0.14
Vallie	0.10	0.15	1.000	1.65	3.00	0.00	0.29	0.13
Kruis	0.30	0.25	0.800	1.60	0.00	0.28	0.00	0.34
DeBoer	0.43	0.11	0.000	0.41	1.33	0.13	0.00	0.09
DeYoung	0.33	0.09	1.000	2.03	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.16
Total	1.00	1.00	0.672	1.38	0.51	0.73	0.14	0.65

I've already mentioned that the seniors were phenomenal, but so were the freshmen. The Knights seemed to make a point of establishing a post presence with Tyler Kruis early in the game. Alma doesn't have the size that Calvin does, and they exploited that mismatch with Tyler a few times on the block. This bodes well for Calvin's future as Tyler hasn't shown much of a post game on the offensive end yet this year. It'll be important in the coming years.

Jordan Brink scored 16 points, all in the second half. I've been impressed with Brink's play as a freshman this year, but I think we're still only seeing the tip of the iceberg. When the starters exited the game, Jordan became the de facto scoring leader on the floor. He looked to take the ball to the rack, he looked for his shot, and it was a beautiful thing. I'm hoping this becomes the norm for the next three years. If so, he's going to have the entire campus outfitted in these...

My Air Jordans have a #12 on them.

Also, the end of the bench for Calvin is pretty darn good. Again it was "only Alma," but the "last five" combination of Rietema, Fabiyi, Vallie, DeBoer, and DeYoung are much better than we usually see from those same bench spots. DeYoung and DeBoer are already included in the playing rotation, but I wouldn't too afraid if any of those other three guys were forced into playing time during "regular mintes."

Up Next
Road games at Trine (Wednesday) and Albion (Saturday). One win should be good enough to wrap up a top four spot, and a home game in the MIAA tournament, but two wins will guarantee second place.

Plus/Minus Versus Adrian and Alma

I haven't done one of these posts in a while, so today's my catch-up (not catsup or ketchup) day.

Here's the game charts for the loss at Adrian and the win at Alma. One looks good, and one looks bad.

Adrian

Player	(+)	(-)	(+/-)	MIN	(+)/min	(-)/min	(+/-)/min
Brink	20	29	-9	17	1.18	1.71	-0.53
DeBoer	0	0	0	0	0.00	0.00	0.00
DeYoung	4	13	-9	5	0.80	2.60	-1.80
Fabiyi	0	0	0	0	0.00	0.00	0.00
Greene	0	0	0	0	0.00	0.00	0.00
Haverdink	18	23	-5	12	1.50	1.92	-0.42
Kruis	21	29	-8	18	1.17	1.61	-0.44
Powell	15	26	-11	20	0.75	1.30	-0.55
Rietema	0	0	0	0	0.00	0.00	0.00
Rodts	40	48	-8	26	1.54	1.85	-0.31
Salo	39	40	-1	23	1.70	1.74	-0.04
Schnyders	40	41	-1	23	1.74	1.78	-0.04
Schuster	54	55	-1	32	1.69	1.72	-0.03
Snikkers	44	41	3	24	1.83	1.71	0.13
Vallie	0	0	0	0	0.00	0.00	0.00
Team	295	345	-50	200	1.48	1.73	-0.25

Alma

Player	(+)	(-)	(+/-)	MIN	(+)/min	(-)/min	(+/-)/min
Brink	35	34	1	21	1.67	1.62	0.05
DeBoer	4	0	4	3	1.33	0.00	1.33
DeYoung	15	22	-7	11	1.36	2.00	-0.64
Fabiyi	0	0	0	0	0.00	0.00	0.00
Greene	0	0	0	0	0.00	0.00	0.00
Haverdink	19	18	1	11	1.73	1.64	0.09
Kruis	27	21	6	15	1.80	1.40	0.40
Powell	39	30	9	20	1.95	1.50	0.45
Rietema	0	0	0	0	0.00	0.00	0.00
Rodts	62	46	16	30	2.07	1.53	0.53
Salo	38	30	8	19	2.00	1.58	0.42
Schnyders	29	32	-3	18	1.61	1.78	-0.17
Schuster	49	47	2	25	1.96	1.88	0.08
Snikkers	48	40	8	27	1.78	1.48	0.30
Vallie	0	0	0	0	0.00	0.00	0.00
Team	365	320	45	200	1.83	1.60	0.23

We've learned that even the season-long numbers are influenced a great deal by random variations, but I think displaying these numbers is still a worthwhile exercise.

