While that does look a little fishy, v certainly having a GM for NIL is the sort of act we wish Michigan would take right? Or have we already done this? That’s a signal that we care about our players and it’s literally someone’s sole job to help them out.
“A little fishy”……
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I think the position makes a ton of sense, sure. Just think it is a bit ironic how things have progressed.
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hmm
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Do it Juwan.
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https://www.instagram.com/p/CemXJh0JUAp/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Is this the third school he has decommitted from? How many high schools had he played at?
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I sort of feel like this is missing SOME stuff, right?
First, I think that one’s perception of UCLA really depends on really soft stuff like one’s perception of the Pac-10…they were a top 15 team on KenPom but because everyone thinks the Pac-10 stinks (I’m not debating that conclusion, just saying), everyone sort of assumed they did as well - 22-10 (13-6) in most power conference won’t generally land you in Dayton, but there they were. Then they ran though…not the hardest NCAA field you could get (some pretty uninspiriing teams, and a Livers-less Michigan) and the perception changed. Then they have a somewhat better (but not so much) year this year (up 2 spots in KenPom, +2 in Adjusted efficiency margin), and they disappoint…
They clearly didn’t make a leap, but I think the starting point from which they were theoretically “leaping” was much higher than people perceived. They were a good team in 20-21, and they remained a good team in 21-22. If the last 90 seconds of their game against the national runner-up go differently, is anyone having this conversation? I realize this article acknowledges UCLA was good this year, but seems to miss they were pretty good the year prior…
I think we can reasonably conclude that the UNC team that finished the year this year wasn’t the one that started it (Manek went from 28 to 35 mpg, 2 guys left the rotation, their top reserve in the tournament hadn’t played a game until mid-January). On Torvik, if we look at performance post-Dawson Garcia (not that it’s his fault, but it’s the point where I think they reallocated minutes) they were a top 10 team. They were good! Expecting them to again remain good, assuming they can find some sort of Manek replacement is not really expecting a “jump”, again. If they lose 7 or so regular season games and then lose, say, in the S16, I’m sure people will call it a “disappointment”…but it’s hard to rationally assert that?
Creighton, I think, is a totally different animal - a team in the 50’s on Kenpom last year that people think will improve because of a good tournament, and strong recruiting resume of their returning sophomore class. Maybe they will, but I think they share not even a shred of resemblance with UNC and UCLA (teams who were far better than people thought).
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There’s always different reasons why a team pre-tournament is a low ranked kenpom team. I agree Creighton isn’t the same as UNC, but having a larger sample of 28 teams is more interesting.
I think it would be interesting to see how some other data sources than the AP poll hold up. This year I think the biggest movers on Torvik are SDSU and IU moving from low 20s to high teens, not sure how often Kenpom even projects a team to go to top 10 from less than 30.
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Agreed, I just think that more streamlined/clear definition of what a “leap” is would help. Like, UCLA and Creighton have nearly no resemblance. I don’t know who their other 28 teams are, but I’d be curious to see how many were genuinely mediocre/average teams projected for a leap (like Creighton), and how many were teams that were good, but just somewhat underappreciated (like UCLA). Like in terms of record/Adj EM margin, UCLA had a pretty darn similar season to last year…and one year got a 4 seed, and one year barely scraped into the tournament.
The 2021 KenPom end of season, before the tournament rankings are also different from every other year because of how jacked up the non conference schedule was because of COVID.
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I also just think conference strength drives so much of this stuff, and is sort of an echo chamber.
Counterpoint to this. UCLA was #45 on KP prior to the tournament and then skyrocketed after their performance plus the performance of other PAC-12 teams. I think people were right to be skeptical of UCLA, I think small sample sizes cross conference really screwed with KP last year. They were probably underrated by KP going into the tourney and then got overrated after a strange confluence of events
I would also say that the small season impacted the post-tournament adjustments too. As in, the small sample size allowed an out-of-body two weeks by Oregon State to skew things.
So there were overreactions in both ways. Certain teams undervalued entering the tourney but probably not by how much the tourney results shifted things.
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Yep totally agree
LMAO of course Katz
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Playing the tourney added a significant amount of information and the UCLA post-tourney team quality estimate more accurately reflected their quality than the pre-tourney estimate. They then played a season with a very similar roster and improved their AdjEM ~2 pts.
Considering their returning production and the age of those returning, that all scans to me. I would guess it’s not uncommon for pundits to expect much more y/y improvement from returning starters than is typical so if UCLA “disappointed” in some sense, I can imagine a player-level model would’ve been less bullish.
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Also, Jaquez was hurt last tournament. UCLA and Cronin have done well for themselves.
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2022 KenPom B10 rankings:
2022 Torvik (All D1):
2022 Torvik (B10 Only):
2022 Torvik (Top-50 Only):
2022 Torvik (Top-100 Only):
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