KenPom 2013-2014 KenPom Rankings Thread

[AuroranHusker]

Three strata in the B1G right now.

 

5 teams in the top 20.

 

4 teams between 50 and 75.

 

3 teams hovering at or over 100.

No doubt, also noticed that NW has crept its way to the basement at 120+

[Norm Peterson]

According to ESPN's rpi numbers, we're #49 right now.  Win out at home and that just has to put us in the top 40, which I would think would also have to be enough to get us in.  Winning out at home means a 10-8 conference record and a 18-12 overall record.  One win in the conference tournament puts us at 19-13.  Is that enough?

 

I'd say either two wins in the conference tourney or pick up an extra win at either Illinois or Indiana (and I'm not sure which of those two I'd rather try to get the win at) and one conference tourney win and we're an absolute lock.

 

But we have to have Pitchford.  Have to have Pitchford.  He's not the biggest piece of the puzzle but he's a very important and necessary one.  Have to have him and have to have him fully healthy.  Don't want to lose at home to Purdue because we lacked one of the few guys on the team who can play big.

[Norm Peterson]

 

UAB moves up 9 spots.  MSU and Michigan flip flop...again...and we're creeping ever closer to moving ahead of Minnesota!

 

 

Might not have to creep much longer.  Minnesota's next three games are @ Ohio State, vs. Iowa and @ Michigan.  They could easily go 0-fer that stretch.  Meanwhile, we host Purdue, take a trip to Champagne and come back home to face Northwestern, the worst team in the league by Kenpom standards.

 

At the end of that next 3-game stretch, we might be 17-11 and 9-7 while they'll be lucky to get to 18-12 and 7-10.  And they could very easily wind up 17-13 and 6-11 over their next 3 games.

[lanigan123]

It's not about being better than minnesota, big ten doesn't have a quota, we need to win.

[nuled2dance]

We need to handle business now and not put our chances in the tourney.

The conference tourney is a way that coaches can rally teams with a win 4 and you are dancing charge. Those games no matter who you play are extremely tough!

5-1 would be huge finish!

[Norm Peterson]

It's not about being better than minnesota, big ten doesn't have a quota, we need to win.

True.  But then it's not about Kenpom either because he isn't the official RPI.  This is just his own proprietary way of deciding who the best teams are.  And we've been measuring ourselves in terms of how close we are to the next conference team ahead of us all season long.  Used to be Indiana we were gunning for.  Now it's Minnesota.

 

And, speaking of which, Kenpom has us within two spots of overtaking the gophers.  We're 59th; they're 57th.

[49r]

We've moved past Minnesota!!!

 

We've also got within one spot of Maryland, and 5 of UMass!

 

And Georgia is back under 100.

 

If anybody would have asked you before the season began that Nebraska would manage a sub-50 KenPom ranking, would you have asked them what they were smoking and if they would share?  I would have.

 

Here is today's KenPom update:

 

Kenpom rankings as of 2-24-14.
==============================

B1G (8-6):
10. Iowa - L
12. Wisconsin
13. Ohio State - L, W
14. Michigan - L, L
17. Michigan State - W

49. Nebraska

57. Minnesota - W

70. Indiana - W

76. Illinois - W

98. Penn State - L, W

104. Purdue - L, W

125. Northwestern - W

Non-Conference (8-4):
169. Florida Gulf Coast - W
259. Western Illinois - W
343. South Carolina State - W

---Charleston Classic---
44. UMass - L
142. UAB - L
90. Georgia - W

225. Northern Illinois - W

---B1G/ACC Challenge---
71. Miami - W

5. @Creighton - L
137. Arkansas State - W
350. The Citadel - W
21. @Cincinnati - L

Other teams of interest:
48. Maryland (15-12)
170. Omaha (15-13)

174. Rutgers (10-17)

 

[throwback]

NCAA RPI rankings thru Feb 24:

http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-men/d1/ncaa-mens-basketball-rpi

 

