KenPom 2022-2023 KenPom Rankings Thread

[royalfan]

Once again, needs to be stated that the NCAA selection folks don't use the NET to put teams in.  They use the NET as a way to evaluate the quads.  The NIT is much lazier in this regard.  They tend to gravitate to the NET among the teams they are left to choose from as they don't put in the work. 

[AuroranHusker]

4 hours ago, Norm Peterson said:

If we finish with a winning record with our schedule and don't at least make the NIT, then the whole scheme is crooked.

 

Beat Minny and I think NU is 'in' the N.I.T. Nebraska has one of the most difficult schedules in the country, and has ZERO bad losses. Very few teams can say that. Add in the 4 'Quad 1' wins and another 4 'Quad 2' wins and I believe that's a decent post-season worthy resume, but what do we know. . . Nebraska went 13-5 in the B1G about five or six years ago & had a road game in the N.I.T. while the next season NU was 6-14 in the B1G and had a home game in the N.I.T. Seems like a crapshoot, regardless. Just win the freakin' Big Ten Tournament !!

 

 

 

Edited March 6, 2023 by AuroranHusker

[HuskerFever]

There's been 13 teams in the last 10 years who have had 17-or-fewer wins who were selected into the NIT.

 

(This excludes 2020-2021 when some teams only played ~20 games.)

[The Polish Rifle]

Northwestern beats a struggling Rutgers in a rock fight and moves up 7 in the NET. Nebraska beats a surging Iowa and moves up 2. Iowa was ranked higher than Rutgers in the NET.   Hell we didn’t even make up what we lost from beating Minnesota by 11. 

[hskr4life]

31 minutes ago, The Polish Rifle said:

Northwestern beats a struggling Rutgers in a rock fight and moves up 7 in the NET. Nebraska beats a surging Iowa and moves up 2. Iowa was ranked higher than Rutgers in the NET.   Hell we didn’t even make up what we lost from beating Minnesota by 11. 

I saw this this morning and about barfed.  What a joke.  I’m done trying to figure it out.  I’ll say this though…

 

If a true road win over #33 only bumps us up 2 spots… I don’t think winning 4 is going to do it.  We’re probably going to have to win the whole damn thing.  Hell, we’ll probably drop if we win on Wednesday.

[royalfan]

Drake moves up 12 spots for beating Bradley on a neutral court.  We move up 2 for beating Iowa on the road.  That is awesome.  

[Norm Peterson]

 

[HuskerFever]

33 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

1 hour ago, The Polish Rifle said:

Northwestern beats a struggling Rutgers in a rock fight and moves up 7 in the NET. Nebraska beats a surging Iowa and moves up 2. Iowa was ranked higher than Rutgers in the NET.   Hell we didn’t even make up what we lost from beating Minnesota by 11. 

I saw this this morning and about barfed.  What a joke.  I’m done trying to figure it out.  I’ll say this though…

 

If a true road win over #33 only bumps us up 2 spots… I don’t think winning 4 is going to do it.  We’re probably going to have to win the whole damn thing.  Hell, we’ll probably drop if we win on Wednesday.

 

There's many more components to it than this, but this helps explain part of it. It's another debate whether this metric is measuring the right thing.

 

Northwestern's average win was by 13.6 pts, average loss by 10.2 pts (net +3.4 pts).

 

Rutgers' average win was by 18.6 pts, average loss by 7.5 pts (net +11.0 pts).

 

Nebraska's average win was by 11.0 pts, average loss by 15.1 pts (net -4.0 pts).

[Norm Peterson]

2 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

 

There's many more components to it than this, but this helps explain part of it. It's another debate whether this metric is measuring the right thing.

 

Northwestern's average win was by 13.6 pts, average loss by 10.2 pts (net +3.4 pts).

 

Rutgers' average win was by 18.6 pts, average loss by 7.5 pts (net +11.0 pts).

 

Nebraska's average win was by 11.0 pts, average loss by 15.1 pts (net -4.0 pts).

 

We managed to not lose close games. I would think that would be a good thing. But the ppl who put this thing together would rather see teams lose close games and curbstomp their opponents in wins.

 

Which tells me the objective is NOT to identify the best teams, but to find the teams most likely to cover.

