Sports

A Closer Look at 3-pt Defense

~ Kevin Indrebo ~ Leave a comment

markus_shot

Photo by Brian Georgeson

As the opening weekend of the big dance approaches, and Marquette is finally back in where it belongs, I wanted to dig into a stat that will be very relevant to us in Greenville, SC: 3-point defense.

Our first round matchup is against South Carolina, a team that sports one of the highest ranked 3-point defenses in the nation. I’ve seen some fans on #mubb twitter question whether this ranking is deserved, based in part on the relatively poor 3-point offenses in the SEC. I’ve been playing around with the 2017 NCAA Div 1 Men’s Basketball game data provided by Kaggle this week, so I thought I’d write some code to do a brief analysis on this subject.

My method is as follows: For each game a team played, compute:

  • Opponent’s 3-pt % for that game
  • Opponent’s season 3-pt % after removing games played against team of record

I can then compute basic stats on the differences between those paired quantities, and run a hypothesis test to determine how likely it is that any difference is due to chance.

In the tables farther down, I show the basic stats for the top 25 teams using 3 different rankings:

  • Team’s defensive 3-pt %
  • Average difference between opponent’s 3-pt % against team of record and rest of league
  • T-stat of that difference

The columns in each table are:

  • Team
  • Games played
  • Defensive 3-pt %
  • Average of difference for opponent’s 3-pt % (positive = better than average)
  • Standard deviation of difference for opponent’s 3-pt %
  • T-stat on paired differences
  • Bootstrap-resampled p-value on paired differences*

*Bootstrap resampled p-value is a randomized estimate of the p-value. This method is valuable when the sample size is fairly low. P-value refers to the probability that you might encounter a difference as large as the data, if the team’s defense was simply average. In this case, I’m computing a one-tailed test to determine if the team of record is capable of allowing a lower than average 3-pt %. Lower p-values indicate a higher level of confidence that the team is better than average at 3-pt defense.

One other note: as I said, the data comes from Kaggle, and though I assume it’s clean, I can’t be sure there are no errors. I see slight discrepancies between my 3-pt defensive numbers and kenpom.com, so the data may not be perfect.

A couple observations: South Carolina’s 3-pt defense does appear to be better than average, but probably not quite as good as advertised. They are ranked 6th in defensive %, 13th in opponent’s difference %, and 42nd in statistical significance. The lower ranking in significance comes from a higher variance in defensive % from game-to-game, and suggests some of their outperformance may be due to luck. But look who’s highly ranked in all 3 categories (#1 in difference): Duke, a potential second round matchup for Marquette.

(Also, we suck at this aspect of the game. No surprise there.)

Here are the ranked data:

Table I – Ranked by lowest 3-pt defensive %

Rank Team Games OppAvg Diff Stdev T-stat P-value
1 Morgan St 29 28.0% 5.4% 10.3% 2.822 0.0009
2 Rhode Island 33 29.1% 5.8% 10.9% 3.053 0.0005
3 NC Central 30 29.2% 3.9% 12.0% 1.770 0.0382
4 New Mexico St 30 29.8% 4.2% 11.7% 1.975 0.0224
5 Arizona 34 29.9% 5.9% 9.0% 3.808 0.0002
6 South Carolina 31 29.9% 4.6% 15.8% 1.627 0.0496
7 Duke 35 29.9% 6.4% 12.0% 3.140 0.0008
8 Gonzaga 33 30.0% 6.0% 11.1% 3.122 0.0008
9 Alcorn St 29 30.1% 2.8% 11.2% 1.326 0.0933
10 Wichita St 33 30.1% 5.5% 11.6% 2.719 0.0028
11 Minnesota 33 30.3% 5.5% 11.9% 2.658 0.0050
12 Robert Morris 33 30.4% 3.9% 11.7% 1.928 0.0241
13 Nevada 34 30.5% 4.4% 10.6% 2.428 0.0072
14 Louisville 32 30.6% 6.2% 11.1% 3.144 0.0011
15 St Mary’s CA 32 30.7% 5.1% 9.4% 3.084 0.0011
16 Col Charleston 33 30.7% 3.8% 9.0% 2.444 0.0048
17 Florida 32 30.8% 4.1% 10.0% 2.319 0.0065
18 New Orleans 28 30.8% 4.2% 8.6% 2.591 0.0040
19 FL Gulf Coast 30 31.0% 4.9% 9.0% 2.999 0.0011
20 Villanova 34 31.1% 5.5% 7.8% 4.153 0.0000
21 Colorado St 32 31.1% 3.9% 11.4% 1.918 0.0327
22 Seattle 27 31.1% 2.9% 10.8% 1.395 0.0771
23 Illinois St 32 31.1% 4.7% 7.9% 3.368 0.0003
24 Winthrop 30 31.2% 4.6% 10.8% 2.323 0.0092
25 Furman 30 31.5% 4.0% 9.2% 2.377 0.0070
284 Marquette 31 37.0% -1.9% 11.9% -0.885 0.8154

