2017-18 Stats/Rankings

[GarradJ21]

I don't care about metrics. It's nice to hear about it, but I think it's too hard to tell because it's not comparing apples to apples. Any team can hold East Carolina to 60 points. Trust me, I'm very optimistic when it comes to the Bearcats, but the truth is the truth, we don't play it that great of a conference. Watching SMU and watching Houston they are decent teams, but we are better. Teams get upsetted every night, I get that. We have what it takes IMO to go on a serious run in the tournament. I'm not crowning us the NC by any means, but def feel like we have what it takes. I won't say that next year and who knows when I'll say it again. I just know how I feel about this team, and if we would lose two road games involving Houston and SMU that would be a huge let down. Crazier things can happen in college basketball, but the truth is I view us a top 10 team as I'm sure you all do. A top ten team should not go into Houston and SMU and lose. I can see one slip up but not two.

If we were playing in the old big east or the ACC I would accept losing to teams like Boston College and NC State knowing we might have just battled North Caroline to the wire 3 nights before. It's a whole different animal but when we are out here battling the AAC teams which I get conference play is conference play nothing is easy and we go on our first back to back tough test of the conference and would drop both. Pah that be seriously pathetic considering who the two teams are, their roster, and their overall skill. Again, this only goes for this year.

 

[justinhub2003]

He pays too much attention to what's on paper. If you don't think we have enough to win the national championship then ok, that's fine. I'm of course biased. But if he feels Duke doesn't have what it takes to win a national championship either that's shocking.

I pay attention to Historical evidence. You need to be elite on both sides of the ball.

I think we can win it all but as of today my favorites based on whats happened in the past would be: Purdue & Michigan St.


But maybe this season is the year that bucks the 10 year trend. It certainly could happen that way as looking at kenpom, very few teams are elite on both sides of the ball.

 

[sedziobs]

Careful with historical kenpom rankings. They include the tournament games, so the champion will have much better numbers than they did going into the tournament.

 

[waterhead]

I think we have a lot to get figured out on offense before we start talking about national titles. Do we have the potential for a Final 4? Sure. Do we need some things to happen on offense to get there? Yes.

We need Cumberland to start being more efficient. We will need a play maker like Cane to start to earn more minutes.

Our D is ferocious! But that is only half the game. Our offense is not bad but it has to be closer to very very good.

 

[indydoug]

if they win it all, I'll be surprised.

These aren't my opinions. Just historical fact.


Typically teams who win it all have a top 25 Defense and Offense.

2017: UNC #9 off, #11 Defense
2016: Nova: #3 off, #5 defense
2015: Duke: #3, #11
2014: UCONN: #39, #10
2013: Ville: #7, #1
2012: UK: #2, #7
2011: UCONN: #19, #15
2010: Duke: #1, #5
2009: UNC: #1, #18
2008: Kansas: #2, #1


So obviously UCONN's 2014 run is the closest thing to us that won a national champions and they had Shabaz Napier. They went on a great run. Thats a tough road though

And after winning 6 NCAA games those numbers improve dramatically from end of season, I would think. It would be intersting to see what those Champions' KP efficiency numbers looked like B4 NCAA tourney.

 

[indydoug]

Careful with historical kenpom rankings. They include the tournament games, so the champion will have much better numbers than they did going into the tournament.

OOPS! Sorry didn't see this before my #265 post.

 

[justinhub2003]

I don't care about metrics. It's nice to hear about it, but I think it's too hard to tell because it's not comparing apples to apples. Any team can hold East Carolina to 60 points. Trust me, I'm very optimistic when it comes to the Bearcats, but the truth is the truth, we don't play it that great of a conference. Watching SMU and watching Houston they are decent teams, but we are better. Teams get upsetted every night, I get that. We have what it takes IMO to go on a serious run in the tournament. I'm not crowning us the NC by any means, but def feel like we have what it takes. I won't say that next year and who knows when I'll say it again. I just know how I feel about this team, and if we would lose two road games involving Houston and SMU that would be a huge let down. Crazier things can happen in college basketball, but the truth is I view us a top 10 team as I'm sure you all do. A top ten team should not go into Houston and SMU and lose. I can see one slip up but not two.

