What the H is a "Strength of Record?"

[Orijinal]

And how does it figure that Syracuse is 105th when they have beaten 3 top 10 teams?

You can say they have bad losses, but who else has beaten 3 top 10 teams? You mean to tell me 104 other teams have a better "Strength of Record" when most don't even play in the ACC or have even come CLOSE to playing the amount of top teams Syracuse has????

Someone's algorithm needs to be checked. I don't even know why ESPN would bother to validate this

 

[jncuse]

I have never heard of "Strength of Record". The quality of our wins is strong - that is why we are in the conversation so that number seems way off... unless the number is so heavily inflated to road wins.

Even our SOS is now up to #51 in RPI and #36 in KP

 

[Cusefannotindc]

SOR RK: Rank of Strength of Record (SOR) among all Division I teams. SOR reflects the chance a typical 25th ranked team would have team's record or better, given the schedule on a 0 to 100 scale, where 100 is best.

This method punishes bad losses more than it credits quality wins. A "typical" 25th ranked team would be expected to go 1-3 or 2-2 against 4 top ten teams at home, so Syracuse's 3-1 isn't much better than expected. However the "typical" 25th ranked team would be expected to go 5-1 or 6-0 versus the line up of BCx2, UConn, Georgetown, St. John's and GTech rather than 1-5.

 

[jncuse]

Why are we using what a typical 25th ranked team would do when we are assessing team number #47-#50 in the field? Seems like a really bad metric to assess bubble teams -- especially since the committee has been known to reward quality wins more than punish bad losses.

This metric fails the "Is it more than just cute" test for me.
1) It will not be used by the committee (or is certainly not official metric)
2) It has no predictive ability in terms of how the committee makes it picks.

So it's a cute little metric developed that is trying to be pushed into an area where it is irrelevant.

 

[Orijinal]

This method punishes bad losses more than it credits quality wins. A "typical" 25th ranked team would be expected to go 1-3 or 2-2 against 4 top ten teams at home, so Syracuse's 3-1 isn't much better than expected. However the "typical" 25th ranked team would be expected to go 5-1 or 6-0 versus the line up of BCx2, UConn, Georgetown, St. John's and GTech rather than 1-5.

What? Would a typical 25th ranked team have Syracuse's results against Syracuse's schedule?

Answer it one of 3 ways:

Yes. Then Syracuse should be ranked in the top 25! (Which is really what is being said here, since the 25th ranked team would have done better in our non-conference schedule, but worse against top 10 opponents)

No. The unnamed 25th ranked team would do worse. Even better! Syracuse is better than #25!

No. The unnamed 25th ranked team would have done better than Syracuse. Really? Give me names ...

 

[Cusefannotindc]

No. The unnamed 25th ranked team would have done better than Syracuse. Really? Give me names ...

Well, using the actual 25th ranked team, Wichita St, I ran out there predicted results against those two parts of SU's schedule using GamePredict | KenPom Predictor

Wichita St would have been expected to go 3-1 or 2-2 (the sum of the probabilities is actually 2.5) against the top ten teams at home. They would be smallish favorites in all the games.

They would have been expected to go 5-1 against the weak portion of the schedule and heavy favorites in all games.

 

[Orijinal]

Well, using the actual 25th ranked team, Wichita St, I ran out there predicted results against those two parts of SU's schedule using GamePredict | KenPom Predictor

Wichita St would have been expected to go 3-1 or 2-2 (the sum of the probabilities is actually 2.5) against the top ten teams at home. They would be smallish favorites in all the games.

They would have been expected to go 5-1 against the weak portion of the schedule and heavy favorites in all games.

Devil's advocate:

Wichita state wouldnt be ranked #25 if they had to play Syracuse's schedule up to this point. No way.

Not buying Wichita State or "Strength of Record." But I appreciate the response (sincerely)

 

[Delmar]

We get hurt by having lost to teams ranked below 250 --like UConn and Georgetown.

These are my alternate facts.

 

[Col. Bleep]

We get hurt by having lost to teams ranked below 250 --like UConn and Georgetown.

These are my alternate facts.

Those aren't teams.
They're the enemy.
And it's an embarrassment.
Fortunately, the committee doesn't look at debacles against old rivals.

Wondering though how much - if at all - the committee may discount early season (pre-conference) losses before a team jells and improves.

 

[Cusefannotindc]

Devil's advocate:

Wichita state wouldnt be ranked #25 if they had to play Syracuse's schedule up to this point. No way.

Not buying Wichita State or "Strength of Record." But I appreciate the response (sincerely)

I disagree, Syracuse would have been ranked around there had it not crapped the bed in those early games.

Strength of Record is a carry over from ESPN's football power index, where it is much more useful.

I don't think it is terrible in a cbb setting, but I think like KenPom and BPI the calibration looks a bit off. The average team, which is what KP/BPI are set to, is a big distance and in general P5+1 teams don't play many average teams. Syracuse being +14 over an average team isn't as relevant during the conference portion of the season. Of the 75 p5+1 only 4 teams are below "average" (Washington is the "average" team by AdjEM). I think a better measure would be against "average" P5+1 team, which is also probably where the bubble is.

Syracuse would be very close to the average P5+1 team, they are ranked 36 by AdjEM and the average of AdjEMs would be +14.41 and Syracuse is +14.29.