Bracketology and Team Resumes

[IUHoosierJoe]

23 minutes ago, str8baller said:

Makes a little bit of sense that we’d over perform the efficiency metrics because they give you credit for wins and we haven’t lost yet.  Still, that’s a nice start. 
 

Where did you see these at btw? I’m just seeing the old ones on cbs and ncaa’s site. 

There is a long way to get there with lots of scrolling, but Inside The Hall posted a direct link a little bit ago, and that is the fastest way to get there.

[Demo]

57 minutes ago, IUHoosierJoe said:

We’re #11, even a bit higher than I projected.

Very nice. Being ahead of the sticks for once is certainly a nice change. Also saw that Torvik’s November only ratings has IU #7.

[Demo]

https://x.com/DelphiBrackets/status/1995587624325795921

Delphi Bracketology’s 1st of the year. IU a 6 seed.

[LIHoosier]

IU leaps from 31 to 20 in NET after the Penn St game.

[Uspshoosier]

33 minutes ago, LIHoosier said:

IU leaps from 31 to 20 in NET after the Penn St game.

Beat Penn St so bad they dropped out of the top 100.  Penn St was 86 before the game.  
 

[Pagoda]

1 hour ago, LIHoosier said:

IU leaps from 31 to 20 in NET after the Penn St game.

CDD is a little bit of a metrics manipulator!  Two comments:

1) This is a good thing.

2) To be clear, this only one factor and it doesn’t make him a good or bad coach.

[Uspshoosier]

1 hour ago, Pagoda said:

CDD is a little bit of a metrics manipulator!

Every coach should be 

[Uspshoosier]

IU didn’t  take advantage of their 2 Q1a games away from home in the non conference.  entering January IU should be 10-3 with their only losses coming on the road and 1 neutral.  Despite Kentuckys struggles that was a top 35 NET (going to move up after beating IU. 
IU will have plenty of opportunities to improve its resume throughout the B1G season.  Until they lose a home game to a team they shouldn’t they have everything in front of them to make the tourney.   18 games in the B1G left.  Seems like a lot but this will go fast.   I will sit back and enjoy the ride regardless of where that ride goes 
 

 

[Uspshoosier]

IU finished it non conference part of the schedule last night and will enter January 10-3(1-1).  They missed out on 2 Q1a games away from home and a winnable Q2 road game.  Moving forward they will have plenty of Q1 and Q2 opportunities at home and away.  
 

IUs predictive metrics are solid. Average around the 20s.  Ius results  based metrics are lower around the mid 50’s. 
Sos- 175

Non con-173 

for an at-large team those are respectable numbers.   If your non con sos is in the high 200’s or 300 then that could become a problem.  
 

IU didn’t do anything to hurt their resume however they didn’t do much to improve their resume either.  They did get a win away from home which always helps( at large team usually needs 4 wins away from home to feel safe).  They also didn’t earn any Q1 wins up until this point.  Good news is that they play in the B1G and will have chances to get multiple Q1 wins.  If you were expecting IU to compete with the upper level teams for a B1G title this year then in my opinion you are going to be disappointed.  They don’t have the roster this year for that.   In my opinion Sparty, Michigan, Purdue and Illinois are a step above the rest this year (Maybe Nebraska but I can’t go that far). IU has 6 games against the top 4 (2 home games).  That leaves 12 games against the rest of the league which are more winnable games.  Not saying they won’t win against those top 4 but those should be looked at  as bonus games.  Ius most important games will be against the other teams fighting for an at-large outside the top 4.   IU gets Nebraska and Iowa at home and do not have away games against those 2.  Those 2 games are probably the most important games on IUs schedule for now.  

Most on here and nationally said IU making the tourney would be a good start for Devries in his first year.  That’s easily still on the table.  Reminder even teams that are tourney locks (8-11 seed) always have flaws. 8 seeds are considered teams that are comfortably in the field and not on the bubble however if you look at some 8 seeds resume you are good to see a lot of red (losses).  Are losses coming to IU?  Yep but in my opinion some wins will be coming as well 

biggest surprise of the year so far for me 

IUs KenPom offensive efficiency-56

IUs KenPom defensive efficiency-16

[IUHoosierJoe]

3 hours ago, Uspshoosier said:

IU finished it non conference part of the schedule last night and will enter January 10-3(1-1).  They missed out on 2 Q1a games away from home and a winnable Q2 road game.  Moving forward they will have plenty of Q1 and Q2 opportunities at home and away.  
 

IUs predictive metrics are solid. Average around the 20s.  Ius results  based metrics are lower around the mid 50’s. 
Sos- 175

Non con-173 

for an at-large team those are respectable numbers.   If your non con sos is in the high 200’s or 300 then that could become a problem.  
 

IU didn’t do anything to hurt their resume however they didn’t do much to improve their resume either.  They did get a win away from home which always helps( at large team usually needs 4 wins away from home to feel safe).  They also didn’t earn any Q1 wins up until this point.  Good news is that they play in the B1G and will have chances to get multiple Q1 wins.  If you were expecting IU to compete with the upper level teams for a B1G title this year then in my opinion you are going to be disappointed.  They don’t have the roster this year for that.   In my opinion Sparty, Michigan, Purdue and Illinois are a step above the rest this year (Maybe Nebraska but I can’t go that far). IU has 6 games against the top 4 (2 home games).  That leaves 12 games against the rest of the league which are more winnable games.  Not saying they won’t win against those top 4 but those should be looked at  as bonus games.  Ius most important games will be against the other teams fighting for an at-large outside the top 4.   IU gets Nebraska and Iowa at home and do not have away games against those 2.  Those 2 games are probably the most important games on IUs schedule for now.  

