Which NCAA Schools Play Scenarioball?

Xavier and Georgetown faced off on Saturday in a key Big East matchup. I will soon find out if either team plays Scenarioball. Photo courtesy Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports

Hello, all! I hope you had a great weekend. Time to check in on the best interactive basketball game this side of NBA 2K: Scenarioball! Today's post puts us back on campus.

Not long ago I compared NBA teams against my Scenarioball stats - that is, statistical categories that I value when I watch a game such as dunks and made three-pointers. I alluded to the fact I wanted to do the same for the NCAA, but with 351 schools, I knew that would be a challenge.

I contemplated how to deal with the sheer number of schools in Division I and resolved that while each school is unique, I don't truly care about all of them. I decided to narrow down the number of schools with some arena standards in the vain of Euroleague and UEFA. I prefer schools that play in pro-style arenas with mostly chairback seats on three or four sides of the court, with premium seating as an added bonus. I assume my love of pro basketball influences that.

Here are the arena standards I came up with:

• Must be the team's main venue, i.e. play about 3/4 of their home games there
• At least 5,000 seats
• Must have multiple premium seating options
• Must be located in a metro area of 100,000 or more

I figured I would have more demands in my standards, but they came out pretty simple. I ended up with 70 schools from across the DI basketball landscape:

Arkansas Razorbacks

Arkansas-Little Rock Trojans

Belmont Bruins

Binghamton Bearcats

Cincinnati Bearcats

Creighton Bluejays

Dayton Flyers

DePaul Blue Demons

Eastern Michigan Eagles

Evansville Aces

Florida State Seminoles

Fresno State Bulldogs

Georgetown Hoyas

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

Green Bay Pheonix

Hofstra Pride

Houston Cougars

Illinois Fighting Illini

Lipscomb Bisons

Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns

Louisville Cardinals

Marquette Golden Eagles

Maryland Terrapins

Memphis Tigers

Miami Hurricanes

Michigan State Spartans

Minnesota Golden Gophers

Missouri Tigers

Missouri State Bears

NC State Wolfpack

Nebraska Cornhuskers

New Mexico Lobos

Northern Illinois Huskies

Northern Iowa Panthers

Northern Kentucky Norse

Ohio State Buckeyes

Old Dominion Monarchs

Omaha Mavericks

Penn State Nittany Lions

Pittsburgh Panthers

Providence Friars

Rhode Island Rams

Richmond Spiders

Saint Louis Billikens

Seattle Redhawks

Seton Hall Pirates

Siena Saints

SMU Mustangs

South Alabama Jaguars

South Carolina Gamecocks

South Florida Bulls

Syracuse Orange

Temple Owls

Tennessee Volunteers

Texas Longhorns

Texas-Arlington Mavericks

Texas Tech Red Raiders

Toledo Rockets

Towson Tigers

UCF Knights

UNLV Runnin' Rebels

USC Trojans

Utah Valley Wolverines

Vanderbilt Commodores

Virginia Cavaliers

Wake Forest Demon Deacons

Western Kentucky Hilltoppers

Wisconsin Badgers

Wright State Raiders

Xavier Musketeers

Phew! Did you get all of those? I'm going to run my numbers on these schools for this season and put them into a readable chart. I'm thinking of putting the top teams into a March Madness-style tournament, but I'll work that out later. At some point I'll also go back to past seasons to see which teams have consistently played the way I enjoy. I intend to put those teams into a 8- to 12-team conference that I'll cover beat-reporter style next season. As with any time I run numbers, I'm excited to see how things shake out.

Scenarioball: Back on Campus

I hinted in my last Scenarioball post that I was going to try to tackle the college ranks at some point. While I don't foresee that post being done within the immediate future, I figured it would be cool to give the game a whirl on random games from the season to date.

The first game I thought to do was Illinois's triple overtime win over Rutgers. I happened to catch the beginning of the game, but changed the channel at halftime so I could watch Warriors/Wizards. These two teams have injury-marred rosters and came in with only one conference win between them. My numbers showed that the matchup would not have been all that thrilling despite the length and competitiveness of the game.

Seeing that a triple overtime game didn't fare that well with my numbers jarred me a bit. So I decided to go back into the recent archives to figure out if my eyes deceived me when I watched games I was invested in. I first went to my second favorite game of the season: the 4OT battle between Arizona and USC. I wanted USC to win, they outlasted the Wildcats, and they were fun to watch in the process.

