Analyzing a game¶

Let's look at one game: the 2025 CEBL final, where the Niagara River Lions beat the Calgary Surge 79–73 to win the championship.

Find the game¶

Every dataset is keyed on fiba_game_id, so the schedule is where you start.

import ceblpy

schedule = ceblpy.load_cebl_schedule(2025)
final = schedule[schedule["fiba_game_id"] == "2702972"]

print(
    final[
        [
            "start_time_utc",
            "venue_name",
            "home_team_name",
            "home_team_score",
            "away_team_name",
            "away_team_score",
        ]
    ].to_markdown(index=False)
)

start_time_utc	venue_name	home_team_name	home_team_score	away_team_name	away_team_score
2025-08-24 23:00:00+00:00	Canada Life Centre	Calgary Surge	73	Niagara River Lions	79

Team totals¶

The team box score has one row per team per game.

import ceblpy

boxscore = ceblpy.load_cebl_team_boxscore(2025)
final = boxscore[boxscore["fiba_game_id"] == "2702972"]

print(
    final[
        [
            "team_name",
            "points",
            "field_goals_made",
            "field_goals_attempted",
            "total_rebounds",
            "bench_points",
            "points_in_paint",
        ]
    ].to_markdown(index=False)
)

team_name	points	field_goals_made	field_goals_attempted	total_rebounds	bench_points	points_in_paint
Calgary Surge	73	25	73	46	15	30
Niagara River Lions	79	29	74	50	26	20

The two teams combined for 54 made field goals on 147 attempts. Calgary scored more in the paint, 30–20, while Niagara had the edge on the glass and from the bench.

Individual lines¶

The player box score has one row per player per game, including players who didn't get off the bench. Filtering on minutes > 0 drops them, which is useful when you're computing per-player rates and don't want zero-minute rows in the denominator.

import ceblpy

players = ceblpy.load_cebl_player_boxscore(2025)
final = players[(players["fiba_game_id"] == "2702972") & (players["minutes"] > 0)]

print(
    final.sort_values("points", ascending=False)
    .head(6)[
        [
            "first_name",
            "family_name",
            "minutes",
            "points",
            "total_rebounds",
            "assists",
        ]
    ]
    .to_markdown(index=False)
)

first_name	family_name	minutes	points	total_rebounds	assists
Sean	Miller-Moore	37.0167	19	4	1
Khalil	Ahmad	28.9667	16	9	1
Nathan	Cayo	34.6333	14	6	3
Khyri	Thomas	17	13	1	0
Evan	Gilyard Ii	30.9833	13	2	4
Ahmed	Hill	20.9167	13	6	2

Where the shots came from¶

Play-by-play has one row per event. Shots carry court coordinates in x and y, so you can work with location as well as outcome.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/runner/work/ceblpy/ceblpy/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/markdown_exec/_internal/formatters/python.py", line 71, in _run_python
    exec_python(code, code_block_id, exec_globals)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/runner/work/ceblpy/ceblpy/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/markdown_exec/_internal/formatters/_exec_python.py", line 7, in exec_python
    compiled = compile(code, filename=filename, mode="exec")
  File "<code block: n9>", line 5
    pbp["fiba_game_id"] == "2702972") & (pbp["action_type"].isin(["2pt", "3pt"]))
                                    ^
SyntaxError: closing parenthesis ')' does not match opening parenthesis '[' on line 4

Plotting the shots¶

Lets create a plot of every shot in the game for the home team, Niagra. Shots show up at both ends because they switch sides at the half. So the first half is one side and the second is the other.

from io import StringIO

import matplotlib

matplotlib.use("Agg")

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from mplbasketball import Court

import ceblpy

pbp = ceblpy.load_cebl_pbp(2025)

shots = pbp[
    (pbp["fiba_game_id"] == "2702972")
    & (pbp["action_type"].isin(["2pt", "3pt"]))
    & (pbp["is_home"] == True)
].copy()

# x and y run 0-100 across the full court; scale to FIBA metres (28m x 15m)
shots["x_m"] = (shots["x"] / 100) * 28
shots["y_m"] = (shots["y"] / 100) * 15

# Drawn in a placeholder colour, swapped for currentColor at the end so the
# court and labels follow the page's light or dark theme.
INHERIT = "#ff00ff"

court = Court(court_type="fiba", origin="bottom-left", units="m")
fig, ax = court.draw(showaxis=False, line_color=INHERIT, line_alpha=0.45)

shot_styles = {
    True: ("Made", {"color": "#e8452c"}),
    False: ("Missed", {"facecolors": "none", "edgecolors": "#4c9be8"}),
}

for made, (label, style) in shot_styles.items():
    subset = shots[shots["success"].eq(made)]
    ax.scatter(subset["x_m"], subset["y_m"], s=55, alpha=0.9, label=label, **style)

ax.legend(loc="upper left", bbox_to_anchor=(1.02, 1), frameon=False, labelcolor=INHERIT)
ax.set_title("Niagara River Lions shots — 2025 CEBL final", pad=15, color=INHERIT)

buffer = StringIO()
plt.savefig(buffer, format="svg", bbox_inches="tight", transparent=True)
print(buffer.getvalue().replace(INHERIT, "currentColor"))

What else¶

load_cebl_officials gives you the crew for each game, and every loader takes a list of seasons or nothing at all if you want the full history. See the API reference for the details.