Manipulating the NET

[FrancoPizza]

The 64 team tournament was done 40 (yikes!) year ago? There are exponentially more good players and schools now.

Parity doesn't mean we have more talent flowing in the pool and it's not a good excuse to dilute the NCAA's biggest asset even further.

 

[Knicks411]

Sounds like what tennis does. Seed the top 16 and randomly place the other 48 teams. It would be chaos but possibly more enjoyable than what they come up with now.

Or maybe you could seed the top and the bottom 12/16 (a lot of the auto bids at the bottom of the field are pretty bad) and do a random draw for the middle of the field.

 

[Knicks411]

I do think there is something to the idea that the vast majority of the non-conf games that determine much of the relative strengths of leagues happen early in the season when a lot in unsettled with teams breaking in many new players etc. I don't know if its feasible to fix that by swapping 3-4 weeks of non-conf games from the first third of the season to 3-4 weeks in January-February, but it would be interesting to see.

I have to say the older I get and the more I have followed the selection stuff, the differences between these teams on the bubble are just generally so small its hard to get super worked up about any of it (obviously except for your team, they are clearly way better than where the bracketologists have them). Northwestern is showing up as a 9 seed on the bracket matrix, we aren't sniffing a bid right now. If we played them on a neutral site tomorrow, we'd probably be like 5 point dogs. I dont really have a point, its just hard to really see massive differences I guess

 

[jordoo]

I wouldn't be against a system where all conference winners or top 32 got a 1 round buy. You could then do 96 teams and get rid of the play in day. However the further down you go the harder it will be to differentiate teams. As much as reasonable people could argue 60-68 now imagine trying to split hairs from 90-96. Also I'd point out that there are not more good teams now. There is parity and fewer excellent teams. I think in general the level of play has declined.

 

[SWC75]

I really hope that never happens. Look what happened to bowl games. Now they are just an exhibition.

If anybody can make the tournament, it just makes the bloated 31 game regular season even more worthless. It would be a disaster from a fan interest standpoint.

Just take the NIT teams and those alphabet soup other tournament and put them in the NCAA so the games can have meaning. And if you are basing invites based on conference standings, the regular season becomes more important, not less important.

 

[Millhouse]

18-10 against the 20th best schedule and we are 82nd in SRS
Florida State is 14-13 against the 22nd schedule and has a nicer 69th SRS.
Clemson 19-8 against 25th schedule, SRS is 24

Scoring Margin is a great predictor but if you're just evaluating a season, wins and losses have to matter more

Are ncaa berths predictions or rewards?

 

[Millhouse]

I really hope that never happens. Look what happened to bowl games. Now they are just an exhibition.
.

Thats all they ever were

 

[two3zone]

It seems like the way to game NET is to play teams ranked 100-135 on the road and blow them out. You grab a Q2 win and run up the margin. Then just load up bottom of the basket Q4 home games and run them out of the gym.

Like beating #135 on the road is Q2 and so is beating #31 at home. That's wild. Meanwhile, if you play team 240 or lower, it doesn't matter if its home or away.

Of course, you also need the opponents you schedule to stay healthy and finish where they're supposed to, so trying to pick the 100-135th teams is going to involve a lot of luck. Scheduling cupcakes at home and smoking them is the way to go.

Then given the way it works, each game is sort of zero-sum because efficiency is so key. So having all of your conference opponents juice up their NET ranking is key. Then you lock it in and nobody can take it from your conference. You especially want the bottom of your conference to have a juiced up rating, because upsets happen and you don't want them messing up everyone's score. Also when teams get better as the year goes on, they can only take from conference opponents and it weakens the whole conference.

It's like the non-conference schedule is a game of hungry hungry hippos, and whichever conferences get the most marbles are basically locked into having good NET rankings. Then each conference resets its own game of hungry hungry hippos, with schools fighting over the marbles their conference won in the non-conference.

There should be a person or team with the university giving information to every program in regards to this stuff.

 

[two3zone]

Thats all they ever were

True, but 95% of them are useless now. Going to a bowl was a big deal.

 

[orangecuse]

Thats all they ever were

Right! Try to convince anyone of the 1989 Hall of Fame Bowl or the 1996 Gator Bowl version of themselves. For those of us old enough that lived it and can recall the particular mindset, etc. of that era.

 

[Bayside44]

Exactly right. Math is stupid. I pick my tourney teams like I pick my stocks: logos and team colors. After that I go with unique names.

Point differential is dumb.

 

[Fly Rodder]

Point differential is dumb.

Correct. The very best teams score exactly 1 more point than their opponent. It's inefficient to score more than that.

 

[Bayside44]

Correct. The very best teams score exactly 1 more point than their opponent. It's inefficient to score more than that.

If you want to believe that it isn't that's fine. It's still dumb for a zillion variable reasons that take place every game.

 

[PhatOrange]

If you want to believe that it isn't that's fine. It's still dumb for a zillion variable reasons that take place every game.

exactly. I see teams every night try to kill the clock while the team who's losing cuts into the lead by fouling and making some junk 3's. On the flip side, I've seen us dribble out the clock with 20 seconds left, we should be hoisting 3's instead? It's ridiculous to think with sizeable leads teams should be trying to run up the score. So dumb.

IMO, the cutoff off should be 10 points. If you beat a team by 10 or 35 it should count the same.