Season Totals

Player	(+)	(-)	(+/-)	MIN	(+)/min	(-)/min	(+/-)/min
Rodts	709	645	64	372	1.91	1.73	0.17
Snikkers	667	600	67	350	1.91	1.71	0.19
Schuster	617	540	77	317	1.95	1.70	0.24
Powell	592	516	76	315	1.88	1.64	0.24
Brink	580	489	91	288	2.01	1.70	0.32
Schnyders	452	422	30	240	1.88	1.76	0.13
Haverdink	368	378	-10	207	1.78	1.83	-0.05
Kruis	244	252	-8	162	1.51	1.56	-0.05
DeBoer	244	221	23	124	1.97	1.78	0.19
DeYoung	221	216	5	124	1.78	1.74	0.04
Salo	125	131	-6	84	1.49	1.56	-0.07
Vallie	23	24	-1	15	1.53	1.60	-0.07
Fabiyi	8	1	7	4	2.00	0.25	1.75
Greene	0	0	0	0	0.00	0.00	0.00
Rietema	0	0	0	0	0.00	0.00	0.00
Team	4850	4435	415	2602	1.86	1.70	0.16

Included: Davenport, Grace (second half), Ohio Wesleyan, Aquinas-I (first half), Cornerstone, Trinity, Aquinas-II, Benedictine, DePauw, Hope, Kalamazoo, Olivet (first half), Adrian, Alma
Not Included: Grace (first half), Aquinas-I (second half), Wheaton, Carthage, Olivet (second half)

Too Close For Comfort? Yeah, But Not Really

Calvin 73, Alma 64

There was a point in the second half, as the clock was beginning to wind down (not sure if it was with two minutes, five minutes, or even ten minutes remaining), that radio play-by-play man Doug "E. Fresh" Wentworth said something to the effect of "Well, the Knights are leading by six in a game that they should be winning by twenty!"

Should be winning by twenty? Really Doug? Twenty?

I'll agree that the game got a little (OK, a lot) closer near the end than I would have liked, but it wasn't ever a game that they should have won by twenty. More like 11 or 12 or 13 or something.

No one will mistake Alma for a good team this year, they're almost certainly a "bottom half" type Division III team, but they're not the bottom of the bottom. They're not Oberlin bad. According to the Massey ratings, there are some 120 D3 teams that are worse than Alma (#291).

It takes a lot for a game, especially a road game, to have a 20 point expected differential.

Let's take a look at the upcoming schedule for The College of Wooster. They're currently the #1 in the d3hoops.com poll, and they're #4 in the Massey ratings. Undoubtedly one of the best teams in the country.

Wooster has a game upcoming at Kenyon (#264) in which Massey gives the Wooster Scots a 94% chance of winning. The 'expected' point differential? 14 points.

20 point differentials are only expected when it's the best of the best versus the worst of the worst. Sometimes that describes Calvin versus Alma, but Calvin's certainly not "the best" this year, and I wouldn't describe Alma as "the worst". Bad, certainly, but not worst.

Team Chart

Player	%Min	%Shots	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	Ar	TO%	Rb%	OEff
Calvin	1.00	1.00	0.517	1.09	0.29	0.44	0.14	0.55	115.1
Alma	1.00	1.00	0.468	0.97	0.13	0.52	0.14	0.45	100.9

Alma came into the game shooting .488 (eFG%) on the season, so the Knights held them below their average. Alma came in with a total rebounding rate of 47%, so Calvin limited them a bit there as well.

Really, the only thing that it looks like Calvin didn't do very well was force turnovers. You would like to see the other team turn the ball over 20% of the time or more. That's probably the only reason that Alma was allowed to end up with a pretty average 100.9 offensive efficiency rating (points per 100 possessions).

Forcing more turnovers would have pushed Alma's efficiency rating (and point total) down to where we probably would have liked it to be.

