<a few weeks into the season and I realize I never hit Publish on this.  Enjoy.>

As the leaves turn brilliant shades of amber and goldenrod , and daylight savings time serves to brighten our mornings and darken our afternoons, we turn our attention to the college basketball season.   The SLU women open Friday, Nov 10 at the Indiana State Sycamores, hoping to build on back-to-back 25-win seasons and get to the NCAA tournament for the first time ever.

 

Returning Players in Bold.

5. Katie Paganelli

Pags made a lot of threes (2nd all-time), shot a high percentage from the foul line (78%), and was a ball-hawking defender (9th all-time in steals) for the 2006-10 squads.  She grabbed the first rebound in Chaifetz Arena history.

4. Maddison Gits

This returning senior is a robust rebounder, a stout shot-blocker, and cash money from the line (84% last year).

3. Jackie Kemph

The reigning two-time Player of the Year in the Atlantic 10 Conference conference is already the all-time leader in steals, and will become top scorer replacing…

2. Sadie Stipanovich

Stipo finished her career last year as the school’s all-time leader in scoring, 2nd all-time in rebounds, 3rd in blocks, and 8th in free throw percentage (75.7%).

1. Amanda Kemezsys

Kemezsys had a stellar senior campaign, shooting 50% from the field, 70% from the line, pulling down 9.1 rebounds per contest including 19 and 18 board efforts.

The full list:

http://rpubs.com/gregrhoades/328272

Like any proxy composite measure for talent, Average Game Score per Minute has its share of limitations.  Among them are:

• Tempo Bias — today’s Billikens teams seem to play at a faster pace than in years past, skewing counting stats
• Limited visibility to “D” — we have steals, defensive rebounds and blocks, only a sliver of what is required and useful on defense
• Made for Dudes — the GameScore formula was created for the Men’s game and the relative importance of different stats likely could use tuning for the way the Women’s game is played
• Arbitrary Date Range — with data only dating back to 2010-11, we have Kameszsys’ great senior year unburdened by her somewhat-less brilliant first three campaigns
• No adjustments for strength of opponent — 20 & 10 against an NCAA tournament team should count more than 20 & 10 in an early-season tune-up

As more data comes available we will look for opportunities to refine and update these ratings.