Diaries

Yes. I realize that it is still May.

Yes. May is still somewhat far from September.

Yes. I am a bit psychotic for working on wallpapers for the upcoming season so...early.

Yes. I'm expecting my second child in July and will most likely lose all free-time and sleep I currently enjoy.

That being said, I am really excited about this year's Under the Lights game and all the wonderful wallpaper ideas I have for this year's edition.  Because of "Yes" #4, I am trying to get as much work done early as I can.  Naturally, I will have to do some work DURING the season, but I'm hopeful I'll be AT the ND game this year, and thus will not have time for my normal insomniac-like last-minute wallpaper post.  So there you have it - my full justification for posting this wallpaper now.

Actually, this wallpaper was intended as more of a "poster" feel.  You could slide an Adidas logo quite nicely onto it, IMHO, and it could pass for part of their promotional material.  I liked the idea, even if it is predictable, and I think it turned out pretty well.  Let me know what you think.  The next UTL2 wallpaper I work on will most likely feature a chicken.  Just sayin'.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.  As always, a mobile version will follow within the next few days.

Light It Up, Again. (Desktop - 16:9)

- JonValk

USING RIVALS’ STAR RATINGS TO LOOK AT BIG TEN RECRUITING: 2002-2013 CLASSES

I decided to take a look at Rivals.com and the star ratings that they give recruits to come up with an approximation of relative recruiting success over twelve classes (2002-2013) in the Big Ten. To see where Nebraska may have fit in (we can’t really know how different it would be if they’d been in the conference for the whole period studied), I included them as well.

So, including Nebraska, Rivals had ratings on 3,160 recruits from the period 2002 to 2013. Here is what the relative distribution looks like:

So, as you will note, 5-stars and to a lesser extent 4-stars are something of a rare commodity in the Big Ten historically, accounting for only about 1/5^thof all recruits by their data. One thing that is interesting, and you can see this in more detail later, is just how far above the conference norm Michigan and Ohio State tend to sit.

The one thing that should jump out here is the percentage of five and four-star recruits that go to the traditional “Big Two”, if you will. In fact, about 44% of all players ranked four and higher end up at either Michigan or Ohio State. You can also see how sparse those same rosters tend to be when it comes to two-star recruits – by Rivals’ system, Big Ten teams not in Ann Arbor or Columbus attract nearly 98% of the two-star talent.

For all 3,160 players whose ratings I dumped from Rivals’ database, the grand mean star rating is 2.93, but individual teams obviously have had varied success. Here are the team means for the period from 2002 to 2013.

Including Nebraska as a point of some comparison, they would have been quite competitive in Big Ten recruiting circles regardless, so it seems. Here, they are in possession of the third-highest average. In fact, four teams have managed to recruit at or above a “three-star” in those twelve classes. Five teams have managed to stay above the grand mean of 2.93 – Ohio State, Michigan, Nebraska (had they been part of the Big Ten for the whole period), Penn State and Michigan State. Michigan State’s numbers spike with the Dantonio years, as you might expect, or otherwise this doesn’t happen, I think.

Here is the conference mean for each year as well:

So, the trend is actually upwards, ever so slightly. The net increase in the average star rating over this period is about 7%, which doesn’t seem like much. It would be interesting to compare this to other conferences in a further diary. I suspect some of this – as it is subjective – has to do with perhaps a steady-state perception of the Big Ten.  I really don’t know – that’s speculation on my part.

A more meaningful comparison between each team and the conference mean for a given year will appear shortly, but this now allows us to look at another intriguing phenomenon.

So, here again we see the relative inequities in where the talent tends to go in the Big Ten, with two schools having never experienced a year above the conference mean rating, one school having managed this feat only once and three schools having achieved this only twice. Of course, on-the-field success is a different story from year to year with some of these teams too, but it seems to illustrate that several teams in the conference do indeed get along with less, if these ratings are any indication. Obviously, there is overlooked or underrated talent, so it is ultimately subjective and not 100% accurate by any means.

