KenPom Rankings

[Orangezoo]

We did have the one year where margin of victory cost us the NCAA tournament at large slot.

Our first year with Red as coach, we won a lot of decent games, and every one was a nail biter... On the other hand, we got blown out of a bunch of games where we were in single digits with less than five minutes and let the other team expand margin to blowout range over and over. I think it hurt the NET and perception enough to keep us out.

LSU, Gtown, Oregon and UNC were the wins along with @ NC State. Not sure if MOV would have been enough should we have kept the losses close and had more blowouts but certainly would have impacted the conversation

 

[NineOneSeven]

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)

How about we win a singular Q1 game this year. That would be nice. We didn’t have 1 good win last season!

 

[Sherman20]

I would add that the rules almost require blowouts because of the NET, but additionally the new roster construction rules make coaching to sportsmanship harder than previously.

With Womack redshirting, we don't really have a group of "walkon quality" players to call off the dogs.

Lobdell, sure, but Zephir, Fennell, Diawara, and, say, Souare isn't exactly going to be playing even with low major squads, even if they are arguably our bottom 5 on the roster.

I think Souare will play a decent amount. He’s a solid mobile defender and good rim protector/shot blocker.

 

[jncuse]

We did have the one year where margin of victory cost us the NCAA tournament at large slot.

Our first year with Red as coach, we won a lot of decent games, and every one was a nail biter... On the other hand, we got blown out of a bunch of games where we were in single digits with less than five minutes and let the other team expand margin to blowout range over and over. I think it hurt the NET and perception enough to keep us out.

We didn't have enough in terms of the quality of our win/loss record that year, so it didn't make a difference. Not to say the MOV couldn't have made a difference if we won a few more games - it certainly could have.

A few more wins, and we are squarely on the bubble - teams typically don't get biased if there quality of record is fine, but the NET/RPI is above 60 just from observations. But we would have been above 60 that year.

 

[jncuse]

Regarding the "pedal to the metal" posts. There is a certain nuance to it.

a) It's not highly important to Syracuse to really push for every individual point in its own games. You want by nice margins -- in big part that correlates with the quality if your team. If you have a good enough quality of record that is what defines your resume, not NET.

b) That being said you want your conference mates to push for every freaking point they can in there OOC games, because that improves NETS as a whole for the entire conference, which could add a quality win or two by season's end.

So essentially "pedal to the medal" is not done for Syracuse own's benefit. Its done to help your conference mates. And vice versa.

So that is the balancing act. You want to play more players, to help your team develop in the current and future years. But you also have an obligation to help the metrics of your conference mates. And they have an obligation to help your metrics as well.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

So he can't get off the bench for the last minute when we dribble out the last 30 seconds anyway?

Redshirt

 

[DomeHolmes]

Regarding the "pedal to the metal" posts. There is a certain nuance to it.

a) It's not highly important to Syracuse to really push for every individual point in its own games. You want by nice margins -- in big part that correlates with the quality if your team. If you have a good enough quality of record that is what defines your resume, not NET.

b) That being said you want your conference mates to push for every freaking point they can in there OOC games, because that improves NETS as a whole for the entire conference, which could add a quality win or two by season's end.

So essentially "pedal to the medal" is not done for Syracuse own's benefit. Its done to help your conference mates. And vice versa.

So that is the balancing act. You want to play more players, to help your team develop in the current and future years. But you also have an obligation to help the metrics of your conference mates. And they have an obligation to help your metrics as well.

Your second point is true. Sadly, I found myself cheering for Duke and North Carolina in their big games (and VT vs Providence) for just that reason. How our conference does is critical to get more quad one games.

The mountain west has been doing this for the last few years. Almost no quality wins outside of their conference, but it did not matter because laughably, the wins in conference were considered “quality”. While the ACC was losing the non conference games to the other power conferences, the Mountain West wasn’t even bothering to play those games. They proved it doesn’t really make any sense to play those games if you’re going to lose them. You don’t need to.

This year there will be a few more bids for the real conferences however. Boise State lost to a division 2 School already, (quad five loss?) so we likely won’t have to listen to all the experts tell us how “sneaky good” they are. They won’t be a fake quad 1 win for Utah State. Of last year’s top 5 schools, only San Diego State plays any currently ranked teams at all! That’s pathetic. But sadly with the net rankings, it’s proven to be a recipe for a success.

I hope this year the committee sees through that charade.