Adjusting College Stats to Statis Pro Basketball

Suppose we have two teams in Statis Pro Basketball - Team A and Team B. We have two different sets of stats, but we know that Team A is stronger than Team B. How should Team A's stats be adjusted?

First, we need to know the answer, "how strong"? The site I prefer to use is Real Time RPI.com to determine the relative strengths of conferences.

Note that I said conferences, not teams. Teams play within a conference, and their stats already reflect relative strength within a conference - a team can play up to 1/2 of its total games as conference matchups. If Team A and Team B are within the same conference, use the unadjusted stats.

If Team A and Team B are within different conferences, we will look at Team A and Team B's relative RPI. Let's assume that Team A is a Big East Team (like Rutgers) and Team B is a Colonial Athletic Team (like James Madison).

Go to the Conference RPI page of Real Time RPI. Let's look at how strong the Big East is to the Colonial Athletic

Big East: 0.6000
Colonial Athletic: 0.5194

Adjustment: 0.6/0.5194 = 1.1552

The 1.1552 becomes the factor we will use. In general, the Big East is 15 percent better than the CAA.

For Team B, we use the regular stats
For Team A, we use adjusted stats.

Multiply field goals made by the factor.
Multiply 3PG made by the factor.
Multiply FT made by the factor.
Multiply all rebounds by the factor.
Divide personal fouls by the factor.
Multiply assists by the factor.
Divide turnovers by the factor.
Multiply blocks by the factor.
Multiply steals by the factor.

If you need to know the new adjusted points per game, determine how many points the player would have scored for the season with the adjusted numbers and divide by games played. In general, the rule is that we want to reward the player by making good things better and making bad things not as bad.

At least, I know how to adjust Central Oklahoma's stats. Problem: Central Oklahoma does not play in a Division I conference. What should the conference multiplier be?

There are all sorts of ways to answer this question. My way was to determine what conference the #202 team was in and consider that as Central Oklahoma's conference.

Central Oklahoma's proxy conference/Conference USA (the one UTEP belongs to)

= .5051/.4952 = approximately 1.02

Note that these numbers have changed since then. But the conclusion has been decided. Central Oklahoma is 2 percent better than their statistics indicate. We adjust the stats of the Central Oklahoma Bronchos by 2 percent, and go from there.

Why do we adjust Central Oklahoma's stats up? Why not adjust UTEP's stats down?

My reasoning has to do with how the first round of the NCAA tournament concludes, with very strong team playing very weak teams. The score is usually something like 90-50, and not 50-10. I would expect something like 50-10 if the weaker team were rounded down and the stronger one unchanged. Changing the stronger team should create a score something like the typical first-round blowouts of the NCAA tourney.

Next: we'll take a peak at Central Oklahoma's card set.