KenPom Rankings

[sufan59]

I had a thought, I feel it's highly more likely that the preseason metrics are indicating the floor for the team and not the ceiling and here's my argument as to why. It's a question of whether you think the pieces around Naithan George is better at Syracuse than Georgia Tech and the pieces this season at Syracuse is better for Donnie Freeman and JJ Starling. My guess is that the efficiency numbers are quantified based on reasonable efficiency improvements with an extra year of experience, but the baseline would be based on the efficiency they had on the rosters they were with last year. You could make the counter argument that these three players are on worse rosters this season and they underperform preseason metrics. Just something to watch because I'm not sure how the preseason data could quantify the efficiency improvements due to the complete change in roster makeup for these three players especially. Excited for this season, this is really a crossroads year for the program.

 

[Niastri]

"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.

Hmm, you didn't say "Ken Pom thinks our defense is going to be terrible." You said

our defense looks terrible.
back to the other threads - it's gonna be run and gun, last men standing.

which is a very different statement. Ken Pom is merely taking last seasons ratings and making up ratings for new players and then putting them into a "made up isht" sandwich.

I wasn't necessarily arguing with you with my post, merely going player by player to see if we are likely to be better. My conclusion is that we will be a lot better.

Your opinion is welcome to vary, but I'd like to hear why you think we will still be terrible on defense.

 

[atlanticuse]

Your opinion is welcome to vary, but I'd like to hear why you think we will still be terrible on defense.

Okay, I'll bite.

Coaching.

Resources or not, last year, we gave up a bunch of leads in the second half. Or fell further behind. And the year before, too, but not as egregious.
Is that coaching? or conditioning. Dunno. We'll see this year. I guess if we can brute force people into mistakes and/or drag out leads, then we good.

 

[RedtheGOB]

"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.

Kenpom Off and Def efficiencies are based on last year as of the preseason rankings today. They are replaced over the 1st 2 months of this season.

 

[Orangezoo]

3 more days and we get our first preview of what we have. Hang in there all…

 

[eastcuse]

Okay, I'll bite.

Coaching.

Resources or not, last year, we gave up a bunch of leads in the second half. Or fell further behind. And the year before, too, but not as egregious.
Is that coaching? or conditioning. Dunno. We'll see this year. I guess if we can brute force people into mistakes and/or drag out leads, then we good.

I am also worried about the coaching, but to be fair our defense was falling apart before Red. One of the big differences I see is the level of athleticism those teams had compared to the early 2000s-2016. You have to have desire, but you also have to be athletic to play good defense. We've had guys that are too slow or too small, or can't jump. It looks to me like we at least improved the physical ability to defend.

 

[M2MPrinciples]

3 more days and we get our first preview of what we have. Hang in there all…

But I want to be mad NOW, not in three days!!

 

[pearl31]

Kenpom Off and Def efficiencies are based on last year as of the preseason rankings today. They are replaced over the 1st 2 months of this season.

Yes.
And so when you've done a complete roster overhaul via the portal, as we have, our KP #s right now are even that much more worthless-
said another way, the numbers and projection right now are based entirely on last year's group of ragtag misfits, almost all of whom are gone

 

[Sherman20]

"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.

Actually our projected defensive efficiency rank is 100th in KenPom (projected offensive efficiency is 49th). Which would be a big improvement over the last few years when we were terrible, like sub-150 (207 in 2022,185 in 2023 and 152 in 2025). I think we’ll be better than 100. Hopefully closer to top 75 or maybe inside the top 50. We’ll see. In 2024, we finished 85th. That team had some good athleticism but was a mess as a team. I think this team is more athletic and experienced, seems to be developing better strength and conditioning, and should be able to defend. The offense should be much improved too—ideally in the top 50 or higher.

 

[Orangezoo]

Actually our projected defensive efficiency rank is 100th in KenPom (projected offensive efficiency is 49th). Which would be a big improvement over the last few years when we were terrible, like sub-150 (207 in 2022,185 in 2023 and 152 in 2025). I think we’ll be better than 100. Hopefully closer to top 75 or maybe inside the top 50. We’ll see. In 2023, we finished 85th. That team had some good athleticism but was a mess as a team. I think this team is more athletic and experienced, seems to be developing better strength and conditioning, and should be able to defend. The offense should be much improved too—ideally in the top 50 or higher.

