Polls, standings, and eye-tests

[BRS24]

Sitting here, awaiting the TN/AL WBB game to kill an hour before the UCONN MBB game, and was looking at the SEC standings. Amazing that they are all bunched together. It seems that in the WBB polls, it takes forever for teams to drop down/out of the top 25, but in the mens game, you have 1-2 stinkers and you drop like a stone (UCONN MBB an example).

Then you have the mid-majors that are doing well that fight each week to get into the poll, sometimes the only acknowledgement is some made up top 20 MM poll on espn.com. So what are pollsters seeing? IMHO, the eye test is important, and with TN failing to close out recent games, does anyone see how they are playing as a team. FL and Vandy have better cons/overall records than TN, but are not ranked as of today. Is this also the work of perceived conference supremacy?

 

[UcMiami]

And when you look at the gaudy overall records of the SEC teams you need to remember some of the amazingly weak home only schedules that many of them played. Alabama is a perfect case in point - they have yet to win a single road game! But packed their OOC with the Gramblings and Missippis Valleys of the WCBB world - there two OOC losses came on the road to the powerful Georgia Tech (their only P5 non-SEC game) and U of Tennessee (Martin.)

I think the lack of movement in the polls in WCBB is a holdover from the days when P6 (pre break-up of BE) even mediocre teams in those conferences were deemed far superior to all but the very best of MM conferences. But the new reality is if you take those mediocre P5 teams away from their home courts and match them against the good MM teams they no longer look so hot.

 

[alexrgct]

With six single-digit victories this season, South Carolina sure seems to be living on borrowed time until February 8. The margin for error is evaporating.

 

[Wally East]

And when you look at the gaudy overall records of the SEC teams you need to remember some of the amazingly weak home only schedules that many of them played. Alabama is a perfect case in point - they have yet to win a single road game! But packed their OOC with the Gramblings and Missippis Valleys of the WCBB world - there two OOC losses came on the road to the powerful Georgia Tech (their only P5 non-SEC game) and U of Tennessee (Martin.)

This is why I don't like the eye test or, at least, the expression "eye test." Those are the sort of things that aren't immediately evident to the eye. Maybe info like that could be the "below the surface" test?

 

[UcMiami]

This is why I don't like the eye test or, at least, the expression "eye test." Those are the sort of things that aren't immediately evident to the eye. Maybe info like that could be the "below the surface" test?

I agree that the way I seem to have used it is wrong, in that I am again looking at data and not the actual live games - which is what the expression is really meant to explain - another version of 'lies, damn lies, and statistics!'

What I should have said is - either you need to look a little deeper than just the bald W-L record to see against whom and where it was compiled, or you really need to watch a few games to understand how very plebeian some of these teams truly are!

 

[Wally East]

I agree that the way I seem to have used it is wrong

No need to apologize. You didn't even it use it in this thread I was just using your post as a jumping-off point to complain