Okay cool. That game was as awesome as I thought it was. So I decided to up the ante and try Scenarioball on my favorite game of the season: my alma mater's upset win at Wisconsin on the first day of the season. While I was running around my house when the final buzzer sounded, WIU and Wisconsin ended the game above water in Scenario points. Very cool.

I then decided to give it a go on two other random games. The Seattle/Cal game is on YouTube and I've been meaning to watching it eventually. Apparently it just breaks even, so I won't be in too much of a rush to check it out. I watched the Texas/Washington game on-demand and it seems to have been way more brutal then I recall. I suppose I was lost in the ramblings of Bill Walton and that fact the game was played in China!

I definitely have the most fun applying my game to random matchups just to see how things shake out. Perhaps doing random games every now and again could help me chip away at getting that full college article done. But even with the games I've done, I'd still have a long way to go.

The NBA According to Scenarioball

Happy Monday and Happy Black History Month! I hope you had a great weekend.

A lot of exciting stuff will be coming your way this month, including my first video for the Scenario Mode YouTube channel. I'm still working on my rhythm from recording games to editing to posting. So as of this writing, my first video isn't ready just yet. In the meantime, I decided to give you a post that puts my new game Scenarioball into perspective. While I have done some tabulations for individual games, I eventually wanted to look at my game from a more macro level. The beginning of a new month seems like a good time to reflect.

Below are NBA team Scenarioball stats through January 31st. While the game can get much more advanced by tracking things such as ugly-looking shots and missed open layups, I figured I would keep it simple and look up the tracked stats that you can find in the NBA.com stats section.

It's really cool to see it all laid out in front of me. Here are a few loose observations I extract from the numbers:

• I'm not surprised that in terms of what I enjoy the most about basketball, the Warriors bring it the most and in spades. Every Warriors game I watch has been an event for me. I have been particularly enamored with the play of Steph Curry like almost everyone else, but Golden State's entertainment value is a team effort. I'm looking forward to seeing if they can cap off a historic season, dunking and dropping treys along the way.
• Depsite their underacheiving, the Rockets seem to still be entertaining to watch. I had been avoiding Rockets games up to this point because of the organizational and defensive mess they're in, as well as their outright refusal to play the raw but talented K.J. McDaniels. In the face of these stats, maybe I'll give them a look when they come back around on the national schedule.
• When Doc Rivers replaced Vinny Del Negro as coach of the Clippers in 2013, Blake Griffin quipped that Lob City "[didn't] exist anymore". Yet there they are, leading the NBA in alley-oops, propelling themselves into 3rd place in the Scenarioball standings. A few things turn me off from the Clippers. Among them are Doc's constant whining for calls (more than what's normal for NBA players and coaches), torpedoing his roster with each transaction, and the team's below-average logos and uniforms. Biases aside, there's no doubt the Clippers are fun to watch.
• It's hilarious that the worst team in the league are a Top 10 Scenarioball team, coming in at #9. We should get them a trophy! The Bulls, my favorite team, are all the way down at #20.
• The Brooklyn Nets are at the bottom of the Scenarioball standings with only 118(!) points. They're 48 games into the season, yet are barely over 100 points. If you doubled the Nets' point total, it would still fall short of the second-to-last Hornets. After all of the fanfare of moving into a cool, new arena in the heart of Brooklyn and paying big bucks to be an immediate contender, this franchise has stagnated. The team is attempting to transition with the removal of head coach Lionel Hollins and reassignment of GM Billy King. At this point in American history, however, the future is up in the air. They will be hard to watch for the foreseeable future.

There's a look at the NBA according to basic Scenarioball. Let me know what you think in the comments. Do any of these findings surprise you? Are their teams you enjoy or dislike that are in different places in the standings? I will definitely be updating the stats and adding some advanced categories at a later date. I also want to comb through the college ranks, too, but with 351 schools, that post will take awhile.

Scenarioballin' on a Thursday

Kobe Bryant hosted the Bulls for a final time last night. On the court he finished with 10 points. In a game of Scenarioball, his 2-7 shooting from outside and 2 turnovers saw him finish the night with -1 points.

