Cookie Miller Wasn't Dirty

I ran numbers based on ESPN BPI and have us at a 27% chance at the double bye with a loss at Michigan. Less than one percent of that is actually the 3 seed. Would require one of the following: 1. Wisconsin lose one (vs Rut; @ Purdue)+ Iowa lose to Illinois + MSU lose one or both (vs NW; @ Ind) + Minn lose one or both (vs Ind; @ NW) 2. Wisc lose both + Iowa lose to Illinois 3. NW lose both + Wisc lose both Option 1 is the most likely. Each of the four requirements on their own are fairly high probability. But hitting all four is not. Kinda have a feeling MSU turns it on and finishes 2-0. We’re in an interesting spot too because we don’t want MSU or Wisconsin to drop out of Q1. Rooting against them is a dangerous endeavor.

Must be another reason because Indiana Maryland game hasn’t been accounted for yet.

Low key nice result in the Indiana at Maryland game. Indiana wins. That means Michigan should be the only potential Q3 land mine in the B1G tourney. Anyone else who beats us should finish in the top 100, which is huge. This also means our Maryland L may drop out of Q1. It’s debatable as to whether that’s good for our resume, but it does help K-State and Minnesota’s rankings. There’s no debate that we’d rather have those two in the top 75 over Maryland.

Touché

Truth, because he didn’t know he’d come back either lol. Look I’m not saying Wilcher is gone. Just that he’s probably undecided at the moment. If it happens we’ll be fine.

Truth but he walked the first two times because he wasn’t sure if he was coming back.

Eh, they’re playing incredible ball since his comments. Which were obviously meant to motivate his team, and it worked. Sometimes being a prick is the right button to push. But yes I could definitely see Simeon transferring to Lincoln. Would be cool.

I get a feeling this could mean he has his sights set on joining his brother at St. John’s. Or at least he’s considering it. I don’t know why he’d walk if he knew he was coming back. Not gonna lie though, this possibility stings less after his fall from grace since the Wisconsin game. And overall great news the other guys aren’t walking.

I could see a worst case scenario where a win tonight combined with losing out gets us left out. We’d add a Q3 loss to Rutgers, and if our B1G tourney loss was also Q3 (outside top 100 NET), it could be dicey.

Yeah a three way tie would result in Wisconsin coming out on top. So we’d still be 4th. Northwestern would move to 5th.

I agree I prefer a Wisconsin win, not necessarily because I’m worried about getting into the dance, but because it helps our seed if they can finish strong. I’ll say though they’re not dropping to Q2 with a loss tonight. Teams are barely shifting at all at this point. Michigan State dropped one spot for a home loss to OSU. Wisconsin isn’t dropping more than a couple spots for a Q2 road loss (which is somewhat looking likely right now). If they finish on a skid then they could eventually fall out.

Oh nice. I stand corrected. Still some flaws there but it seems better. In the example he uses I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume a 29 point win by Michigan. It makes some sense to extrapolate the results if they’re playing a Q4 game, but being up 20 at half on Wisconsin shouldn’t lead to an assumed 29 point win. Looks like he has BYU rated a little lower than NET, so that’s good. Still had them #6 after December which seems too high.

The dream scenario is to get matched up with a Mountain West team. I think it’s pretty clearly an overrated conference. Give me Boise, CSU, Nevada, or New Mexico any day. Maybe not Utah State or SDSU.

I’m sure these metrics all take data from box scores to calculate efficiency. It would be an administrative nightmare to parse out which possessions count and which ones don’t for every single game. Not saying it can’t be done, but I doubt the NCAA views the juice to be worth the squeeze. You make a good point about Virginia. I think the best solution is to reduce the weight being given to efficiency. Edit: Though as @royalfan points out, the margin for error is smaller for a slow paced team. So I think I’m back to believing efficiency should just be removed altogether.

I agree the predictive metrics are just one piece of the puzzle. Still, the goal of the metrics is to best quantify who should be in and where they should be seeded. If there’s a clear and obvious flaw, like rewarding 50 point wins over 30 point wins, something in the algorithm should be tweaked to mitigate that flaw.