BIG TEN

5. Wisconsin (+1 spots from last week)

13. Michigan (+3) - L, L

17. Ohio State (-2) - L, W

19. Michigan State (-1) - W

28. Iowa (-4) - L
46. Minnesota (-13) - W

48. Nebraska (+5)

85. Illinois (+6) - W

97. Indiana (+5) - W 

116. Northwestern (-12) - W

119. Penn State (-7) - L, W

121. Purdue (-13) - L, W

Non-Conference

7. Creighton (+1) - L

15. UMass (+4) - L

21. Cincinnati (-7) - L

89. Georgia (-1) - W
125. Miami (-9) - W
136. UAB (+29) - L   
141. Florida Gulf Coast (+14) - W   
169. Arkansas State (+4) - W
216. Northern Illinois (-7) - W
285. Western Illinois (-11) - W
331. South Carolina State (-4) - W
348. The Citadel (E) - W
 

• NU vs Top 25: 2-6
• NU vs Top 50: 3-7
• NU vs Top 100: 6-7
• NU vs Top 150: 11-10

 

• NU vs 25-50: 1-1
• NU vs 25-75: 1-1
• NU vs 25-100: 4-1
• NU vs 50-100: 3-0
• NU vs 50-150: 8-3
• NU vs 101-200: 6-3
• NU vs 150+: 5-0
• NU vs 200+: 4-0

[Husker4theSpurs]

We should hope for Minnesota to win as well IMHO ... We need them to stay as a "big" win.

[huskerbaseball13]

We should hope for Minnesota to win as well IMHO ... We need them to stay as a "big" win.

 

 

I'm not so sure about this...it may very well come down to the committee thinking the BIg 10 is deserving of 6 teams with a bid.  If that is the case...it very well could come down to us or Minnesota.  IMO, the more they lose...the better.  Just knocks another bubble team off the radar. 

[royalfan]

 

Does anyone know what RPI the Committee actually looks at? In other words, when they sit down in their war room and have their summaries of each team in front of them, which website's RPI is smack dab on that sheet?

Do we know if they use any "sheet"?

 

Something called the nitty gritty report is right in front of each member.  Here is link. 

 

http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2014/nitty-clear

[hhcmatt]

 

We should hope for Minnesota to win as well IMHO ... We need them to stay as a "big" win.

 

 

I'm not so sure about this...it may very well come down to the committee thinking the BIg 10 is deserving of 6 teams with a bid.  If that is the case...it very well could come down to us or Minnesota.  IMO, the more they lose...the better.  Just knocks another bubble team off the radar. 

 

 

Look at Minnesota's schedule.  Their best road win is against Richmond.

People are projecting them into the tourney because of their RPI....don't buy into it.  They're not a NCAA team and probably aren't unless they win out.  I think their value as a top 50 RPI team out weighs the potential of them being chosen over us to make the tourney.

[royalfan]

When looking at that, our horrific road and neutral court record sticks out like a sore thumb.  Thank goodness we got one at Michigan St, or we are probably dead.   We need to get another one on the road badly to make that look less awful.  Lose those and it all of a sudden turns into 2-9.  That doesn't look good at all. 

[royalfan]

Last ten does seem to matter, at least a little bit, or they wouldn't have it on the report. 

[Norm Peterson]

This is absolutely the closest we've been to making the dance since the 2nd to last year of Danny Nee.  Makes me nervous thinking about it because it could all go to crap if we don't win out at home.  We might not win our way in, but we could lose our way out of even being in the discussion and then our last 10 might not even look so good.

 

Gotta keep winning, no matter where the wins come from.  Losing at Illinois won't necessarily hurt, but winning there sure would help.

 

And, at the end of the day, we're either good enough or we're not.  If we're an NCAA tourney-quality team, we'll win one of these remaining road games and we'll beat Wisconsin and Northwestern.  And, if we don't, then we didn't deserve to be in the discussion.

[ajb5856]

So I've heard it repeatedly that we need to win out at home to have a chance. Makes sense. Beating Wisconsin would give us another big win and obviously a loss to northwestern kills our chances. But what happens if we win the 2 remaining road games, beat Northwestern but lose to Wisconsin? By the way, I don't see this happening, if we get to the Wiscy game needing it we will win. But what does this scenario do for us? We lose to Wisconsin, fail to get another big win but win the rest. We would finish 19-11, 11-7, RPI of 44 heading to the B1G tournament. You would obviously like our chances more if we get that extra big win but I don't think you could say we were completely out of it either. So do we have to win out at home? Or do we just have to win out against Northwestern at home?

And don't get me wrong, I would still prefer we just go ahead and take care of the Badgers.

