NET and KenPom Tracker 23-24 (SU = 84 3/9/24)

[jncuse]

I'd like to know if either ranking system takes into account the losing team missing players. We beat a Miami team without their best player. Pitt beat Duke who were missing 2 starters. Pitt's victory was solid but do they win with Roach and Mitchell in the lineup? But I'm certainly glad Pitt won no matter what because it helped us.

No, but the tournament selection committee is allowed to consider that.

In my general observations over the years the committee tends to avoid the what if game, and just looks at the end result.

 

[OrlandoCuse]

No, but the tournament selection committee is allowed to consider that.

In my general observations over the years the committee tends to avoid the what if game, and just looks at the end result.

We can always point out we were missing our starting Center and a key guard as well.

 

[jncuse]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Somebody in the Pitt-Duke thread last night posted something like this "Good the game is over - I no longer have to cheer for Pitt".

Unfortunately Pitt will need to be our friends for this entire year. They will probably be straddling those quadrant lines this entire year, and will likely be the only team in that situation that we have 2 wins against.

Support Pitt and their inbred fans.

 

[Knicks411]

Just coming back in after missing a few pages, I stand by my comment from a few weeks ago that most people's complaints of any system come down to "my team isnt ranked high enough"

Still stand by this one!

 

[DPCuse]

I'd like to know if either ranking system takes into account the losing team missing players. We beat a Miami team without their best player. Pitt beat Duke who were missing 2 starters. Pitt's victory was solid but do they win with Roach and Mitchell in the lineup? But I'm certainly glad Pitt won no matter what because it helped us.

Oregon was missing a handful of players when we beat them.

 

[JimBoston]

Syracuse plays 1 ranked team (UNC) in the final 13 games which usually doesn't happen playing in the ACC, but the ACC is down in basketball this year. So, Syracuse could have a great record and the metrics might not indicate an NCAA bid, but I would think a 23+ win Syracuse would be in. 10-3 with the upcoming regular season schedule is not a stretch.

 

[jncuse]

Well yesterday makes you wonder what in the NET secret sauce that was really hurting us.

Both our KP and NET were 76 heading into yesterday - we know why we stayed #76 in KP (whether you hate KP and the reason for it or not), and we went up to 69 in NET despite winning by an expected margin. And that is a good thing - an item used to select teams, like NET should focus much more on the W/L rather than margin.

That sort of implies though it wasn't entirely margin in certain games that was hurting our NET. I don't understand everything going on in that thing.

It also gives us some reason to believe the NET will take care of itself by us winning (say we go 8-5 to close). I think once your NET is in the 50's its largely ignored if the rest of your resume is good enough.

 

[pokercuse08]

Well yesterday makes you wonder what in the NET secret sauce that was really hurting us.

Both our KP and NET were 76 heading into yesterday - we know why we stayed #76 in KP (whether you hate KP and the reason not), and we went up to 69 in NET despite winning by an expected margin. And that is a good thing - an item used to select teams, like NET should focus much more on the W/L rather than margin.

That sort of implies though it wasn't entirely margin in certain games that was hurting our NET. I don't understand everything going on in that thing.

It also gives us some reason to believe the NET will take care of itself by us winning (say we go 8-5 to close). I think once your NET is in the 50's its largely ignored if the rest of your resume is good enough.

Wouldn't the assumption be that it's getting the Q1 win with Pitt moving up?

 

[jncuse]

Syracuse plays 1 ranked team (UNC) in the final 13 games which usually doesn't happen playing in the ACC, but the ACC is down in basketball this year. So, Syracuse could have a great record and the metrics might not indicate an NCAA bid, but I would think a 23+ win Syracuse would be in. 10-3 with the upcoming regular season schedule is not a stretch.

10-3 would be more than fine. I even have 9-4 as highly likely to be fine..
I have 8-5 as the on the line number (early call though) that could be enough / or might not be enough.

The ACC is down but by not nearly as much as 2022 and 2023, when it really hurt some teams on the bubble. We were #7 in conference NET, and this year we are #5 in Conference NET, with a much smaller gap from the top.

Only have 1 ranked team left is a concern, but it's not a major hindrance in my view. More concerned about the number of Q1+Q2 games we play (and of course doing well enough in them... last year Clemson only had 13 such games... we are now currently on track for 17. We still also have 4 more Q1 chances before the NCAA tournament.

 

[jncuse]

Wouldn't the assumption be that it's getting the Q1 win with Pitt moving up?

Probably not. I don't think the the mix of Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 (or them changing) is part of the inputs algorithm, otherwise you would run into all kinds of "circular" problems. They are just the outputs.

But I could be wrong - all the various components of NET and what it is doing are not known.

 

[DCUNITED13]

I recall that criteria for bubble teams is WHO YOU BEAT and not who you lose to. We continue to beat teams we are supposed to in the remaining schedule, we are in. I think losses to the Ranked teams do not hurt us. As JimBoston states 10-3 is the mark we shoot for. I concur

GO CUSE

 

[JustPherU]

I recall that criteria for bubble teams is WHO YOU BEAT and not who you lose to. We continue to beat teams we are supposed to in the remaining schedule, we are in. I think losses to the Ranked teams do not hurt us. As JimBoston states 10-3 is the mark we shoot for. I concur

GO CUSE

I’d shoot for 13-0, but that’s the way I roll

 

[jncuse]

We went from 76 to 69.

