KenPom 2014-2015 KenPom Rankings Thread

[HuskerActuary]

KenPom's preseason rankings are released. We are #34. I'll let 49r do his usual, thorough analysis if he wants to.

 

There are 11 Big Ten teams in the top 40.

[Norm Peterson]

Eleven in the top 40 and all 14 in the top 103.  That's frickin' amazing.

 

Rutgers is 3 spots away from all B1G teams being in the top 100 of Kenpom's pre-season rankings.  Unreal.

 

The 13th team in the B1G, Northwestern, is ranked #77 and the 12th team, Penn State, is #56.

 

Think back to a couple of years ago when we were ranked outside the top 200 to start the season.

 

Last year, IIRC, we started out somewhere in the 150s. 

 

This conference is loaded. 

[49r]

Welcome to the 2014-15 preseason KenPom rankings.  Of note is the B1G, with 10 top 40 teams, and all but one team in the top 100, the conference is going to be a dogfight each and every night.  Virtually every team in the conference, with the likely exceptions of Wisconsin and Rutgers should expect to finish anywhere between 2nd and 13th, depending on how players develop, injuries and whatnot.  Nebraska falls firmly in the middle of the KenPom pack to start the season, and our early cuppiest of cake non-con schedule isn't going to do us any RPI favors.

 

The four-game stretch starting on December 1st with FSU, Creighton, UIW and Cincinnati will likely go a long ways towards telling us just what kind of team we're going to have this year, I would expect to go .500 during that stretch.

 

Diamond Head Classic will be lots of fun, it should be better than the Charleston Classic was last year.  I would be disappointed with anything less than 2 wins there.

 

And now, here are the initial 2014-15 KenPom rankings:

 

KenPom rankings as of 10-27-14.

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

 

B1G (0-0):

6. Wisconsin

12. Michigan State

14. Ohio State

15. Michigan

26. Indiana

32. Iowa

33. Maryland

34. Nebraska

37. Minnesota

38. Illinois

40. Purdue

56. Penn State

77. Northwestern

103. Rutgers

 

Non-Conference (0-0):

317. Northern Kentucky

340 Central Arkansas

105. @Rhode Island

246. Omaha

334. Tennessee-Martin

 

---B1G/ACC Challenge---

41. @Florida State

 

47. Creighton

289. Incarnate Word

46. Cincinnati

 

---Diamond Head Classic---

163. Hawaii

10. Wichita State, 206. LMU

62. GWU, 63. Colorado, 146. Ohio, 197. DePaul

[hhcmatt]

BTW, Northern Kentucky is the first opponent for both the Huskers and the Badgers.

Wisconsin should give us a blueprint on how to handle the Norse. 

 

[Norm Peterson]

BTW, Northern Kentucky is the first opponent for both the Huskers and the Badgers.

Wisconsin should give us a blueprint on how to handle the Norse. 

 

 

That's kind of like getting a read from someone else's ball before you hit a 2 foot putt.

[49r]

Some discussion about preseason KenPom can be found at these blogs:
 
 
Maryland basketball: Ken Pomeroy rates Terps 33rd in nation - Testudo Times

Mark Turgeon has utilized a particularly optimistic tone about his Maryland basketball team this preseason. Now, college basketball's most-respected analytics outlet is backing him up.

Ken Pomeroy rates Maryland as the 33rd-best team in college basketball this preseason, in a just-released list. That puts the Terps seventh in the Big Ten, sandwiched directly between Iowa and Nebraska. Maryland ranked 40th last season, the highest-rated team not to make postseason play.

 
 
2015 NCAA Basketball KenPom Preseason Rankings - Hammer and Rails

Holy crap that is rough! Purdue is 40 in the Big Ten ahead of only Penn State, Rutgers, and Northwestern. That's 15 guaranteed games against top 50 teams, possibly 17 (assuming the other two Maui games are against anyone not named Missouri or Chaminade), plus at least one Big Ten Tournament game likely against a top 50. So 15 out of Purdue's 31 are against tough teams.

 
 
Kenpom Releases Initial 2015 Ratings - Maize N Brew

Michigan's primary foes in the Big Ten come in above the Wolverines, with Michigan State 12th and Wisconsin 6th to go along with the aforementioned Ohio State.  The Big Ten has 11 programs in the top-40, with Penn State, Northwestern, and Rutgers bringing up the rear.

 
 
Breaking Down KenPom's Preseason Rankings - The Crimson Quarry

KenPom also has the B1G rated as his number one conference going into the year, followed by the Big 12 and the ACC with the SEC coming in at a shocking (to me) 4th. As previously discussed, he's got Indiana as 5th in conference at 9-9, with five other teams at 9-9 as well: Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Illinois. Multiple people, including myself, have discussed this group of six teams as one that's very difficult to differentiate. All have their strengths and weaknesses in addition to plenty of question marks. The margin of error between these teams will likely be razor thin. For what it's worth: Indiana only has single plays against all of these teams except for a double play with Maryland.