Yesterday I told you about a game I started playing to make the games I watch more interactive. I named it "Scenarioball", which may not be the most inventive sport name, but we're just going to roll with it. I decided to try out my game on TNT's Thursday Night doubleheader. Last night's slate consisted of the undermanned Knicks taking on the Raptors in Toronto, followed by the Bulls visiting Kobe for the final time as they took on the Lakers in LA. Here are my results:

The Knicks were able to keep the game somewhat close, losing 93-103 despite being without Carmelo Anthony, Kristaps Porzingis, and Jose Calderon. The Knicks were mostly blah outside of Afflalo going 3-for-3 from three and Vujacic going 3-for-6 from outside with 2 steals. The Raptors on the other hand were pretty fun to watch. Kyle Lowry knocked down a few treys and got a few steals, James Johnson got 4(!) blocks, and DeRozan, Ross, and Biyombo threw down a dunk each.

As a Bulls fan, it felt good to see them not play down to an opponent. This was a free win coming in and they took advantage with the decisive 114-91 victory. Jimmy Butler and Taj Gibson rose to the Scenarioball occasion by notching double-figures. They both had three dunks each, with Butler receiving two alley-oops. Butler also swiped four steals. The Lakers, though they were blown out in Scenarioball and in real life, defied my expectations. Brandon Bass, a guy I largely ignore, led the way with 5 points. D'Angelo Russell, a guy I'm really hoping pans out as an NBA player, was at the bottom with -3 points in 24 minutes of play.

Scenarioball: Focusing on the "Important" Things in Basketball

Let's play a game.

When you're watching a game, give a player a point or points every time they do something you like. Take away a point or points when a player does something you dislike. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the basic gist of Scenarioball.

I assume I'm not the first person to do this: drinking games do this already, but with alcohol instead of pen and paper. I call it "Scenarioball" only because any games I do this with will utilize my scoring system. The system is based off of what I like and dislike about the game of basketball. Feel free to make up your own scoring system and name it what you please.

I spent this past week testing the system on a couple of games. After practicing on these games, I have a good idea of what I'm trying to do. I've worked out some variations of this system that work across different codes of the game.

First is the basic game. This is the hierarchy of things I enjoy about all forms of basketball that are normally recorded in box scores and play-by-play accounts across versions of the game. I can use this both for live games, to review old games or ones I missed, and to double-check my work:

+3 for Dunks

+2 for Made Three-Pointers

+1 for Blocks and Steals

-1 for Missed Three-Pointers and Turnovers

Here are the more advanced points. These are points I can give out when I'm watching games live, since these things always or ever recorded in a box score or play-by-play account. However, thanks to video box scores and archived games, I can also give out these points when I review old NBA games.

+5 for Half-court shots and all game winners
+5 for Alley-Oop Dunks (+2 to the passer, +3 to the recipient)
+2 for Forcing 24 Second Violations (Points go to the team)
+1 for any additional style points such as a flashy pass, dope crossover move, or hard screen
-1 for any missed dunk
-1 for an ugly missed shot
-2 for a 24 Second Violation (Points go to the team, last man with the ball gets a -1 for the turnover)
-2 for an air ball or missed uncontested lay-up
-3 for a Flagrant 2 foul

This is all subject to change, of course, but I feel this does a great job of covering what I want out of a good game of baloncesto.

With this point system in mind, here is an example Scenarioball box score from last night's DePaul-Butler game that was aired on CBS Sports Network:

I thought up this specific system around New Year's. I ran a rudimentary test on the Bulls/Raptors game where Jimmy Butler scored 40 points in the second half. The actual origins of the game came several years ago when I started wondering rather I was getting the most out of the college basketball teams I invest my time and viewership into. I have certain fandoms that will last no matter what (Bulls for the NBA, Sky for the WNBA, Western Illinois & Creighton in the NCAA). However, there are other teams I invest in for various reasons. This system may help me figure out which teams I should really be looking into, and which ones I should kick to the curb.

Give it a shot. Put together your own scoring system, or use mine if you want, and tally up the points. Is the team you're infatuated with giving you what you truly want? Or will you discover that a different team is the one you wanted all along?

Moving forward, I will be Scenarioballin' pro and college games whenever the time feels right. I will then tabulate the results and post them with a recap. I'm really excited to get into this and start exploring teams from across the landscape.

Leave a comment below or in any other Scenarioball posts and tell me your results. Below are the final tallies from my "practice" games this past week. Next up for me: tonight's Bulls-Lakers matchup on TNT.