The regular season for Atlantic 10 Men’s Basketball has come to a close and everyone now turns their attention to Brooklyn. This season I have started tracking some advanced stats for both teams and players in the Atlantic 10. I wanted to see where my Dayton Flyers compared individually and as a team to their A10 peers. After my appearance on the Hey10 Podcast, the fine folks at GiantKiller reached across the metaphorical Atlantic 10 aisle and asked if would like to share these stats with you.
Borrowing the idea from the great basketball stats website Positive Residual, I started looking at the offensive and defensive ratings for each Atlantic 10 team over a rolling ten game sample and the league average for each of these ten games. We could use this data and graphs to get an idea of the form of each team in the league and how they were playing on both ends. Was a team shutting down their opponent on the defensive end? Are they a point scoring juggernaut? We could try to answer these questions with this data, but if math is not your forte you may be asking yourself ‘What the heck are offensive and defensive ratings?’
Rolling Ten Game Offensive and Defensive Ratings for @A10MBB. Here is how every #A10 team has been on each side of the ball on the eve of the Atlantic 10 Tournament. pic.twitter.com/nUwatWqtoE
— Matt Rhein (@mattrhein86) March 13, 2019
Simply put both offensive and defensive rating measure how many points a team either scored on offense or conceded on defense in 100 possessions. I have had a few questions about what is good and what is bad (we will go slow for the VCU fans, am I right guys???) for each. For offensive ratings, the higher the better while the opposite is true for defensive ratings. So with the Atlantic 10 season in the books, do these numbers suggest there could be an upset in Brooklyn and a dark-horse cutting down the nets on Sunday?
I hate to be the bearer of bad news and I certainly take no joy in reporting it, but probably not. Sorry everyone, but VCU is really good. Not only are they really good, but they have not taken the foot off the gas pedal despite pulling away from the rest of the pack in the A10 standings. In every one of their last ten games, they had a better offensive rating than the league average. In eight of their last ten games, they had a better defensive rating than the league average. On both sides of the floor, VCU have been very impressive. VCU was the best team this season and will be certain favorites for the Atlantic 10 Tournament.
Many may not know that the University of Dayton is a Catholic University and I certainly will be lighting a few candles to Our Lady of Perpetual Sports Variance starting Friday. The great (or awful depending on who you ask) about a single elimination tournament is variance! Despite VCU seeming to be an unbeatable juggernaut, one bad night can me a short trip for the black and gold half of Richmond. Do the numbers suggest which teams can send the Rams back to their below than average sized gym? Yes they do, friend.
The most likely candidates to cut down the nets out-with VCU seem to be those teams also with the double-bye. Davidson seemed destine to compete with VCU for the league crown much of the season, but fell by the wayside as the season progressed. However, for the most part they were still able to be efficient on offense despite not being able to keep pace with Virginia Commonwealth in the standings.
It may not be the “Hey, remember we had Steph” Davidson three point shooting team, but the team can still score. Davidson is not quite the defensive team VCU is, but are no slouches shutting opponents down recently either. With not having to possibly face the Rams until the finals, Davidson seem like worthy candidates of possibly cutting down the nets in Barclays.
Dayton and St. Bonaventure would seem like the other logical choices of teams to win the Atlantic 10 tournament outside of VCU. Both have done relatively well on the court as the season came to an end and their offensive and defensive ratings back this up. If either the Bonnies or the Flyers can put together a complete game they are certainly capable of beating the Rams. However, you could make a reasonable argument against either being able to do that based on their play this season.
These stats can help us take a guess who will be cutting the nets down in Brooklyn, but strange stuff can happen. On Wednesday, the Pillow Fight Round, as dubbed by Petey Buckets of this parish, gets underway. While Fordham-Richmond and UMass-George Washington may not be must see TV, it brings us a step closer to crowning a champion of the Atlantic 10. We will be updating these graphs as the tournament unfolds, so stay tuned!
Graphs updated through games on March 15th.
