Pilotsreport.com

I was reading an article on the NY Times last night (LINK) about a website that has an automated college hoops writer. They have a website dedicated to every D1 hoops squad and the one for the Pilots is pretty decent. The recaps aren't anything special but they have a lot of really good stats. A lot more in-depth than most other websites. Check it out. It's pretty sweet.

pilotsreport.com

Nice find. Pretty exhaustive stats for the team, and I really like the various visuals available... I'd say this is probably sticky worthy.

Good Morning Pilots fans. I'm writing to let you know about a new Portland basketball website we launched recently: http://pilotsreport.com. It's powered by StatSheet.com and I'm the editor. I noticed you have our site stickied at the top of the forum here, which is awesome.

We offer up article game recaps, previews, game notes, recap notes, Conference Player of the Week, NCAA Player of the Week, etc. We have more article types under development now (including our own tournament seeding predictions) and would love to hear from you about how our site could be better.

Here is an example of one of our Recap Notes: http://pilotsreport.com/portland-basketball/recap-notes/saint-marys-vs-portland-recap-notes-3

We also have mobile apps for Android and Apple phones, as well as a Twitter and Facebook page. Get awesome stats updates through your favorite social medium!

Anyway, we are very interested in your feedback. We've got a lot of new features coming in the next few weeks so stay tuned!

-Mitch
editor@pilotsreport.com or you can PM me here

Also ... Mods ... feel free to move this to the other thread about our site. Just thought I'd start a new one mentioning our interest in feedback, if you'd like to move it that's totally cool with me!

Hmm.. I had a reply but the mods moved the post and I lost the reply.
I'll try to reconstruct what remember.

Nice site, Mitch.
I Go to the site before and after every game.

First, a minor kvetch:

Your site generates a series of presumably automated comparisons like this one.

Gonzaga has lost 88% of the time this season (1-8 ) after recording 71 or less total points

In any quantitative numeric comparison, the proper word is "fewer", not "less". Changing that would make the site look less automated. If I saw that phrasing fewer times, maybe I'd grind my teeth less.

Thanks for pointing out the iPhone App. I just downloaded it. An iPad Specific version would be nice also.
Which brings up the point about content generation. Last year 17 million iPads were sold. Next year, they project between 28 and 73 million more will be sold to affluent Customers. Lots of your content and all of your charts are flash based. While they are readable in a browser that does server based conversion of flash to HTML5( I use Cloudbrowse) it's a pain, slow, and detracts an bit from the experience. You might want to think about migrating those parts of the site to HTML5. Keep the ads flash if you want. I dont mind blank spaces or static ads there. Eliminating flash helps any portable device. A MAcbook Air, for example, saves 2 hours of battery life with flash turned off. The same is true for iPhones.

I like the "blast from the past" bit the site generates. Brings back nice memories.

You have many comparisons, but you don't seem to adequately distinguish how teams do at away games vs how they do in their own house. In college basketball, that's a huge difference. Often it looks like two different teams wear the uniform. You might want to include how well teams defend home court and how often visiting teams beat the home court odds.

It might be nice to know that UP is 42-4 at home over the last three years and 12-0 this year, and that the Zags are 4-7 on the road this year.

Great site. Keep improving.

Why the ART time designation? Only Geezaldhino would be able to interpret that.

Just think of it as the time in Buenos Aires.

PurpleGeezer - Thanks for the awesome feedback. While we can't change the old articles, from now on you will only see "fewer" and not "less". Other stuff we will have to look into.

As for the time thing ... I haven't seen this before and will have to be looked into.

i THIS SITE

up7587 wrote:Why the ART time designation? Only Geezaldhino would be able to interpret that.

If anyone notices a time zone error such as this one please let me know. The correct time zone is wherever the game is being played. I'm pretty sure Portland didn't play any games in Argentina this season haha, though I'm sure they wouldn't have been opposed to it.

I can't seem to find this error currently, so if you know where it is and want to link me to it that would be super.

Thanks!

Looks like times are now reported in EST. Not the best, but an improvement over Buenos Aires! Maybe we'll see PST eventually.

I do note that the Record RPI vs Top 50 is wrong: it shows 2-1, should be 1-2 (SMC win, KU and UW losses).

By the way, I'm not sure how Fan Satisfaction goes from -18 after Pepperdine to +6 after LMU. That's a huge jump for a win over a struggling team. In my world, the losses to GU and PU plus the sloppy play at SU are not offset by the LMU game. Three bad conference road losses resulting in a 5th place standing are not so easily forgotten.

up7587 wrote:Looks like times are now reported in EST. Not the best, but an improvement over Buenos Aires! Maybe we'll see PST eventually.

I do note that the Record RPI vs Top 50 is wrong: it shows 2-1, should be 1-2 (SMC win, KU and UW losses).

By the way, I'm not sure how Fan Satisfaction goes from -18 after Pepperdine to +6 after LMU. That's a huge jump for a win over a struggling team. In my world, the losses to GU and PU plus the sloppy play at SU are not offset by the LMU game. Three bad conference road losses resulting in a 5th place standing are not so easily forgotten.

The time should be whichever time zone in which the game is being played.

We are going to develop a page that gives an explanation on things such as our fan satisfaction survey and player grades, etc.

On that note ... you should notice player grades at the end of our game recaps in the near future as that is something we have added.

You guys five the best feedback it is very helpful!

up7587 wrote:Looks like times are now reported in EST. Not the best, but an improvement over Buenos Aires! Maybe we'll see PST eventually.

I do note that the Record RPI vs Top 50 is wrong: it shows 2-1, should be 1-2 (SMC win, KU and UW losses).

By the way, I'm not sure how Fan Satisfaction goes from -18 after Pepperdine to +6 after LMU. That's a huge jump for a win over a struggling team. In my world, the losses to GU and PU plus the sloppy play at SU are not offset by the LMU game. Three bad conference road losses resulting in a 5th place standing are not so easily forgotten.

RPI Top 50 has been corrected as well, it is now 1-2.

We have added player grades to our recaps, as well as a pretty awesome Top 25 Update article.

Soon we will be releasing what we call "StatSeed". We developed a formula to do our own "Bracketology"

Just wanted to say thanks again for deeming our site sticky worthy.

Check out the site for 2012 as it has been upgraded with a new look and feel. We are also upgrading our apps so those of you that have the app, look for a significant upgrade soon.

One last thing ... for those that enjoy statsmack ... we have launched stand alone apps ... smack your friends!

http://statsheet.com/blog/introducing-statsmack-mobile

Portland Stomped By Washington, 93-63
After the Georgia State win, the Pilots took a tumble. On November 14th at a neutral site, the Pilots were destroyed by the Huskies, 93-63.

Neutral site? It was the on-campus arena at UW. LINK

up7587 wrote:

Portland Stomped By Washington, 93-63
After the Georgia State win, the Pilots took a tumble. On November 14th at a neutral site, the Pilots were destroyed by the Huskies, 93-63.

Neutral site? It was the on-campus arena at UW. LINK

Well, we did have a pretty good turn out (probably a 16/1 ratio); it should prepare us for our neutral site game at home against BYU.

I'm impressed with what they've done.

I'm unpinning this one, as it appears the subject site is no longer active.