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Unfortunately, I don't have enough time for commentary on the power rankings this week, so I'll just leave it all to your imagination. Here's week 5's ranks:

1. Philly Dribble
2. Gremlins
3. Linndale
4. Ashkickers
5. Mighty Moose Rockets
6. Miami Cleo
7. Żubr Białystok
8. Rip City Revival
9. War Birds
10. San Dominica Warriors
11. The Beer Bellys
12. Lion Rebels
13. Seattle SuperSonicz
14. pintipv
15. Dallas Bomskwad
16. Weather Society

Hope you all have a good Memorial Day weekend!

Dang so now I really want to know how I was able to shoot up the rankings!

Day 11 (Saturday 28 May 2022) : Performances by (https://www.buzzer-manager.com)

*Unnecessary Commentary* Whew! I should go camping more often - looks like a nice round of games from Saturday night, including (and I haven't checked the box score) what appears to be a significant upset of Gremlins by Linndale!

Night results
The Ashkickers 103 - Mighty Moose Rockets 99
Żubr Białystok 69 - Lion Rebels 84
Miami Cleo 75 - San Dominica Warriors 64
Dallas Bomskwad 46 - Rip City Revival 100
Weather Society 59 - Seattle SuperSonicz 97
The Beer Bellys 121 - War Birds 112
pintipv 78 - Philly Dribble 109
Gremlins 100 - Linndale 109

Best collective performance of the evening
Points : 121 : The Beer Bellys
Rebounds : 66 : Seattle SuperSonicz
Assists : 31 : Seattle SuperSonicz
Steals : 11 : War Birds
Block Shots : 11 : Miami Cleo

Personal best performances of the evening
Points : 44 : D. Santana (Miami Cleo)
Rebounds : 18 : N. Lisnevskiy (Seattle SuperSonicz)
Assists : 9 : N. Lisnevskiy (Seattle SuperSonicz)
Steals : 4 : B. Lutz (Lion Rebels)
Block Shots : 6 : P. Cheatle (Miami Cleo), H. Yuyao (Żubr Białystok)

Top 5 of the evening
Point Guard : I. Avellaneda (The Beer Bellys) (27 Points, 6 Rebounds, 4 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 27
Shooting Guard : K. Knowles (Linndale) (29 Points, 0 Rebounds, 0 Assists, 2 Steals, 0 Block Shots), G. Jordan (Seattle SuperSonicz) (19 Points, 3 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 2 Steals, 1 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 24
Small Forward : B. Barrera (The Beer Bellys) (30 Points, 9 Rebounds, 2 Assists, 1 Steals, 1 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 27
Power Forward : N. Neochoritis (Rip City Revival) (40 Points, 3 Rebounds, 4 Assists, 1 Steals, 2 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 35
Center : Y. Semiramis (The Beer Bellys) (20 Points, 12 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 1 Steals, 4 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 28

MVP of the evening
N. Neochoritis (Rip City Revival) (40 Points, 3 Rebounds, 4 Assists, 1 Steals, 2 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 35

The bad performance of the evening
A. McGovern (Weather Society) (2 Points, 0 Rebounds, 0 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots)Q. Bailey (Dallas Bomskwad) (2 Points, 1 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : -6

All kinds of statistics
The player who forgot to remove his mittens : O. Reine (The Ashkickers), A. Itararé (Dallas Bomskwad) : 6 Turnovers

Player targeted by the referees : M. Živanić (War Birds), B. Lutz (Lion Rebels), H. Yuyao (Żubr Białystok) : 6 Personnal Fouls

The iron-man : G. Locus (Miami Cleo), D. Charles (Mighty Moose Rockets), D. Nava (Gremlins), M. Grimm (Żubr Białystok), P. Traganitis (Żubr Białystok) : 48 Minutes

The shooter : D. Minkinen (Żubr Białystok) : 7 Three points

The best performer : M. Velasco (Philly Dribble), K. Knowles (Linndale), T. Armstead (Lion Rebels) : Rating : 16.0