 

Table II – Ranked by biggest opponent’s difference

Rank Team Games OppAvg Diff Stdev T-stat P-value
1 Duke 35 29.9% 6.4% 12.0% 3.140 0.0008
2 Louisville 32 30.6% 6.2% 11.1% 3.144 0.0011
3 Gonzaga 33 30.0% 6.0% 11.1% 3.122 0.0008
4 Arizona 34 29.9% 5.9% 9.0% 3.808 0.0002
5 Rhode Island 33 29.1% 5.8% 10.9% 3.053 0.0005
6 Villanova 34 31.1% 5.5% 7.8% 4.153 0.0000
7 Minnesota 33 30.3% 5.5% 11.9% 2.658 0.0050
8 Wichita St 33 30.1% 5.5% 11.6% 2.719 0.0028
9 Morgan St 29 28.0% 5.4% 10.3% 2.822 0.0009
10 St Mary’s CA 32 30.7% 5.1% 9.4% 3.084 0.0011
11 FL Gulf Coast 30 31.0% 4.9% 9.0% 2.999 0.0011
12 Illinois St 32 31.1% 4.7% 7.9% 3.368 0.0003
13 South Carolina 31 29.9% 4.6% 15.8% 1.627 0.0496
14 Virginia 32 31.6% 4.6% 12.2% 2.146 0.0169
15 Winthrop 30 31.2% 4.6% 10.8% 2.323 0.0092
16 Nevada 34 30.5% 4.4% 10.6% 2.428 0.0072
17 New Mexico St 30 29.8% 4.2% 11.7% 1.975 0.0224
18 New Orleans 28 30.8% 4.2% 8.6% 2.591 0.0040
19 BYU 33 32.2% 4.1% 11.2% 2.111 0.0182
20 Florida 32 30.8% 4.1% 10.0% 2.319 0.0065
21 Baylor 31 31.6% 4.0% 9.9% 2.251 0.0123
22 Furman 30 31.5% 4.0% 9.2% 2.377 0.0070
23 Robert Morris 33 30.4% 3.9% 11.7% 1.928 0.0241
24 NC Central 30 29.2% 3.9% 12.0% 1.770 0.0382
25 Colorado St 32 31.1% 3.9% 11.4% 1.918 0.0327
267 Marquette 31 37.0% -1.9% 11.9% -0.885 0.8154

 

Table III – Ranked by strongest statistical significance

Rank Team Games OppAvg Diff Stdev T-stat P-value
1 Villanova 34 31.1% 5.5% 7.8% 4.153 0.0000
2 Arizona 34 29.9% 5.9% 9.0% 3.808 0.0002
3 Illinois St 32 31.1% 4.7% 7.9% 3.368 0.0003
4 Louisville 32 30.6% 6.2% 11.1% 3.144 0.0011
5 Duke 35 29.9% 6.4% 12.0% 3.140 0.0008
6 Gonzaga 33 30.0% 6.0% 11.1% 3.122 0.0008
7 St Mary’s CA 32 30.7% 5.1% 9.4% 3.084 0.0011
8 Rhode Island 33 29.1% 5.8% 10.9% 3.053 0.0005
9 FL Gulf Coast 30 31.0% 4.9% 9.0% 2.999 0.0011
10 Morgan St 29 28.0% 5.4% 10.3% 2.822 0.0009
11 Wichita St 33 30.1% 5.5% 11.6% 2.719 0.0028
12 Minnesota 33 30.3% 5.5% 11.9% 2.658 0.0050
13 New Orleans 28 30.8% 4.2% 8.6% 2.591 0.0040
14 Col Charleston 33 30.7% 3.8% 9.0% 2.444 0.0048
15 Nevada 34 30.5% 4.4% 10.6% 2.428 0.0072
16 Furman 30 31.5% 4.0% 9.2% 2.377 0.0070
17 Winthrop 30 31.2% 4.6% 10.8% 2.323 0.0092
18 Florida 32 30.8% 4.1% 10.0% 2.319 0.0065
19 Wyoming 30 32.1% 3.0% 7.0% 2.310 0.0096
20 Baylor 31 31.6% 4.0% 9.9% 2.251 0.0123
21 St Peter’s 32 31.9% 3.2% 8.2% 2.221 0.0119
22 Virginia 32 31.6% 4.6% 12.2% 2.146 0.0169
23 BYU 33 32.2% 4.1% 11.2% 2.111 0.0182
24 Oregon 33 31.9% 3.7% 10.2% 2.067 0.0209
25 Texas 33 32.6% 3.8% 10.5% 2.052 0.0206
42 South Carolina 31 29.9% 4.6% 15.8% 1.627 0.0496
266 Marquette 31 37.0% -1.9% 11.9% -0.885 0.8154

