The honest truth, the lack of recruiting...

[CU44SE]

Yes. Regular season wins are only valuable based on how they position you entering the tournament.

And look at the history of the final four and the champions. 87% of the champions are top 3 seeds. And 80% of final four teams are top 4 seeds. So yes, their is a correlation between regular season success and tournament success. I don’t care about that one time or it happens. It’s more likely when there is regular season success, the stats prove that.

 

[pokercuse08]

Oh, we’re already back to calling it luck again?

There's luck in sports. Every team that wins a championship or goes to a final four in college basketball gets some degree of lucky. Most who make the Sweet 16 do as well.

My line of work (poker) gives me a unique perspective to analyze that sort of thing. If I go into a hand as a 70/30 favorite and win the pot, I ran above my expectation by winning 100% instead of 70%, although winning 70% would be impossible.

Likewise if we had a 90% chance of beating SDSU, a 60% chance of beating WVU, and a 20% chance of beating U of H, our expected wins through three games would be:

.9 + (.9 * .6) + (.9 * .6 * .2) = 1.548

Then 10.8% of the time we'd still be playing and thus our total expected number of tournament wins going into the tournament would be a little higher, maybe 1.65 or 1.7.

You could approximate this during any tourney run, using a variety of methods from qualitative analysis to betting lines.

Anyway, any time you exceed that number you got lucky. Any time you fall below it, you were unlucky. In the long run you'll likely end up near the sum of the number if you're estimating well. The real luck is bunching wins. I'd rather win 6-0-0 over three years than 2-2-2. We got a little lucky to bunch some wins in a Final Four run. That doesn't take anything away from the players/coaches.

 

[pokercuse08]

Likewise if we had a 90% chance of beating SDSU, a 60% chance of beating WVU, and a 20% chance of beating U of H, our expected wins through three games would be:

.9 + (.9 * .6) + (.9 * .6 * .2) = 1.548

Then 10.8% of the time we'd still be playing and thus our total expected number of tournament wins going into the tournament would be a little higher, maybe 1.65 or 1.7.

You could approximate this during any tourney run, using a variety of methods from qualitative analysis to betting lines.

I should note that in order to do this properly before the tournament starts, you'd have to handicap every possible matchup. So if we were 90% to beat SDSU, and 60% to beat WVU, we'd also have to look at WVU/Morehead St. and handicap that game and our chances against both teams. We'd have to do this all the way through the bracket to do it properly.

And this is also why higher seeds are so key. Instead of going against a 6 a 3 and a 2, we want to get the chance to get the path Houston got - a 15, 10, 11, 12. That adds a nice little chunk of equity to your expectations, even if it's a somewhat rare occurrence.

 

[CU44SE]

The bottom line is this, a team seeded 8 or higher has won 1 championship (an 8 seed) which is 2.44% of the time.

a team seeded 8 or higher has made the final four 13 times ( 8 seed x 6, 9 seed x 2, 10 seed x1, 11 seed x4) which is 7.93% of the time. 6 of these 13 teams where mid majors (therefore under seeded because of there conference). Therefore only 4.2% of P5 teams that are seeded 8 or higher make the final four.

Those are terrible odds, so yes, it’s not sustainable to have success that way. You may be, but I’m not content with double digit losses and high seeds.

 

[SUFaninNJ]

I look forward to this thread each and every time someone starts it.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Also our zone will be an annual impediment to early-to-mid season success, as Boeheim refuses to play talented players because they haven't learned it yet.

It used to be a big advantage in those early season made-for-TV tournaments.

Of course back then, we had more continuity on the roster from season to season. There wasn't as much of a learning curve, when several of the returning guys have played it for a couple years.

 

[pokercuse08]

It used to be a big advantage in those early season made-for-TV tournaments.

Of course back then, we had more continuity on the roster from season to season. There wasn't as much of a learning curve, when several of the returning guys have played it for a couple years.

Right, I'm saying in a landscape with even more turnover, it's going to hinder us even more early in the year. At some point it becomes not worth that trade-off, but it's kind of pointless to ponder when it hits that point because Boeheim isn't changing anyway.

 

[FRANKIEFAN]

Yup.

But after getting skunked with the likes of Carey and Goodine this year we hit on Kadary and Woody.

JB drove both away by starting inferior players instead and not letting those 2 Joe and Alan get a second of PT at their natural position because of Buddy.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Making the sweet 16 or better as a double digit seed was not luck. That’s a trend.

 

[alphaorange]

ya, bad matchup. Or how about just a really good team. Don’t let the fact we were an 11 seed get in the way. Or the fact we are averaging 13 loses a year the past 4 years. Don’t let the last 2 weeks get in the way of the incompetence the first part of the year. Or the terrible lineups we played all year.

Does 2 wins in March really make the rest of the year not matter? You can be content with poor results and 2 wins in the tournament. I won’t be content with that. Especially since we are capable of so much more.

It sure beats 20+ season wins and a first or second round exit. People remember tournament results, not so much regular season results.

 

[CU44SE]

It sure beats 20+ season wins and a first or second round exit. People remember tournament results, not so much regular season results.

So you prefer 19-14 and losing by 20 in the sweet 16

over

22-8 and losing by 6 in the second round.

that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

 

[MDCuse]

All those recruits for Duke and Kentucky really payed off this year

Stop using a 1 year sample size. It's pointless. Using 2-4 game samples in March is also an exercise in futility when projecting a programs trajectory.

 

[Cusefan0307]

So you prefer 19-14 and losing by 20 in the sweet 16

over

22-8 and losing by 6 in the second round.

that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

Yeah well that’s basically what happened in 2014 and people were miserable here. Btw we finished 18-10.

Calling the first run a fluke was cool. The third time not so much. Seeding meant little the first 2 rounds this year. We weren’t the same team in March as we were in January.

 

[xc84]

...and yet we got to the Sweet 16. Wow. That sucks

 

[Jasoncuse]

Right, I'm saying in a landscape with even more turnover, it's going to hinder us even more early in the year. At some point it becomes not worth that trade-off, but it's kind of pointless to ponder when it hits that point because Boeheim isn't changing anyway.

I agree and have been thinking about that. If we're constantly turning over the roster with 4-6 new guys every year, the zone will continue to struggle as the new guys adapt, especially new wings.

I guess we'll see. If we had more talent overall, we could more easily overcome a decent or mediocre defense.

 

[Sudano]

So where did Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, and UNC recruits get them?

They went to the NBA 2-3 yrs early.

 

[Cusefan69]

There's luck in sports. Every team that wins a championship or goes to a final four in college basketball gets some degree of lucky. Most who make the Sweet 16 do as well.

My line of work (poker) gives me a unique perspective to analyze that sort of thing. If I go into a hand as a 70/30 favorite and win the pot, I ran above my expectation by winning 100% instead of 70%, although winning 70% would be impossible.

Likewise if we had a 90% chance of beating SDSU, a 60% chance of beating WVU, and a 20% chance of beating U of H, our expected wins through three games would be:

.9 + (.9 * .6) + (.9 * .6 * .2) = 1.548

Then 10.8% of the time we'd still be playing and thus our total expected number of tournament wins going into the tournament would be a little higher, maybe 1.65 or 1.7.

You could approximate this during any tourney run, using a variety of methods from qualitative analysis to betting lines.

Anyway, any time you exceed that number you got lucky. Any time you fall below it, you were unlucky. In the long run you'll likely end up near the sum of the number if you're estimating well. The real luck is bunching wins. I'd rather win 6-0-0 over three years than 2-2-2. We got a little lucky to bunch some wins in a Final Four run. That doesn't take anything away from the players/coaches.