So, how did each team fare against the conference mean each year? Here’s what that looks like for each team:

Here’s the whole conference on a rather non-descriptive but somewhat telling chart. You can see Michigan and Ohio State flying comfortably above the rest of the conference for the most part:

Here are some comparisons with select teams. Why Indiana? I was inspired somehow:

TL;DR CONCLUSION:

Like many of these diaries that I do, the driver is for the reader to draw their own conclusion about what they see. Rivals’ data was the easiest to categorize, which is why I used it here, but they aren’t the only ranking service, nor are stars the sole measure of who is in fact the better overall player. What was intriguing to me is how these ratings make the Big Ten appear when you dig into them a little, and the trends seem reasonably accurate to me.

OBLIGATORY:

Michigan men represent excellence academically and athletically. At least that's what they represent if you believe the two statues above the doors to the Union. Milford men, on the other hand, are adept at being neither seen nor heard. Buster Bluth was a Milford man. The 2012-13 Michigan hockey team played like one.

The 2012-13 Michigan Wolverines took the ice in October ranked #3 in the country by USCHO.com and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine. That preseason poll was the highlight of the season. Things went downhill quickly, and if you've been reading this blog for a while you'll remember that this team didn't do much to endear itself to the Michigan faithful. Now that we've had time to let the healing power of the basketball team's run to the title game and football recruiting goodness to soak in I think it's time to go back and try to figure out what went wrong for the team that broke The Streak™.

For comparison, let's look at the stats of the 2011-12 Wolverines versus those of the 2012-13 squad. This idea was inspired by Ron Utah's excellent post comparing the 2011 and 2012 football teams. The 11-12 hockey team lost in the first round, so we aren't exactly starting with high expectations for success here. Shawn Hunwick, Luke Glendening and David Wohlberg were the most significant departures from the 11-12 team.

2011-12 Michigan Hockey: 24-13-4 overall. 15-9-4 conference

Home: 15-5-1, Away: 4-6-3. Neutral: 5-2-0

2012-13 Michigan Hockey: 18-19-3 overall, 10-15-3 conference

Home: 10-8-1. Away: 5-8-2, Neutral: 3-3-0

What happened?

I highlighted the things that really stood out to me. Everything is open for interpretation, but let's start with the basics. The 11-12 team scored 43 more goals than they allowed, while the 12-13 team scored one fewer goal than they allowed. Ouch. If you're wondering how shot volume impacted things, it doesn't get any prettier. Michigan had very similar offensive output in 11-12 and 12-13; their total shots were about the same and their scoring percentage was an identical 9.6%. The real fluctuation from year-to-year occurs when you look at the opponent's shots; 1242 allowed in 11-12 versus 1126 in 12-13. Even though the 11-12 team allowed more shots opponents only scored on 7.2% of them, compared with 11.5% in 12-13.

Special teams can't be used to explain away the year-to-year differences. Michigan actually scored more power play goals in 12-13 (31) than they did in 11-12 (23). Looking at it from the perspective of the penatly kill, MIchigan allowed fewer power play goals in 12-13 (24) than they did in 11-12 (27). Michigan spent less time on the penalty kill in 12-13, but they also spent almost two minutes less per game on the power play that season. It appears as though Michigan was outmatched at even strength throughout the 12-13 season, so much so that they missed the tournament and won six fewer games. 

What does it mean for next season?

I wish I knew. Steven Racine established himself as the starter going into 2013-14, and that's more than you can say for the 12-13 team. There are some good prospects coming in (highlighted by former US NTDP forward JT Compher), but is that enough to replace the mass exodus of point scoring that Michigan will suffer this offseason? It doesn't seem likely. Michigan loses AJ Treais' 31 points, Jacob Trouba's 29 points, and Kevin Lynch's 27 points. Those were three of Michigan's top six pointgetters in 12-13. On the other hand, Michigan's problem in 12-13 was clearly one of defense and not offense so anything is possible. All it takes are guys who are willing and able to forecheck and backcheck, and as a sport hockey still lacks the sophisticated statistics that are able to capture the more esoteric elements of the game.

