I agree. They are an outstanding program, and have been. I was really just trying to comment that we are in that tier or category with both Gonzaga and Baylor.
Plus, let’s face it, Gonzaga isn’t moving from their number one ranking before the end of the season because they simply don’t play anyone in their league who has a reasonable chance of beating them. Not their fault, just the way it is.
By the way, Michigan has beaten those eight top 30 teams by an average of 15 points, and they’ve done it in a variety of ways, shootout against the Buckeyes, slugfest and GREAT D against the Hawkeyes.
“I dunno about it. Gonzaga would be 1st or 2nd place in the B1G right now. They’re pretty much have been as close to being a blueblood program in the past 20 years. They’re attracting NBA talents and have begun to get elite recruits like Suggs and likely Chet. You can’t punish Gonzaga for the conference they play in which is why they scheduled a lot of P5 schools in the non-conference.”
I don’t think they would still be undefeated now, if they played in the B1G. Maybe they would, I just really don’t think so. And the team that IS in 1st place in the Big right now is Michigan. Gonzaga is a GREAT team, no question about it, but the reason they are STILL undefeated is because right now they’re not playing anybody, so they are not moving off that number one ranking or that solid position at the top of the very small “tier 1.”
Of course we can’t penalize them for playing in their conference, and I’m not “penalizing” them, nor is anyone else. That ARE ranked number one, after all. All I’m saying is we BELONG in the same tier, the same category, the same stratosphere, with Gonzaga. At least based on what we are doing now and what we’ve done, especially since Christmas, but all year, because it all builds upon itself, we are in that “tier.”
That KenPom DOES take such issues as your competition into account (that is, ‘hold it against you.’) Assumed that would be clear. I just thought your ‘shouldn’t be held against’ was a little naive; it’s all grist for the mill, and should be. Not in a personal, but in as precisely accurate a sense as possible.
They do yet Gonzaga is pretty much 3 points better than Baylor so I do not get the hand wringing on Gonzaga’s placement as an elite team by pointing out level of competition in which they do not have control of. Only thing they can control are the non-conference schedule in which they went out to schedule Iowa, KU, WVU, etc.
And they’re among historically great team in KenPom era so I do not get people trying to knock Gonzaga at all. It’s one thing if they didn’t play a single P5 team and dominate the whole season which is an understandable know but when they went out and dominate P5 schools, you can’t really knock Zags for it.
Maybe in the old WAC days but the current iteration is one of the worst in D1 ball. As Dylan noted above, a Mountain West/WCC mash-up could be interesting but the likelihood of that is essentially zero.
Also I genuinely think Gonzaga has played a harder schedule than Baylor to this point. That’s mainly due to postponements for Baylor, but Gonzaga has a slightly harder SOS on KP (101 to 109). Baylor has played 11 Q3/Q4 games out of 18, while Gonzaga is at 11/23. Gonzaga has 7 Q1 games to Baylor’s 7 Q1+Q2 games. And Gonzaga’s avg Q1 opponent has a NET ranking of 23, while Baylor’s is 21, so basically the same quality of Q1 teams played.
I don’t doubt Gonzaga a bit–I admire Few’s teams. I was just saying, and I think it’s pretty obviously true, that their conference and who they play is inevitably part of the picture. Is and should be.
The Michigan equivalent of this announcement would be Austin Davis (he and Lightfoot each play 20-25% of minutes) and Brandon Wade. Teahan does not play whatsoever.