 

 

My 2016 NCAA Bracket

~ Kevin Indrebo ~ Leave a comment

In my previous post, I introduced the quantitative rating system I’m using this year as a guide for filling out my bracket. I didn’t go strictly by the book – I went with the lower rated team on a small number of occasions. I did this mostly because the system’s picks were too boring (not enough upsets). Without further ado…

bracket2016

My first discretionary call was taking Yale over Baylor. I couldn’t NOT pick a 12-5 upset, and according to my system, this is the most probable one.

I then took Cincinnati over Oregon in the second round, even though Oregon is rated higher. It seems like this year has the potential to be really bloody, and I doubt all the 1 seeds will make it through to the next weekend. I have Oregon as the lowest rated 1 seed (by a fair margin), so I knocked those ducks out.

I also felt a need to have at least one low rated seed (10+) in the sweet 16 (I expect there will be more than 1, possibly several). Gonzaga looked like the most probable team to pull this off.

Also, though the ratings on my previous post show Kansas as the #1 team, I reran the algorithm after eliminating the Michigan St games that Denzel Valentine missed due to injury, and that change put the Spartans on top. Was I cheating to get the team I wanted to pick as the champs into the #1 slot in my system? Yeah, sure, maybe. But Valentine is arguably the best player in the nation, and missing him obviously hurt their rating.

One final note before I display the game-by-game win probabilities throughout the tournament (adhering to my system’s calls): I did another trial with my algorithm where I replaced the margin-of-victory game probability extrapolation with one that ignores the score. I noticed a couple of teams rated much higher in those results, and I think they could be dangerous – St. Joe’s and Seton Hall.

Below, you can see the game-by-game probabilities by round given by my system:

First Round

Kansas 93.21% Austin Peay 6.79%
Connecticut 56.33% Colorado 43.67%
Maryland 65.78% San Diego St 34.22%
California 63.98% Hawaii 36.02%
Arizona 53.62% Wichita St 46.38%
Miami FL 80.45% Buffalo 19.55%
Iowa 67.52% Temple 32.48%
Villanova 87.00% UNC Asheville 13.00%
Oregon 92.62% Holy Cross 7.38%
Cincinnati 54.43% St Joseph’s PA 45.57%
Baylor 63.76% Yale 36.24%
Duke 74.28% UNC Wilmington 25.72%
Texas 68.31% Northern Iowa 31.69%
Texas A&M 80.12% WI Green Bay 19.88%
VA Commonwealth 57.44% Oregon St 42.56%
Oklahoma 81.15% CS Bakersfield 18.85%
North Carolina 91.22% FL Gulf Coast 8.78%
USC 57.14% Providence 42.86%
Indiana 76.02% Chattanooga 23.98%
Kentucky 75.99% Stony Brook 24.01%
Notre Dame 53.04% Michigan 46.96%
West Virginia 74.10% SF Austin 25.90%
Pittsburgh 54.58% Wisconsin 45.42%
Xavier 81.93% Weber St 18.07%
Virginia 91.86% Hampton 8.14%
Butler 54.25% Texas Tech 45.75%
Purdue 73.95% Ark Little Rock 26.05%
Iowa St 74.52% Iona 25.48%
Gonzaga 51.98% Seton Hall 48.02%
Utah 76.29% Fresno St 23.71%
Syracuse 53.28% Dayton 46.72%
Michigan St 88.23% MTSU 11.77%