Honestly 22-23 wasn’t very athletic as a team at all. I’d say this team has more athleticism top to bottom in about a decade. That doesn’t mean it translates by any means to anything guaranteed of course.

 

[Sherman20]

Honestly 22-23 wasn’t very athletic as a team at all. I’d say this team has more athleticism top to bottom in about a decade. That doesn’t mean it translates by any means to anything guaranteed of course.

That was my mistake. In 2023-2024 (not 2022-23), we finished 85th in defensive efficiency (Red’s first year). I fixed that above. That team was fairly athletic with Maliq, who was a defensive whiz and steals maestro, an athletic freak in Quadir Copeland (playing more as a sophomore), plus Starling, Mintz, Benny (kicked off the team), Bell and others. But that team was also immature and undisciplined. (2022-23 was JB’s last year and we were still playing mostly zone.) This year’s team has more athleticism than any of the others cited above, plus maturity and experience. We should rate higher than 85 in defensive efficiency—hopefully much higher.

 

[Orangezoo]

That was my mistake. In 2023-2024 (not 2022-23), we finished 85th in defensive efficiency (Red’s first year). I fixed that above. That team was fairly athletic with Maliq, who was a defensive whiz and steals maestro, an athletic freak in Quadir Copeland (playing more as a sophomore), plus Starling, Mintz, Benny (kicked off the team), Bell and others. But that team was also immature and undisciplined. (2022-23 was JB’s last year and we were still playing mostly zone.) This year’s team has more athleticism than any of the others cited above, plus maturity and experience. We should rate higher than 85 in defensive efficiency—hopefully much higher.

Yeah that team had some athletes for sure. I’d say on paper this years team has still a good bit more but I follow.

 

[atlanticuse]

Actually our projected defensive efficiency rank is 100th in KenPom (projected offensive efficiency is 49th). Which would be a big improvement over the last few years when we were terrible, like sub-150 (207 in 2022,185 in 2023 and 152 in 2025). I think we’ll be better than 100. Hopefully closer to top 75 or maybe inside the top 50. We’ll see. In 2024, we finished 85th. That team had some good athleticism but was a mess as a team. I think this team is more athletic and experienced, seems to be developing better strength and conditioning, and should be able to defend. The offense should be much improved too—ideally in the top 50 or higher.

But… this is based on our players’ history.

Coaching is a major factor - x-factor.

 

[Sbucketball]

Syraucse moved up to Kenpom #61. We started at #68.

Here is a link to an archive version of Kenpom for pre-season (wayback machine) for those who like to track how the ACC and other teams move through the nonconference games: 2026 Pomeroy College Basketball Ratings

Here's how the ACC started pre-season (I know the preseason rankings are nonsense, but I like to track how ACC does against early expectations):

• Duke - 7
• Ville - 14
• Clem - 32
• UNC - 33
• NC State - 38
• SMU - 43
• WF - 49
• Virg - 59
• Pitt - 63
• SU - 68
• GT - 70
• VT - 71
• Miami - 76
• ND - 77
• Cal - 87
• Stan - 89
• BC - 90
• Fl St - 96

 

[CuseFan]

Fascinating that beating up on a 300+ ranked team moved the needle up 7 spots for SU, when most of the top teams won. Winning margin does have an impact.

 

[jncuse]

Fascinating that beating up on a 300+ ranked team moved the needle up 7 spots for SU, when most of the top teams won. Winning margin does have an impact.

Since most game lines seem to closely follow what KenPom spits out -- even early in the season which is pretty crazy, the "quick and dirty" way to see if you will move up a decent amount of spots (or move down) is compare the final game margin to the line to start the game. Its largely the same for NET. If the Orange had won by 5 or 6 yesterday, it would have been a similar move in the other direction. If they had won by 16-25 (the line was 21) and we stay pretty much the same.

Unlike tournament resumes (which jump more based on quality wins / bad losses), KenPom and NET are really a comparison of your margin vs expectation.

