Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="jncuse, post: 5230276, member: 1969"] [B]ACC vs B12 (Why was the gap so huge in terms of metrics last year)[/B] I never tracked margin by "quad" until this year (after looking at last year's results). And there is a reason for that as you will see below. As we are all aware the B12 has dwarfed the ACC in terms of seeds to the NCAA tournaments for the past 2 years. Has done much better in terms of AVERAGE or MEDIAN NET by its members. - [B]Despite some resistance by some here, in 22/23 the B12 absolutely crushed the ACC in OOC performance in terms of wins and losses. [/B]Just had to look at Q1 and Q2 games (wins and win%), and bad losses (which the ACC had lots) and the B12 did so much better in OOC. It was easy to see by simply looking at quality of wins and losses in Q1/Q2 and bad losses. A league with 10 teams (B12) had 30 good wins... the ACC with 15 teams only had 21 good wins. The Big 12 had 2 bad losses... the ACC had 18 bad losses (coming from 8 different teams) - [B]In 2023/2024, it wasn't clear by win/loss performance in Q1 and Q2 games why the B12 was so positively viewed compared to the ACC by NET. I would try to run W/L analysis at times like the prior year comparing the two, to quell the concerns, and it was not successful like the prior year. The B12 was a tad better in quality games... they had less bad losses, but nowhere near as big a gap as the earlier year. So why were they so positively viewed by NET compared to the ACC - almost to the same extent as the prior year? See below.[/B] [U]Comparing the ACC/B12 in 2023/2024[/U] To better understand what happened in 23/24, so I can apply things better moving forward, I dug deeper in to quad games and margins. Not just wins and losses. [I][B]The first big misconception I found is that the B12 was benefitting because of garbage scheduling compared to the ACC. Fact is the ACC and B12 both play a cupcake heavy schedule. [/B][/I]The B12 played 54% of its games against Q4 - the ACC 48%. In terms of the real "cupcakes" sub 260 NET, the ACC actually played more at 32% vs 28%. [B][I]But in a margin system, if 50% of the games are against cupcakes, then about 50% of the possessions OOC by both leagues are against cupcakes. [SIZE=4] [U]As flawed as it is performance in these Q4 games, due to the sheer number of them, they become the most important factor in determining which league played best in OOC under NET. [/U][/SIZE] And every conference wins these games (ACC 95%, B12 96%). It comes down to margin as the separator.[/I][/B] So here is what happened margin wise Q4 games last year. Q4 (260-365) [B]Big 12 - 30.6 ACC - 23.4[/B] Q4 (160-260) [B]Big 12 - 20.8 ACC - 15.0 [I]Basically a variance of about 6 points per game in Q4 games between the B12 and ACC. Might think 6 points is nothing, but its about 8.5 points / 100 possessions. In terms of KP, which largely parallels NET, that is the difference between a team that is #30 and #90 last year.!!!![/I][/B] [U][I]Part of that 6 points is probably because the B12 was better (you will see from the Q1-Q3 they were somewhat better). But part of this could be running up the score which is not good for basketball at all, but that is another discussion for getting rid of NET. Either way, it becomes clear that margin in Q4 games becomes really important for the ACC or any conference[/I][/U] So here is the data in Q1 to Q3 games. You will see the gap in performance between the conferences is much lower. Not like it was in the year before Q1 Top Half Big 12 (26 games) - 38% wins, -4.1 margin ACC (39 games) - 33% wins, -7.3 margin Q2 Big 12 (23 games) - 52% win, 1.0 margin ACC (21 games) - 52% wins, 0.5 margin [B]The differences in win% in Q1 and Q2 are not significant between the two. You can see the B12 is better, but not much. [/B] The gap starts to really get wide in Q3 where the margin becomes 14.6 for the B12 vs ACC was 9.1. And then it becomes significant at Q4 - in part sure the B12 was better - but were they better at running up the score as well inentioanlly?. Maybe. [B]But at the end of the day the ACC plays half its games against cupcakes like most of the leagues. It has to do well in these games compared to others. It makes NET very flawed, but it's necessary to monitor Q4 margin, as well as Q1+Q2 performance, to see how well you are doing. Again not arguing the merits for it, but just saying what it is.[/B] [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?