Tony Bennett since his National Championship until today is averaging KenPom #46 that’d place him 5th in the Big Ten this year, 10th in 2023, 8th in 2022, 10th in 2021, and 13th in 2020.
Now obviously he has had better seasons than #46 and worse seasons than #46 and KenPom isn’t an end-all on conference standings, but just a feel at how the average Tony Bennett team the last 5 consecutive years would’ve faired in the Big Ten.
I think it points to Bennett’s ACC success is a big product of the ACC stinking and that it wouldn’t necessarily translate to the same level of success in the Big Ten.
Averages aside, it’s crazy how the #42 2020 ACC Champ Virginia would’ve been the 13th best KenPom team in the Big Ten!! Also, 8 KenPom ranked spots worse than the 12th best team in the Big Ten that year!!
I’d love a study done on what coaches/systems most consistently outperform their predictive metrics with actual wins in college basketball games year over year. I understand that I am dumb for saying that and I’m not saying predictive metrics don’t matter, but at a certain point if a coach continuously takes his 40-50th ranked team and oh, I dunno, gets them to the tournament instead of flaming out losing close games, doesn’t that mean something?
The guy’s lost more than 5 ACC games in a season twice since 2014……at Virginia
There has been a drop off but if he parts ways with Virginia and is actually attainable that’s one of the best hires any program could make IMO.
I actually think that would be a pretty fascinating study too.
Even funnier done on Bennett because he went from a metrics darling to a metrics menace
Obviously his success has fallen off a bit from his “metrics darling” stage to his “metrics menace” stage, but not as much as his metrics would suggest? Pretty awful post-season performance backs up the metrics dip, but then what about winning the ACC even if it is garbage? That doesn’t align with the dip.
You’re right though I agree and think it’d be very interesting.
Now I have strong feelings about this but I completely disagree that Tony Bennett would be a best hire any program could make lol
Yeah of the actual realistic names (assuming Miller, Oats, Otz are out), he would still be #1 on my list. Great coach. Could use a change of scenery as things are getting a little stale at UVA and UVA isn’t exactly the greatest place to be in the NIL era. But knowing that he has won big at UVA tells me he can win at Michigan even with the restrictions that the program may have compared to some of the CBB powerhouses. Lord knows his style of basketball plays in the Big Ten too lol
He’s a proven winner. 98% of the names in the thread we are selling on hope, not proven high major results.
That’s the point though. Kenpom is going to be inflated if you’re playing good teams more frequently. It’s kind of the game of the system. So if Big Ten has more good teams, they are all going to pump each other up and if the ACC is trash then the trash brings down the others.
the NCAA tournament is a crapshoot and not a real way to judge a candidate. btw ignore this guy’s numbers cratering harder than the Chicxulub asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs because he won a fluke title six years ago
The NCAA tournament results are honestly largely a negative on Bennett’s entire tenure to me. I won’t be running to pick this UVA team to win a game, the UMBC loss BAD, but he had a bunch of losses before that as higher seeded teams too.
I just like him because his teams consistently win a large number of games, arguably more than they should based on actual team quality over 20 game sample sizes in a power conference practically every single season for a decade including during this dip
That and most importantly his chiseled jaw line and George Clooney tan + hair