[The Polish Rifle]

3 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

We managed to not lose close games. I would think that would be a good thing. But the ppl who put this thing together would rather see teams lose close games and curbstomp their opponents in wins.

 

Which tells me the objective is NOT to identify the best teams, but to find the teams most likely to cover.

I think what bothers me the most about it, is Fred had to figure out what he had two times this year. He had 3 new starters and no Walker to start the year - once they were clicking the beat Creighton on the road. Then loses 2 starters and has to reconstruct his lineup and once they start clicking again beat Iowa on the road. That type of change is not conducive to blowing teams out and you might drop a clunker or two - but the NET in no way captures how good we became once Fred found the right formula. It’s obvious the NET is rewarding beating the brakes off bad teams over winning close over good teams, but there is no bad teams in the B1G, we have no opportunities for crushing crap teams. 

[royalfan]

26 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

We managed to not lose close games. I would think that would be a good thing. But the ppl who put this thing together would rather see teams lose close games and curbstomp their opponents in wins.

 

Which tells me the objective is NOT to identify the best teams, but to find the teams most likely to cover.

It is sort of like saban begging like a crybaby to get in as they should want the best teams in playoffs. They chose  results of football games.  
 

 I know that metrics generally paint a better picture of who the best teams are.  I am just not sure that when selecting teams for a tourney it should matter more than things like, you know, winning basketball games.  Metrics consider us “lucky.”  I don’t think that should be the job of the selection people.  Winning or losing a game by 1 should matter a lot more than a two point margin that is in the same side of the ledger.  
 

If they do want to use something that evaluates teams, then let Vegas handle it.  They know who is injured and how much it impacts things.  Computers cannot pick up on that stuff.  They are using flawed metrics to evaluate teams so we don’t get the best results teams or the best teams. 

[Dead Dog Alley]

49 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

 

There's many more components to it than this, but this helps explain part of it. It's another debate whether this metric is measuring the right thing.

 

Northwestern's average win was by 13.6 pts, average loss by 10.2 pts (net +3.4 pts).

 

Rutgers' average win was by 18.6 pts, average loss by 7.5 pts (net +11.0 pts).

 

Nebraska's average win was by 11.0 pts, average loss by 15.1 pts (net -4.0 pts).

 

So, it would be advantageous to play a couple of teams ranked below 300, and just go out and beat them by 60 points each.  Force the tempo, press the hell out of them even if that's not what you normally do, play your starters longer than necessary, just run up the score as much as you can.

[49r]

So, I thought that now the regular season is done I should do a proper KenPom update.  It's been a pretty disheartening 4 years, so my enthusiasm has waned greatly.  But the past month has been more encouraging than I expected.  Really love that Fred is able to keep his guys on the level and has them seemingly ready to play their best ball at the end of the year.  This is what winning programs do.  Now, if we can just figure out a way to win a few more games in January...

 

Before I start, I want to take you back to January 8th for a moment and let you see how things have progressed:

 

Quote

 

KenPom still predicts a 15-16 (8-12) regular season finish for us.  Just need to flip one more win.  Rutgers has made a shocking ascent to the top 15 to start 2023, fellas I think the Scarlet Knights are for real...like legit conference title contenders real.  Glad we only play them once this year.  Wisconsin is a strange duck, they're 11-3 but only ranked #55.  I don't really know what to make of the Badgers but I'm also glad we only play them once this year, but that just has more to do with the fact that I freakin' hate that team and their fans.

 

Tim Miles update:

Rough day at the office yesterday for coach.  A 24 point loss at home for the Spartans against Nevada yesterday has put a bit of a damper on what has been a pretty remarkable season so far.  San Jose State went scoreless from the 10:41 mark in the first half until halftime and a scoring drought like that will doom pretty much any team.

 

And just for @Norm Peterson I'll include a Grant McCasland update this morning.  The North Texas Mean Green are currently 13-3 (4-1) against a pretty pedestrian schedule, their best win being against KP #105 Grand Canyon and their three losses are by 30 points to #10 Saint Mary's, 4 points to #112 UNC Wilmington and a 4 point loss at home to CUSA favorite #36 Florida Atlantic.  It's gonna be NIT for the Mean Green this year unless they win the CUSA tournament. 

