KenPom 2016-2017 KenPom Rankings Thread

[atskooc]

52 minutes ago, bleujay said:

 

It makes more sense to play a more difficult conference schedule. Noncon is about confidence for your newcomers, plus one or maybe two big tests to properly gauge where you stand. That test is Wisconsin for us, and kinda NC state if we get to play them. Izzo and Self are scheduling nightmare noncon slates because they know what walks through the doors of their gym every October. Most other coaches can't rely on superhuman players that adjust to the game day one. If we didn't have the Wisconsin game, I would say this is a comparatively weak power conference noncon schedule.

Except that's considerably harder to control than playing a difficult non-con.  The way you're putting it, you seem to be saying the teams have some control of their conference schedule.

 

Whatever.  I've said more in a conversation about Creighton than I ever wanted to.

[49r]

21 hours ago, bleujay said:

Well, two games against Nova, Xavier, Seton Hall, and Butler during conference play should provide us with ample schedule strength, and scheduling weak noncon opponents is a fairly commonplace practice for power conference programs, so I'm not too concerned about it. Also 49r, I don't think many programs' fanbases are talking about Final Four appearances in the preseason unless you're Duke, Kansas, UK, or a returning Final Four team with a relatively intact roster. I sure know that most Creighton fans I interact with aren't saying such ludicrous things...also Wisconsin is ranked ahead of us in preseason polls. Should be a fun game, but pretty much the furthest thing from the truth to lose to a team ranked ahead of you and for the outcome to be "damn near criminal"

 

Just my two cents tho

 

inb4 49r says he was just trolling

 

 

 

---

 

 

Not trolling at all.  Here, let me just give you a quick example of why you're wrong, this is just a couple of posts over at AllBuffs:

 

Quote

Media day at CU. 

 

Tad is dropping truth all over the place.

 

 

Quote

 

XJ: "At *least* the Elite 8".  I like it.  Gonna be an expensive year if I have to go to the Rose Bowl and the Final Four.

 

 

 

 

...and that's just Colorado, which in case you hadn't noticed is totally a basketball school now.  Keep in mind too that "XJ" is what they call one of the guys on their team...so even the Colorado TEAM is talking about it.  But still, they're ranked WAY below Creighton, and yet here they are talking EE/FF.

 

I don't know why you feel the need to come in here and try to sandbag us like this @bleujay we all know the score.  Your roster is loaded with talent, your non-con is a cakewalk and the NCAA tourney sets up nicely for you with games near home in Milwaukee then the Regional Finals in KC.  If ever there was a year more perfectly suited to make a run for you guys it's this one.  

 

Still I digress, your non-con schedule is shockingly soft and any more than one or maybe two losses in your non-con would be total disaster. 

Edited October 27, 2016 by 49r

[49r]

Oh, and @bleujay before you come back with "oh well that's just one schools' fanbase" and try to act all above the fray here, how about we go to the national media?

 

http://collegebasketball.nbcsports.com/2016/10/03/college-hoops-contender-series-here-are-seven-final-four-sleepers/

 

Quote

 

Creighton Bluejays: The value of a talented, veteran back court during the month of March cannot be overrated, and there may not be a team in the country that has a better back court this season than the Bluejays. I don’t say that lightly, either, but I certainly mean it. It starts with fifth-year senior point guard Mo Watson, a dynamic-albeit-diminutive lead guard that averaged 14.4 points and 6.5 assists last season, his first playing at the high-major level. He has to get his turnovers down and his three-point shooting up, but he the talent is there.

Marcus Foster (Creighton Athletics)

And he may not even be the best guard on the Creighton roster. That title likely goes to Marcus Foster, the former Kansas State scoring guard that left the program after his sophomore season. You should remember Foster. He burst on the scene as a freshman, averaging 15.5 points, before a falling out with his coaching staff resulted in a transfer out of Manhattan. He’ll have something to prove.

There’s more to this roster as well. Justin Patton is a former top 50 recruit that redshirted last season and will join a veteran front line. Isaiah Zierden is a dangerous shooter. And then there is Cole Huff, a talented but inconsistent forward that will be the difference-maker for this team. He had a couple huge nights last season — 35 points against Seton Hall, 28 points against DePaul, 26 points against Rutgers — and also had stretches where he seemed out of favor. If he can pick up where he left off last year, reaching double-figures in eight-of-nine games before the start of the NIT, Creighton has the pieces to be quite potent.

