The schedule for the next AUS season came out earlier this week, with the puck set to drop on October 19. The X-Women will be looking to repeat their success from the 2012-13 year that saw them capture the AUS championship and a bronze medal at the CIS level.

The big change to note right off the bat is the adoption of a new playoff format this year. The format, changed from the previous 'Final 6' setup, will see a best-of-three series between the third- and sixth-, and fourth- and fifth-seeded teams. The top two seeds will earn a bye to the semifinals where they will play the winner of each matchup.

With the schedule now set, let's take a look at each team and how their season could play out.



St. Francis Xavier X-Women

Last season: 23-1-0 (AUS champions)

How we'll remember 2012-13: There are many avenues to choose from. 80 goals in 24 games, an 18-game regular season win streak. Their one loss came to Saint Mary's but that was the only blemish on their season.

Early test: Even for a fresh team, playing games on back-to-back days can be rough. The X-Women will have to do that when they face Saint Mary's on a Saturday afternoon before making the long trip to Moncton for an afternoon game on Sunday early in the season.

Analysis: Things will be pretty easy for the X-Women in the first half. Their furthest trip, to Fredericton, will happen for the first time on November 9 before they return to face the Mounties in Sackville the following day. They open the season with two games at home and won't have to make any long trips until the second weekend of the season.



Saint Mary's Huskies

Last season: 12-8-4 (AUS runner-ups)

How we'll remember 2012-13: On the play of several strong rookies, a good core of veterans including Rebecca Mosher, and new head coach Chris Larade, the Huskies surprised everyone and managed to finish third in the regular season standings before making it to the championship game. 

Early test: The Huskies players will have October 26 circled on their calendars. That date will mark the first meeting between the Huskies and the X-Women since both teams met in the conference championship back in February. The match will also serve as the Huskies' home opener, adding extra incentive to both teams to bring their best effort to this game.

Analysis: The first two months of their season will be critical to the team, determining if they can build upon their magical run last year to the final. The team only has three sets of back-to-back games in the first half of the season including two sets of them on the road so those quick turnarounds will provide some insight into the team's progress from last year.



St. Thomas Tommies

Last season: 16-7-1 (second in regular season)

How we'll remember 2012-13: St. Thomas started fast out of the gate. The Tommies only lost two games before November 17 — both to the X-Women. They took the regular season series against the Huskies but couldn't solve Sienna Cooke in the playoffs.  

Early test: The first two weekends of the season will be tough for the Tommies. They face a pair of back-to-back games in the first two weekends of the season. They'll also have a quick turnaround in their first two games of the season playing on a Saturday evening in Halifax before travelling to Antigonish for a Sunday afternoon matchup. 

Analysis: The Tommies play fourteen games in the first half of the season. This comes in the form of seven sets of back-to-back games. They'll have a rough go of it to start but will enjoy a second half that only features one set of games on back-to-back days, in early January. They will also represent the AUS as hosts of the CIS women's hockey championship so the team will have that to look forward to come March, as well as having a berth in their back pockets should they stumble.



UPEI Panthers

Last season: 13-10-1 (fourth in regular season standings)

How we'll remember 2012-13: UPEI won the Meh Award of the Year. They hovered around the middle of the standings, losing some weeks, winning the next. They finished with a record over .500 but that was about it. 

Early test: The Panthers' early test will come towards the end of November when they play four games in nine days. Facing St. Thomas twice, Moncton once and Saint Mary's a single time, it will be a good test for a team that came off as average last season to show that they can handle playing that number of important games within a short time-frame.

Analysis: The team's efforts in net were done by committee last season so it'll be interesting to see if the teams hands the full-time duties over to second-year Marie-Soleil Deschenes or continues a revolving door. 



Moncton Aigles Bleues

Last season: 11-11-2 (fifth in regular season)

How we'll remember 2012-13: Their captain being ejected in their final game of the playoffs, along with several other players. Other than that black-eye on their season, Moncton continued to enjoy success posting a record of .500 or better for the seventh straight year — or longer, as the AUS/records only go back to the 2006-07 season.

