NCDA PACE Stats for 2012-2013

Check out the full spreadsheet here.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I like baseball. They also know that I am enamored with sabermetrics- that is, advanced baseball statistics. I regularly surf Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference, and I annually buy the Baseball Prospectus. WAR, OPS+, FIP, BABIP, and UZR are all words I often use in my vocabulary.

If you’re lost right now, go rent the movie Moneyball, or look at Bill James’ wikipedia.

My love of baseball statistics has led to me wanting there to be something, anything! to quantify the success a team has other than Wins and Losses. While we’re still a ways away from monitoring Kills, Catches, Blocks, Kill %, etc, I have come up with a nifty little statistic that I personally like- PACE.

PACE has been used in basketball especially to compare teams. Sure, Team X might score 90 ppg to Team Y’s 95 ppg, but maybe Team Y is averaging 5 more possessions than Team X. This is good way in balancing out teams based on the speed of their play, and as you’ll see, a good way to compare teams.

I have broken PACE down into a few simple statistics:

  • Regulation Points Won: Simply, how many points a team scores during the season (not including OT)
  • Regulation Points Lost: Conversely, how many points a team allowed during the season (not including OT)
  • OT Points Won: How many times a team won an OT point during the season.
  • OT Points Lost: How many times a team lost an OT point during a season.
  • Total Points: Total points played (Reg Points Won + Reg Points Lost + OTW + OTL) during a season
  • Points Finished Per Game: Total Points/Games Played. This is points finished, not played, because unfortunately there could be as many as two unscoring points played during a game.
  • Regulation Points Per Minute: Points Finished/50 minutes. This shows how long it takes on average to play a point out. Notice the regulation part- I take out the OTW and OTL because those are untimed, and thus vary significantly.
  • Offensive Points Per Minute: OPPM shows how many points a team scores per minute played. It is Reg Points Scored/Games Played/50 minutes.
  • Defensive Points Per Minute: DPPM shows how often a team allows a point. It is Reg Points Allowed/Games/50 minutes.
  • NET Rating: This is what is the best way of comparing teams using PACE. The NET rating is OPPM-DPPM. A positive NET is good, a negative NET is well, not so good.

Stats (Minimum 3 games played)-

Top Five OPPM:

  1. GVSU .079 OPPM
  2. UK .073 OPPM
  3. MSU .073 OPPM
  4. Kent .065 OPPM
  5. JMU .062 OPPM

Top Five DPPM:

  1. GVSU .016 DPPM
  2. JMU .017 DPPM
  3. UK .018 DPPM
  4. Kent .019 DPPM
  5. MSU .023 DPPM

NET RATING:

  1. GVSU .063
  2. UK .055
  3. MSU .050
  4. Kent .046
  5. JMU .045
  6. SVSU .022
  7. UWP .013
  8. OSU .005
  9. UMD .002
  10. TU -.003
  11. CMU -.022
  12. MAD -.027
  13. WKU -.029
  14. DPU -.038
  15. BGSU -.051
  16. MU -.067
  17. RIT -.075
  18. NSULA -.080
  19. PSU -105
  20. VCU -.133
  21. UNL -.166

Notice the top four teams in NET? They just happen to be the Final Four teams from this past season.

 

Comment if you have any opinions or thoughts on these stats!

Author: hiller87

Former Captain of the MSU Club Dodgeball Team, former NCDA Chief of Content.

4 thoughts on “NCDA PACE Stats for 2012-2013”

  1. I think i’m going to put the coding team on this and possibly do some automation for this. I think it’s a solid statistic at cursory glance

  2. This is a very good adaptation of pace stats to dodgeball, Sam.

    GVSU was using stats to analyze team (and player) performance back in 2011. Throws, kills, times hit, etc the whole thing. Most varsity dodgeball players record kills on 10-20% of throws, which is a useful thing to know if you can track it. I’m guessing that percentage has dropped over the last two seasons.

    Two years ago we found that it was our defense that was a weak link on the team, causing us to lose games. Fixing that took us from maybe the fourth best team to the second best.

    SVSUs 2012 title is the single best example that defense was undervalued in the NCDA. That team featured a lock down defense that they leaned on in tournaments. The Cardinals proved you can win championships without having the best offense.

    it’s still usually the team with the best offense that wins the title. The ability to score lots of points gives you a considerable margin for error that you don’t have if you are awesome at preventing points, but less good at scoring.

  3. If you want something that can improve a team stat in the future, I would focus on a strength of schedule adjustment. I think this is probably the best explanation of SVSU falling out of the top five: they’re getting no bonus for playing a high % of their schedule against GVSU and MSU (in essence, any ranking system from 2011, 12, 13 is going to need some sort of a Michigan adjustment…the MDC is such a gauntlet that a top five NCDA power takes 2-3 losses every year).

    2014 figures to be a year of more parity with JMU and UK among a group of non-Michigan teams on the rise.

    1. Yep, SOS is something I’m gonna work on when I get the time. I don’t have a program for this (doing it out on my calculator) so it will take a little time to adjust things. Thanks Greg!

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