Second Round

Kansas 69.73% Connecticut 30.27%
Maryland 51.87% California 48.13%
Arizona 50.69% Miami FL 49.31%
Villanova 66.34% Iowa 33.66%
Oregon 59.89% Cincinnati 40.11%
Duke 53.83% Baylor 46.17%
Texas A&M 57.86% Texas 42.14%
Oklahoma 65.14% VA Commonwealth 34.86%
North Carolina 70.49% USC 29.51%
Kentucky 52.76% Indiana 47.24%
West Virginia 68.30% Notre Dame 31.70%
Xavier 59.40% Pittsburgh 40.60%
Virginia 66.83% Butler 33.17%
Purdue 55.01% Iowa St 44.99%
Utah 53.54% Gonzaga 46.46%
Michigan St 75.56% Syracuse 24.44%

Sweet Sixteen

Kansas 65.72% Maryland 34.28%
Villanova 59.12% Arizona 40.88%
Duke 51.58% Oregon 48.42%
Oklahoma 57.97% Texas A&M 42.03%
North Carolina 58.84% Kentucky 41.16%
West Virginia 59.09% Xavier 40.91%
Virginia 54.40% Purdue 45.60%
Michigan St 68.07% Utah 31.93%

Elite Eight

Kansas 53.32% Villanova 46.68%
Oklahoma 54.64% Duke 45.36%
North Carolina 52.13% West Virginia 47.87%
Michigan St 56.94% Virginia 43.06%

Final Four

Kansas 57.20% Oklahoma 42.80%
Michigan St 53.62% North Carolina 46.38%

Championship

Michigan St 51.71% Kansas 48.29%

 

Yet Another CBB Rating System

~ Kevin Indrebo ~ Leave a comment

It’s here! March Madness, that time of year where we all try to predict how a bunch of 20-year-olds playing a game filled with randomness will perform. It’s fun! But we sure don’t bet real money on it, cause that would be illegal!

Actually guys, it’s not as much fun for me again this year, because, for the 3rd consecutive season, my team was not invited to keep playing. Someone please fix this. Sigh…

Anyway, this year I decided to build my own quantitative rating and prediction system to help me fill out my bracket. Here’s how my system works:

I define a numeric rating, R(i), for each team i. I also define the probability of team i defeating team j on a neutral court as

P(i->j) = R(i) / (R(i) + R(j)).

I then create a cost function, defined over all games played during the season, which is the sum over

[P(i->j) – GP(i->j)]^2,

where GP(i->j) is an estimated game probability that depends only on the result of each individual game. The GP probability value for each game must be provided as an input to the algorithm.

Of course, coming up with a good value for GP(i->j) is tricky, since we only have one occurrence (one result) for each game. The simplest method for determining GP(i->j) is to assign 100% probability if team i defeated team j, and 0% otherwise. But this ignores home/away, so it’s not ideal.

For my system, I decided to build a model based on the home/away adjusted margin of victory for the game. If team i wins by a large margin, P(i->j) will be close to 100%, but if it’s a close game, the value will be closer to 50%. (The home/away factor adjusts the margin in favor of the road team by 3.5 points)

To compute the final ratings for all teams, I initialize all teams with an equal rating (1.0) and perform an iterative optimization that minimizes the overall cost function with respect to the ratings. I use gradient descent as the optimization procedure.

Below, I list my ratings for the top 100 teams in division 1. (My Marquette Golden Eagles just managed to sneak in at #99, woo!). Note that the value of a team’s rating carries no particular meaning by itself – it’s only useful when compared to the other team ratings.

