Kenpom ratings of Big East Teams | The Boneyard

Kenpom ratings of Big East Teams

Huskybass

Huskybass

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UConn is currently #19 in the Kenpom ratings. Nova is #8, the Hall is #32, and Marquette and Xavier are at 38 and 39 respectively. Providence is at #44 despite a 21-3 record. Is their out of conference strength of schedule really that bad? Creighton checks in at #71.

At this point, it looks like the BE comfortably gets 6 teams in the Dance with Creighton seemingly still with a chance.
 
Huskybass said:
UConn is currently #19 in the Kenpom ratings. Nova is #8, the Hall is #32, and Marquette and Xavier are at 38 and 39 respectively. Providence is at #44 despite a 21-3 record. Is their out of conference strength of schedule really that bad? Creighton checks in at #71.

At this point, it looks like the BE comfortably gets 6 teams in the Dance with Creighton seemingly still with a chance.
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No they just don’t beat bad teams convincingly. So it hurts their Kenpom score
 
It's just an algorithm that Providence doesn't jell with.

Without knowing the inner workings, they are a team that doesn't shoot (150th) or rebound (120 OR, 151 OR) particularly well and they don't prevent that many turnovers (132).

They're also a team that is dependent on getting to the line (10th) and making FTs (84th).

In terms of record, UConn has losses of 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 11, 6 (sum of 35). Providence has losses of 18, 32, 5 (sum of 55).

I don't even think his algorithm accounts the fact that some of those losses were without key players (I'm convinced we would have won Michigan State w/ Whaley and Providence & West Virginia w/ Sanogo.
 
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Hey Adrien! said:
It's just an algorithm that Providence doesn't jell with.

Without knowing the inner workings, they are a team that doesn't shoot (150th) or rebound (120 OR, 151 OR) particularly well and they don't prevent that many turnovers (132).

They're also a team that is dependent on getting to the line (10th) and making FTs (84th).

In terms of record, UConn has losses of 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 11, 6 (sum of 35). Providence has losses of 18, 32, 5 (sum of 55).

I don't even think his algorithm accounts the fact that some of those losses were without key players (I'm convinced we would have won Michigan State w/ Whaley and Providence & West Virginia w/ Sanogo.
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Style of play doesn't have anything to do with it, it's all per possession scoring margin (and opponent/location adjustments). And you're correct that there is no lineup/injury adjustments.

They have 2 extremely high margin losses, neither to top 35 teams and one was on neutral court.
Winning home against Fairfield by 7, New Hampshire by 11, and CC St by 15 are costing them as much as the losses in impact. (CC St is a common opponent and we won by 51, for example). We won those similar games by an average of 33.5 points. Their largest win (28) was 5 points less than our average win against these 250+ schools.

Now margin is relative to the number of possessions you play. A team like Virginia in the past didn't necessarily kill anyone, but they played suuuuper slow, so the per possession edge was still great. Providence plays at only a slightly below average pace, so their performance doesn't really change when you consider their pace.

It's easy to say, well KenPom is wrong, they keep winning games. But in the aggregate over the course of the last 20 years of history, teams with this statistical profile tend to underachieve going forward. They might not. They might win the title. Their ability to draw fouls does help them in tight games down the stretch when half court offense is more important, which is especially helpful for a team that is prone to play a lot of close games. But they have not demonstrated themselves to be that much better than the majority of teams they've beaten, even though they've beaten a lot of teams.
 
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bendm said:
i think it's dumb that kenpom rewards teams for embarrassing cupcakes as much as they possibly can. just my two cents.
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Cuse loved it for many years
 
bendm said:
i think it's dumb that kenpom rewards teams for embarrassing cupcakes as much as they possibly can. just my two cents.
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Is this really true? For some reason i thought there was some margin of victory "cap" in the kenpom system, meaning that a win by 25 is the same as a win by 50.
 
The "problem" with Ken Pom is that it measures how good teams are at scoring, and defending scoring, possession by possession. It doesn't measure how good they are at winning instead of losing. To take a simple example, if one week UConn and 'Nova both play at Creighton and Xavier at home, and UConn wins both games by 1 and Nova beats Xavier by 30 but loses to Creighton by 1, KenPom says Nova, just using data from that week, is "better," notwithstanding that UConn accomplished more.

It may be that Ken Pom excels as a prediction tool, and is therefor useful for setting odds and point spreads. But when the selection committee meets, 2-0 needs to trump 1-1 against the same schedule even if the margins indicate that Nova would be a favorite if it played UConn on a neutral court the next day.

Said another way, teams need to be rewarded and ranked in a manner where the difference between winning and losing is critical. Not in a manner that defines good based on who would be favored if they played. When Ken Pom says Providence ranks high on "luck," what it's really saying is we don't think pulling games out is a skill in and of itself, but just deviations from a standard mean based on how you play over 40 minutes. That, obviously, is nonsense.
 
AntG168 said:
Teams that beat bad teams by more are usually better
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there's a difference between beating a team and embarrassing them. put in the walk-ons and backups. everyone here says they wish we played diggins and samson more against the cupcakes. we were coexisting amicably why pick a fight about being unsportsmanlike?
 