The worst performer : J. McGill (Weather Society), M. Cornwell (Weather Society) : Rating : 5.0

Day 12 (Tuesday 31 May 2022) : Performances by (https://www.buzzer-manager.com)

Night results
Mighty Moose Rockets 81 - Żubr Białystok 96
Lion Rebels 88 - Miami Cleo 83
San Dominica Warriors 108 - Dallas Bomskwad 44
Rip City Revival 94 - Weather Society 52
Seattle SuperSonicz 59 - The Beer Bellys 99
War Birds 108 - pintipv 119
Philly Dribble 81 - Gremlins 94
Linndale 78 - The Ashkickers 95

Best collective performance of the evening
Points : 119 : pintipv
Rebounds : 63 : Żubr Białystok
Assists : 30 : War Birds
Steals : 12 : San Dominica Warriors
Block Shots : 11 : The Ashkickers

Personal best performances of the evening
Points : 32 : D. Komlósi (pintipv)
Rebounds : 17 : W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets), W. Chan Kiew (Gremlins), H. Yuyao (Żubr Białystok)
Assists : 9 : R. Kiaulius (War Birds), I. Avellaneda (The Beer Bellys)
Steals : 5 : G. Gattoni (The Ashkickers)
Block Shots : 4 : P. Cheatle (Miami Cleo), M. Živanić (War Birds)

Top 5 of the evening
Point Guard : J. Fleurent (Mighty Moose Rockets) (23 Points, 10 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 0 Steals, 2 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 30
Shooting Guard : F. Alidori (San Dominica Warriors) (28 Points, 2 Rebounds, 1 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 24
Small Forward : B. Griffiths (War Birds) (18 Points, 8 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 0 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 28
Power Forward : W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets) (29 Points, 17 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 2 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 34
Center : W. Chan Kiew (Gremlins) (26 Points, 17 Rebounds, 0 Assists, 0 Steals, 2 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 33

MVP of the evening
W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets) (29 Points, 17 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 2 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 34

The bad performance of the evening
K. McNulty (Mighty Moose Rockets) (4 Points, 8 Rebounds, 0 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : -9

All kinds of statistics
The player who forgot to remove his mittens : R. Kiaulius (War Birds), A. Coronado (Linndale), A. Itararé (Dallas Bomskwad) : 6 Turnovers

Player targeted by the referees : M. Maurin (Miami Cleo), P. Huddleston (Philly Dribble), L. Shunhao (Philly Dribble) : 6 Personnal Fouls

The iron-man : A. Gallucci (Miami Cleo), W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets), G. Chiodarelli (Mighty Moose Rockets), K. Brown (Lion Rebels), S. Hatch (Żubr Białystok) : 48 Minutes

The shooter : A. Varpukevicius (Miami Cleo), D. Komlósi (pintipv) : 5 Three points

The best performer : P. Fasselli (Philly Dribble) : Rating : 17.0

The worst performer : F. Jarkes (Seattle SuperSonicz) : Rating : 4.0

I step away and we're down 7 after a buzzerbeater at the half...and I come back to a 18 point loss. I thought it would be more competitive than that; figured about 5 to 8 points, and did not expect to win.

That free throw differential though...

It is interesting - I was thinking (before I checked) that it might've been a gameshape issue, but yours appears solid. A lot more fouls for your team, which with your defensive capabilities, I'm a little surprised by. Been playing BB for quite a while (second stint for me after a 15 season stint starting in about season 7), but I'm still learning more and more. 9 fouls by your two SFs is rough. It also didn't help that Ash's team appears to be full of FT nailing SOBs ;)

Week 6 Power Rankings Preamble - An Explanation
So, I've kind of described my process for this in the Week 1 PRs, but I'm going to go into more detail for you. Basically, I use Buzzer Manager's Team Stats to pull each team's Efficiency (EFF) rating (which is just the sum of each player's efficiency from a game) and each team's Allowed Opponent Efficiency (OPP EFF). Each week, this number is the average of what the team’s efficiency from all their games combined on the season, so we see that number fluctuate a little bit from week to week depending on opponents played. But over time, as I was anticipating, we'll start to see less fluctuation, and much as the standings show, our rankings will play out the way it probably should play out. But I would note, this is entirely dependent on tactics, game prep, player injuries, etc. So, a couple of examples to make it clear.

