Calculated Reactions: The top CCAA women's basketball prospects for 2013

For the third year in a row, it's time to check out the college players whose CCAA performance suggests CIS success.

**

First, the necessary background and explanation. To identify these prospects, we take 2012-13 CCAA stats and translate them to the CIS level based on the many players from past years who have played CCAA one year and CIS the next. Currently for women's basketball, we can translate ACAC (Alberta), OCAA (Ontario), and ACAA (Atlantic) stats.

Every category — from shooting percentages to rebounds to steals to percentage of shots taken that are three-pointers to usage rate — is projected based on historical averages for players going from one level to the next in consecutive years. We now have the equivalent of about 9,500 minutes from players who have gone from CCAA to CIS (or the reverse). All these CCAA-to-CIS players are the basis for our assumptions about the relative level of the two leagues: for illustration purposes only, if turnovers per 40 minutes tends to rise 15% among these players on average, that's the translation we apply to everyone's college stats. Obviously there are several factors we're not accounting for, but this does serve as a handy way to identify the standouts among hundreds of CCAA players across the country, and to (for lack of a better word) ignore those whose overall game might not translate to the CIS level.

Minutes played are projected, though projecting playing time is generally an even more foolish thing to do than projecting rate stats, and so those numbers should not be taken seriously. The per-game statistics assume each player appears in 20 games; the projected season stats are therefore simply divided by 20 for everyone. Some schools had impossibly low numbers of minutes played, which meant we had to adjust the minutes up for everyone to match how many games that team played — MP numbers are noted with * where adjusted.

Eligibility years are as of 2013-14, so "2nd year" means she just completed her first. We consider only those players with at least two years of eligibility remaining. All years of stats I could find are included, but the projection depends only on '12-13.

New this year is a list of most-similar players to each prospect. These are comparisons in terms of style only, not in terms of equating one player to another, or saying that she will be as good as her comps. We simply took the CCAA stats and compared them to similar CIS players, to give an idea of the statistical profile she has by using known analogues to represent her style of play. We match players based on their CCAA stats, rather than their projected CIS stats, to minimize the number of assumptions made with these comparisons, and to keep the comps focused on the type of the player rather than her value to a CIS team (which is already expressed in the stats).

And finally, as always, remember this is not a substitute for recruiting insight. In most (all?) cases we know nothing about these players aside from a stat line and a roster bio, and are making no value judgement beyond that which is visible in a boxscore.

**

Jylisa Williams
5-8 guard, 4th year, Olds College (previously with Georgia State University)
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2008-09
NCAA
1st
946
10.5
4.6
2.0
0.1
2.4
13.3
5.9
36.8%
22.5%
n/a
2009-10
NCAA
2nd
249
7.7
2.8
1.8
0.1
1.2
13.7
5.0
44.8%
20.5%
n/a
2012-13
ACAC
3rd
828*
26.4
8.8
3.6
0.2
4.5
35.7
11.9
48.7%
34.5%
54.8
2013-14
CIS
4th
646
20.1
7.6
2.4
0.3
3.8
24.8
9.3
46.3%
22.4%
31.9
Most similar: Lindsay DeGroot, Renata Adamczyk, Katie Miyazaki

Surprise, surprise — the list begins with the CCAA player of the year. You don't see too many Georgia State transfers in Olds, Alberta. On second thought you don't see many people at all in Olds, Alberta.

Her projection doesn't take her D-1 past into account, and yet it still gives her the kind of numbers you see out of a first-team All-Canadian. A PER of 31.9 would have been in the top 10 in the country this past year, and represents the highest projection we've seen out of any player in the three years we've been doing this series.

Williams is very likely to transfer somewhere, so I should point out that her projected numbers (notably PER and usage rate) assume she is placed on an average CIS team and plays a reduced role relative to what she had at Olds, as that is typically what happens with a CCAA transfer. However, the typical transfer is not a D-1 player who came up here and dominated the league as thoroughly as she did, and so I expect her to play a larger part with whatever team she chooses to join.

(If it wasn't obvious from the joke above, this is the first time I've ever even heard of Olds. The town or the college.)