 

 

Ken was pretty nails on the regular season finish even back then.  We did flip that one win (which, if I'm honest is probably Iowa).  Rutgers did their best impression of Nebraska circa 2019, rising to unusually lofty heights but then have the season completely fall apart after an injury to a single player.  Will they recover next year?  Their recruiting class says probably.

 

Wisconsin remained a strange duck all season, and I still don't know what to make of them.  Still...F Wisconsin.

 

Tim Miles has done an absolutely remarkable job at SJSU.  Some of that of course needs to be credited to Omari Moore but still I think Tim deserves a ton of recognition.  Taking a team from #336 to #93 (one spot above the Huskers at the moment) in just two seasons is damn near miraculous.  The Spartans earned a bye but have Nevada as their opening opponent in the MWC tournament, possibly the worst matchup for them.  If they do manage to win, then it's likely San Diego State.  So it will be a tough slog for them.  At any event I hope Tim does manage to get himself on the radar for a higher profile job opening this off season.

 

Finally Grant McCasland.  Well @Norm Peterson, I guess I'm sorry to say it looks like another year is going to pass without us bringing him on board.  I hope you're okay with that.  But even still, he got the Mean Green to finish second in CUSA and up to #46 in KenPom.

 

As far as the Huskers and the Big Ten, well I gotta say we are going to be entering the off season with a lot of momentum and possibly more optimism for the future than we've had in a long long time.  Like to see that.

 

Also, after starting the year with the historic bottom feeders PSU, Rutgers and Northwestern looking like championship contenders, we're seeing that the normal cream has once again risen to the top.  Maryland, Michigan State, Illinois and Indiana prove once again that it's hard to knock the elite off their perch.  Love to see Wisconsin down there slumming it with us, only 6 wins since January 3rd against 11 losses.  But sure, they're a bubble team.  

 

That's today's KenPom update, lotta catching up to do and sorry about that.  But anyway...Here we go!

 

---

 

KenPom rankings as of 3-06-23
=======================

 

B1G (9-11):
6. Purdue - L, L
20. Maryland - L, W
28. Michigan State - L, L
30. Indiana - L

32. Illinois - L, L

35. Iowa - W, W
38. Michigan - L
42. Rutgers - W
43. Northwestern - L
50. Penn State - L, W
57. Ohio State - W
72. Wisconsin - W

94. Nebraska
222. Minnesota - W, W

 

 

Non-Conference (7-4):
283. Maine - W
314. Omaha - W

---Gavitt Games---
88. @St. John's - L

321. Arkansas Pine-Bluff - W

---ESPN Events Invitational---
51. Oklahoma - L
33. Memphis - L
212. Florida State - W

---B1G/ACC Challenge---
172. Boston College - W

12. @Creighton - W
18. Kansas State - L

---Battle In The Vault---
209. Queens University of Charlotte - W

[49r]

13 minutes ago, Dead Dog Alley said:

 

So, it would be advantageous to play a couple of teams ranked below 300, and just go out and beat them by 60 points each.  Force the tempo, press the hell out of them even if that's not what you normally do, play your starters longer than necessary, just run up the score as much as you can.

 

In a nutshell.  Yes.  Also having a win or two against a top 15 type team.  One needs to look no further than Northwestern, Penn State or Rutgers (all likely in right now) for good examples.

 

Also, Lunardi has Wisconsin in right now too which is just baffling to me.  6 wins over two months and you're gonna tell me that's good?  GTFO, I guess that shows the value of 30 years of consistent winning.  You get in on name recognition alone.  F those guys.

[Norm Peterson]

OK, so this is just fucking crazy.

 

Iowa loses by a small amount and goes up three spots in the NET.

 

We win buy an equally small amount and drop five spots in the NET.

 

And it was the same game. At Iowa.

 

Their non-blowout home loss to us >>>> our non-blowout road win over them.

 

Scrap the NET and start over.

 

 

[royalfan]

13 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

OK, so this is just fucking crazy.

 

Iowa loses by a small amount and goes up three spots in the NET.

 

We win buy an equally small amount and drop five spots in the NET.

 

And it was the same game. At Iowa.

 

Their non-blowout home loss to us >>>> our non-blowout road win over them.