In week 1, Philly Dribble led DIV.III with an average EFF of 128.5, but their OPP EFF was 93, which ranked them 6th in the division. I take those two rankings and average them, with leaves them with a ranking of 3.5 for the week. Miami Cleo, on the other hand, ranked dead last in EFF with 78, while they ranked 8th in OPP EFF with 102 allowed. This left them with an average ranking of 12. Packer_22 was curious as to why they jumped the rankings last week (from week 4 to 5) and I'll try to address that here.

Jumping forward to Week 4, Miami's EFF averaged out to 92 over the course of the ensuing three weeks, which gave him a rank of 10th while his OPP EFF was 94.3 (nearly 8 points better than week 1) which was still only good for 8th, giving him an average ranking of 9 (which strangely enough, placed him 9th in the overall rankings [in the event of a tie in average ranking, I take into consideration the previous week's average ranking as well...in the event of another tie there, I take into account EFF ranking]. Moving to Week 5, Miami played Seattle SuperSonicz and while they didn't obliterate them (16-point victory), they racked up 113 EFF while holding their OPP EFF to only 47. In the second game of that week, they lost by 7 to Rip City Revival, and while they only had 63 EFF, they did hold Rip City to 72 EFF (which is about 14 less than what they averaged on the season at that point). All in all, the big jump came from a lower OPP EFF for the week, coupled with The Beer Belly's week where they dropped 15 points in EFF and nearly 9 in OPP EFF from the previous week. So, the result, even though Miami only moved one place in EFF and two places in OPP EFF, the chaos of the other teams resulted in their move up to 6 from 9 the week before.

So, hopefully that explains it a little better...or maybe it's just clear as mud. For what it's worth, I'm guessing that Buzzer Manager's Efficiency is based on Player Efficiency Rating (PER), or at least some form of it. If you haven't checked out PER before and you're a math nerd, it's kind of interesting, although some people say it's a bit deprecated at this point. (https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/cmrkv3/basketball_st...) provides a great breakdown of the formula, while (https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/per.html) details the formula on a surface level. At any rate, onto the rankings! This week, the ranking is first (as always), and the team’s name will be followed by a +/- the number of spots they've moved since last week.

Week 6 Power Rankings

1. Philly Dribble (+0)
I'm really bummed I didn't get to write about Beer's surprising upset defeat of Philly last week. Maybe I'll find some time to recap it, but no promises. This week, Philly took care of business against pintipv and then the big matchup we've all been waiting for came to town, or rather, came to Gremlins' town, and Gremlins put in the effort and got the win, though Philly has to have some satisfaction from having lost with less effort only by 13 (though it sucks that they were up that same 13 after 1 quarter, and still leading at the half, only to fall apart in the 4th and only score 11 points, I'm assuming (because I haven't watched it) after his bigs fouled out. It was still a good effort, which is why they held off Gremlin’s assault on their top spot in the rankings.

2. Gremlins (+0)
Kind of felt like Gremlins were "kicking the cat" of Philly after suffering a surprising loss on the road against Linndale (and no slight against Linndale - they've proved their worth in this division - more on them coming up). It is interesting to note that Linndale beat Gremlins in sort of the same fashion as Gremlins beat Philly. Regardless of the loss, they still put up 101 EFF in the game, but with slight dips in overall EFF and OPP EFF they stand pat at #2.