Rank Team Rating
1 Kansas 8.779
2 Michigan St 8.317
3 North Carolina 8.174
4 Villanova 7.717
5 West Virginia 7.504
6 Virginia 7.149
7 Louisville 6.637
8 Oklahoma 6.602
9 Purdue 6.035
10 Kentucky 5.737
11 Duke 5.483
12 Arizona 5.342
13 Xavier 5.200
14 Miami FL 5.199
15 Oregon 5.151
16 Indiana 5.136
17 Iowa St 4.919
18 Texas A&M 4.802
19 Baylor 4.700
20 Maryland 4.601
21 SMU 4.514
22 Utah 4.400
23 Iowa 4.390
24 California 4.266
25 Vanderbilt 4.246
26 Wichita St 3.983
27 Gonzaga 3.842
28 Connecticut 3.827
29 Pittsburgh 3.552
30 Butler 3.543
31 Seton Hall 3.538
32 VA Commonwealth 3.531
33 Notre Dame 3.496
34 Texas 3.487
35 USC 3.465
36 Cincinnati 3.444
37 Florida 3.443
38 St Mary’s CA 3.221
39 Creighton 3.182
40 South Carolina 3.154
41 Kansas St 3.117
42 Michigan 3.107
43 Syracuse 3.057
44 Texas Tech 2.990
45 Colorado 2.969
46 Wisconsin 2.953
47 St Joseph’s PA 2.882
48 Washington 2.825
49 Florida St 2.791
50 Valparaiso 2.700
51 Dayton 2.682
52 Yale 2.671
53 SF Austin 2.620
54 Oregon St 2.617
55 Georgia Tech 2.589
56 Clemson 2.589
57 Providence 2.559
58 Northwestern 2.529
59 Ohio St 2.515
60 Georgia 2.467
61 Hawaii 2.400
62 San Diego St 2.388
63 BYU 2.353
64 Arkansas 2.330
65 UCLA 2.309
66 Tulsa 2.297
67 G Washington 2.284
68 Virginia Tech 2.209
69 Arizona St 2.182
70 Georgetown 2.167
71 Houston 2.114
72 Ark Little Rock 2.110
73 Rhode Island 2.089
74 Nebraska 2.072
75 UC Irvine 2.046
76 Mississippi 2.045
77 Stanford 2.029
78 LSU 2.023
79 Princeton 2.012
80 NC State 2.006
81 Memphis 2.003
82 Monmouth NJ 1.994
83 Evansville 1.949
84 Alabama 1.925
85 St Bonaventure 1.921
86 UNC Wilmington 1.896
87 Richmond 1.896
88 S Dakota St 1.887
89 Temple 1.884
90 Mississippi St 1.881
91 Stony Brook 1.806
92 Oklahoma St 1.794
93 Akron 1.787
94 Tennessee 1.764
95 Davidson 1.751
96 William & Mary 1.749
97 Santa Barbara 1.732
98 James Madison 1.731
99 Marquette 1.727
100 Iona 1.674

Ranting on the RPI

~ Kevin Indrebo ~ Leave a comment

College basketball starts this week! It seems like it’s been a longer offseason than normal to me. I thought it would never get here…

I guess that’s just how it works when your team finishes (tied for) last in conference one year, but you expect big things from the upcoming season. MU has a top 10 ranked recruiting class, including the phenom Henry Ellenson, who many think will be a top 10 pick in this year’s NBA draft. So I’m super excited, but…

I’m a little concerned that we may have screwed ourselves when it comes to selection/seeding for the NCAA tournament. Our non-conference schedule is set up in such a way that we play a handful of games against quality opponents (Belmont, Iowa, LSU, NC State/ASU, Wisconsin), but then face a slew of total crap. I mean the real bottom feeders in division I. In December/January, we play 7 games against teams not expected to finish within the top 300. Barring some type of unpredictable catastrophe, we will win all those games. Easily.

But here’s the problem. The NCAA selection committee uses the RPI as a ranking tool to guide them when selecting/seeding the tourney. It’s a simple (really, simplistic) formula for rating teams, based on win percentage (25%), opponent’s win percentage (50%), and opponent’s-opponent’s win percentage (25%). And this rating system is flawed. The MU non-conference SOS (strength of schedule) will look terrible, and if you only look at the rating itself, it will look like MU didn’t play a single decent team.

I’m far from the first person to complain about the RPI and using it for selection/seeding. But I think it’s likely to anger me even more than usual this year due to my team’s schedule. And I want to add my own view, which I think differs somewhat from the most common sentiments.

The biggest criticism I’ve heard about the RPI is that it rewards achievement rather than performance – meaning a win is a win no matter how the 2 teams performed during the game. And it turns out that performance is a much better predictor than end result. The KenPom ratings are probably the most well-known system that rates teams based on performance. Another common criticism is that it weights SOS (75%) too much in the formula.

But there’s another flaw with the RPI that I believe is even worse. Because the rating for a team is an aggregation of win/loss percentage over all games, the actual results of individual games don’t even matter. And every single game is given equal weight, no matter how uninteresting the result. So, imagine a scenario where a bubble team, with a current RPI of 50, plays a bottomfeeder, with an RPI of 325. Let’s say the bubble team wins by 35 points. Expected result, right? This result wouldn’t change any sane person’s opinion of the bubble team. But what happens? The bubble team’s RPI is almost guaranteed to drop by a significant amount. That makes no logical sense. I refuse to believe in the validity of a system that punishes teams for winning games they are expected to win.