Early test: Moncton will play seven games at home, including three in October, to start the season. They'll need to take advantage of these home dates early on to ensure a favourable playoff matchup at the end of the season.

Analysis: Moncton doesn't have to leave New Brunswick until the start of November and only have to travel as far away as Sackville in October. The first month should provide the team with some time to adapt themselves to the rest of the league without having to leave their comfort zone.



Mt. Allison Mounties

Last season: 7-13-4 (sixth in regular season)

How we'll remember 2012-13: A highly-touted team from 2011-12 having the wheels off, and avoiding last place only due to the Dalhousie Tigers losing half a season. They were also quickly dismantled by the X-Women in the opening game of the AUS Women's Hockey Championships, an event they hosted.

Early test: The Mounties will only play once at home in October but will also enjoy a four-game home stand to begin November. It'll be important for the team to balance both of these different experiences in order to gauge their success for the rest of the season.

Analysis: 2012-13 was a wreck that I'm sure most in Sackville would like to forget. The team only really won six games thanks to Dalhousie's suspension. Zach Ball and the Mounties will have a tall task ahead of them this coming year. 




Dalhousie Tigers 

Last season: 2-20-2 (last place, with the second half of the season forfeited)

How we'll remember 2012-13: This. 

Early test: Dalhousie will open the season on the road against the X-Women and follow that up by hosting the Tommies the day after. It will be early in the season at that point but last year's top two contenders in the league will be a prime test regardless of the players lost due to graduation.

Analysis: Before their season was wiped out, the Tigers actually had something going. Okay, sure, they were 2-10 before the holiday break but a few of those games were in overtime and of those twelve games, six were decided by a single goal.
Canada is unbeaten so far at the 2013 Pacific Nations Cup thanks to wins over Fiji and Tonga, a feat made possible by the addition of several stars from Canadian universities. One of those, Queen’s fly half Liam Underwood, was in the spotlight during the team’s brief stopover in Kingston last weekend. He’s one of numerous collegiate superstars that have made an immediate impact on the international stage.

On Wednesday in Ottawa, Underwood earned his first career start for the Canadian senior men’s team, playing the full 80 minutes in Canada’s 20-18 victory over Fiji. Three days later, he saw the field as a late-game substitute against Tonga—an appearance made in front of 3,382 fans at Richardson Stadium, two kilometres down the road from the Gaels’ home field.

Underwood isn’t a run-of-the-mill prospect, picked solely to fill the end of the roster or brought on to placate the Queen’s faithful. He’s an integral cog in the Canadian rugby machine—one that ran roughshod over an esteemed Tongan side for much of last Saturday’s tilt, prevailing 36-27 after leading by as much as 23 points in the second half.

“I think I’ve competed pretty hard,” Underwood said. “It’s only my second year with [Team Canada], and I think training, everything’s been going pretty well.”

The tight PNC schedule has forced head coach Kieran Crowley to shuffle his starting lineup from game to game, regularly rotating his reserves into tight contests to preserve everyone’s health for the next one. This all-hands-on-deck approach has dulled the line between starter and substitute; the strategy’s worked because all players have been willing and ready contributors.

Underwood earned his international shot through standout play for the Ontario Blues of the Canadian Rugby Championship league and for Queen’s in the OUA. Both clubs won championships in 2012; while Underwood missed most of this year’s Gaels season to compete with the Blues, he played in a couple of regular-season games and put forth a virtuoso performance in the Ontario final, tallying 14 solo points in Queen’s 29-18 victory over Western.

That championship pedigree—he earned another OUA ring in 2009 with Queen’s as a rookie—has prepared him well for this year’s PNC tournament, where Canada’s one win away from a spotless showing.

“It definitely helps a lot. It’s the next level—it’s above high school, it’s above club,” Underwood said of his university career. “Playing good rugby helps all the time.”