Most on here and nationally said IU making the tourney would be a good start for Devries in his first year.  That’s easily still on the table.  Reminder even teams that are tourney locks (8-11 seed) always have flaws. 8 seeds are considered teams that are comfortably in the field and not on the bubble however if you look at some 8 seeds resume you are good to see a lot of red (losses).  Are losses coming to IU?  Yep but in my opinion some wins will be coming as well 

biggest surprise of the year so far for me 

IUs KenPom offensive efficiency-56

IUs KenPom defensive efficiency-16

I'm sure you noticed this, but the metric the tournament committee appeared to rely very, very heavily on last year was Wins Above Bubble.  The selections tracked those rankings with the lone exception of Xavier (#49) jumping over West Virginia (#43) and Indiana (#48) to make the tournament.  (So, Xavier getting in over West Virginia was the only deviation).  With just a few exceptions, the seedings generally tracked the WAB rankings as well.

Right now, we have a lot of the season left, and we have some work to do, as we rank #62 in WAB.  Of course, there are a ton of opportunities upcoming to improve that.

[HoosierHoopster]

10 minutes ago, IUHoosierJoe said:

I'm sure you noticed this, but the metric the tournament committee appeared to rely very, very heavily on last year was Wins Above Bubble.  The selections tracked those rankings with the lone exception of Xavier (#49) jumping over West Virginia (#43) and Indiana (#48) to make the tournament.  (So, Xavier getting in over West Virginia was the only deviation).  With just a few exceptions, the seedings generally tracked the WAB rankings as well.

Right now, we have a lot of the season left, and we have some work to do, as we rank #62 in WAB.  Of course, there are a ton of opportunities upcoming to improve that.

Good point and worth watching— but my issue with the selection committee almost every year is lack of consistency in whatever metrics they choose to emphasize. 1 year it’s SOS. Etc. etc. and that’s ignoring how they had UNC’s dufus pick UNC when the entire world had UNC out bc they sucked all season. So, will it be WAB this year, do they consistently use that?

[WayneFleekHoosier]

Maybe my eye test will fail me eventually.  To me, we aren’t a tournament team.  That’s primarily based on our front court, our inability to rebound, and our inability to defend without fouling. Then lack of athleticism factors as the fourth.  Shot making ability from 3 key players is our strength vs the above weaknesses. My mind is made up on my guess, but I’ll watch all the games and hope to be surprised and see improvement.  

Above all, I hope DeVries is learning, and learning quickly on the job what he wants and needs, and he will be given  the resources to build a real contender for next year.  

[Uspshoosier]

1 hour ago, HoosierHoopster said:

So, will it be WAB this year, do they consistently use that?

Last year was the first year they used it and added it to the team sheet 

[Uspshoosier]

52 minutes ago, WayneFleekHoosier said:

To me, we aren’t a tournament team

Maybe or maybe not.  Got to field 68 teams.  To me they have just as good as chance to make it as some of the other teams being considered.  All teams from 10 seeds through teams that are on the outside looking in are basically the same.  Not much separation.  Cream of the crop in the B1G like you wanted? Not even close.   Being a team from 7-12 seed? Yep even with the flaws you pointed out they still can.   Will they?  If the numbers add up they will 

[str8baller]

14 hours ago, Uspshoosier said:

IUs KenPom offensive efficiency-56

IUs KenPom defensive efficiency-16

That’s the profile of a tourney team. Like you and the rest of the universe we expected that to be flipped. 
 

Therein lies the problem for me. You have to think the eye test supports that Deff number holding during B1G play and I’m not convinced it will. Otoh, I hold out hope the Oeff gets straightened out.  
 

The other problem there is our “luck” number still hangs around ~300 meaning we can expect to win a little leas than a typical team with those metrics. 

[OliviaPope40]

Someone give me the CliffsNotes of Kenpom because I don't get it.

[str8baller]

1 hour ago, OliviaPope40 said:

Someone give me the CliffsNotes of Kenpom because I don't get it.

Basically your overall performance in a game can be boiled down to Points Per Possession (PPP). For example, you shoot exactly 50% from 2 (ignore 3’s and FT’s for this example) and have 100 possessions in a game you would score 100 points in that game and average 1.0 PPP.   
 

Overall multiple games you would average out your PPP as a measure of how efficient your offense. One game it is 1.0, the next it is 1.1, and the next your offense is 1.2. So over your 3 game span you’re averaging 1.1 PPP. Not bad in a vacuum. 

The problem with college basketball is there are 350 teams all of wide ranging ability and also many that play at varying speeds of tempo which can make comparisons hard. 

So sites like Kenpom and Torvik try and adjust for the quality of opponent and varying tempo by assigning everyone a pace neutral number that reflects how you would preform versus an average D1 team. It’s always changing—and theoretically getting more accurate—because it’s using the game data from the games everyone plays against each other always adjusting a team’s efficiency number. 
 

A similar calculation is used for your defensive efficiency. Together they will give you a ranking and estimate of how you can be predicted to perform versus an average D1 team.   
 

Wins and losses don’t factor in. Just the score, because we would likely say a team that lost to a good Michigan team by 1 point would be better than a team that only won by 1 point versus a mediocre team like Siena. So it’s a measure of how you can be predicted to do going forward and not necessarily a measure of your resume, the latter of which matters more to the committee.