Weekly Breakdown: Week 7

Recaps for Thursdays games can be found right here. I'm not going to individually recap Saturday's games, though. So, I'll present the Efficiency Margins instead.

Rk	Team	Pace	OE	DE	EM	Last Wk	Change
1	Hillsdale	62.3	1.16	0.98	0.18	1	0
2	Wayne State	63.1	1.15	0.98	0.16	2	0
3	Findlay	66.6	1.15	1.02	0.12	3	0
4	Michigan Tech	61.9	1.11	1.01	0.10	4	0
5	Northwood	64.6	1.07	1.00	0.06	5	0
6	Grand Valley State	60.8	1.04	0.98	0.05	10	4
7	Ferris State	63.8	1.04	0.99	0.05	6	-1
8	Ashland	66.5	1.06	1.07	-0.01	9	1
9	Saginaw Valley State	67.3	0.98	1.01	-0.03	7	-2
10	Lake Superior State	68.0	1.00	1.05	-0.04	8	-2
11	Tiffin	69.4	1.00	1.10	-0.09	11	0
12	Northern Michigan	65.0	0.95	1.07	-0.12	12	0
13	Lake Erie	66.3	0.90	1.03	-0.13	13	0
14	Ohio Dominican	68.5	0.90	1.14	-0.25	14	0

The top four in the GLIAC have remained the same. but there was some movement. I'll look at the conference in four tiers.

The Top Tier - Hillsdale, Wayne State, Findlay, Michigan Tech
I feel that you can re-rank the top four in almost any way you want. When using my shooting-regressed efficiency numbers, I get a top four teams of: Wayne State (+0.11 efficiency margin), Ferris State (+0.10), Findlay (+0.10) and Hillsdale (+0.09). You may notice that the regressed ratings drop Michigan Tech -- all the way down to eighth! -- due primarily to regressing their .422 three-point shooting mark down to .386. It also moves Ferris up by bumping up it's currently sub-standard shooting to being closer to average. Since the Bulldogs have taken less shots total  than all but four other teams, they are getting regressed upwards. Either way, it's hard to argue with some combination of Hillsdale, Wayne State and Findlay atop the conference, at the very least.

The Second Cut - Northwood, Grand Valley, Ferris State
I already alluded to Ferris State being potentially better than we really think already, so I'll focus a bit more on Northwood and GVSU. The Timberwolves offer up above-average offense and defense, but not quite to the elite level as the four teams above them. They get to the free throw line and chuck-up an above average amount of three's (relative to their two-point attempts) in the conference. Regressing their data actually adds to their offense a tick, but drops their overall defense from above-average to right at average. Grand Valley, on the other hand, features one of the best defenses in the conference allowing just 0.98 points per possession. That puts them in a virtual three-way tie with Hilldale (just ahead of GVSU) and Wayne State (just behind GVSU). The Lakers slow pace will always give my regressed-shooting numbers a bit of a fit as they play quite a slow tempo. As a result, they allow fewer shots per game on average, which regresses them more than other teams. As such, their regressed-shooting defensive efficiency is just 1.02 -- from best in the league to just a bit better than average.

The Next Three - Ashland, Saginaw Valley, Lake Superior State
Lake State sports a 5-9 record in conference play and Ashland is 8-6 but the difference between the two isn't that much. Ashland's being barely outscored on a per-possession basis this year while LSSU sits at  -0.04 efficiency margin. Saginaw Valley comes in the middle at -0.03. Ashland's been riding above-average two-point shooting this year -- about 4% better than league average -- which has buoyed their offense. SVSU and LSSU get to the free throw line at an above-average rate which helps their slightly-sub-standard shooting. I actually get SVSU as the best of the three-team bunch when combining my regressed model with the raw data but it's not by a significant margin.

The Final Four - Tiffin, Northern Michigan, Lake Erie, Ohio Dominican
The Tiffin Dragons have a little bit of a lead on the other three teams in this group, and that comes by them scoring a point-per-possession while no one else is over 0.95 PPP -- two of the teams score at a 0.90 rate. All of these teams are at the bottom for a reason, though, as none of them are good defensively. The best of the bunch is Lake Erie who give up 1.03 PPP which is actually slightly better than average and they do it by forcing copious amounts of turnovers. Maybe I'm discrediting the top three of this group by putting ODU in there with them, but the Panthers aren't as bad as their raw -0.25 efficiency margin indicates. My regressed model puts them at -0.13 which is just 0.03 behind my second-to-last team in shooting-regressed model, the Tiffin Dragons.