 

[CardiacCuse]

Since most game lines seem to closely follow what KenPom spits out -- even early in the season which is pretty crazy, the "quick and dirty" way to see if you will move up a decent amount of spots (or move down) is compare the final game margin to the line to start the game. Its largely the same for NET. If the Orange had won by 5 or 6 yesterday, it would have been a similar move in the other direction. If they had won by 16-25 (the line was 21) and we stay pretty much the same.

Unlike tournament resumes (which jump more based on quality wins / bad losses), KenPom and NET are really a comparison of your margin vs expectation.

every possession counts now.

blowouts are required.

 

[tptcuse]

every possession counts now.

blowouts are required.

I said that in the game thread and somebody gave me a laugh emoji. Fans need to understand how important blowouts are now.

 

[CardiacCuse]

I said that in the game thread and somebody gave me a laugh emoji. Fans need to understand how important blowouts are now.

if we can blowout all the cupcakes by a lot...and keep it close in the other games...pretty sure that will equal a high NET regardless of actual record of W-L

do I like that? not really


but lets play accordingly

 

[jncuse]

every possession counts now.

blowouts are required.

Not necessarily but still yes to a degree, because tourney selection is still about quality of wins and losses . So you can overcome your NET if its within reason .. I.e top 60 with quality otherwise. So you can overcome not crushing it in margin game. But you can’t do crap we did last year either by only winning by 5 points or less against teams like Lemoyne and Youngstown St, because if your wins and losses are bubble worthy those low margins add up and crush your NET and might push you outside of the 60.

But then again we didn’t have the quality of team last year to control the narrative around margin. We did bad margin wise in those games because we weren’t very good.

The first step to proving we might be tourney legit is crushing these games .. not to feel good about NET but to feel good about the team

 

[CardiacCuse]

Not necessarily but still yes to a degree, because tourney selection is still about quality of wins and losses . So you can overcome your NET if its within reason .. I.e top 60 with quality otherwise. So you can overcome not crushing it in margin game. But you can’t do crap we did last year either by only winning by 5 points or less against teams like Lemoyne and Youngstown St, because if your wins and losses are bubble worthy those low margins add up and crush your NET and might push you outside of the 60.

But then again we didn’t have the quality of team last year to control the narrative around margin. We did bad margin wise in those games because we weren’t very good.

The first step to proving we might be tourney legit is crushing these games .. not to feel good about NET but to feel good about the team

i mean, obviously I hope the team goes undefeated and beats all the Quad 1 games. surely, having some quality wins will be vital to the teams success

but teams like Baylor (14 losses) Kansas (12 losses) UNC (13 losses) Oklahoma (13 losses) Arkansas (13 losses) all made the NCAAT last year ...mostly on margin of victory (and being lucky to be in good conferences)...shows that you can lose and lose A LOT and still squeek in if you have good margin of victory

Im not saying that should be the goal...just want to highlight it because based on reds first 2 years, I dont think he considered margin of victory at all...was just going for W-L record...it seemed.

this 40 point win vs binghampton is encouraging on that front...i think he gets it now (hopefully) (obviously having better players helps there too)

 

[tptcuse]

The first step to proving we might be tourney legit is crushing these games .. not to feel good about NET but to feel good about the team

 

[kirbivore]

Keep pounding the sub 300 teams like Binghamton into the ground and be respectable against the elite Non Con teams while picking off a win here or there. The NET blueprint is there so follow it.

 

[Niastri]

I said that in the game thread and somebody gave me a laugh emoji. Fans need to understand how important blowouts are now.

This brings up my "why are we giving Zephir minutes " pet peeve... He isn't being developed for the future, and he isn't going to help us blow teams out now, he's pretty bad.

So why give him minutes? Fennell or Anthony or even Womack could use those minutes on the court for development.

 

[longtimefan]

This brings up my "why are we giving Zephir minutes " pet peeve... He isn't being developed for the future, and he isn't going to help us blow teams out now, he's pretty bad.

So why give him minutes? Fennell or Anthony or even Womack could use those minutes on the court for development.

He absorbed some of the minutes JJ would have used.