[Norm Peterson]

ajb, I don't know if it's necessary to beat Wisconsin to make the dance.  But I think picking up a road win and winning out at home will get the job done.  A win over the Badgers will be enough to tip the scales in our favor and get us over the bubble (provided we also beat Northwestern and maybe pick up a win in Bloomington or Champagne.)

 

Another way would just be to win the B1G tournament.  But I hold out more hope of beating Wisconsin at home.  Just do that and then I don't care what happens in the B1GT.*

 

*  Assuming we also take are of Northwestern, and Illinois or Indiana.

[HuskerFever]

Anybody in the Big Ten can still make it to the Big Dance. It just that Illinois would have to win the Big Ten tournament. We would only have to win 1-2 of our games.

[Ron Mexico]

So I've heard it repeatedly that we need to win out at home to have a chance. Makes sense. Beating Wisconsin would give us another big win and obviously a loss to northwestern kills our chances. But what happens if we win the 2 remaining road games, beat Northwestern but lose to Wisconsin? By the way, I don't see this happening, if we get to the Wiscy game needing it we will win. But what does this scenario do for us? We lose to Wisconsin, fail to get another big win but win the rest. We would finish 19-11, 11-7, RPI of 44 heading to the B1G tournament. You would obviously like our chances more if we get that extra big win but I don't think you could say we were completely out of it either. So do we have to win out at home? Or do we just have to win out against Northwestern at home?

And don't get me wrong, I would still prefer we just go ahead and take care of the Badgers.

The Wiscy game has a lot of positive implications for us, namely giving us another quality win and being a huge boost to our RPI.

 

Looking ahead to that game and the possibilities of what it could mean....

[hskr4life]

I saw a tweet that a team with 19 wins has only been selected as an at large team about 1.5 times per year the last 6 or 7 years.

[ajb5856]

I saw a tweet that a team with 19 wins has only been selected as an at large team about 1.5 times per year the last 6 or 7 years.

With exactly 19 wins? Or 19 wins or fewer? And I'm assuming that's out of the at-large selections only. I could be wrong but it seems like there's usually some 18-12 teams.

[bball23]

The reason the Wisconsin game will end up being HUGE for us is because people are saying Wisky still has a shot at a #1 seed if things played out well.  They are projected as a #2 seed by most. To beat a team of that caliber late in the year would look really good to the committee. 

 

We'll take one game at a time though and hope we play well at Illinois.

[ajb5856]

The reason the Wisconsin game will end up being HUGE for us is because people are saying Wisky still has a shot at a #1 seed if things played out well. They are projected as a #2 seed by most. To beat a team of that caliber late in the year would look really good to the committee.

We'll take one game at a time though and hope we play well at Illinois.

I know and understand that it would be huge for us to beat Wisconsin. It would put us over the top for sure, in my opinion (with 1 road win plus beating NW). But everyone keeps saying that we have to win out at home. While I obviously want us to win out at home, I don't think we are completely out of it if we would lose to Wisconsin. Wisconsin is going to be extremely tough. Wins @Illinois, NW, and @Indiana are all far more likely than knocking off Wisconsin. All I'm saying is that if we continue our roll, win the next 3, but lose to Wiscy we would be 19-11, 11-7 with RPI in the mid 40s. While that obviously makes it more difficult than if we just beat Wisconsin, I don't think we would be completely out of it.

[hskr4life]

I saw a tweet that a team with 19 wins has only been selected as an at large team about 1.5 times per year the last 6 or 7 years.

With exactly 19 wins? Or 19 wins or fewer? And I'm assuming that's out of the at-large selections only. I could be wrong but it seems like there's usually some 18-12 teams.

The exact tweet from Nick Gregath (NickESPN1480)

19 win team at large bids in NCAA tournament: 0 13', 1 12', 5 11', 1 10' , 2 09', 3 08', 1 07', so in last seven years average 1.85 selected.

[Silverbacked1]

Part of our problem about trying to get in is that now the rest of the country is seeing as an above average to average team. What this does is put us in a lose-lose situation. If we win all our games up to Wisconsin nobody is going to do back flips for us because we are now seen as a team that should win those games, maybe even easily.

Then others might not see us beating Wisconsin at home as that big of an upset since we would be almost undefeated at home but for with a missed tip in to a 2 or 3 seeded Michigan.

We may have actually hurt ourselves with this win streak. But with out it we wouldn't be in it.

Is this Irony, a conundrum, catch 22 or just something that we haven't ever been through?