Somebody was going to do this sooner or later, right?  UPDATE: Unfortunately I have run out of time to work on this and was not able to prepare a composite chart; maybe when (i.e. if) I get a chance to update it.  Now with composite chart! UPDATE #2: Arkansas added

Composite Chart

Notre Dame (2014, 2015) – 9 commits, overall star average: 3.83

Utah (2014, 2015) – 5 commits, overall star average: 2.85

Arkansas (2018) – 4 commits, overall star average: 3.31

Brigham Young (2015) – 5 commits, overall star average: 2.6

Cincinnati (2017) – 3 commits, overall star average: 2.42

Hawaii (2016) 4 commits, overall star average: 2.19

Ball State (2016) 2 commits, overall star average: 2.13

Oregon State (2015) 1 commit, overall star average: 2.25

UNLV (2015) 1 commit, overall star average: 2.0

Appalachian State (2014)

                No Commits

Colorado (2016)

                No Commits

N.T. Miami (2014)

                No Commits

Michigan gets a commit and content is a little slow today, so recruiting rankings hit the front page. Plenty of movement this week with Big Ten schools picking up commitments in each of the last eight days. Changes since last rankings:

5-1-13: Rutgers picks up Pete Mokwuah.
5-2-13: Illinois picks up Chayce Crouch.
5-3-13: Penn State picks up Daquan Worley. Northwestern picks up Tommy Doles.
5-6-13: Nothwestern picks up Dareian Watkins.
5-8-13: Nebraska picks up Jason Hall.
5-9-13: Northwestern picks up Auston Anderson. Maryland picks up Johnathan Thomas.
5-10-13: Penn State picks up Marcus Allen and Jared Wangler.
5-11-13: Michigan picks up Lawrence Marshall.
5-12-13: Ohio State picks up Lonnie Johnson.
5-13-13: Michigan State picks up Matt Sokol.
5-14-13: Northwestern picks up Justin Jackson.
5-15-13: Michigan State picks up Chris Frey.

Chart? Chart:

^The average of the average rankings of the four recruiting services (the previous four columns). The figure is calculated based on the raw numbers and then rounded, so the numbers above may not average out exactly.

NOTE: Unranked recruits are counted as two-star players.

On to the full data after the jump.

In the wake of today's 2013-2014 B1G Men's Basketball schedule release and the dislike that came with it, I thought of a new way to formulate a conference schedule. I tried to keep it balanced where the high-level teams play more high-level teams and the low-level teams play more low-level teams so there's no repeat of Wisconsin's/Ohio State's favorable one-offs. 

I introduce to you tier scheduling. Taking the final standings of last year, I broke up teams into four three-team tiers, Tiers 1, 2, 3, and 4 obviously.

Now, once these teams are in tiers, it's time to set up which tiers will play the other tiers how many times. It is cumbersome to explain it in words so I will just show what I have in my spreadsheet

There might be a better way to balance this out, but I feel this does a decent job making sure good teams play more good teams with the occasional bad team and vice versa.

So what would this mean for Michigan this year? Here's a hypothetical schedule based on their tier 2 standing

When it came to the one-offs I picked teams with less of a recent history with Michigan so that's why they play Indiana once out of tier 1 but OSU and MSU twice, then Minnesota and Purdue once out of tier 3 but Illinois twice, etc.

I did this somewhat hastily so if there's any apparent flaws please point them out but I think I have everything squared away.

Obviously this kind of scheduling is too late because 1. 2013-2014 schedule is already done and 2. this is the final year of having 12 teams. But this was a fun "What If?" scenario I wanted to share.