2014-15 college basketball

[0.42]

 

[Rage Against the McKee]

That "worst" list is filled with coaching legends.

[michigancat]

That "worst" list is filled with coaching legends.

It's because tournament results are largely influenced by luck. Which is why I always say conference record and finish is a far better indicator of how well a coach is doing.

[Stevesie60]

michigancat, do you think the Big 12 underperforming three years in a row in the tournament and not having a Final 4 team besides KU in the past decade is indicative of the Big 12 being bad, or just the Big 12 having bad tournament luck?

[michigancat]

michigancat, do you think the Big 12 underperforming three years in a row in the tournament and not having a Final 4 team besides KU in the past decade is indicative of the Big 12 being bad, or just the Big 12 having bad tournament luck?

bad luck

[nicname]

The NCAA tournament is just like poker. There is definitely some random chance involved, and it's magnified the more singular the instance ex. a hand of poker is to an NCAA game, a tournament is to a tournament, multiple tournaments are to multiple years.

It's not "just random."

[Pete]

michigancat, do you think the Big 12 underperforming three years in a row in the tournament and not having a Final 4 team besides KU in the past decade is indicative of the Big 12 being bad, or just the Big 12 having bad tournament luck?

bad luck

Hey luck expert, why don't you go sacrifice a chicken.

[michigancat]

The NCAA tournament is just like poker. There is definitely some random chance involved, and it's magnified the more singular the instance ex. a hand of poker is to an NCAA game, a tournament is to a tournament, multiple tournaments are to multiple years.

It's not "just random."

More accurately, it's generally far too small a sample to draw any meaningful conclusions about how good a coach or conference is.

[nicname]

The NCAA tournament is just like poker. There is definitely some random chance involved, and it's magnified the more singular the instance ex. a hand of poker is to an NCAA game, a tournament is to a tournament, multiple tournaments are to multiple years.

It's not "just random."

More accurately, it's generally far too small a sample to draw any meaningful conclusions about how good a coach or conference is.

In a way it is, but when the same guys, teams, conferences are winning titles and making deep runs year after year, or event after event you know who the real players are.

[pissclams]

ucla was really lucky w/ john wooden as their coach

[MakeItRain]

michigancat, do you think the Big 12 underperforming three years in a row in the tournament and not having a Final 4 team besides KU in the past decade is indicative of the Big 12 being bad, or just the Big 12 having bad tournament luck?

The Big 12 hasn't really underperformed in the tournament though at least not in comparison with any other conference and in relation to seed. The only two teams that truly had disappointing performances were ISU and Baylor. ISU played to their seed last year and this is the first time that Baylor has fallen on their face in the postseason. Last year of the six teams three played to their seed, two failed to, and one exceeded their seed. Kansas has won 11 straight conference titles I don't know why it's a shock that schools that can't win the conference aren't making the final four in that same time frame. Later I'm going to check how many final four appearances this past decade are by teams who won their regular season title and I'm willing to bet that number is 75% or higher.

The Big 12 does not have a national reputation of choking in the tournament. I don't even hear the conference take much heat for 11 straight.

[michigancat]

The NCAA tournament is just like poker. There is definitely some random chance involved, and it's magnified the more singular the instance ex. a hand of poker is to an NCAA game, a tournament is to a tournament, multiple tournaments are to multiple years.

It's not "just random."

More accurately, it's generally far too small a sample to draw any meaningful conclusions about how good a coach or conference is.

In a way it is, but when the same guys, teams, conferences are winning titles and making deep runs year after year, or event after event you know who the real players are.

There were 18 coaches in the 6 Final Fours before this one. 6 different coaches won titles.

[sys]

More accurately, it's generally far too small a sample to draw any meaningful conclusions about how good a coach or conference is.

not for a conference.  at least not a conference that gets 7 teams in.  it's a significant % of the total number of games conference teams will play against top 100 noncon opponents.

the big 12 dropped more than 0.0300 points in the kenpom ratings due to the ncaa tourney games this year.  that's a big move for "luck".

[nicname]

The NCAA tournament is just like poker. There is definitely some random chance involved, and it's magnified the more singular the instance ex. a hand of poker is to an NCAA game, a tournament is to a tournament, multiple tournaments are to multiple years.

It's not "just random."

More accurately, it's generally far too small a sample to draw any meaningful conclusions about how good a coach or conference is.

In a way it is, but when the same guys, teams, conferences are winning titles and making deep runs year after year, or event after event you know who the real players are.

