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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

Snubs and other notes (continued)
A note on backup SF for the Great 8
Because there was only one small forward for the Great 8 ranked in either average rating or efficiency, I pulled the statistics for the season on the rest of the starting SF in their conference. Of those seven, four players had an average rating of exactly 12.0. Those players were:
The Ashkicker's Vincenzo Sesamo
Miami Cleo's Marko Maurin
Gremlin's Juan Carolos Vazquez
Żubr Białystok's Sam Dickens

Of the four, three were equal in terms of stats, all within five points in PTS/game, within 1.2 Reb/game and all within a percentage point for FGs. Those three might be the best "traditional" small forward - decent scoring with help on the boards and fair assists. But I'm a sucker for points scored, which is why I went with Ash's Vincenzo who averaged 5 more points than the 2nd closest (10 more than the 4th) and had a better FG%.

3 Point Shooting Contest Predictions
Looking back on my notes post Season 56 all-star festivities, the 3-point competition players selected seemed a little abnormal, so I'm anticipating these guesses to be not even close! It seemed to me last season that you had to have at least 50 attempts, which immediately cuts out 10 of the top twenty 3-point shooters this season, including those ranked:
1. Arthur Newman - Ashkickers - 62.1% on 29 shots
2. Miguel Velasco - Philly Dribble - 51.2% on 43 shots
3. Elran Chazan - Linndale - 50% on 18 shots.

If my theory is correct, this is who we'll see competing for the 3-point competition:
Juan Carlos Vazquez - Gremlins - 49.1% on 57 shots
Bulvio Barrera - Beer Bellys - 48.1% on 52 shots
Collin McMahon - War Birds - 46% on 87 shots
Denis Minkinen - Żubr Białystok - 45.9% on 61 shots
Craig Taylor - Weather Society - 42% on 88 shots, and
Dan Donlon - pintipv - 42% on 112 shots (an incredible 9.3 attempts per game!)

I always feel like this competition is a crapshoot, but I'm guessing Birds' Collin McMahon brings home the trophy next week.

Until then, good luck tomorrow night and we'll catch ya at All Star Week!

Last edited by Baine at 6/3/2022 2:06:31 PM

Funny that my guy qualifies at PF. I guess technically he’s played as many or more games at PF due to training progressions.

Thanks for the write ups it truly makes the game that much more enjoyable!

It is funny, especially since he's 6'3". I only pulled his position from the Buzzer Manager efficiency rankings - that's what they had him listed as, probably because he's played two more games as a PF than as SG. His numbers are great, so I imagine he'll make it, but I guess I wouldn't be surprised if BB slotted him in as a SG instead. Guess we'll find out on Monday.

Day 13 (Saturday 4 June 2022) : Performances by (https://www.buzzer-manager.com)

Night results
Miami Cleo 95 - Mighty Moose Rockets 98
Dallas Bomskwad 61 - Lion Rebels 115
Weather Society 62 - San Dominica Warriors 133
The Beer Bellys 67 - Rip City Revival 84
pintipv 112 - Seattle SuperSonicz 120
Gremlins 114 - War Birds 97
The Ashkickers 82 - Philly Dribble 107
Żubr Białystok 101 - Linndale 91

Best collective performance of the evening
Points : 133 : San Dominica Warriors
Rebounds : 64 : Philly Dribble
Assists : 43 : San Dominica Warriors
Steals : 12 : San Dominica Warriors
Block Shots : 10 : San Dominica Warriors

Personal best performances of the evening
Points : 37 : J. Fleurent (Mighty Moose Rockets), R. Sole (pintipv)
Rebounds : 24 : W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets)
Assists : 11 : H. Šapiras (Żubr Białystok)
Steals : 4 : W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets), K. Brown (Lion Rebels)
Block Shots : 4 : L. Urban (Linndale)

Top 5 of the evening
Point Guard : R. Sole (pintipv) (37 Points, 1 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 33
Shooting Guard : F. Alidori (San Dominica Warriors) (24 Points, 6 Rebounds, 7 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 33
Small Forward : S. Dickens (Żubr Białystok) (26 Points, 12 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 2 Steals, 1 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 36
Power Forward : W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets) (22 Points, 24 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 4 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 46
Center : J. Fleurent (Mighty Moose Rockets) (37 Points, 13 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 0 Steals, 1 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 30

MVP of the evening
W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets) (22 Points, 24 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 4 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 46

The bad performance of the evening
S. Vecchia (pintipv) (3 Points, 0 Rebounds, 1 Assists, 2 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : -6

All kinds of statistics
The player who forgot to remove his mittens : H. Krause (Mighty Moose Rockets) : 5 Turnovers

Player targeted by the referees : K. McNulty (Mighty Moose Rockets), K. Knowles (Linndale), P. Lutz (Linndale), D. Komlósi (pintipv) : 6 Personnal Fouls

The iron-man : G. Locus (Miami Cleo), J. Fleurent (Mighty Moose Rockets), G. Chiodarelli (Mighty Moose Rockets), K. Brown (Lion Rebels), B. Lutz (Lion Rebels) : 48 Minutes

The shooter : C. McMahon (War Birds) : 9 Three points

The best performer : T. Armstead (Lion Rebels) : Rating : 16.5

The worst performer : G. Locus (Miami Cleo), J. McGill (Weather Society), M. Cornwell (Weather Society) : Rating : 6.0

All-Star Predictions Recap
So, all in all, besides the fact that I WAS LOUD WRONG by putting The Beer Bellys start point guard in the wrong division, infuriating Phils_Wings (I'm sure, because you know he's got such a short fuse ;)), I got a fair amount right...it looks like efficiency is used for a lot of this, but one or two of these I was pretty far off on (although, I will say, in my defense, it's not like I'm spending hours going over numbers and comparing players, for 97% of it I'm letting Buzzer Manager do the heavy lifting). In any event, here's what I got wrong and best I can tell as to why.