Pitt went from 82 to 68 for beating Duke, which helps us because away wins are q1 against top 75.

Miami dropped one spot to 64.

Earlier this week you had raised a concern that there would be NET degradation for the ACC as a whole. My guess was that it would be minimal decline over the year (or perhaps none) but I also wasn't sure and thought it was a valid concern. The concern of course is that our poor(modest) OOC performance would slowly drag down NET's as a whole as the season progress. Warren Nolan shows how each team has done in NET since last Sunday, so we can accumulate the movements as a whole.

In simpler terms. if the number is a net positive below its good.

Overall, the ACC is +21 in NET this week. If I back out the 2 bums (ND and Louisville) its still +11. So I think we can table our concerns ... although I will run the same check next week if I think about it.


UNC - No Change
Duke (5)
Clemson (6)
Wake +4
Virginia +16
VTech (1)
Miami (7)
Pitt (3)
Syracuse +12
NC St (4)
BC (5)
FSU +4
Georgia Tech +8
Notre Dame +2
Louisville +8

Overall = +21
Excluding the Teams that have no chance of being a Q1 or Q2 Game = +11

 

[jncuse]

I recall that criteria for bubble teams is WHO YOU BEAT and not who you lose to. We continue to beat teams we are supposed to in the remaining schedule, we are in. I think losses to the Ranked teams do not hurt us. As JimBoston states 10-3 is the mark we shoot for. I concur

GO CUSE

Ask last year's Clemson team what they think about that! Clemson had 4 Q1 Wins, NC St had 1. Clemson had 5 bad losses, NC ST had none. NC St got in.

The fact that we on track to have Zero bad losses is a strong positive to have as a bubble team. (its very critical to our hopes that we sweep Louisville, Notre Dame and FSU at home)

 

[OrlandoCuse]

I recall that criteria for bubble teams is WHO YOU BEAT and not who you lose to. We continue to beat teams we are supposed to in the remaining schedule, we are in. I think losses to the Ranked teams do not hurt us. As JimBoston states 10-3 is the mark we shoot for. I concur

GO CUSE

I think we’d all sign up for 10-3 but that will still be a challenge. We’re still unproven on the road, despite our recent win at Pitt. We’ll have some challenging games ahead. Getting to 10-3 means we only lose 1 home game (UNC is most likely) and win 4 out of 6 road games at BC, Wake, GaTech, NCSt, Lville and Clemson. Outside of Lville we’ll most likely be underdogs against all of those teams on the road. I think 3-3 on the road is a realistic goal with a minimum of 2-4. Like JN, I think 8-5 the rest of the way gets us in, albeit on the bubble. 9+ wins and maybe 1 in the ACCT get us into lock territory.

Despite all of that, if we can win any two games the rest of the way it would be huge if we could beat UNC and win on the road at Clemson. Need to find some way to get 4 quad 1 wins.

 

[Cuse House]

Another one to watch today is the Oregon game at 3. They play Utah who is 21 in net rankings. A win might boost Oregon back to Quad 1 for us.

 

[Cuse181]

Do we deserve to be in the tournament as of this morning? Nope. So can't blame anybody on the matrix for not having us in.

But the amount we are behind is not that much. Just because we have "0" in the matrix doesn't mean we are that far behind.

The other thing that hurts us in any "as of now" bracket is that there is still limited Q1 and Q2 win data to make assessments -- so people put a lot of weight into Standalone NET simply because of lack of other data to work with. I've done brackets before at this time of year, you have to work with scraps... and with the matrix as well.

Standalone NET on Selection Sunday, is not nearly that important once you have all the data from games. And if we go 8-5 the rest of the way our NET should be in the high 50's I think - not a disqualifying figure by any means.

That’s fair, all I was saying was the lunardi isn’t crazy for not having Syracuse in

 

[CardiacCuse]

One of the wider anomalies with the computer rankings this year is the difference between the old RPI and the new NET. We’re in the Top 20 in the old RPI and mid 70’s in the NET. That’s a pretty significant delta, to our detriment. I think we’re overrated in RPI and underrated in NET. In reality we’re probably an average of the two (upper 40’s). But I’d feel a helluva lot more comfortable if our NET was top 50, or even Top 40, by end of year. I don’t like this 70-80 no man land.

i think the "old RPI" site is busted ...the numbers are all wrong

it has SU with a record of 10-5, for example

where are you finding your RPI numbers?

 

[jncuse]

That’s fair, all I was saying was the lunardi isn’t crazy for not having Syracuse in

He's not crazy for not having us in -- but he should have probably had us in the "watch" list with those 4 other ACC teams that he has on the outside. I can't see any way he doesn't have us on the teams to watch list now.