Player Chart

Player	%Min	%Shots	eFG%	PPWS	FTr	Ar	TO%	Rb%
Rodts	0.75	0.20	0.722	1.51	0.22	0.07	0.00	0.09
Snikkers	0.68	0.23	0.722	1.43	1.00	0.25	0.26	0.18
Schuster	0.63	0.19	0.143	0.38	0.29	0.06	0.00	0.11
Powell	0.50	0.31	0.389	0.78	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.08
Salo	0.48	0.11	0.000	0.00	0.00	0.16	0.50	0.06
Brink	0.53	0.29	0.500	1.00	0.00	0.10	0.22	0.10
Haverdink	0.28	0.06	1.500	3.00	0.00	0.16	0.00	0.00
Schnyders	0.45	0.30	0.625	1.31	0.50	0.28	0.13	0.15
Kruis	0.38	0.05	1.000	2.00	0.00	0.00	0.50	0.04
DeBoer	0.08	0.45	0.000	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
DeYoung	0.28	0.06	1.000	2.00	0.00	0.16	0.00	0.10
Total	1.00	1.00	0.517	1.09	0.29	0.44	0.14	0.55

The Knights performed pretty well on offense. They shot a smidgen above their season average, they didn't turn it over too frequently, and they rebounded fairly well. I would have like to see more trips to the free throw line perhaps, but it's difficult to complain about a 115.1 offensive efficiency rating.

It was nice to see the bench shoot well in a game that Schuster, Powell, and Salo struggled from the floor. It often seems to me like the Knights get in trouble when Schuster's shots, especially, don't fall.

The name of the game going forward is limiting turnovers. Giving the other team the ball is like giving them two points. You're basically taking one point off the board for your team (OEff divided by 100) and giving one point to the opponent (DEff divided by 100).

The Knights did well in the turnover category on offense on Wednesday, but that needs to continue for the rest of the season.

Alma Preview

Game	Sixteen
Who	Alma Scots
Where	Alma, MI
When	Wed. -- 7:30 PM
Web Video	None
Web Audio	Audio
LiveStats	Stats
Directions	Google Maps

When We Last Met
I was going to begin this blog post with a big wise-crack about the Alma hoops program, but then I remembered that I've been starting with this 'When We Last Met' section, and then I was glad that Calvin faced off against the Scots in the opening round of last year's MIAA tournament so I didn't have to rehash the near-death experience we all suffered in the season's final game (thank you, Brent Schuster!).

So anyway, when we last met, right. Calvin trounced Alma 67-49 at the Van Noord Arena last February in the conference tournament. One of those good old-fashioned 'we'll shoot 46% from the floor, you'll shoot 36%, and we'll out rebound you 45-21' kind of beat downs. You know, the kind we're used to.

Matchup

Matchup	Calvin	Alma	Advantage
Calvin eFG% vs. Alma DeFG%	0.514	0.488	-
Calvin DeFG% vs. Alma eFG%	0.491	0.482	Calvin
Calvin TOr vs. Alma DTOr	0.21	0.16	Calvin
Calvin DTOr vs. Alma TOr	0.18	0.22	-
Calvin ORb% vs. Alma DRb%	0.367	0.676	Calvin
Calvin DRb% vs. Alma ORb%	0.696	0.250	Calvin
Calvin FTr vs. Alma DFTr	0.33	0.32	Alma
Calvin DFTr vs. Alma FTr	0.32	0.29	Calvin
Calvin OEff vs. Alma DEff	106.9	106.0	Calvin
Calvin DEff vs. Alma OEff	103.5	91.0	Calvin

The 'D' on the front of a stat indicates a defensive version of the stat.

The stats are telling me that Calvin is the huge favorite in this contest (no kidding, right?). According to the Massey Ratings, Alma is the worst team that Calvin will face all year.

Let's go through the 'four factors' (in priority order).

Shooting percentages (eFG%) is slanted in Calvin's favor, although Calvin's offense versus Alma's defense rates as a near tie (I called it even).

Alma doesn't seem to force many turnovers (TOr), so that's a big plus for Calvin. Their offensive woes usually stem from poor decision making with the basketball. They'll struggle the most against opponents that force the issue.

Calvin should hold a pretty dominating advantage in rebounding. League average rates are about 32% for the offense and 68% for the defense. Alma's season stats pretty much hit the average DRb% mark, but Calvin's offensive rebounding has been excellent (36-37%). Calvin also sports a plus rating on the defensive glass (nearly 70%), and Alma has struggled mightily (only 25%) rebounding on offense.

The only advantage that I could come up for for Alma is in their ability to prevent Calvin from getting to the free throw line (defensive free throw rate).

Sure To Be Wrong Prediction
Calvin by 10
Need to win level: HIGH
Expected to win level: HIGH

Massey Prediction: Calvin 81, Alma 70