KenPom Rankings | Syracusefan.com

KenPom Rankings



Sooo close to….

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This is what is wrong with pre-season rankings, and analytics too. Only really happens in college sports, as pro sports and their postseasons are based entirely on results.

These rankings set up biases that are a challenge for humans to overcome. And it is humans that choose the 12-team CFB playoff and the NCAA Tournament.

No one has played. All teams should be equal on Oct. 12.
Syracuse is equal to Kansas, as is UTEP or Marist to Syracuse/Kansas. You get the gist.

BTW, these pre-season analytics are skewed to favor the B10 and SEC, so know that going in.
 
This is what is wrong with pre-season rankings, and analytics too. Only really happens in college sports, as pro sports and their postseasons are based entirely on results.

These rankings set up biases that are a challenge for humans to overcome. And it is humans that choose the 12-team CFB playoff and the NCAA Tournament.

No one has played. All teams should be equal on Oct. 12.
Syracuse is equal to Kansas, as is UTEP or Marist to Syracuse/Kansas. You get the gist.

BTW, these pre-season analytics are skewed to favor the B10 and SEC, so know that going in.

Hopefully the ACC does better than 4-34 (I may be off a few games) against the SEC this year to overcome that bias.
 
This is what is wrong with pre-season rankings, and analytics too. Only really happens in college sports, as pro sports and their postseasons are based entirely on results.

These rankings set up biases that are a challenge for humans to overcome. And it is humans that choose the 12-team CFB playoff and the NCAA Tournament.
Unfortunately, it's a mathematical necessity. Pro sports have a much larger sample size of games, and the talent difference between the best pro team in each league and the worst team is fairly small. So evaluating by pure standings is logical. College is much different. There are way more teams and way fewer games, and the disparity in talent and strength of schedule with 350+ teams is enormous. So a bit of subjectivity is necessary.
 
Unfortunately, it's a mathematical necessity. Pro sports have a much larger sample size of games, and the talent difference between the best pro team in each league and the worst team is fairly small. So evaluating by pure standings is logical. College is much different. There are way more teams and way fewer games, and the disparity in talent and strength of schedule with 350+ teams is enormous. So a bit of subjectivity is necessary.
Fair point to process. But let’s allow the subjectivity of results set the tone. Not roster retention. Not returning QB. Not recruiting rankings. Not third down conversion percentage last season.

I don’t much like Indiana football, but they are a good example (from 2024). Syracuse swam upstream most of last year, unfairly.
 
All I see is that there is an immense opportunity to be sitting in the top section of these rankings for a while if we do some damage in Vegas.

Houston is a much more difficult team to play later in the year vs earlier. Mind you they are difficult in any setting of course.

Kansas has been struggling more than usual is not the typical juggernaut.
 
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10th in the ACC
The analytics like KenPom and Evan Miya like Syracuse less going into this season, and I assume that’s because of Autry’s track record and poor record last year—even though it’s almost a wholesale turnover—because coaching and recent program track record gets baked into these preseason analytics. The CBB experts seem to like us more. The Athletic has Cuse finishing 6th in the ACC, and they acknowledge that might be low based on the excellent off-season talent acquisition but they are a bit guarded only because Red still has to prove himself as a head coach.
 
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The analytics like KenPom and Evan Miya like is less going into this season, and I assume that’s because of Autry’s track record and poor record last year—even though it’s almost a wholesale turnover—because coaching and recent program track record gets baked into these preseason analytics. The CBB experts seem to like us more. The Athletic has us finishing 6th in the ACC, and they acknowledge that might be low based on the excellent off-season talent acquisition but they are a bit guarded only because Red still has to prove himself as a head coach.
I haven't read it yet but someone told me that person who wrote the analysis in The Athletic about us said something like he might be going out on a limb rating us that high. :-)
 
None of the ranking systems should put out a ranking until most teams have played at least 4 games... Maybe December 1st?

There is a reason the BCS rankings don't come out till the midpoint of the season.

Unfortunately, ESPN needs to sell ads for early season games and they make all the decisions, so we have preseason rankings that mean nothing.
 
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None of the ranking systems should put out a ranking until most teams have played at least 4 games... Maybe December 1st?

There is a reason the BCS rankings don't come out till the midpoint of the season.

Unfortunately, ESPN needs to sell ads for early season games and they make all the decisions, so we have preseason rankings that mean nothing.
Actually this year it's good, if we go to Vegas and knock off a couple teams, and win our game in the SEC challenge we will get a lot of credit going into the conference schedule.
 
None of the ranking systems should put out a ranking until most teams have played at least 4 games... Maybe December 1st?

There is a reason the BCS rankings don't come out till the midpoint of the season.

Unfortunately, ESPN needs to sell ads for early season games and they make all the decisions, so we have preseason rankings that mean nothing.
That's the bunk of all this. Selling ads and/or getting ratings increases (most often measured with decimal points) at a higher rate should not trump integrity of the game/sport. In fact, nothing should. Ever. And yet it now happens annually. And is embraced.
 