Huskybass said:
UConn is currently #19 in the Kenpom ratings. Nova is #8, the Hall is #32, and Marquette and Xavier are at 38 and 39 respectively. Providence is at #44 despite a 21-3 record. Is their out of conference strength of schedule really that bad? Creighton checks in at #71.

At this point, it looks like the BE comfortably gets 6 teams in the Dance with Creighton seemingly still with a chance.
Expand ...
I thought the NCAA Tournament selection committee doesn't use Kenpom to select teams or seed them?
 
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87Xfer said:
Is this really true? For some reason i thought there was some margin of victory "cap" in the kenpom system, meaning that a win by 25 is the same as a win by 50.
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The NET had a cap in a component it had, but they took out that component altogether.

Ken tested having a cap and having no cap is more predictive.

HooperScooper said:
I thought the NCAA Tournament selection committee doesn't use Kenpom to select teams or seed them?
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KenPom is one of the 6 metrics on the sheets that the members have. Predictive aka quality metrics - KenPom, BPI, and Sagarin and then resume metrics SOR and KPI. NET is on there as a hybrid system and is used to organize the team's schedule (aka into quadrants).
 
Huskyforlife said:
Beating butler by 1 point in overtime is just as good as beating them by 25. Right.
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Yes, by the way, it is. Basketball games are binary -- you win or you lose. It won't help you as much with computer rankings but that's on the rankings -- not the teams.
 
businesslawyer said:
Yes, by the way, it is. Basketball games are binary -- you win or you lose. It won't help you as much with computer rankings but that's on the rankings -- not the teams.
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It provides the same result but it is not just as good. Someone can lose weight from working out, while another loses weight because they have an illness. Both produced the same “result”. But one is absolutely more preferred than the other.
 
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AntG168 said:
It provides the same result but it is not just as good. Someone can lose weight from working out, while another loses weight because they have an illness. Both produced the same “result”. But one is absolutely more preferred than the other.
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Absurd example. Unlike exercise, the point of playing a basketball game is to win. Not to win by as much as you can. Why does MLB, the NFL, NBA and NHL all measure results instead of margin of victory?

Margins are good at predicting a team’s behavior in the future. And in college, where teams play vastly different schedules, they are useful to try to determine if the 8th best team in the Big East would be likely to beat the 4th best team on a neutral court. But ultimately, it still comes down to did you win or did you lose.
 
businesslawyer said:
Yes, by the way, it is. Basketball games are binary -- you win or you lose. It won't help you as much with computer rankings but that's on the rankings -- not the teams.
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You think any top 30 team on Kenpom is going to OT with Butler? Or winning by a single point? I don’t think you actually believe that. Being in close games with Butler is not a good sign for the strength of your team, you’d have to admit that at least?
 
Huskyforlife said:
You think any top 30 team on Kenpom is going to OT with Butler? Or winning by a single point? I don’t think you actually believe that. Being in close games with Butler is not a good sign for the strength of your team, you’d have to admit that at least?
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Absolutely. I’m not arguing that these computer formulae aren’t good at predicting who is “better,” defining “better” in terms of who would be favored on a neutral court. They are great at that. What I am saying is that being better doesn’t matter. Winning games matter. If you want to argue, for example, that UConn is “better” than Providence great, I agree with you. But I’d rather be leading the conference and worse. And so would the players.
 
businesslawyer said:
Absurd example. Unlike exercise, the point of playing a basketball game is to win. Not to win by as much as you can. Why does MLB, the NFL, NBA and NHL all measure results instead of margin of victory?

Margins are good at predicting a team’s behavior in the future. And in college, where teams play vastly different schedules, they are useful to try to determine if the 8th best team in the Big East would be likely to beat the 4th best team on a neutral court. But ultimately, it still comes down to did you win or did you lose.
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You’re overthinking yourself into a pretzel. Playing a bunch of bad teams close indicates you aren’t good. Why? Because good teams beat bad teams by a lot. Sure a one off doesn’t matter. But a trend? Would be alarming to to me. Winning a bunch of close games constantly isn’t sustainable. History and data will show you that. Sure winning is the ultimate goal. But ensuring you’re beating bad teams the way you should in the end indicates to an extent that you’ll keep winning.
 
businesslawyer said:
Absolutely. I’m not arguing that these computer formulae aren’t good at predicting who is “better,” defining “better” in terms of who would be favored on a neutral court. They are great at that. What I am saying is that being better doesn’t matter. Winning games matter. If you want to argue, for example, that UConn is “better” than Providence great, I agree with you. But I’d rather be leading the conference and worse. And so would the players.
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I get where you’re coming from. I think I’d still choose being “better” because our odds of advancing in the NCAAs would be higher, which is the ultimate goal.
 
Huskyforlife said:
I get where you’re coming from. I think I’d still choose being “better” because our odds of advancing in the NCAAs would be higher, which is the ultimate goal.
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But ultimately, you don’t advance by being better. You advance by winning.
 
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businesslawyer said:
But ultimately, you don’t advance by being better. You advance by winning.
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Is that a recipe for sustained winning though is the question. I’d rather be better, than win a bunch of flukey games. Because when it matters the better teams usually win
 
businesslawyer said:
But ultimately, you don’t advance by being better. You advance by winning.
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Yes, but watching a bad Butler miss a wide open 3 at the buzzer does not make you more likely to win a one possession game in the NCAA tournament.
 
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