There were 18 coaches in the 6 Final Fours before this one. 6 different coaches won titles.

And most of those guys, or their programs have been there before. For the most part it's the same group of guys, teams, conferences.

[michigancat]

More accurately, it's generally far too small a sample to draw any meaningful conclusions about how good a coach or conference is.

not for a conference.  at least not a conference that gets 7 teams in.  it's a significant % of the total number of games conference teams will play against top 100 noncon opponents.

the big 12 dropped more than 0.0300 points in the kenpom ratings due to the ncaa tourney games this year.  that's a big move for "luck".

We're talking about 12 out of 300+ games. It rarely moves the needle that much.

[michigancat]

The NCAA tournament is just like poker. There is definitely some random chance involved, and it's magnified the more singular the instance ex. a hand of poker is to an NCAA game, a tournament is to a tournament, multiple tournaments are to multiple years.

It's not "just random."

More accurately, it's generally far too small a sample to draw any meaningful conclusions about how good a coach or conference is.

In a way it is, but when the same guys, teams, conferences are winning titles and making deep runs year after year, or event after event you know who the real players are.

There were 18 coaches in the 6 Final Fours before this one. 6 different coaches won titles.

And most of those guys, or their programs have been there before. For the most part it's the same group of guys, teams, conferences.

Yeah, these are guys that have consistently finished well in the regular season. Over time, the best regular season coaches dominate the post season. When they don't make it to the final four, it rarely says much about the strength of their programs or their ability to coach.

[nicname]

The NCAA tournament is just like poker. There is definitely some random chance involved, and it's magnified the more singular the instance ex. a hand of poker is to an NCAA game, a tournament is to a tournament, multiple tournaments are to multiple years.

It's not "just random."

More accurately, it's generally far too small a sample to draw any meaningful conclusions about how good a coach or conference is.

In a way it is, but when the same guys, teams, conferences are winning titles and making deep runs year after year, or event after event you know who the real players are.

There were 18 coaches in the 6 Final Fours before this one. 6 different coaches won titles.

And most of those guys, or their programs have been there before. For the most part it's the same group of guys, teams, conferences.

Yeah, these are guys that have consistently finished well in the regular season. Over time, the best regular season coaches dominate the post season. When they don't make it to the final four, it rarely says much about the strength of their programs or their ability to coach.

Yeah. Again, just like poker. Most guys that are great cash game players will eventually do well in tournament, because they are great players. That doesn't mean that there are some guys that are better suited for tournament play. The very best are good at both.

I think there are absolutely guys that "get it done" in the tournament. We might not even be disagreeing here.

[sys]

More accurately, it's generally far too small a sample to draw any meaningful conclusions about how good a coach or conference is.

not for a conference.  at least not a conference that gets 7 teams in.  it's a significant % of the total number of games conference teams will play against top 100 noncon opponents.

the big 12 dropped more than 0.0300 points in the kenpom ratings due to the ncaa tourney games this year.  that's a big move for "luck".

We're talking about 12 out of 300+ games. It rarely moves the needle that much.

there's much less information (of team quality) contained in the mov of a home game against a 250-350 team than in a game against a comparable opponent.  there is no information content (vis-a-vis conference strength) in conference games.  the 12 games in the tourney is meaningful sample (i'm guessing 10-20%) of the total number of games a conference plays against top 150 or so teams.

you're right that it will rarely move the needle so much.  because it is rare that a conference is so badly misrated entering the tournament.

[michigancat]

More accurately, it's generally far too small a sample to draw any meaningful conclusions about how good a coach or conference is.

not for a conference.  at least not a conference that gets 7 teams in.  it's a significant % of the total number of games conference teams will play against top 100 noncon opponents.

the big 12 dropped more than 0.0300 points in the kenpom ratings due to the ncaa tourney games this year.  that's a big move for "luck".

We're talking about 12 out of 300+ games. It rarely moves the needle that much.

there's much less information (of team quality) contained in the mov of a home game against a 250-350 team than in a game against a comparable opponent.  there is no information content (vis-a-vis conference strength) in conference games.  the 12 games in the tourney is meaningful sample (i'm guessing 10-20%) of the total number of games a conference plays against top 150 or so teams.

you're right that it will rarely move the needle so much.  because it is rare that a conference is so badly misrated entering the tournament.

It was all two fluke upsets.