Kelsey Lund
6-0 forward, 3rd year, University of Alberta - Augustana
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2011-12
ACAC
1st
424*
14.3
8.5
0.4
0.8
1.1
31.0
18.5
46.0%
31.9%
39.0
2012-13
ACAC
2nd
484*
14.9
8.3
0.4
1.2
1.0
29.5
16.4
50.7%
30.2%
41.6
2013-14
CIS
3rd
378
9.8
6.2
0.2
1.1
0.8
20.6
13.0
48.6%
19.6%
22.0
Most similar: Hannah Sunley-Paisley, Brittany Read

Lund provides a nice object lesson in what happens when your teammates shoot better: namely, that you don't have to take as many bad shots. In 2011-12, her teammates shot about 36%, and the only player who took more shots than Lund was lower than that. In 2012-13, her teammates shot 38% (about a point and a half per game better overall), with the other high-volume shooters at 45% and 41%. Quite the difference.

Other accomplishments of Lund's this year in the ACAC: second-highest PER, fourth-highest offensive rating (i.e., points produced per possession), fifth-best true shooting percentage, highest offensive rebound percentage, second-highest defensive rebound percentage ... need I continue?

Overall, she was probably more valuable to Augustana than she was last year (when she was also on this list), which is frankly amazing. I think her CIS comps are particularly good as well — though, again, this isn't to say she's as good as Read or Sunley-Paisley (would that we all could be). Just that they have similar profiles.



Melanie Hogue
Forward, 3rd year, Olds College (previously with Holland College)
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2010-11
ACAA
1st
413
12.1
12.3
0.7
0.8
1.7
22.2
22.7
40.7%
15.1%
n/a
2012-13
ACAC
2nd
413*
8.2
11.5
0.7
1.2
1.4
14.2
20.0
40.8%
17.4%
26.1
2013-14
CIS
3rd
378
4.0
6.4
0.3
0.9
0.8
8.5
13.4
39.3%
11.3%
14.5
Most similar: Natalie Janssens, Stephanie Toxopeus, Hailey Milligan

No wonder Olds did so well this year... Hogue is merely the second-most notable transfer they had. We identified her as someone who could play back in the inaugural piece in this series, in May of 2011. At that time I said she was a good candidate for what used to be called a draft-and-follow in baseball terms: give her a year to develop and see what happens. The following year she left Holland College, however, and then turned up in everybody's favourite Alberta town of population 8,000.

Huge caveats abound with her projection: since it is based on the year she shared the court with Jylisa Williams, her usage rate is very low. She'd probably take many more shots on a "regular" team. Though not if she's going to shoot under 40%.



Wendy Margetts
5-11 forward, 2nd year, University of King's College
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2012-13
ACAA
1st
602
12.8
10.5
1.7
0.5
2.0
18.7
15.3
48.6%
21.4%
30.9
2013-14
CIS
2nd
470
7.8
7.1
0.9
0.4
1.3
13.2
12.1
46.5%
13.9%
16.8
Most similar: Laurie Girdwood, Lindsay Druery, Kayla Dykstra

To be clear, that would be the King's located in Halifax, not the one in London or Edmonton. (They're our version of Miami and Miami of Ohio, I guess.)

Margetts, originally from Sarnia, Ont., committed to McMaster for the 2011-12 season but did not play. She ended up down east, and accomplished a very difficult task: appearing near the top of league leaderboards despite not playing for St. Thomas. (This link, or this one, should explain that reference.)

Posts generally have a better chance at making the jump to CIS, which is partially why you see Margetts, Hogue, and Lund on this list. Averaging a double-double doesn't hurt either.



Haeven Durrant
5-8 forward, 2nd year, Sheridan College
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2012-13
OCAA
1st
625
18.7
12.7
0.9
0.8
2.7
21.6
14.6
38.6%
27.5%
35.8
2013-14
CIS
2nd
488
9.3
7.0
0.4
0.6
1.5
15.2
11.5
36.9%
17.9%
16.3
Most similar: Nicki Schutz, Anna von Maltzahn

Not a lot to say here, mostly because I don't know much about her. Durrant was third in the Ontario league in scoring, taking a lot of shots and complementing that with grabbing a lot of boards, and a very low turnover rate. Not a high-percentage shooter, but it's hard to be when your team shoots an effective 33%, and doesn't outscore its opponents.