 

Scrap the NET and start over.

 

 

While not a proponent of the NET either, it looks like Iowa dropped from 33 to 37 from what I am looking at,  Drake jumping a dozen with a win over Bradley blows my mind.  

[Huskerpapa]

43 minutes ago, 49r said:

--Battle In The Vault---
209. Queens University of Charlotte - W

Perhaps our most costly win, as we lost Blaise to a nasty high ankle injury that continues to linger.  (And yes, the injuries to Bando and Gary were more costly - but simply humor me for a moment).  And oh by the way, we also lost another role player in the preseason to a knee injury.  

 

Yet, it would seem, none of these injuries that we have overcome are factored into our rating?  I cannot definitely state this, but there are few if any other teams out there that overcame this many significant injuries and came out the other side with a winning record.  Just saying...

[Norm Peterson]

2 hours ago, The Polish Rifle said:

I think what bothers me the most about it, is Fred had to figure out what he had two times this year. He had 3 new starters and no Walker to start the year - once they were clicking the beat Creighton on the road. Then loses 2 starters and has to reconstruct his lineup and once they start clicking again beat Iowa on the road. That type of change is not conducive to blowing teams out and you might drop a clunker or two - but the NET in no way captures how good we became once Fred found the right formula. It’s obvious the NET is rewarding beating the brakes off bad teams over winning close over good teams, but there is no bad teams in the B1G, we have no opportunities for crushing crap teams. 

 

Maybe there's a way, but I don't know how any computer ranking system would be able to factor injuries in or out of an equation of where to rank a given team.

 

Computers dispassionately look at what they're told to look at, and it's all math from there.

 

But, as humans who have insight, we get that injuries to the wrong players can derail a season.

 

After Gary and Bandoumel went down, I wasn't sure we'd win another game all season long. I thought our goose was cooked. Maybe squeak out a home win against Minnesota, but that was about it.

 

Given where we are compared to what I expected, I cannot help but give the coaching staff HUGE, GINORMOUS, EFFUSIVE PRAISE for what this team has done since the beginning of January.

 

Not only did they overcome season-ending injuries to TWO starters, but they also utilized a legit walk-on to do it.

 

BIG STAT OF THE SEASON:

 

Sam Hoiberg's cumulative total minutes in the first 20 games (through Bandoumel's injury): 12

 

Sam Hoiberg's cumulative total minutes in the last 11 games (since Bandoumel's injury): 237

[hskr4life]

Also good to remember-- we're a lot more competitive in these metrics... including almost being in the Top 60 in terms of strength of record.

 

https://twitter.com/mjdemarinis/status/1632751303007903747?s=20

Edited March 6, 2023 by hskr4life

[The Polish Rifle]

There are 2 games in regards to net that really annoy me. Home against Minnesota and at Iowa. If you isolate those two games, in one we beat Minnesota by 11 - not overly impressive but guess what, Minnesota has been competitive in over half their conf games, even against NCAA tournament competition. In the other we go on the road and beat top 35 Iowa - very impressive win. What was the combined NET impact of those two games? We dropped 3 spots…yes a double digit B1G win and a road win over a top 35 team had a negative impact on our metrics. 

[hhcmatt]

It's real hard to get worked up over the Kenpom stuff because our record matches up with the fact that we're on the NIT bubble at the moment and nowhere near the NCAA tourney.

[Swan88]

 

[49r]

Well, we can't assure ourselves of an NIT bid with a win on Wednesday, but we sure as hell can eliminate ourselves with a loss!

[The Polish Rifle]

13 minutes ago, 49r said:

Well, we can't assure ourselves of an NIT bid with a win on Wednesday, but we sure as hell can eliminate ourselves with a loss!

He doesn’t have us on the NIT bubble. I feel like we’re safely in with a win against Minnesota.

[HuskerFever]

I trust some NIT Bracketology person as much as I trust Lunardi's NCAA bracketology.

 

Ultimately, it's a committee that decides the at-large bids, based on criteria that changes (or weighted differently) every single year. Lunardi's track record isn't all that strong, but it's entertainment.

 

The NIT gets whatever leftovers are remaining. And that's heavily impacted by the number of NCAA bid stealers from mid-majors.