Mistake #1: Thinking The Beer Bellys were in the Big 8
Even though I botched the Big 8's starting PG with the eventual backup PG for the Great 8, I was still in the ballpark in that Juan Gilberto Segovia IS an all-star (so take that). If I had gotten the conference right, I would've had Juan starting over Dwayne based on Efficiency (9th vs 17th), although, from a PG standpoint, Nava is the better Assist creator. There's also a lot to be said for the #5 point guard in all Div III, so I'm probably wrong at the end of the day, especially since Segovia doesn't rank in the top 50 in the division.

This mistake also comes into play in my big proclamation that Isidre Homs (PF) was the biggest snub of the whole deal. It WAS the biggest snub because I am the biggest loser. Alas, the wrong was righted, except Ashkickers Toni Colomina is the odd man looking out, but by a solid 15k votes, I don't feel sorry for him.

Mistake #2: Swapping C. McMahon and P. Fasselli at SG
Phil has to be laughing at me, "You were off by nearly 60k votes, buddy! Kinda like when we play each other! HaHAhAHhAHHAhHAhskh!". But still, I feel strongly about this assessment and wonder if this is the bias of a "winning team" getting benefit of the doubt. Here's some fun comparison for you:
Player 1: 21.1 min/game | FG 48.6% | 3FG 41.8% | FT 73.7% | 2.1 AST/game | 14.2 PTS/game | 4th PTS/48 | 9th 3FG made | 10th FG%
Player 2: 33.0 min/game | FG 52.3% | 3FG 49.5% | FT 95.8% | 2.8 AST/game | 23.1 PTS/game | 1st PTS/48 | 2nd 3FG made | 3rd FG%

Player 1 is Fasselli and player 2 is McMahon. Now, granted, I'd guess if Fasselli was playing closer to 33 min/game, he'd probably have even better stats, making my dumb argument above null and void, but it's still fun to pretend!

Mistakes (Continued)
Mistake #3: Again, thinking that The Beer Bellys were in the Big 8 for backup SF
But I wasn't too far off - the "loser" in my predictions of Philly's Juljonas Glicas who seems deserving of the distinction, "Guy Who Got Left Off Accidentally". But on the Great 8 side, Sam Dickens took the spot of Bulvio Barrera in my rankings. Granted, we are talking backup SF, but in the grand scheme of things, Dickens doesn't rank in the top 20 in the league in average rating or efficiency, in fact, he doesn't rank in the top 10 in our division III.11 in any category. While Barrera's not much better (ranks 4th in 3FG%, but nothing else), he does rank 10th in efficiency and while his average rating is a full point less than Dickens, he does have a much better FG shooting percentage and is averaging almost 5 more points than Dickens. I'd take the 38-year-old Venezuelan any day (this season at least, after that, I'm dumping his ass).

Mistake #4: Backup Center in the Big 8
I had War Birds' Miloš Živanić as the backup C, but San Dominca's Allen Parrish beat him out by just over 4k votes (by far the closest race of the voting). And I don't get it. Živanić has a better FG%, averages 2 more rebounds and 1 more point per game. The only thing he does worse at is turning the ball over, which OK...but still, Živanić seems to be the better player. And not that rankings mean everything, but again, Parrish doesn't rank in any category in the top ten in our division. Živanić at least ranks in 5 categories (ok, ok, two of those are #3 in TO and #7 in TO/game). Still, I think he got robbed.

Mistake #5: Great 8 Backup SG
Mixed up Dan Donlon (pintipv) with Denis Minkinen, and honestly, I get it. Donlon is having a pretty good season, including being ranked in the top 25 in 3FG made in the USofA and 7th in all of Division 3 (#390 in the entire world). That being said, I don't have much of an argument for Minkinen.

Biggest Mistake of the Predictions
I hate to say it, because I'm an underdog fan, but I was really hoping that Cristiano Masetti (Weather Society) would make it. He does rank 2nd in PTS, PTS/game, GF made, FG attempted, 3FG attempted, and PTS/48 min along with 3rd in 3FG. He's also top 50 in PTS and PTS/game to go along with FG and 3FG made. Dude's a baller and while his FG%, especially for 3-pointers (here's looking at you Russell Westbrook), is lacking, I still think he deserves a shot. But it would've been his 8th all-star appearance (albeit his 1st in Div III)...So I guess I'm fine with him missing out.

Come on by The Keg, we’ve got free drinks to keep that buzz going for ya buddy. Just blame it on the beer…