While there’s no CIS men’s rugby competition to bind the individual conferences together, there are hotbeds of collegiate talent in Ontario and on either coast — particularly, in a Team Canada context, on the Western isle.

Three current members of the Victoria Vikes have suited up for Canada at the PNC: Nathan Hirayama, Phil Mack and Sean Duke, a former Gael who scored in the win over Tonga. Other Vikes, including veteran international Adam Kleeberger and former Canadian U20 player Beau Parker, have experience with junior and senior national sides.

The school’s ability to cultivate young talent has paid dividends on both ends. In 2010, Victoria won their third Rounsefell Cup, awarded to the British Columbia provincial club champion. That Vikes team also featured Ryan Hamilton and Andrew Tiedemann—each part of this Canadian PNC squad.

Canada’s roster is peppered with CIS alums from across the country. Captain Aaron Carpenter won three OUA titles with McMaster. Hulking forward Tyler Hotson played at UBC. Conor Trainor was a longtime rival of Underwood’s as a Western Mustang. Hubert Buydens was a Canada West All-Star—in football, as an offensive lineman for Saskatchewan.

“[University play] prepares the guys for competition,” said Crowley, a former New Zealand All Black who signed on as Canada’s head coach in 2008. “Any competition that we have is beneficial as long as the guys get good, quality rugby.”

Canada’s PNC fixtures are interspersed with a variety of other competitions—most notably, an international test match against Ireland this Friday at BMO Field. After that, Canada heads overseas to face Japan on June 19 in their final dose of PNC action.

From last week onwards, Canada is set to play four high-quality matches in two weeks—exemplifying the pressing need for depth outside the starting 15. Top CIS graduates are seemingly the perfect fit to bolster Canada’s roster: young, immensely talented and accustomed to compressed schedules after balancing university and club play.

The road’s only beginning for players like Underwood—but their contributions are already clear.
This is part 2 of the 2013 version of this project. See part 1, the women's version, for a full explanation of the methodology, and also last year's top men's prospects.

This was a good year for CCAA prospects: we identified nine women's players, and now seven men's players, as potential candidates to play up a level based on their stats. Consequently, we had to cut some players from this piece who would otherwise be included, for the sake of keeping this at a readable length. For the record, they are: Kadeem Willis (Lakeland), OCAA player of the year Felix Adjei (Seneca), and Garnet Blais (Algonquin). All of them have, I believe, two years of eligibility left, and so in other years they would make the list.

Of the seven players below, three have already committed to a CIS team.

(* denotes minutes played that have been adjusted at the team level to reflect a more realistic number.)

**

Chase Bowden
6-6 forward, 2nd year, Holland College
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2012-13
ACAA
1st
573
16.2
9.1
1.3
1.1
1.3
23.7
13.4
63.7%
20.9%
33.3
2013-14
CIS
2nd
470
11.9
6.8
1.0
0.7
0.9
20.3
11.6
58.6%
18.2%
25.0
Most similar: Paul Gareau, Derek Waldner, Kevin McCleery

Apparently you can shoot 63.7%, but not be named an All-Canadian.

Bowden, whom I believe has used just one year of eligibility (he took some time off basketball), led the ACAA in whatever version of field-goal percentage you wish to use (except three-pointers) as well as defensive rebounding and offensive rating. He was one board short of averaging a double-double at nationals, where Holland took home silver and, en route, they also got some attention for a what-just-happened?! win in the conference semifinal.

Holland, as best as I can tell, are a share-the-ball team: of the eight players in the Hurricanes' regular rotation last year, all had personal usage rates of between 16% and 23% of the team's possessions, the most equal such distribution of any ACAA team. Bowden's 21% is low for a big scorer, but CIS players with an eFG% around 64% (which Bowden is, of course, not projected to hit) are typically using even fewer possessions than that. It was an impressive season and while he was named ACAA rookie of the year, I'm not sure what else he had to do to pick up another award.