[49r]

BTW, Northern Kentucky is the first opponent for both the Huskers and the Badgers.

Wisconsin should give us a blueprint on how to handle the Norse. 

 

 

 

Dang, Pac-12....SMDH!!!  They're reverting back to being as awful as ever, aren't they?

[Norm Peterson]

Post #169 above was from March 2013.  There's no posts from the '13-'14 season.  Appears someone tagged this onto the end of the '12-'13 season thread.  Weren't we doing a new one of these for each season?  Should we make this its own thread for this season?  Or at least tag it onto the one from last year?

[hhcmatt]

 

 

With all due respect to HuskerActuary, I'm going to do KenPom updates in this thread going forward.  My intent has always been to track the year over year progress of the program via KenPom in one thread, and unless the rest of the board has any objections, I'm going to go ahead and start the 2014 rankings comments here.

 

 

 

Post #169 above was from March 2013.  There's no posts from the '13-'14 season.  Appears someone tagged this onto the end of the '12-'13 season thread.  Weren't we doing a new one of these for each season?  Should we make this its own thread for this season?  Or at least tag it onto the one from last year?

 

I misread the request.

Fixed

Also http://board.huskerhoopscentral.com/tags/forums/KenPom/

[Norm Peterson]

OK, so the tag thing.  Niiiiiice.  Me likey.

[hhcmatt]

OK, so the tag thing.  Niiiiiice.  Me likey.

 

The linking at the bottom or the black icon thing that shows up now or both?

[Norm Peterson]

 

OK, so the tag thing.  Niiiiiice.  Me likey.

 

The linking at the bottom or the black icon thing that shows up now or both?

 

The black icon thing that shows up now.  What's this linking at the bottom of which you speak?

[Norm Peterson]

Nvrmnd.  Didn't scroll down far enough.  Now I see it. 

 

I like both.

[Norm Peterson]

BTW, 49r, thanks for doing this every year.  This is always one of the best threads throughout the season.  I don't have a Kenpom subscription and, while I could scan the database to come up with what you post, it's a whole lot easier with you putting it all in one place, and it also allows us to track how we're doing throughout the season and compare where we are with where we were.

 

So, big round of applause.  I do have to say that I look forward to this thread that you do every year, 49r.

[a0t0w0]

BTW, 49r, thanks for doing this every year.  This is always one of the best threads throughout the season.  I don't have a Kenpom subscription and, while I could scan the database to come up with what you post, it's a whole lot easier with you putting it all in one place, and it also allows us to track how we're doing throughout the season and compare where we are with where we were.

 

So, big round of applause.  I do have to say that I look forward to this thread that you do every year, 49r.

 

I like this 49'r kid.

[AuroranHusker]

 

BTW, 49r, thanks for doing this every year.  This is always one of the best threads throughout the season.  I don't have a Kenpom subscription and, while I could scan the database to come up with what you post, it's a whole lot easier with you putting it all in one place, and it also allows us to track how we're doing throughout the season and compare where we are with where we were.

 

So, big round of applause.  I do have to say that I look forward to this thread that you do every year, 49r.

 

I like this 49'r kid.

 

 

Yeah 9er's a good kid, but I really like Shields better.

[Norm Peterson]

 

 

BTW, 49r, thanks for doing this every year.  This is always one of the best threads throughout the season.  I don't have a Kenpom subscription and, while I could scan the database to come up with what you post, it's a whole lot easier with you putting it all in one place, and it also allows us to track how we're doing throughout the season and compare where we are with where we were.

 

So, big round of applause.  I do have to say that I look forward to this thread that you do every year, 49r.

 

I like this 49'r kid.

 

 

Yeah 9er's a good kid, but I really like Shields better.

 

He certainly scores more. 

 

 

 

 

(Ahem, cue Cip.) 

[49r]

Pomeroy explains some of his methodology:  http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/entry/preseason_ratings_2015

 

People always want to know why a team is ranked in an unexpected spot. Think of the ratings formula as [team baseline + personnel]. The personnel portion is looking at who is returning from last season’s roster, how much the returnees played, what kind of role each returnee had, and what class they are in. Actually, there’s a two-year window for this, so Butler gets some credit for getting Roosevelt Jones back, for instance.

 

The system does not give any special consideration to new players entering the program. There is some credit given for high-profile recruits, but the poor performances in 2012-13 of UCLA and Kentucky, among others, in recent years have tended to mute the impact of recruits in the model. Recruiting rankings are useful, but the impact of high-level prospects on their respective teams as freshman can vary wildly.