 

[CardiacCuse]

We’re the lowest rated P6 team with only 5 losses, yet have one of the higher rated strength of schedules. The use of offensive & defensive efficiencies in NET and KP is the new wrinkle that’s killing us this year. We played really good teams on neutral and road settings and lost by a wide margin. Those losses are tanking our computer rankings. Seems like the margin of loss is significantly more important than the strength of schedule. Also, our 50 point win against Chaminade is killing us because it doesn’t count in NET. So long story short, Maui is absolutely crushing our rating when we all thought it would be beneficial for our SOS to play in a loaded field.

yeah bingo

these guys giving up once a game is lost early...is killing this team's rankings

losing by 10 is waaaay better than losing by 30

i hate NET

 

[Cusefan0307]

He's not crazy for not having us in -- but he should have probably had us in the "watch" list with those 4 other ACC teams that he has on the outside. I can't see any way he doesn't have us on the teams to watch list now.

Pretty sure he trolls Syracuse fans at this point based on our history in the past decade.

 

[CuseFan]

I generally think I understand how the NET and KP are working. Thank you for the education on this!

But then I see Michigan State, which is 11-7, 0-3 on the road, 1-2 at neutral sites, 2-5 in Quad 1, and 1-2 in Quad 2. How does that math add up to a 24 NET ranking?

 

[UpstateSM]

Next two games are now Q3. Like I said the other day, we need to go 3-0 in this home stretch to dance.

We don't have enough Q1 opportunities to afford a bad loss, especially at home. Need to win every home game besides a split with UNC/Clemson and that might change if Clemson keeps falling towards the bubble.

 

[CardiacCuse]

We are absolutely an anomaly right now. Not blowing out bad teams as much as we should have, and getting beat badly by good teams is messing with our KP.

Pitt is actually going the exact opposite way of us... they have benefited from more blowouts - and sure enough they have "Bad Luck". As I said before I think "Luck" is the wrong word - he should just use variance.

There will always be some outliers in a margin system, because not everything can even out good/bad for all the teams. They also tend to even out more over 31 games, or get less pronounced as each game becomes a lower % of your overall value by year end.

to me its most likely due to coaching infuence...and the extended portion of the season it has taken the team to iron out many kinks.

i think the coaching mentality is dialed-in to Win-Loss record and nothing else...much as JB used to be.

have "bungled" a lot games that couldve been blowouts and turned them into close wins

have "bungled" a lot of games vs good teams and got blown out...instead of losing by a respectable margin

credit to the coaches for getting to 13-5...and beating everyone they "shouldve"...i think we as fans mostly only care about Win Loss record...but the analytics are different.

not blowing a team out that you couldve hurts.

getting blown out by a team you could hang with hurts.

... probably gotten to where they have with the worst possible total scoring margin they couldve gotten...and systems like KP and even NET, as well, are punishing the Orange for that. (unfairly, imo)

 

[jncuse]

The NET works in mysterious or dubious ways.

I think i will have to take back my comment about margin - at least for road games. Its seems the NET rewards blowing out cupcakes on the road, more than anything else right now (see the data below). It does clearly reward road wins and good wins, but apparently not as much as purely mutilating awful teams on the road. The Gonzaga, Drake, and Providence jumps in NET this week are baffling. (see below)

As crazy as a claim this might be, I think they might be applying their NET formula wrong. and have a sign going in the wrong way in their algo. They state they are trying to diminish the impact of blowouts, and in fact the data is showing the opposite. Blowout wins on the road (possibly not at home) appear to be getting the greatest reward under this system.

Biggest improvements in NET this week (for teams 70 or above), as pulled from Warren Nolan (NET Delta column). Some real strange movements - great to see we jumped so that is the biggest positive here. But the Gonzaga, Drake

NET Ranking - Men's College Basketball | WarrenNolan.com

Gonzaga +20 (2 Q4 Road Wins by 67 points)
Drake +20 (2 Q4 Wins, one on the road, won by 70 points)
Virginia +16 (2 Q2 Wins, one road, won by 17 points)
Colorado +14 (Q2 Win + Q4 Win, both home, won by 49 points)
Syracuse +12 (Q1+Q2 Win, one road, won by 14 points)
Providence +11 (Q4 Road Win, won by 38 points)
New Mexico +11 (Q1 Win + Q4 Road Win, won by 32 points)
St. Mary's +10 (Q1 Road Win at San Fran)

We can certainly see why all these teams improved in NET - they deserved to. But the two things that immediately jump out is the fact that Drake and Gonzaga had the biggest climb this week. Gonzaga did the equivalent of going on the road to Louisville twice this week and winning by 67 points total. Impressive, sure, most teams are not going to win by that much but reason to jump your NET from 50 to 30?

Drake basically did the exact same thing as Gonzaga, destroying 2 cupcakes by impressive margins, and moved from 64 to 44.

Providence played one game at #309 Depaul, They destroyed them by 38, OK that's nice, but should your NET increase from 68 to 57 because of that? Heck they improved by as much as we did, and our week was much more impressive in terms of what matters for selecting NCAA teams.

The moves of Virginia, Syracuse, New Mexico, St Mary's all make sense. They reward teams for quality wins, especially if its on the road. But yet they are still rewarded less than a Providence blowout win at Depaul.

Thoughts?