But the point I'm trying to make is that losing to @houston and @SMU, are not bad losses. Houston is undefeated at home and just whomped Wichita state there. And SMU, while their streak ended, are much better at home than away and they had previously just held the 2nd longest home winning streak.


Do I think we can legitimately win both games? Absolutely. But we haven't looked all that consistent away from home all season. And both Houston and SMU will be far far more desperate to win than we will. Ill be really frustrated if we lose. But IF we were to drop 2 in a row, it won't change my expectations for this team. Winning on the road is really really hard.
And we have't been tested like this since the 2 game stretch of Xavier and Florida.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

I don't care about metrics. It's nice to hear about it, but I think it's too hard to tell because it's not comparing apples to apples. Any team can hold East Carolina to 60 points. Trust me, I'm very optimistic when it comes to the Bearcats, but the truth is the truth, we don't play it that great of a conference. Watching SMU and watching Houston they are decent teams, but we are better. Teams get upsetted every night, I get that. We have what it takes IMO to go on a serious run in the tournament. I'm not crowning us the NC by any means, but def feel like we have what it takes. I won't say that next year and who knows when I'll say it again. I just know how I feel about this team, and if we would lose two road games involving Houston and SMU that would be a huge let down. Crazier things can happen in college basketball, but the truth is I view us a top 10 team as I'm sure you all do. A top ten team should not go into Houston and SMU and lose. I can see one slip up but not two.

If we were playing in the old big east or the ACC I would accept losing to teams like Boston College and NC State knowing we might have just battled North Caroline to the wire 3 nights before. It's a whole different animal but when we are out here battling the AAC teams which I get conference play is conference play nothing is easy and we go on our first back to back tough test of the conference and would drop both. Pah that be seriously pathetic considering who the two teams are, their roster, and their overall skill. Again, this only goes for this year.

Why are you acting like we lost those games? You're getting ahead of yourself here.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

Careful with historical kenpom rankings. They include the tournament games, so the champion will have much better numbers than they did going into the tournament.

Good point.

 

[cincrulz11]

And after winning 6 NCAA games those numbers improve dramatically from end of season, I would think. It would be intersting to see what those Champions' KP efficiency numbers looked like B4 NCAA tourney.

you can download them to show what they were before the tournament started

 

[GarradJ21]

Why are you acting like we lost those games? You're getting ahead of yourself here.

I'm not acting like we lost those two games. So sorry for talking about it but the statement was IF we lose what would happen. so I went on a vent session of how awful that would be IMO.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

I'm not acting like we lost those two games. So sorry for talking about it but the statement was IF we lose what would happen. so I went on a vent session of how awful that would be IMO.

I just don't even understand why we're going there. But alright. Vent away about future events!

 

[GarradJ21]

But the point I'm trying to make is that losing to @houston and @SMU, are not bad losses. Houston is undefeated at home and just whomped Wichita state there. And SMU, while their streak ended, are much better at home than away and they had previously just held the 2nd longest home winning streak.


Do I think we can legitimately win both games? Absolutely. But we haven't looked all that consistent away from home all season. And both Houston and SMU will be far far more desperate to win than we will. Ill be really frustrated if we lose. But IF we were to drop 2 in a row, it won't change my expectations for this team. Winning on the road is really really hard.
And we have't been tested like this since the 2 game stretch of Xavier and Florida.

Yes youre right about at all, and probably thinking more logically I will agree. But there comes a time when you actually have to get over this mediocre hump and to me that is this year with this team. Losing those two games would be a slap in the face.

Jake is right though we are getting ahead of ourselves. Lets get through these next 3 games.

 

[justinhub2003]

Careful with historical kenpom rankings. They include the tournament games, so the champion will have much better numbers than they did going into the tournament.

I went back and looked. the only teams that really jumped up a ton after playing 6 tourney games was UCONN.

Because of their cinderella run.

Other than that, Most of the other champs were who they were all season and just carried it into the tourney.

 

[GarradJ21]

I just don't even understand why we're going there. But alright. Vent away about future events!