3. Linndale (+0)
Linndale has a strong starting five coupled with 4 off the bench players with a salary of more than $14,500 and have really shown they belong by beating a giant...despite their loss to Ashkickers after probably a super high feeling by beating Gremlins. Their lowest mark of the season came with only 57 points against Philly, but that's to be expected. Overall, they're averaging just under 100 pts per game, but they too dropped slightly in EFF and OPP EFF but hold off the rest in contention for advancing in the playoffs.

4. Ashkickers (+0)
The final "I'm still here" of the top 4 crew in the division, Ashkickers had a solid week, fending off Mighty Moose Rockets advance to win by 4 and then calling out Linndale with a 13-point victory, almost exactly in line with their PPG and Points Allowed PG averages. Slight increase in EFF and minor decrease in OPP EFF leaves them at fourth this week, thanks in part to their ranking last week.

5. Rip City Revival (+3)
Big movers, this week, Rip City had a good increase in EFF and OPP EFF to jump the ranks and tied Ashkickers in average ranking this week, but their 8th place rank last week left them in 5th place due to the tie breaker. They also had an easy schedule, facing the cellar dwellers of Great 8 in Dallas Bomskwad and Weather Society, winning with a combined margin of 106 to greatly boost their point differential. They jumped from 5th to 1st in OPP EFF ranking and from 12th to 8th in EFFG ranking, thus the march up the rankings.

6. The Beer Bellys (+4)
Another big mover on the week, thatguy's crew improved both EFF and OPP EFF, though OPP EFF is where they struggle. They're the 4th rated EFF team in the division this season, but ranked 12th in OPP EFF, allowing over 100 almost each match up. A solid win against a somewhat surprising War Birds playing competitively and then easily handled Seattle SuperSonicz by 40 on Tuesday night. They're not as bad as they think...but their defense is a cause for concern. Fortunately for them, in the Great 8, they probably only have one team to worry about (Miami Cleo), but their poor start to the season has them having a lot of ground to make up.

Last edited by Baine at 6/2/2022 5:17:19 PM

Week 6 Power Rankings Continued

7. San Dominica Warriors (+4)
Tough loss for San Dom this week, falling to Miami's patient attack, but some relief against Dallas, blowing them out by 62 to help push them into the positive for point differential on the season. Minor declines in both EFF and OPP EFF, but other tumblers helped push them up the list this week. An easy matchup Saturday against Melon Colie's squad, so they'll be sitting decent coming into the All-Star break.

8. Mighty Moose Rockets (-3)
After tough back-to-back losses against two of the top teams in the division, Moose lost again, this time to Żubr Białystok by 15 Tuesday night to make it three losses in a row and 4 of the last 5. Small drops in EFF and OPP EFF on this losing streak, but they share an average ranking of 9 with two other teams. Thanks to their previous ranking, they find themselves in 8th instead of, say, 10th.

9. Żubr Białystok (-2)
Żubr Białystok with a nice win to get back up from the light dusting they took against the Lion Rebels. I'm really impressed with these DIV.IV teams that promoted this season - lots of decent success in their first year up! whitestok did take a big dip in EFF however, which leaves them down two spots in this week's ranking.

10. War Birds (-1)
War Birds has maintained an impressive 100+ EFF on the season, but like The Beer Bellys, struggles a little more with allowing higher OPP EFF, so while they're ranked 5th in EFF, they're 13th in OPP EFF. I must admit, I was surprised to see them lose to pintipv after it seemed like they were starting to nosedive. Two losses this week grants them 10th.

11. Miami Cleo (-5)
Apparently, last week's ranking was a mirage, though I think I decently explained what happened for them to briefly jump up in the rankings. While they beat San Dom somewhat handily, they weren't super-efficient about it, before tricking me by running Low Post AND guessing that I was going to go inside, but surprisingly to me, Lion Rebels were able to pull out the win. Probably quite frustrating to be up 1 after three quarters to then lose out in the end while putting in the extra effort. What happened to them this week in terms of efficiency? Well, they only dropped 1.4 points in EFF and gained 0.5 points...but they're a victim of other teams performing much better this week than the week prior to push themselves up the rankings. Dropping from 9th to 11th in EFF and from 6th to 8th in OPP EFF, though small, really added up just because of the other movers.