The projected PER and minutes played, 25.0 and 470, would have put Bowden in the top 60 or 70 players in CIS last year, roughly equivalent to Boris Hadzimuratovic, who isn't a bad comp for him either.

His offensive rating of 128 is not just the highest in the ACAA, but would also lead the ACAC and OCAA as well.



Jordon Fray
6-2 guard, 2nd year, Medicine Hat College
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2012-13
ACAC
1st
666*
16.3
8.1
3.6
0.5
2.2
20.6
10.3
46.2%
25.7%
24.8
2013-14
CIS
2nd
546
12.0
6.1
2.6
0.3
1.5
17.6
8.9
42.2%
22.3%
14.9
Most similar: Evens Laroche, Keenan Jeppesen

The first player we've profiled from the Medicine Hat Sans Frontiers, Fray's inclusion here depends a little bit more on his remaining years of eligibility than with Chase Bowden above, who'd be here even if he just had two years left. Fray, it is fair to say, had a less impressive season, but still a very solid one. Especially when you consider he played for a below-.500 team that didn't advance in the conference playoffs (another way in which his season differs from Bowden's).

His profile is kind of all over the place, but in a good way: he led his team in points, assists, and rebounds to make up for shooting just 47% on twos and 8 of 31 on threes.

Note: the school website has at least three first names for Fray: Jordan, Jordon, and Jason. He's Jordan in the stats, and the team did not respond to a request for clarification on the matter, so I will assume that's his name. (UPDATE: 5:38pm - word from the coach is that his name is "Jordon" and it has been corrected above.)



Rob Olsen
6-1 guard, 3rd year, Lethbridge College
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2009-10
ACAC
1st
346
10.3
4.3
2.2
0.2
1.4
22.5
9.4
47.5%
21.1%
24.7
2012-13
ACAC
2nd
736
19.0
6.0
2.4
0.2
2.0
23.8
7.6
56.7%
22.2%
24.8
2013-14
CIS
3rd
604
14.9
4.9
1.9
0.2
1.6
19.8
6.6
50.4%
19.3%
18.7
Most similar: Sam Freeman, Paul Kovacs, Terrance Brown

Jared Baker
6-2 guard, 3rd year, Lethbridge College
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2009-10
ACAC
1st
443
5.7
4.9
2.8
0.0
1.1
11.7
10.2
37.8%
16.8%
13.6
2012-13
ACAC
2nd
696
15.0
5.8
3.1
0.0
3.0
19.8
7.7
52.4%
19.7%
23.3
2013-14
CIS
3rd
571
11.6
4.8
2.5
0.0
2.3
16.3
6.7
45.9%
17.2%
17.0
Most similar: Sam Freeman, Isiah Pasquale, Tremaine Fraser

I can't promise that I haven't mixed up the stats for these guys. Their names are generic enough to confuse, they both spent 2010-11 and 2011-12 on missionary work, and they were even named Southern Alberta 4A Boys League MVP in consecutive years. And, of course, they've both already committed to the other Lethbridge for next year. Half of the players on that Lethbridge's roster come from this Lethbridge.

Sam Freeman's presence atop both their comp lists is no coincidence, but I like how they're also matched to different Laurentian shooters.

Together these two players comprised most of the run-and-bomb Lethbridge offence, finishing third and six in the ACAC in number of threes made. Olsen had a marginally better season, shooting better and fouling less, but there is not much to separate them. It's a good package for the 'Horns to add, especially with their two leading scorers, Derek Waldner and Julian Spear Chief-Morris, having exhausted their eligibility.