 

There is no allowance for impact transfers or redshirt freshmen. So if your program has a high-profile transfer joining the team, the system may be underrating it. But this is where the program baseline can pick up some of the slack. The system is looking at the performance of a team over the past five seasons and its men’s basketball budget over the two most recent seasons for which data is available to figure out what should be expected of a team in the absence of any other information. A lot more weight is given to the past two seasons in terms of team performance. So the system is going to be forgiving about personnel losses on teams like Louisville and Syracuse and Creighton that spend a bunch of money on men’s hoops and have had recent success.

[Timmy]

So we are probably a bit lower due to our 2012-13 season as well as overall poor performance over the last five years?

[49r]

So we are probably a bit lower due to our 2012-13 season as well as overall poor performance over the last five years?

 

We're probably just about where we should be, IMO.  In fact, if you would have had me guess before the rankings came out I would have probably put Nebraska a shade lower than they are...probably in the upper 30's to about 40 or so.  But yeah, we are definitely not getting the same benefit of the doubt that say Purdue or Indiana has gotten for sure.

 

On the flip side, Colorado has gotten absolutely NO benefit of the doubt, they slipped about 30 spots from the final ranking last season, IIRC.  Granted they lost a kid to the NBA, but he didn't even play the last half of the season for them.

 

So I found it interesting that Pomeroy injects a little bias into his preseason rankings in the form of "men's basketball budgets over the two most recent seasons for which data is available", and since that data is usually a year or two behind, one can see why Nebraska (who's budget increases won't be fully visible for another year or so) and Colorado (who has a small budget in general) aren't held in higher regard here.

[Norm Peterson]

49r, that's interesting stuff from Pomeroy.

 

So, he looks at last 5 years of success for the program as part of the expectation for what you're going to do in the coming year, huh?

 

So, for us, that would include 3 years of Doc Sadler teams after which he was let go.

 

And for Creighton, whom he specifically mentions, it would include 4 years of Doug McDermott, who's no longer there either.

 

I'm assuming the more recent years are weighted more heavily.  But over the last 5 years, our season-ending Pomeroy rank was ... (drumroll, please)

 

2014 -- #44

2013 -- 130

2012 -- 150

2011 -- 64

2010 -- 90

 

2009 -- 64 (just for S&G)

2008 -- 35

2007 -- 90

 

Meanwhile, Creighton's were

 

2014 --  24

2013 -- 18

2012 -- 35

2011 -- 94

2010 -- 116

 

2009 -- 73

2008 -- 76

2007 -- 26

[Ron Mexico]

BTW, Northern Kentucky is the first opponent for both the Huskers and the Badgers.

Wisconsin should give us a blueprint on how to handle the Norse. 

 

Remove Kentucky from the SEC and the would probably be 6th.

[49r]

So, measured in a very unscientific way the mean season ending KenPom rankings for Nebraska over the last 8 years is 83.375

 

And Creighton's is 57.75

 

I have no idea if that means anything at all.

[Norm Peterson]

So, this is just for my own edification and not about Creighton but since he uses them as an example and since we have some familiarity with them, it seemed reasonable to make the comparison.  Anyway, just looking at the two sets of numbers, it looks like Doc was basically better than Creighton for all but his first and last year.  But he was certainly trending precipitously downward over his last three years here, all of which would be included in our current Pomeroy pre-season ranking.

 

Contrast that with Creighton, about whom he says "the system is going to be forgiving on personnel losses ..."  Over the last 5 years, Creighton has been trending significantly upwards and, even though Pomeroy says he's discounting the effect of personnel losses for a team like CU, I would submit that a great deal of the reason for their upward trend in the last 5 years has been the personnel they've now lost and not the money they've spent on hoops.

 

So, they spend money on hoops (and so do we) but they've had upward trending success over the last 5 years and that's why they wind up in the top 50 pre-season even though they lost so many key players from last year; and even though we return damn near everyone, we're "punished" (if you will) in the pre-season rankings because of two bad years when Doc was let go and when Miles took over a very depleted roster.

 

So, my question is this:  I wonder where these two teams would be ranked in the pre-season standings if the years they were using were 2007 to 2011?  Because I don't think we're as bad as those two years that are getting factored into how we're expected to fair this year.

[Norm Peterson]

So, measured in a very unscientific way the mean season ending KenPom rankings for Nebraska over the last 8 years is 83.375

 

And Creighton's is 57.75

 

I have no idea if that means anything at all.

I think Pomeroy would have to agree that his system, in this particular instance, gives them too much credit and us not enough.

 

We finished #44 last year and return damn near everyone and only jump to #34.  They finished #24, lose nearly all of their scoring and rebounding, and only drop to #47.

 

The only variables (from the list that he says he considers) that can explain them holding a fairly strong ranking is how they did over the last several years while they had an All-American on their roster.

 

I wonder where we'd be if he only based his pre-season rankings on how we did last year and who we do or don't return from that team.

 

His system might work in general, but in this particular case, I think certain variables appear to weigh too heavily because they relate either to advantages that no longer exist (for them) or to disadvantages that no longer exist (for us).