12. Lion Rebels (-0)
I've discovered that when my starting 5 are in, I'm right in it, but my 4 primary backups are TERRIBLE. Here's my example from last week against the Gremlins, my four primary starters had a +/- of -3 in 35 minutes, holding toe to toe with Great 8's top dawg, while my bench was -12 (my PG trainee was -15). I was watching that game live and in the first six minutes Gremlins were 1 for9 and I was 3 for 11 tied at 8, looking to be a slugfest. SF Vazquez jacked a three finally to go up 11-8 and 4 of my starters subbed out and Gremlins went on a 16-3 run before my starters finally came back in with about 40 seconds to go and scored 2 points to try to stem the bleeding, but we were down 27-13 and I knew the game was over if my backups were that bad. Having said all that, two nice wins this week to try and right the ship with a minor increase in EFF and OPP EFF, but still leaving my boys at 12th.

Last edited by Baine at 6/2/2022 5:19:24 PM

Week 6 Power Rankings (STILL) Continued

13. Seattle SuperSonicz (-0)
Seattle improved their OPP EFF with a very minor drop in EFF this week, but much like my team, struggles with EFF overall. They still find themselves at the bottom of the Big 8 and unfortunately for them, that middle tier of teams in this division mostly find themselves on their side of the standings. They handled Weather Society before not showing much of a shot against Beer, only scoring 59 points in their 2nd game of the week. Fortunately for them both War Birds and Miami Cleo are still within reach, so they've still got a shot at moving up in relegation opportunities with a little less than half the season to go. A lot will be riding on their matchups with those two squads as well as how those other squads fare as the season progresses.

14. pintipv (-0)
pintipv has fallen 7 spots since the start of the season, and if I had to guess, it's a result of game shape inefficiencies. That, coupled with an injury has been detrimental to them lately. While they defeated Weather, while they pulled out the win against War Birds Tuesday, that finally broke an eight-game losing streak in which they weren't particularly competitive. It does appear that their start to the season with three wins against lower tiered teams was a mirage. They're better than two of those teams, so they'll be in a relegation match, but they've got to be disappointed by their showing this season.

15. Dallas Bomskwad (-0)
Dallas' reliance on their $123k salaried Center as a dominate force hasn't proved very fruitful, at least in terms of offensive output. Removing one of the eight games he's played in (one was cut short after getting injured on a dunk after only 3 minutes), he's averaging 12 points per game (largely thanks to two 20+ point games but has scored less than 8 points or less in 4 of those contests). While he's shown he can be a productive rebounder (22 against Miami on 5/10), he's averaging 14 total rebounds with only 4 offensive rebounds. To top it all off, he's only been a 35% FG shooter - not great for a big (Sorry, The Architect, not meaning to totally just trash your team here). Dallas's larger problems is that other than Grigoropoulous, he hasn't supplemented him with any other talent. Unless he's planning on dropping to DIV.IV, he should have ample money to bring in some decent players to compete. Until then, he's struggling with EFF, dropping 10 points this week, while only losing a few in OPP EFF.

16. Weather Society (-0)
I feel bad for Melon Collie...he's tried so hard but just doesn't have the team to compete at this level yet. He's got a shooter in SF Cristiano Masetti, currently 2nd in the league in PPG, but after that, the cupboards are bare. There have been a few games they've been competitive in, but recently it's been blow out after blow out. A sizeable drop in EFF and a minor gain in OPP EFF still leaves them in 16th at this point in the season.

Season 57 All Star Predictions
I did this last season for the first time, so I thought I'd do it again. Much like my power rankings, I base these all-star predictions on player efficiency for the season, which is interesting because there are a number of players I had to pull (specifically from the Great 8) from the average rating rankings because they weren't in the top 20 in efficiency in the division, and there was one position (Backup SF) for the Great 8 that I had to pull based on rating supplemented by a bizarre made up formula to weight their statistics and produce a final number to make the selection. I'll write about that a little later. But for now, on to the predictions! The number listed after the team’s name represents the player's average rating on the season.