Marako Lundy
6-4 forward, 3rd year, Niagara College
Season

Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2011-12
OCAA
1st
193
12.5
3.2
1.5
0.1
0.6
28.6
7.3
53.7%
30.5%
29.0
2012-13
OCAA
2nd
559
14.6
5.5
2.3
1.0
1.9
22.0
8.3
51.9%
22.9%
27.3
2013-14
CIS
3rd
458
10.4
4.1
1.6
0.6
1.3
18.1
7.2
45.5%
19.9%
17.1
Most similar: Tyler Fidler, Jeff Friesen, Tommy Nixon

Lundy came to Niagara through the Noble Preparatory Academy in Nassau — the name of which would cause me to raise an eyebrow, if the school were located in Nevada or North Carolina (and if it had 50 students and twice as many basketball coaches as teachers).

He wasn't on our radar after 2011-12 because he missed half the season. Good when he did play, though. The Knights managed to get two players on this list, partially because of their above-average offence (first in Ontario in points, but third when adjusted for pace) built around solid ball movement and outside shooting. Lundy is that type of player. His PER was fourth-highest in Ontario, his true shooting percentage fifth.

No relation to former Always OUA hack and current Ottawa Senators flack Chris Lund.



Thomas Watson
6-2 guard, 3rd year, University of King's College
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2011-12
ACAA
1st
324
6.5
1.4
0.6
0.0
0.6
16.8
3.6
45.7%
21.4%
24.0
2012-13
ACAA
2nd
603
20.2
4.9
1.4
0.1
2.1
25.4
6.2
52.1%
26.8%
26.9
2013-14
CIS
3rd
494
13.1
3.3
0.9
0.1
1.3
21.2
5.4
46.1%
23.3%
16.5
Most similar: Joseph Jones, Casey Fox, Jonathan Cooper

Not to be confused with his U of A near-namesake, this Watson was first in scoring in the Atlantic league and third in possessions used on a middling King's team. His role was significantly expanded from his first year, and he was considerably more valuable as a result. (His projected CIS line a year ago included a 4.9 PER, which is about all I need to say.)

It's a little difficult to find comparisons for Watson. Essentially, he combined two distinct roles: a high-volume shooter outside and a physical presence inside. He accounted for almost a third of his team's free throw attempts. I tried to find a CIS player who has done this to the same extent, gaining both lots of threes and lots of whistles, and the only one who came up was Phil Scrubb. Anyone know who that is?

Take the regular method we use to find comparable players, but without matching on the player's FTM/FGA rate, and you get a set of top 25 comparisons for Watson, who average 0.21 FTM per FGA. But his rate was double that. So when you try to look for players who have similar stats in all those other categories, then add this outlier to the mix, you get some odd matches. Jones is similar along most dimensions, but with a much lower PER. Cooper was more of a distributor than Watson, and so on.

Which is to say, Watson may not do this at the next level, if he were given the opportunity. The rate at which a player gets to the line is not something that's currently baked into our projection system, but is probably something we should consider adding.



Alex Campbell
6-2 guard, 3rd year, Niagara College
Season
Conf/Lg
Year
Minutes
Per Game
Per 40
eFG%UsagePER
PTSREBASTBLKSTLPTSREB
2011-12
OCAA
1st
552
18.1
5.2
2.2
0.3
1.6
23.6
6.7
49.6%
24.7%
26.5
2012-13
OCAA
2nd
692
16.2
6.2
3.5
0.6
1.9
19.7
7.6
47.3%
21.1%
24.8
2013-14
CIS
3rd
567
11.7
4.7
2.5
0.4
1.3
16.4
6.6
42.1%
18.4%
16.3
Most similar: Kale Harrison, Kyle Grewal, Éric Côté-Kougnima

And here's our other shooter from Niagara, except he's moving on to Windsor. Campbell appears to be a less flashy version of teammate Lundy, which is not meant to be a disparaging comment; he may in fact be the superior athlete and player.

Campbell probably should have been on last year's list, too, and I'm not sure why he wasn't. In some ways it was a better season, and obviously he was a year younger then.

Interestingly, also joining the Lancers this fall (after a year off) is Khalid Abdel-Gabar, whom we identified as a prospect in this space last year. As noted then, he has experience defeating Guelph and Waterloo, so playing for Windsor should be no different for him, really.
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