Light card, and it looks like the EWU game is my only play today, so I thought I'd write just a little about methodology.
Yesterday was an excellent example of a losing day that I can't get upset about. As I've said before, pace of play is the single biggest aspect of playing totals for me. I am pretty confident in my ability to predict the pace of games in terms of possessions per game. If I can get that part of the game right, it's usually not too hard to pick and over/under based on points per possession. But last night shows how easily points per possession can vary. Let's look at each game...
St Bonnie's/URI - This was the game where I missed the pace by a little. I had 70+ possessions and it ended with 68. If they had gotten to 71 possessions like I thought, the over would have hit based on the points per possession throughout the game. This is loss is on my failure to correctly predict pace.
Toledo/Detroit - This one I actually overestimated the possessions. I had 76 and it ended with 75. The problem here is that both teams exceeded their average points per possession by about 10%. This kind of loss doesn't bother me very much because of the high variance in efficiency. That said, I could have weighed defensive efficiency (or inefficiency in this case) a little more.
URI/Bama - I didn't post a possession estimate for this one, but the game went way over my number of possessions. It finished with 77 possessions. At even a modest 1 point per possession this game would have sailed over. Unfortunately, both teams were at least 10% below their season efficiency numbers. Like the Detroit game, this one doesn't bother me as much.
Just a few thoughts as we move forward. With two losing days in a row, I think it's always a good idea to take a step back and evaluate what is working and what isn't.
Yesterday was an excellent example of a losing day that I can't get upset about. As I've said before, pace of play is the single biggest aspect of playing totals for me. I am pretty confident in my ability to predict the pace of games in terms of possessions per game. If I can get that part of the game right, it's usually not too hard to pick and over/under based on points per possession. But last night shows how easily points per possession can vary. Let's look at each game...
St Bonnie's/URI - This was the game where I missed the pace by a little. I had 70+ possessions and it ended with 68. If they had gotten to 71 possessions like I thought, the over would have hit based on the points per possession throughout the game. This is loss is on my failure to correctly predict pace.
Toledo/Detroit - This one I actually overestimated the possessions. I had 76 and it ended with 75. The problem here is that both teams exceeded their average points per possession by about 10%. This kind of loss doesn't bother me very much because of the high variance in efficiency. That said, I could have weighed defensive efficiency (or inefficiency in this case) a little more.
URI/Bama - I didn't post a possession estimate for this one, but the game went way over my number of possessions. It finished with 77 possessions. At even a modest 1 point per possession this game would have sailed over. Unfortunately, both teams were at least 10% below their season efficiency numbers. Like the Detroit game, this one doesn't bother me as much.
Just a few thoughts as we move forward. With two losing days in a row, I think it's always a good idea to take a step back and evaluate what is working and what isn't.
Quick glance at the box score says 74 or 75 possessions. FTs were the difference as neither team shot well. In all, 44 points came from the line. Nice to have a few "outs" in games like this.