Big 8 Starters
PG: Juan Gilberto Segovia - The Beer Bellys - 12.8 - ranked 9th in EFF
SG: Collin McMahon - War Birds - 12.0 - ranked 15th in EFF
SF: Jean-Louis Fleurent - Mighty Moose Rockets - 14.6 - ranked 5th in EFF
PF: Walenty Kofan - Mighty Moose Rockets - 14.6 - ranked 1st in EFF
C : Terry Armstead - Lion Rebels - 15.2 - ranked 2nd in EFF

Great 8 Starters
PG: Dwayne Nava - Gremlins - 13.9 - ranked 19th in EFF
SG: Arys Varpukevicius - Miami Cleo - 14.4 - ranked 18th in EFF
SF: Cristiano Masetti - Weather Society - 9.7 - ranked 16th in EFF
PF: Ramón Peñalver - Gremlins - 13.4 - ranked 7th in EFF
C : Wu Chan Kiew - Gremlins - 14.6 - ranked 6th in EFF

Big 8 Backups
PG: Miguel Velasco - Philly Dribble - 15.9 - unranked in EFF, but ranked 1st in AR
SG: Paride Fasselli - Philly Dribble - 15.3 - unranked in EFF, but ranked 2nd in AR
SF: Bulvio Barrera - The Beer Bellys - 11.1 - ranked 8th in EFF
PF: Nikos Neochoritis - Rip City Revival - 12.7 - ranked 3rd in EFF
C : Milos Zivanic - War Birds - 12.5 - ranked 11th in EFF

Great 8 Backups
PG: Lorenzo Rojas - The Ashkickers - 13.7 - unranked in EFF, but ranked 14 in AR
SG: Denis Minkinen - Żubr Białystok - 13.9 - unranked in EFF, but ranked 12 in AR
SF: Vincenzo Sesamo* - The Ashkickers - 12.0 - unranked in EFF, and unranked in AR
PF: Toni Colomina - The Ashkickers - 11.3 - ranked 14th in EFF
C : Huang Yuyao - Żubr Białystok - 15.2 - unranked in EFF, but ranked 4th in AR

Snubs and Other Notes
From the efficiency side of things, the Biggest Snub Award goes to The Beer Bellys Isidre Homs at PF with an average EFF of 23 and an EFF/48 min of 30.7. He's ranked 4th in average EFF and averages 16 PTS/game to go along with his 12.0 rebounds (7th).
Other Snubs Receiving Votes (not in any order):
- Mikhail Klimenkov (C) - Linndale - 9.9 PTS/game, 12.1 Reb/game (6th) - 12.3 AR - 18.1 EFF (17th)
- Arley Coronado (PF) - Linndale - 14.2 PTS/game, 11.8 Reb/game (10th) - 12.9 AR - 19.1 EFF (13th)
- Yüce Semiramis (C) - The Beer Bellys - 12.8 PTS/game, 11.9 Reb/game (9th) - 12.1 AR - 19.5 EFF (12th)
- Miloš Živanić (C) - War Birds - 12.4 PTS/game, 11.4 Reb/game - 12.3 AR - 19.6 EFF (11th), and arguably the Birds best player
- David Charles (C) - Mighty Moose Rockets - 13.6 PTS/game, 11.7 Reb/game - 11.4 AR - 19.6 EFF (10th)
- Jukums Pugejs (C) - Seattle SuperSonicz - 8.7 PTS/game, 15.7 Reb/game (1st) - 12.7 AR - 17.4 EFF (20th)

Edit: I don't know why I all the sudden thought Beer Belly was in the Big 8! I'm a dingus.

Last edited by Baine at 6/5/2022 12:43:36 PM