Math people trying to be too cute. I say that as a math person myself. The more complex the algorithm, the more distinguished the creator of it feels. Sometimes simplicity is the answer.

NET actually does cap the win margin at 10 points. So that’s good. The problem is with efficiency metrics. It would be difficult systematically to parse out at what point in a game should efficiency matter, and at what point should it not. Because I’m sure these metrics just pull stats from the box score. Offensive efficiency for example is calculated as Points divided by Possessions, where Possessions = FGA - OREB + TO + 0.475 * FTA. It would be extremely difficult to go through every game and alter the final stats by removing any data that occurred after a certain point in the game.

Clemson’s coach says exactly what I’ve been saying all year. I’ve pointed out BYU’s heavily flawed NET ranking. Same issue for KenPom and BPI. I didn’t realize it applied across the Big XII. College basketball needs to fix this. Teams should not be rewarded for extending a 30 point win to 50. It appears Fred has become aware of this because he hasn’t put in the scrubs at the end of our recent blowouts. Unfortunately, until this changes, he should never put them in. Which is a shame for those walk-ons. https://www.on3.com/news/clemson-coach-brad-brownell-frustrated-big-12-has-manipulate-net-rankings/

I don’t agree with this. I actually think COY in all sports has too often become the award for the team that exceeded expectations. The high expectations for Purdue were set because Painter has been a great coach in the past. This year he continued to be a great coach. If he’s unworthy of COY it’s basically saying no coach can ever be the best coach two years in a row. We don’t apply that logic to MVP awards, why should it apply to COY awards? Not to mention Purdue doesn’t recruit crazy good talent. Every year he does what Fred’s doing this year. By the end of his career he deserves a handful of awards. Both he and Fred should be seriously considered for the award this year.

Only down one spot in KenPom. A blowout would’ve been nice but thankful that they at least won. We’ll see how this affects them mentally going forward. Even after pulling it off that could’ve damaged some psyches. Hopefully not!

Brackets I’ve seen since the win last night all have us in the 8-9 range. And Lunardi posted his bubble about an hour ago. We’re no longer listed in the Last 4 Byes, implying we’re at worst a 9 seed.

From what I’ve read, the results-based metrics (SOR, KPI) are more of a focus for selecting the 36 teams, but the predictive metrics (NET, KenPom, BPI) are used more for seeding. Not sure if there’s truth to that.

The thing is it’s a pretty safe bet they’d put Kansas and/or Iowa State in Omaha. They are trending for 2 and 3 seeds. Now whether they’d elect to put Nebraska in there with them is a different story, essentially removing their home court advantages if they were to play us in round 2.

NET refreshed tonight rather than tomorrow morning. Some interesting movements that are relevant to us. And I know we’re fairly safe above the bubble right now, but this still matters for seeding! We go from 43 to 41. Odd that our jump was lower than KenPom. I figured being lower in NET would provide opportunity for a bigger jump. The best and perhaps most surprising news is Michigan State drops only one spot to 24, staying safely in Q1. Bizarre. I truly don’t like NET. They lose and lose and lose and hardly ever drop. But good for us. On the other side of the coin, Ohio State moves up only one to 66. For a road Q1A win. I just don’t get it. Especially considering Maryland moved up five for winning at Rutgers, thanks to the margin. But my takeaway is Ohio State is unlikely to move below 75, so our home win should stay Q2 and road game (hopefully win) should stay Q1. Minnesota on the other hand moved down four to 78, meaning our loss to them drops to Q2 and our win over them drops to Q3. It was a Q2 win for a full two hours! Perhaps the only downside to beating them by 18. We should root for them to move back in. Kansas State remains at 73, meaning our win is hanging by a thread to Q1 status. Michigan moves up two to 120. We want them to stay top 135 so our road game will be Q2. Good news is if we lose, it’ll surely stay Q2, which means it won’t be a bad loss on paper.

Facing McCollum would make for a fun storyline.