 

 

But yeah, I'm with @atskooc here in thinking I've talked about you guys way WAY more than I want to and frankly it disgusts me to do so, so I'll leave it at this.

[hhcmatt]

19 minutes ago, 49r said:

But yeah, I'm with @atskooc here in thinking I've talked about you guys way WAY more than I want to and frankly it disgusts me to do so, so I'll leave it at this.

 

I was looking for a train running off the tracks gif until i got to this last line

[49r]

3 minutes ago, hhcdimes said:

 

I was looking for a train running off the tracks gif until i got to this last line

 

Yeah, sorry about that.  Good news is the season starts in a couple weeks so we'll actually have something that matters to talk about!

[49r]

So perusing the KenPom rankings a bit this morning I noticed he has Washington down around #80, yet they have a roster full of ESPN 100 4 and 5 star guys, including Matthew Atewe (dammit!).  Of course this is a hallmark of Roman's teams - ridiculously talented yet under perform terribly.

 

What do you guys think of Lorenzo Romar?  Is he (should he be) on the hot seat at U Dub?

[hhcmatt]

15 minutes ago, 49r said:

So perusing the KenPom rankings a bit this morning I noticed he has Washington down around #80, yet they have a roster full of ESPN 100 4 and 5 star guys, including Matthew Atewe (dammit!).  Of course this is a hallmark of Roman's teams - ridiculously talented yet under perform terribly.

 

What do you guys think of Lorenzo Romar?  Is he (should he be) on the hot seat at U Dub?

 

It's one of those deals where he's under-performing relative to the guys he's bringing in but prior to that no one was bringing these kind of guys to Washington nor winning. The Ringer had a nice piece on it a couple months back https://theringer.com/lorenzo-romar-washington-huskies-basketball

[huskerbaseball13]

19 minutes ago, 49r said:

So perusing the KenPom rankings a bit this morning I noticed he has Washington down around #80, yet they have a roster full of ESPN 100 4 and 5 star guys, including Matthew Atewe (dammit!).  Of course this is a hallmark of Roman's teams - ridiculously talented yet under perform terribly.

 

What do you guys think of Lorenzo Romar?  Is he (should he be) on the hot seat at U Dub?

 

Considering they have gone five years without a NCAA tourney bid...probably.  Of course, they had some really good years before that but you are probably right.  He has underperformed a bit with the talent he has been able to sign. 

[hhcmatt]

Here were last year's KenPom preseason rankings, which are essentially a guess based on previous years results. 

 

KenPom rankings as of 10-26-15.

===========================

 

B1G (0-0):

9. Wisconsin

13. Indiana

17. Michigan

18. Michigan State

22. Purdue

24. Maryland

36. Iowa

42. Ohio State

51. Northwestern

61. Illinois

66. Minnesota

119. Penn State

137. Nebraska

223. Rutgers

 

Illinois and especially Minnesota stick out here as they were easily the biggest disappointments. Nebraska ended up being the largest over-performer as they ended the season at 85.

[Red Don]

I must be a little off, Dimes!  .  I had us finishing the season at #96 (@ 3/11/16).  Still a good improvement over #137 (and under !00).

 

(EDIT:  Someone posted a link to the KenPom Season-end ratings; Huskers indeed finished the season ranked #85; well-improved over the #97 ranking on 3/11/16)

Edited October 30, 2016 by Red Don

[49r]

@hhcdimes Ohio State was a pretty big KenPom disappointment last year too.

[Chuck Taylor]

6 hours ago, hhcdimes said:

Here were last year's KenPom preseason rankings, which are essentially a guess based on previous years results. 

 

That might be KenPom's biggest factor in preseason: past history. 

Quote

The components and weighting is based on a regression of the past nine seasons. The system is, by 2015 standards, pretty simple. It doesn’t try to project playing time for individual players. It doesn’t know about transfers, and all but 5-star recruits are virtually ignored. If you think your favorite team is ranked too low, the reason is probably that there are really good transfers or recruits arriving. In the most general sense, the main ingredient in the system is inertia. If a team has been good in the recent past, it’s likely to be rated well in the preseason. As much as we like to think of college basketball as this crazy sport where anything can happen, there’s just not much class mobility in the game.

