Data Cleansing

Generally I gather my data from ESPN and it's mostly consistent.  They do a pretty good job keeping the data clean.  But I've also gathered data from Yahoo and other sources (such as betting lines).  And any attempt to merge the data from different sources is an adventure in reconciliation.

There's no standard for reporting neutral site games, so sometimes one team is the home team, and sometimes the other team is the home team.

Team names are reported any which way.   Teams like "California State Fullerton Titans" are a nightmare -- CSU Fullerton, CSU-Fullerton, CSU Fullerton Titans, Cal State Fullerton, Cal St Fullerton, Cal St. Fullerton, Cal. State Fullerton, etc., etc.  Surprisingly, the only outright confusion is SDSU, which usually means South Dakota State University, but sometimes means San Diego State University.

Game times are typically reported in Eastern Time.  Which is fine except for Hawaii, whose scores are sometimes reported on the day the game started, and sometimes on the day it ended.  The Alaskan Shootout is a problem, too.  According to ESPN, Oral Roberts played both Loyola-Marymount and Charlotte on 11/22 this year.  Talk about a tough schedule -- fire the AD!

A couple of games were cancelled this year (notably the 11/9 weather games), but a game between BYU and Utah State was postponed when a Utah State player dropped dead on the court during practice.  Luckily the athletic trainer had a defibrillator and restarted the player's heart, saving his life.

The non-D1 teams schools find to play are endlessly fascinating.  Last week Houston Baptist played Ecclesia College, which is so small it barely has a Wikipedia page.  I can't even tell how many students are enrolled there from its website.  The most popular non-D1 opponents this year are San Diego Christian (8 games against D1 opponents, lost every one) and Rochester (6 games, won against Eastern Illinois).   MIT seems to be Harvard's opening opponent every year (?).  Le Tourneau College was founded by a guy who made his fortune inventing earthmoving equipment.

2012-2013 Schedule Now Available

A quick FYI for the other college basketball predictors out there:  Yahoo Sports has now posted the schedule of upcoming games for next year.  As reported last time, the scores from past seasons remain broken, but at least the upcoming games are now available.

I've updated the Data page to include links to the 2012-2013 schedule as well as the current conference affiliations.