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The analytics like KenPom and Evan Miya like Syracuse less going into this season, and I assume that’s because of Autry’s track record and poor record last year—even though it’s almost a wholesale turnover—because coaching and recent program track record gets baked into these preseason analytics. The CBB experts seem to like us more. The Athletic has Cuse finishing 6th in the ACC, and they acknowledge that might be low based on the excellent off-season talent acquisition but they are a bit guarded only because Red still has to prove himself as a head coach.
KP treats his preseason rankings as a prediction of where it’ll shake out at the end of the season. Last year he was very accurate in pumping up Duke and Auburn (no preseason poll voter had Duke higher than 3 or Auburn higher than 5) while dogging Kansas and Indiana (no voter had Kansas lower than 5, and KP’s #7 was still too high; IU was KP #39 and only two voters didn’t rank IU). He did however overrate Nova (preseason KP #20, went 19-14 and fired Neptune) and Kentucky (preseason KP #43, made the S16).

Of course, the AP poll is meant to be a snapshot in time and not predictive, so they are operating from different premises.
 
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None of the ranking systems should put out a ranking until most teams have played at least 4 games... Maybe December 1st?

There is a reason the BCS rankings don't come out till the midpoint of the season.

Unfortunately, ESPN needs to sell ads for early season games and they make all the decisions, so we have preseason rankings that mean nothing.

Showing your age!

That's the bunk of all this. Selling ads and/or getting ratings increases (most often measured with decimal points) at a higher rate should not trump integrity of the game/sport. In fact, nothing should. Ever. And yet it now happens annually. And is embraced.
Now happens annually? The AP poll goes back to 1936 for football (per wiki the first pre season poll was 1950) and 1950 for hoops. We’ve had these forever!

It is funny to me that pro sports seem to be able to generate a fair amount of hype without any polls. (I also think there’s something of a difference between the AP poll and something like Ken Pom)
 
you gotta be in the low 40s because of all the automatic qualifiers in the mid-majors and low mid-majors. It seems like low 40s is always the cutoff for power conferences for the last 4 in.

Top 50 is the most common max cutoff but close enough.

With that said- if you have the talent it’s not a huge hurdle at all it just seems like it since we’ve had so many recent teams with major flaws and an overall lower level of talent top to bottom in terms of what’s necessary to win at the level this program is built for.
 
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our defense looks terrible.
back to the other threads - it's gonna be run and gun, last men standing.
 
I haven't read it yet but someone told me that person who wrote the analysis in The Athletic about us said something like he might be going out on a limb rating us that high. :-)
He rated us #6. Here’s one quote: “Calling my shot with this one, and trusting my cautious optimism in one of the most slept-on offseasons of any team in the country…the pieces are there for Cuse to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2021. Now Autry just has to prove he can coach this group to its potential.”
 
our defense looks terrible.
back to the other threads - it's gonna be run and gun, last men standing.
How on earth can you say this with such certainty? We have a completely different roster... Even the guys we have from last year missed almost a whole season's worth of games to injury.

Nobody can say with certainty how we're going to look.

On defense, we are trading out a bunch of guys at every position.

Center: Lampkin/nobody/Majstorovic for Kyle/Souare, which seems like a big upgrade in mobility and shotblocking at the position.

Power Forward: Freshman Freeman/Davis for Sophomore Freeman/White/Betsey, which is a huge upgrade of experience and height/athleticism, respectively. I think that will be a huge improvement defensively, especially when Freeman is on the bench.

Small Forward: Bell/Lucas Taylor for Kingz/Anthony/Betsey/Fennell? Just having Bell off the court is going to improve our defense here. Kingz is much stronger and interested in defense. Kingz is the player we hoped Bell might someday become, but better. Bell was the weakest defensive player on our team last year. Lucas Taylor was a decent deep bench reserve who wound up starting way too many games for us last season. I would take either Anthony or Fennell over him, and we have both.

Shooting Guard: Junior Starling/Cuffe/Moore for Senior Starling/Anthony/Fennell. This one is at worst a wash. The extra year of practice and good health can't hurt Starling, though he is unlikely to ever be "good" defensively. I think the extra height from the reserves at this position will help, though Cuffe and Moore worked very hard defensively, they were substantially shorter than our current reserve guards, which makes contesting 3s much harder.

Point Guard: Carlos/nobody for George/Fennell. This was an egregious recruiting miss last season, at our most pressing position of need. George is going to be world's better than Carlos on offense, but also is a stronger defensive player, both physically and in on court results.

All together, 4 out of 5 positions are going to be improved with roster turnover.

Importantly, the synergy of having massive improvement defensively at each position should make individual players better. For instance, it is much harder to block the shot of a guy who has a clear line to the basket than it is to block the shot of someone who is closely guarded and hasn't left his man in the dust.

Those little improvements will add up to a much better defensive team. In my opinion.

We really won't know without watching the team play.
 
How on earth can you say this with such certainty? We have a completely different roster... Even the guys we have from last year missed almost a whole season's worth of games to injury.
"according to KenPom, our defense efficiency looks terrible."

Look at the site/ratings. Our Drtg is 100.9, which (looking down the column) is... an outlier. Schools with Drtg >100 don't pop up in masse until the 90s.

Is what I'm saying. This the KenPom ratings thread, not the "how great or crap our defense is" thread.
 

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