I think we are going there or at least I'm going there because I can't see us losing these next 3 games so you tend to look ahead. As fans we can do that, as the team I hope they are not. It just was brought up about the hard stretch that would face in a couple of weeks but to me that hard stretch is nothing should stand in our way. Realistically though I know it's not guarantee wins.

 

[sedziobs]

And after winning 6 NCAA games those numbers improve dramatically from end of season, I would think. It would be intersting to see what those Champions' KP efficiency numbers looked like B4 NCAA tourney.

Kenpom lists overall ranking prior to each game, but not offense/defense splits. There's not typically a huge difference, except for UConn, since they started out so low.

pre/post tourney
2017: UNC 3/3
2016: Nova 5/1
2015: Duke 6/3
2014: UCONN 25/15
2013: Ville 2/1
2012: UK 2/1
2011: UCONN 16/10

 

[Jon Rycek]

We’re not a national championship team.

If things broke absolutely perfect, then maybe but no team has win the nati with an offense or defense in the 60’s

Wow... so a few teams are better than us but we aren't a national championship contender. we play our backups more than a lot of team, get me the stats of our starters, how about that.

 

[Jon Rycek]

But the point I'm trying to make is that losing to @houston and @SMU, are not bad losses. Houston is undefeated at home and just whomped Wichita state there. And SMU, while their streak ended, are much better at home than away and they had previously just held the 2nd longest home winning streak.


Do I think we can legitimately win both games? Absolutely. But we haven't looked all that consistent away from home all season. And both Houston and SMU will be far far more desperate to win than we will. Ill be really frustrated if we lose. But IF we were to drop 2 in a row, it won't change my expectations for this team. Winning on the road is really really hard.
And we have't been tested like this since the 2 game stretch of Xavier and Florida.

They aren't bad losses, no. But dropping two in a row is not good. And you just sound like you're already expecting this to happen. There is no way we drop both of those games. I'll give you one, but SMU is already going to be hurting, so I see us taking that game regardless. And if we were to lose, I don't see us following that up with a second loss. We are too tough at this point to allow that to happen.

 

[waterhead]

I am curious about what people think of kenpom. There is a clear top 3 this year and then a clear next top 3 (and we are in there).

Kenpom has the top 5 teams virtually nailed along with the polls. From there it gets a little sketchy. We are #6 Kenpom (in no danger of dropping) and #8 polls. Eggs is #13 Kenpom and #6 in polls.

What I am wondering is if Kenpom has the formula down. We have yet to play the hardest part of our schedule...but that is not supposed to matter because it gets adjusted by the strength of each team we play. Are we the 6th best team in the country or is this somehow inflated by playing poor competition overall?

Is Kenpom favoring blowouts against the bottom and not weighting games at the top enough? How else can we be #6 when we lost to Eggs and FLA...the two best teams on our schedule so far? We take care of business in the games we should...but we aren't winning the top level games year over year. Should we be ranked lower right now because of that?

 

[sedziobs]

Are we the 6th best team in the country or is this somehow inflated by playing poor competition overall? Is Kenpom favoring blowouts against the bottom and not weighting games at the top enough?

Kenpom does use a method of decreasing marginal returns for score spreads. I don't know what it is exactly, but the concept is that the difference between a 5 and 10 point win is similar to the difference between a 10 and 20 point win. That's the main reason he switched to adjusted efficiency. Previously he used the Bill James pythagorean expectation formula of Moneyball fame, which does not account for blowouts.

Statistically, you would need to play a schedule consisting of hundreds of games to definitively determine accurate rankings. But even then, you wouldn't be able to predict the outcome of any individual game - only the probability of one team winning. Even if we know for a fact that UC is better than Xavier, we would only expect them to win 6 or 7 out of 10 neutral site games. Usually fans and poll voters make the determination based on 0, 1 or 2 games.

Americans tend to gauge success on playoffs/tournaments, which are actually a very poor way to determine the best team, though they are really exciting. A multiple round robin is the best (as they have in European soccer leagues). College football is the worst due to a very small sample of games.

Back to your original question, Kenpom is the best ranking system I know of. It's not even close to perfect (injuries are the main problem), but it will more accurately discern UC, Florida and Xavier than humans weighing a handful of games.