 

[Cusefan0307]

18-10 against the 20th best schedule and we are 82nd in SRS
Florida State is 14-13 against the 22nd schedule and has a nicer 69th SRS.
Clemson 19-8 against 25th schedule, SRS is 24

Scoring Margin is a great predictor but if you're just evaluating a season, wins and losses have to matter more

Are ncaa berths predictions or rewards?

I get splitting hairs on records because I do the same, but I don't think Clemson is a good comparison. They have beat a projected 2,3,7, and 9 seed. 5 of their 8 losses by 3 points or less.

We have one great win and that's it. I'm comfortable with the committee thinking they're better than us.

On the other hand teams like Iowa, Utah and Texas A&M being ahead of us make no sense.

 

[Knicks411]

exactly. I see teams every night try to kill the clock while the team who's losing cuts into the lead by fouling and making some junk 3's. On the flip side, I've seen us dribble out the clock with 20 seconds left, we should be hoisting threes instead? It's ridiculous to think with sizeable leads teams should be trying to run up the score. So dumb.

IMO, the cutoff off should be 10 points. If you beat a team by 10 or 35 it should count the same.

You could probably do something with discounting points the larger the differential is (IE, the 5 point difference between a 30 point and 35 point win is not as relevant as the 5 points between 2 and 7, for instance) but fundamentally I can't agree with the idea that a 10 point and 35 point win arent the same. If I'm looking at two teams who played similar schedules and one team has an average net rating of 35 and the other is at 10, I'm going to think the team at 35 is much better.

 

[Fly Rodder]

If you want to believe that it isn't that's fine. It's still dumb for a zillion variable reasons that take place every game.

That must be why oddsmakers use darts and coin flips to set the line. Buncha dummies.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Correct. The very best teams score exactly 1 more point than their opponent. It's inefficient to score more than that.

I'm not a NET hater, but when the Villanova and Virginia Techs of the world are 50 spots ahead of us with 2 more losses it makes this all look stupid. There's a very likely scenario where we beat Virginia Tech and tomorrow and they are still 30 spots ahead of us with 3 more losses, but hey they beat mediocre UVA by 34 so we must weigh that more.

 

[Bayside44]

That must be why oddsmakers use darts and coin flips to set the line. Buncha dummies.

Gambling is a different conversation.

 

[Knicks411]

I'm not a NET hater, but when the Villanova and Virginia Techs of the world are 50 spots ahead of us with 2 more losses it makes this all look stupid. There's a very likely scenario where we beat Virginia Tech and tomorrow and they are still 30 spots ahead of us with 3 more losses, but hey they beat mediocre UVA by 34 so we must weigh that more.

I think that also goes back to what I was saying before (and other people have as well) that once you get past a certain spot (top 20?) there just isnt much of a difference.

I'll use Ken Pom because they have projected scores for games. Virginia Tech is 30 spots ahead of us at Ken Pom. And at KP, we're projected to beat them tomorrow by, 51% win probability. So they're 30 spots ahead of us, and when they come to our place, we're rated slightly better.

Edit: Also, look, if you're just counting the losses, fine, but we've run pretty hot in close games and I know people probably won't like this comment but the fact of the matter is we probably should have lost a few more games at which point the NET/KP ratings would probably look a little more in line.

 

[Fly Rodder]

Gambling is a different conversation.

How so? They don't use point differential?

 

[Fly Rodder]

I think that also goes back to what I was saying before (and other people have as well) that once you get past a certain spot (top 20?) there just isnt much of a difference.

100%. Too many people are missing the forest for the trees because they think that their favorite team is being conspired against by numbers.

 

[upperdeck]

Gambling is different than who is the better team. It often comes down to who is the deeper team. a team with 7 vs 10 players in a given game may play one way. But a team that goes 10 deep may be better at holding leads and those leads drive the Net.

Forcing teams to do something because its outside the scope of winning is not good.

Its no different than a team that runs and presses is probably going to have more chances to run up scores against weeker teams just by style.

Say one team is good and shoots 50% every 20 secs and another team is good and shoots 50% every 30 secs. One is going to score more often but both teams pretty much do the same thing on offense.

 

[Cusefan0307]

I think that also goes back to what I was saying before (and other people have as well) that once you get past a certain spot (top 20?) there just isnt much of a difference.

I'll use Ken Pom because they have projected scores for games. Virginia Tech is 30 spots ahead of us at Ken Pom. And at KP, we're projected to beat them tomorrow by, 51% win probability. So they're 30 spots ahead of us, and when they come to our place, we're rated slightly better.

Edit: Also, look, if you're just counting the losses, fine, but we've run pretty hot in close games and I know people probably won't like this comment but the fact of the matter is we probably should have lost a few more games at which point the NET/KP ratings would probably look a little more in line.

I'm aware, I have kept track of this sort of thing over the years. We are 5-2 in games decided by five points or less. The previous two years we were 7-13 combined.

All I am asking is there should be somewhat less of an emphasis(or cap like they did originally) on point differential. At some point you're encouraging teams to schedule weak teams to boat race them and to play to just keep the game close instead of to win(end of game fouling etc).

 

[jordoo]

100%. Too many people are missing the forest for the trees because they think that their favorite team is being conspired against by numbers.

Yeah, everyone's number one gripe about these rating systems is that they are not set up to favor Syracuse basketball. I think that should be the number one objective personally.

For real though you have to have some method of rating the quality of opponents and how the team performed against them. Inevitably programs will adjust to how that is measured and schedule accordingly. I feel that whatever algorithm you have should be open to being re-weighted on a seasonal basis after the tourney and having a full slate of results. You will still get outliers but with refinement I think NET could be even more representative of what those picking the field want.