Another consequence of this is that tournament teams are rewarded for scheduling a slew of mediocre competition, while punished for playing some really good teams and a few really bad teams. The really bad opponents will kill your SOS, enough that playing those really good teams won’t be enough to balance it out. And if you schedule a bunch of games against good teams, you’ll probably lose some. Much safer, much better, to avoid playing teams that might beat you, as long as you also avoid the really terrible teams with atrocious records. No one can tell me this system is good for the game.

So what could we do to fix this problem? KenPom (and others) use performance, which includes margin of victory. But another way to deal with this issue, even without using scoring margins, is to weight games based on information.

When you weight games based on information, you’ll ignore results that tell you nothing you didn’t already know. Example: if UNC is currently ranked 5th, and they beat the 250th team, that result tells you nothing. So it should have no impact on the ratings. If, however, UNC loses to the 250th team, that tells you a lot, since it’s a big surprise, and should have a major impact. If UNC beats the 25th best team, that does tell you something, as #25 will sometimes beat #5, so that game should be given a moderate weight. But #25 beating #5 would be given an even higher weight, since it’s a more surprising result.

Big East MBB Predictions

~ Kevin Indrebo ~ Leave a comment

College basketball is almost here!

Now that season tickets are out, and the temperature around here is dropping rapidly (we had highs over 70 Monday-Wednesday this week!), it definitely feels like time for college basketball. I’m both optimistic and excited about the Marquette men’s team this year. These last couple of seasons have been rough, but I feel pretty confident that we’ve righted the ship.

I figured I would offer up my preseason picks for the Big East. I’m late to the game, and everyone else has already done this, but I’m doing it anyway. Here’s a quick rundown on the official Big East picks by another Marquette fan.

Here are my selections (I assure you there’s no MU bias whatsoever…). I project the bolded teams to make the NCAA tournament:

Teams:

  1. Villanova
  2. Butler
  3. Georgetown
  4. Marquette
  5. Xavier
  6. Providence
  7. Seton Hall
  8. Creighton
  9. DePaul
  10. St. John’s

Player of the year

Kris Dunn, Providence

Rookie of the year

Henry Ellenson, Marquette

All-Big East 1st Team

Kellen Dunham, Butler
Ryan Arcidiacono, Villanova
D`Vauntes Smith-Rivera, Georgetown
Henry Ellenson, Marquette
Daniel Ochefu, Villanova
(Kris Dunn)

All-Big East 2nd Team

Trevon Bluiett, Xavier
Josh Hart, Villanova
Isaiah Whitehead, Seton Hall
Roosevelt Jones, Butler
Angel Delgado, Seton Hall

Thoughts on the MUBB Italy Trip

~ Kevin Indrebo ~ Leave a comment

The Marquette men’s basketball team just finished its tour of Italy, which included four games against European teams. Because of the level of competition, it’s impossible to draw any strong conclusions about the state of our team at this point, but I did see a few things in the games I watched that I found encouraging.

Here are my impressions from what I saw:

Traci Carter impressed me as much as anyone on the team. He’s quick and active, producing a number of steals, and he consistently pushed the ball up the court, showing good speed. Given his inexperience, I’m sure he’ll struggle at times as our starting PG early on, but I believe we have a real keeper here. I think the PG position will be in good hands for many years.

Henry Ellenson looks just as advertised, which is to say awesome. His opponents in the Big East will be larger and more athletic than what he saw in Italy, but I expect him to dominate at times even so.

Jajuan Johnson’s jump shot form is much improved. I’m not going to try to make any predictions on what kind of percentage he will shoot this season, but he isn’t going to be the ultra-weak outside shooter he was last year.

Duane Wilson is ready to be one of the top players in the Big East.

Sandy Cohen looks more confident, and I am expecting him to start during the season like he did in Italy. I think he’ll be a major contributor this season.

My main concern came from game 1 against Hauker, where we struggled up until the last seven minutes or so. The score didn’t mean much, but we continued to struggle with some of the same problems as last year, especially defensive rebounding, defensive rotations, and shooting. We cleaned those up somewhat in the second half and more so in the final three games, but it’s hard to say how much of that was our progress and how much was our opponents failing to compete.

All in all, I’m very happy with how the trip went – including no injuries – and I’m really glad that the team put so much effort into making the games and analysis available to the fans. Great work by everyone involved!