The metric for success in college basketball is performance in the NCAA tournament. We can talk about what’s fair and why single elimination games are a bad way to determine quality and yada yada but this is the way it has always been and always will be.
As someone with Houston in the Final Four I’m not complaining
1 Like
Assuming Oregon State holds on, I’d probably have Loyola as the favorite to come out of that region. But Houston would still likely be the betting favorite
1 Like
So far what’s our UMHoops all-tourney team (not best players, just best for our purposes)
Jaquez
Abmas
Krutwig
Who else?
Because like you were going on about earlier, F those nerds with their spreadsheets and kenpoms and glasses and clipboards, amiright!? There are 63 NCAA tournament games and the 5,000 or so that come before it are statistically meaningless!
Reality: they mean nothing more than the previous 5,000 in determining how good a conference or team is. They might bias your view on things more than a normal game, sure, but that’s it. If you’re going to put such a drastic amount into these games then okay, but it doesn’t statistically change the reality of the conferences. Just your view. Which seems to be incredibly anti-good statistics for some reason.
I struggle to understand how a website so geared towards in depth basketball analysis occasionally draws people with straight up vendettas towards metric stats. Like, how do you read Dylan’s previews without getting mad lol
1 Like
I’d throw OBanor on there
2 Likes
One of the things that I appreciate about this site is that Dylan (and most of the visitors) are interested in a more in-depth look than, say, your average TV commentator.
3 Likes
I’m literally a statistician lol Kenpom was flawed all year, all I said was that the metrics were wacky because of the feedback loop created by lack of non-conference games.
3 Likes
Buddy Boeheim, right?
It was pretty weird to see PSU in the Kenpom top 40 all year with a losing record.
1 Like
But everyone on here hates Syracuse.
1 Like
If you’d really like to argue that Oral Roberts is a better basketball team than OSU or Florida, you’re certainly welcome to do so.
3 Likes
You claim to be a statistician, yet you place the majority of weight in determining conference supremacy on an absurdly tiny fraction of the season’s games that come during a single elimination tournament? I’m dubious to say the least.
Edit: wait a sec. the dude who despised assist rate and all efficiency stats like they robbed him of everything he owned and left him in a ditch also claimed to be a statistician while failing to understand statistics. Are you the alt account? Because if so, ugh.
Ah, missed your parenthetical. In that case, it’s just a team of 5 Jacob Youngs.
1 Like
I don’t think it’s true that the tournament is the only way strength is measured in college basketball. Conference championships are extremely meaningful. If you’re Illinois, conference tournaments are extremely meaningful. (at least at those times when you’re not existing nothing games are all meaningless anyways.)
The tournament sure does have the big prize though, and that is definitely meaningful even if the single elimination nature of it doesn’t always result in the best team winning.
Four Jacob Youngs and one Foster Loyer
2 Likes
This is just a general observation. There are sports fans who turn themselves into pretzels to give the appearance they are pro-analytics. Kenpom is awesome. It also seems reasonable that Kenpom would be a little bit less reliable this year compared to others. Two things can be true at once. A third thing can be true too: The big ten underperforming in the tournament relative to metrics could have something to do with metrics being less reliable this year.
2 Likes
lol I only mentioned I’m a statistician because you suggested I said the metrics were wacky because I’m some luddite.
1 Like
I think it’s crazy to pretend that the games in the tournament are equivalent to the muddle of mostly early season out of conference games. On the one hand, the tournament is obviously a SSS. But on the other hand, it is what teams prepare for all season, it’s the final race, it’s when everyone takes their best shot and no one can claim a game didn’t have their full attention. Tom Izzo basically treats many of the early season OOC like preseason games. I’m not interested in the broader argument, but there is a false equivalency going on here.
1 Like
I mean, this specific line of reasoning is not good. “Kenpom is faulty because of a feedback loop due to too little data. So I will base by takes off of an even more random measure, a micro sample of single elimination games.”
This is just flawed at its very core. The first part may be true. Kenpom might be less reliable than usual. I certainly haven’t seen any proof of this, but proof is difficult. But saying part A and then proceeding to say part B just makes me chuckle.