He has tweaked it with transfers and impact of 5-stars. But past success is still big with KenPom. And before you argue with his methodology, he acknowledges it's a strange approach but it's the most accurate way he's tested.

Edited October 28, 2016 by Chuck Taylor

[49r]

@Chuck Taylor hence it's why Nebraska tends to start out lower and trend up during the season for the past few years, while a team like Ohio State started high last year, went low, and starts high again this year.  Illinois and Minnesota with their recent-ish success also tend to stay flat or trend down.

 

I have a little trouble reconciling Northwestern though, but admittedly I didn't pay just terribly close attention to the B1G before we came in, either.

[Chuck Taylor]

Here's our finishes in KenPom the last five years:

2016: 85

2015: 121 

2014: 56

2013: 136

2013: 152

So with that record and the loss of our top two scorers, 87 seems like a pretty good guess to start the season. Like I said, this system is simply the one he's had the best luck with in back testing, even though it seems a strange approach.

 

[49r]

Okay, well I'm bored this afternoon and thought I'd do the RPI rankings today.  Couple of interesting take aways.  First, the RPI is crazy and not at all useful for about the first month of the season so be warned that what I'm putting down below is virtually meaningless other than to show what everyone's starting point is.  They might as well just start off ranking everyone alphabetically.  Second, our non-conference looks a whole lot more cupcake-y this way.

 

RPI rankings as of 10-10-16.

=======================

 

B1G (0-0):

12. Michigan State

14. Maryland

15. Purdue

24. Indiana

29. Iowa 

43. Wisconsin

57. Michigan

74. Ohio State

115. Northwestern

118. Penn State

149. Illinois

165. Nebraska

257. Minnesota

294. Rutgers

 

Non-Conference (0-0):

273. Sacramento State

nr. University of Mary

122. Louisiana Tech

 

---DirecTV Wooden Legacy---

22. Dayton

102. / 249. UCLA / Portland

18. / 89. / 141. / 280. Texas A&M / Virginia Tech / New Mexico / Cal State Northridge

 

---B1G/ACC Challenge--- 

131. @Clemson

 

197. South Dakota

100. Creighton

1. @Kansas

209. Gardner Webb

186. Southern

[hhcmatt]

11 minutes ago, 49r said:

Second, our non-conference looks a whole lot more cupcake-y this way.

 

You really need to dig in and try to project to figure out how our RPI is going to shake out, which is essentially what matters (though not until the end of the year).

A lot of the "bad" teams we're playing should be relatively strong.

[49r]

Mostly, UCLA, Clemson and Creighton being criminally under ranked in the initial RPI is what makes our schedule look much more manageable than it really is. Other non-con games to be wary of include Louisiana Tech, South Dakota and Southern.

[HuskerActuary]

This is a metric I've been tracking for a little while. It looks at the average KenPom ranking of our opponents over time, split between wins/losses and conference/non-conference. I use an 8-game rolling average to take out some of the noise.

 

Couple of interesting trends here. First, you can see how much weaker our non-conference strength of schedule has gotten the last couple of years. The green line - the 8-game rolling average of our wins against non-conference opponents - is currently at 273. 273!! This is by far the worst it has been under Coach Miles. 

 

The gold line may be even more troubling. The average ranking of the conference opponents that we have beaten has consistently worsened since our NCAA tourney season. Of our last 8 conference opponents that we have beaten, the average KenPom ranking is 167. Part of this is because Rutgers makes up 3 of our last 8 conference wins, but I don't really see that as an excuse, that's a fact.

 

I can't help but look back to the trend lines as of 2014. At one point the average ranking of the conference opponents we were beating was 50. That was sure a fun season.

 

Any thoughts?

