What a week for our OOC!

[Get a Job]

Is it? The 4 best KP's were in the F4 last year. That is actually a fairly consistent theme. Just because we're at 10 doesn't mean it's not meaningful data.

Were they the top 4 at the time of the final four, or at the end of the regular season?

 

[RuffRuff]

Were they the top 4 at the time of the final four, or at the end of the regular season?

Yes. They were the 4 one seeds.

Purdue and Uconn were also 1 & 3 the year prior. My view is that this stuff will all play out closer to the metrics as we move forward. There are no SDSU's or FAU's coming in these days, doubt we'll see the NC St's either. Cinderella's gonna be rare.

 

[UCLJ0211]

Almost every news outlet has us slated as a 1 seed at this point.

 

[Get a Job]

Yes. They were the 4 one seeds.

Purdue and Uconn were also 1 & 3 the year prior. My view is that this stuff will all play out closer to the metrics as we move forward. There are no SDSU's or FAU's coming in these days, doubt we'll see the NC St's either. Cinderella's gonna be rare.

I'd be more interested to know where those 4 teams were at the end of the regular season, if I am evaluating how good Kenpom is at predicting the final 4.

 

[FightOnCT]

Yes. They were the 4 one seeds.

Purdue and Uconn were also 1 & 3 the year prior. My view is that this stuff will all play out closer to the metrics as we move forward. There are no SDSU's or FAU's coming in these days, doubt we'll see the NC St's either. Cinderella's gonna be rare.

Field is not nearly as top heavy as last year…you had about 6 teams that could be a high-end 1 seed in any other year

 

[RuffRuff]

Field is not nearly as top heavy as last year…you had about 6 teams that could be a high-end 1 seed in any other year

True. Not as, but also think there is a fairly distinct line to what teams have that ability to make a run.

I'd say the list includes the top 7 teams, along with BYU, Texas Tech, Florida, Illinois.

 

[boba]

The more I read about these metrics the more bizarre they become. We get rewarded or penalized because a team we played in in November turns out to be better or worse now than when we played them. So to take a real life example, if you were calculating the metric after the 2024 season and we had played NC State in January when they were in the middle of losing 11 out of 14 games and were demonstrably a bad team we would get rewarded because after we played them the somehow got it together and won 11 in a row including several ranked ones. That’s insane. They were bad when you played them. Now I realize that is an extreme example and the metrics are meaningless except to gamblers in the tourney, but teams change over the course of the season all the time.

All models are wrong but some are useful - George Box

In my interactions with MD / PhD's I find many of them to be functionally innumerate and I need to explain that their favorite model is inapropriate for a particular study.
In my experience, no single model explains or describes natural phenomena, it's just too complicated. I usually run the data through three or four different models and look at the two that agree or examine why 3 give divergent results to figure out what to use and how to explain it.

These models (NET, KenPom, Torvik) serve a singular purpose, increase your likelihood of winning a bet, and that's it. They cannot and do not evaluate a team as a whole, nor can they be seen as "reliable" indicators or descriptors of anything meaningful.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

There are no SDSU's or FAU's coming in these days, doubt we'll see the NC St's either. Cinderella's gonna be rare.

But no shortage of apostrophes!

 

[Lafayette]

The field is slightly irrelevant as the draw is more important.

In once case we might only have to play one really tough team like Michigan, Duke, Arizona, Purdue as they could play each other out so our final is us vs one of them.

On the other hand we might be up against a gauntlet in our bracket and have to play 2 #1 teams in the FF and final.

The draw is what matters, not the field - we don't play but 6 games

 

[imno1]

True. Not as, but also think there is a fairly distinct line to what teams have that ability to make a run.

I'd say the list includes the top 7 teams, along with BYU, Texas Tech, Florida, Illinois.

I’d add Kansas if DP can stay healthy.

 

[auror]

I'd be more interested to know where those 4 teams were at the end of the regular season, if I am evaluating how good Kenpom is at predicting the final 4.

Selection Sunday

The Elite 8 was the top 8 in KenPom on Selection Sunday. This is an improvement on seeding, where Texas Tech was seeded as a 3 instead of a 2. St. John's was seen as the worst top seed and worse than most of the 3 seeds, and was subsequently upset.

 

[RuffRuff]

Selection Sunday
View attachment 116121

The Elite 8 was the top 8 in KenPom. This is an improvement on seeding, where Texas Tech was seeded as a 3 instead of a 2.

It predicted 7 of the 8 Elite 8 teams to a T.

 

[RuffRuff]

I’d add Kansas if DP can stay healthy.

With you.

 

[Get a Job]

Selection Sunday
View attachment 116121

The Elite 8 was the top 8 in KenPom on Selection Sunday. This is an improvement on seeding, where Texas Tech was seeded as a 3 instead of a 2. St. John's was seen as the worst top seed and worse than most of the 3 seeds, and was subsequently upset.

Dang, that's crazy. I had forgotten what an unusually chalky tournament that was.

My suspicion was that, at the time of the final 4, the teams that are still playing are likely to have higher KP rankings than they had on Selection Sunday, simply because they won 4 games against good teams in the time between those two dates. My suspicion may or may not be true, regardless of last year's results.

It all started because I interpreted @RuffRuff to be saying, "The Final Four consisted of the top four in the KP rankings at the time of the Final Four. That must mean KP is great at predicting the Final Four." He may or may not have meant it that way, but regardless, I was just trying to point out the self-fulfilling nature of the ranking once tournament play starts.

 

[RuffRuff]

Dang, that's crazy. I had forgotten what an unusually chalky tournament that was.

My suspicion was that, at the time of the final 4, the teams that are still playing are likely to have higher KP rankings than they had on Selection Sunday, simply because they won 4 games against good teams in the time between those two dates. My suspicion may or may not be true, regardless of last year's results.

It all started because I interpreted @RuffRuff to be saying, "The Final Four consisted of the top four in the KP rankings at the time of the Final Four. That must mean KP is great at predicting the Final Four." He may or may not have meant it that way, but regardless, I was just trying to point out the self-fulfilling nature of the ranking once tournament play starts.

Not only that, there was only one low ranked mid major that beat a P5 team in the first round - literally one cinderella win in the entire tournament. Begs the question of whether this is where it's going on the go forward. I see very few MM this year that look like they can cause a stir.

It would be impossible to be that chalky again, but I could see a scenario this year where the Elite 8 is made up of nothing but 4 seeds or higher.