Jessica Cetoute
6-1 forward, 2nd year, St. Lawrence College
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2012-13
OCAA
1st
660
16.2
14.5
1.0
1.3
3.1
17.6
15.8
42.8%
24.3%
31.6
2013-14
CIS
2nd
514
7.9
8.0
0.4
0.9
1.7
12.3
12.5
41.0%
15.8%
14.1
Most similar: Sarah Wierks, Iva Peklovà, Marie-Michelle Genois

The OCAA rookie of the year, Cetoute was part of a resurgence at St. Lawrence: one year after a winless season, they fell five points short of a conference bronze medal. (Host Humber used 13 players in that game to their eight, which hardly seems fair ... or within FIBA rules.)

Despite all those rebounds, she's projected with a below-average PER for a number of reasons. Among those: her turnovers, which hurt quite a bit relative to the similar Ontario player that precedes her on this list; she's projected to have the same number of TOs as made baskets.



Kelly Vass
5-6 guard, 3rd year, St. Thomas University
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2011-12
ACAA
1st
474
10.9
4.1
2.6
0.0
3.8
22.1
8.4
50.9%
26.2%
33.4
2012-13
ACAA
2nd
530
9.9
4.3
4.3
0.1
4.2
20.9
9.1
44.1%
25.2%
37.1
2013-14
CIS
3rd
413
7.2
3.7
2.8
0.1
3.5
13.8
7.1
40.0%
16.4%
17.0
Most similar: Joanna Zalesiak, Grace Fishbein, Katie Goggins

Vass had the best defensive rating of any player for whom I have statistics, mostly because 10% of her opponents' possessions ended with her getting a steal, an unheard-of number. At the risk of comparing apples to anthropology, that's almost double the NBA single-season record. These are the sorts of accomplishments you see when a team goes 29-2 and outscores the opposition 30 points per game on average, which is a nicer way of saying maybe the ACAA competition isn't so great.

Regardless, she may not be transferring anywhere, not only because most of the players we identify here don't, but also because she told the Aquinian last month, in part, "I couldn’t see myself going to another school now."

There's no truth to the rumour that her projection includes bonus points for following The CIS Blog on Twitter.



Megan Wood
5-11 forward, 3rd year, Grant MacEwan University
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2012-13
ACAC
2nd
752
16.4
9.7
1.3
0.6
1.1
21.0
12.4
50.3%
23.4%
32.1
2013-14
CIS
3rd
586
10.1
6.8
0.7
0.6
0.8
13.8
9.2
47.0%
15.2%
15.5
Most similar: Lindsay Druery, Holly Strom, Kendall MacLeod

Wood, the ACAC rookie of the year, previously played volleyball for Red Deer College, and for a second I was thinking of adding in those stats too, for the sake of whimsy more than anything else (she definitely increased her number of blocks, for one).

In one of her first games of basketball after the year away from the game, she dropped 20 points on UVic in October, one of only nine players to do so this year. In a nice coincidence, one of the other nine was her #2 comparison Holly Strom, who scored 25 and 31 a month later.



Kelly O'Hallahan
5-9 guard, 3rd year, Grande Prairie Regional College
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2011-12
ACAC
1st
509
12.4
6.0
1.6
0.2
2.2
19.5
9.4
46.9%
23.7%
27.4
2012-13
ACAC
2nd
714
20.2
9.2
2.2
0.5
3.1
23.8
10.9
45.3%
27.8%
33.9
2013-14
CIS
3rd
527
10.4
5.7
1.0
0.4
1.9
15.7
8.6
40.5%
18.1%
15.1
Most similar: Amy Ogidan, Jessica Franz, Kaylah Barrett

Would have led the nation in scoring if not for Jylisa Williams, and the two of them are the only two here to make the list of CCAA All-Canadians.
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4 comments:

  1. Are you going to be doing a men's CCAA prospect list this year as well?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, and as coincidence would have it, that will be published tomorrow.

      Delete
  2. "Host Humber used 13 players in that game to their eight, which hardly seems fair ... or within FIBA rules."

    OCAA rules allow for 14 to dress and play. Also, Humber actually used 12 players in that game, not sure where you learned to count or read a boxscore. A pointless remark! I guess depth is something to criticize in sport?

    ReplyDelete