Reply To: Early Season Evaluation

Forum Forum Lehigh Sports Lehigh Men’s Basketball Early Season Evaluation Reply To: Early Season Evaluation

#24334
Bison137
Bison137
Participant

[quote=24332]I think tomorrow’s game at RMU is our best bet for a D1 win before PL play. On paper, it should be very tight. . . .

I wish I had access to KenPom’s raw data and tools. I’d be really interested to see if the accepted home-court advantage of roughly 4 points holds true for smaller programs. It makes sense to me in an environment like Cameron or Rupp, but is it real in Stabler or at other small-crowd venues?

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1. One issue for RMU, as it has been for LU, is that they have had some injury issues. Tate has missed most of the year and two other starters have missed some games. If they are healthy, they are dangerous. May not be healthy at this point though.

2. Back in 2008, I did an analysis based on three years of PL data. It indicated that there was a home court edge of about 3.5 points over that period. The advantage clearly isn’t due to the crowd size or noise in most venues. I think it is a combination of the wear and tear of travel – bus rides, hotels, etc – plus being more comfortable with the home shooting background etc

Just now I looked back at the last two years of PL league games. In 2015 home teams were 54-36 (60%), while in 2014 they went 50-40 (56%). Overall that produces a W-L record of 104-76 (58%) when the expected pct, of course, is 50% if there is no advantage. That is meaningful, but I have forgotten the probability formulas.

Bucknell is a special case but fwiw Bucknell’s all-time record in league games in Sojka is 93-21 (82%).