[49r]

We're the only B1G team left to play their first game.  Lots of action last night so I figured it would be a good time to update the rankings.  It's been thee weeks since the last update.  Some games of note from last night (keep in mind the rankings reflect KenPom rankings at the time they played):

#3 Kansas and #16 Indiana went to OT in Hawaii.  Indiana got the win 103-99

#23 Clemson beat #58 Georgia at home 74-64

#32 Creighton beat #233 UMKC at home 89-82
#48 Maryland squeaked past #315 American at home 62-56

#97 Penn State lost at home to #183 Albany 87-81

#169 Louisiana Tech lost at #62 South Carolina 85-76

#274 South Dakota beat #236 Drake on the road 79-74

Our next opponent #237 Sacramento State lost at #56 Colorado 90-53

 

 

KenPom rankings as of 11-12-17.

===========================

 

B1G (0-0):

7. Wisconsin

12. Indiana

13. Purdue

15. Michigan State

17. Ohio State

31. Michigan

54. Maryland

55. Iowa 

61. Northwestern

69. Minnesota

70. Illinois

86. Nebraska

106. Penn State

188. Rutgers

 

Non-Conference (0-0):

252. Sacramento State

nr. University of Mary

165. Louisiana Tech

 

---DirecTV Wooden Legacy---

35. Dayton

19. UCLA / 159.  Portland

26. Texas A&M / 46.  Virginia Tech / 87. New Mexico / 173.  Cal State Northridge

 

---B1G/ACC Challenge--- 

23. @Clemson

 

260. South Dakota

41. Creighton

6. @Kansas

268. Gardner Webb

284. Southern

[49r]

Oh, another result that I thought was a little shocking:

 

#45 Texas fended off a massive upset bid by #303 Incarnate Word 78-73

 

http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/college-sports/collegesports/2016/11/11/texas-vs-incarnate-word-basketball-live-updates

Quote

 

The Frank Erwin Center crowd took a sigh of relief as the Longhorns barely escaped with a win over the Cardinals.

 

Incarnate Word took a one-point lead in the game's final two minutes, stunning burnt orange faithful as it erased an 18-point lead. 

Senior guard Kendal Yancy stepped up with four points in a row after the Cardinals took the lead in the final 1:37.  He led a 12–6 Texas run to close the game.

 

Texas shot just 11–30 and committed 11 fouls in the second half. The team struggled down the stretch as Incarnate Word outscored the Longhorns 15–8 from the 11 minute mark to the 2:30 mark  — an eight minute span.

 

 

 

 

 

[49r]

Quick update today.  Nebraska moves up 9 spots with the win.

 

KenPom rankings as of 11-14-16.

===========================

 

B1G (0-0):

7. Wisconsin

12. Indiana

14. Purdue

15. Michigan State

17. Ohio State

34. Michigan

54. Maryland

55. Iowa 

62. Northwestern

69. Minnesota

70. Illinois

78. Nebraska

105. Penn State

170. Rutgers

 

Non-Conference (1-0):

262. Sacramento State - W

nr. University of Mary

163. Louisiana Tech

 

---DirecTV Wooden Legacy---

36. Dayton

21. UCLA / 160.  Portland

29. Texas A&M / 47.  Virginia Tech / 84. New Mexico / 169.  Cal State Northridge

 

---B1G/ACC Challenge--- 

23. @Clemson

 

251. South Dakota

42. Creighton

6. @Kansas

263. Gardner Webb

281. Southern

[The Polish Rifle]

Question, since Mary is a Division 2 school, is it more beneficial for us to play them over some D1 250+ ranked program in terms of Ken Pom/RPI type ratings? 

[ShortDust]

29 minutes ago, The Polish Rifle said:

Question, since Mary is a Division 2 school, is it more beneficial for us to play them over some D1 250+ ranked program in terms of Ken Pom/RPI type ratings? 

Miles said on his post game that this game against Mary was actual more beneficial than playing a high 200 or 300 level rpi school.

[kleitus]

sounds right to me.  doesn't get counted, instead of being counted negatively.

[huskerbaseball13]

1 hour ago, ShortDust said:

Miles said on his post game that this game against Mary was actual more beneficial than playing a high 200 or 300 level rpi school.

 

Yes in regards to our RPI rating.  But, this game will not be counted as a W in the selection committee's eyes if we find ourselves on the bubble come March.  If we are at 17-18 wins we may be wanting that gimmee win.