Definitely have been more competitive at home other than UCLA. The way they’ve gotten blown out on the road is troubling, but they’ve already played four Big Ten road games so that skews the results for sure.
Month of November Maryland was 10th on torvik
Month of December Maryland was 86th on torvik
Month of January Maryland is 208th on torvik
Idk if that first month qualifies them as “actually good” for awhile or not, but this trend is what I refer to as Willarding. Even if they’re not good, playing like the 208th best team (100 spots below Minnesota) in conference play is crazy
It’s definitely a great tool. We’re just talking in circles in regards to Wisconsin though if the counter-argument is always just “kenpom says”. I know what KP says and I don’t wish to argue against it, my opinion is just that despite their rank there, they have been outperforming that quite a bit in game W-L results when fully healthy, and that’s something they deserve credit for.
I’d be interested in your opinion on Ohio State at this point - another team I maybe wrongfully had in my second tier you referenced. Game results haven’t gone their way but KP still loves them comparatively to teams like Penn State, Michigan State, Iowa, Illinois. Do you agree they are a notch above that group?
As soon as I saw there were 21 new posts and the first of them was from @buckets12, I leaned back and got comfy in my recliner. 
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They are 30th in WAB so they have over performed their rank a lot as buckets says. The Marquette and Iowa road wins are their top wins and while you have to give them credit for beating Marquette and that’s great for the conference, the Iowa game comes with a massive asterisk
Yeah, WAB is a resume metric and they do have a better resume than several other teams. That’s a different way to look at it though.
No idea what to make of them. The Minnesota home loss makes it hard to be in but I also think they have more talent than most teams and it might be worth staying in on them.
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Has Wisconsin done some good things resume wise? Yes
Are they good on the eye test? No
Are they good on the rating systems? No
Are they a threat to win the conference or even come close to the second weekend? No
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Without the incorrect call against Rutgers OSU would be 1-5 in conference…
Also OSU’s resume is not impressive. But they have a lottery pick on their team and should have beat Purdue and that was without Key.
What a weird conference we follow
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I know this is somewhat off topic, but the PSU bandwagon has been abandoned…yet, after watching every minute of last nights’ game, I think I’d still take PSU on a neutral over Wisky. And OSU over both.
Basketball is weird.
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Don’t like the weather Big Ten standings? Wait five minutes a week.
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apologize to Gregory and say four On Wisconsins as penance
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I just don’t know that I can get there with Ohio St. I think tonight is big for them. Struggling team badly needs a win and has to go on the road, but its Nebraska so it should be a winnable game.
KenPom has them at 10-10 and I would take the under on that. But there is some top end talent on that team like Dylan notes to stay “in” on but I’m just not seeing a breakout for them by any means.
Here’s my problem with Wisconsin. I know Kenpom says they are the #67 team in the country. I know that any rational basketball fan who doesn’t consume cheese curds as part of their regular diet knows they are painful to watch on offense and run a system that is hard to root for. I know that they usually have a collection of unathletic frustrating players on their team who are content to flop constantly or even play dirty.
The problem is that the selection committee doesn’t really look at those things. They see their shiny record and good SOS and the fact that they’ve finished in the top-4 of the league three of the last four years. Boutros’s buddy Gard is also likely to muck up these games down the stretch and find a way to finish toward the top of the league despite being a middling team ranked in the 60s. THAT is my frustration.
It is like rooting for a baseball team that only takes walks and bunts and somehow makes the playoffs despite doing nothing interesting or of value.
The committee is supposed to pick teams based on what they’ve done (i.e. quality of their wins) rather than how good they are (how they’d be projected on a neutral court).
So, Wisconsin’s close wins do mean more in that context.
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What Wisconsin does works. Which flat-out sucks, but maybe there’s something to learn from it, because Greg Gard is exceptional at doing more with less. Yes, they seemingly come out on top in so many toss-up games with a minute or two left. Michigan, this year is the opposite. We lose all those, and we do less with more. There’s something in there to think about for the good guys. Maybe, in basketball, you make your own kenpom luck.
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Wisconsin in KenPom luck (close game performance) under Greg Gard.
- 2016: 235th
- 2017: 193rd
- 2018: 325th
- 2019: 228th
- 2020: 102nd
- 2021: 289th
- 2022: 15th
- 2023: 72nd
Maybe it is just small sample size variance and not something systemic?
“Luck” is a terrible word for KenPom’s stat because it evokes a certain emotional response (WE AREN’T LUCKY WE ARE GOOD) but variance or whatever is real and college basketball seasons have very small sample sizes.
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Quite small. I think the real thing is not luck but having a system you know how to recruit to. We don’t have that right now, but I think as our coach gets a better sense of things at the college level we’ll flip from doing less with more to something better. Ideally doing more with more, but doing more with less also isn’t terrible.
Gard has coached 3 of the 4 worst Wisconsin teams of the last 20 years
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Yeah, if you track the Wisconsin program trajectory in KP ranks it is basically the defense maintaining its level and the offense sort of just gradually wandering off into nowhere.
And it isn’t really for lack of players either … Johnny Davis, Trice, Happ, Reuvers, etc. were all high-level Big Ten players.
Gard has quite clearly proven that he’s a great defensive coach who has been able to continue the Wisconsin system. I am not particularly sure why anyone would want to emulate that though if you are thinking about a program like Michigan.
Feels like setting your sights low for no particular reason. Maybe if you are Northwestern or something like that.
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