[sys]

More accurately, it's generally far too small a sample to draw any meaningful conclusions about how good a coach or conference is.

not for a conference.  at least not a conference that gets 7 teams in.  it's a significant % of the total number of games conference teams will play against top 100 noncon opponents.

the big 12 dropped more than 0.0300 points in the kenpom ratings due to the ncaa tourney games this year.  that's a big move for "luck".

We're talking about 12 out of 300+ games. It rarely moves the needle that much.

there's much less information (of team quality) contained in the mov of a home game against a 250-350 team than in a game against a comparable opponent.  there is no information content (vis-a-vis conference strength) in conference games.  the 12 games in the tourney is meaningful sample (i'm guessing 10-20%) of the total number of games a conference plays against top 150 or so teams.

you're right that it will rarely move the needle so much.  because it is rare that a conference is so badly misrated entering the tournament.

It was all two fluke upsets.

lol, not even close.  first, those upsets were not flukes.  the probability of the upset is directly related to the quality of the teams playing.  if there is a 20% chance of isu getting upset, and a 1% chance of uk getting upset by the same team, you cannot dismiss the isu upset as a "fluke".  even though it was not the expected result, it was 20 times more likely than a uk upset because isu is a much inferior team.

second, those upsets do not come close to accounting for the totality of the kenpom rating movement.  i was sort of eyeing the ratings as the tourney progressed.  i don't have any data still accessible to show, but iirc, the two first day upsets accounted for less than half of the movement.

[sys]

btw, i counted 2015 big 12 games v. kenpom 150 opponents.  there were 58 in the noncon, plus 12 in the tourney.  so the tournament games were 17% of the total games against comparable opponents.

[kso_FAN]

2004 OSU was the last time a non-KU team made the Final 4 from the Big 12. Since then, Big 12 teams have made 63 NCAA appearances. 2 times Big 12 teams made the Final 4, both by KU (08, 12). 29 times those appearances were as top 4 seeds and since the tournament expanded to 64 teams, over 85% of Final 4 participants have been Top 4 seeds. So since OSU's appearance in 2004, only 3.2% of the Big 12 teams in the tournament made the Final 4. Even in the 46% of those appearances that have been as favorable seeds, only 6.9% of those Big 12 teams made a Final 4. And again, both of those were KU. You could also point out that the Big 12 has only made 2 of the 44 appearances in the Final 4 since 2005, good for 4.5%. 7 of those 11 years the Big 12 has been rated one of the Top 3 conferences in the country and 3 times it was ranked first.

That's a heck of a lot of bad luck.

[michigancat]

More accurately, it's generally far too small a sample to draw any meaningful conclusions about how good a coach or conference is.

not for a conference.  at least not a conference that gets 7 teams in.  it's a significant % of the total number of games conference teams will play against top 100 noncon opponents.

the big 12 dropped more than 0.0300 points in the kenpom ratings due to the ncaa tourney games this year.  that's a big move for "luck".

We're talking about 12 out of 300+ games. It rarely moves the needle that much.

there's much less information (of team quality) contained in the mov of a home game against a 250-350 team than in a game against a comparable opponent.  there is no information content (vis-a-vis conference strength) in conference games.  the 12 games in the tourney is meaningful sample (i'm guessing 10-20%) of the total number of games a conference plays against top 150 or so teams.

you're right that it will rarely move the needle so much.  because it is rare that a conference is so badly misrated entering the tournament.

It was all two fluke upsets.

lol, not even close.  first, those upsets were not flukes.  the probability of the upset is directly related to the quality of the teams playing.  if there is a 20% chance of isu getting upset, and a 1% chance of uk getting upset by the same team, you cannot dismiss the isu upset as a "fluke".  even though it was not the expected result, it was 20 times more likely than a uk upset because isu is a much inferior team.

second, those upsets do not come close to accounting for the totality of the kenpom rating movement.  i was sort of eyeing the ratings as the tourney progressed.  i don't have any data still accessible to show, but iirc, the two first day upsets accounted for less than half of the movement.

It is a HUGE part of it

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/entry/ncaa_tournament_log5

[michigancat]

2004 OSU was the last time a non-KU team made the Final 4 from the Big 12. Since then, Big 12 teams have made 63 NCAA appearances. 2 times Big 12 teams made the Final 4, both by KU (08, 12). 29 times those appearances were as top 4 seeds and since the tournament expanded to 64 teams, over 85% of Final 4 participants have been Top 4 seeds. So since OSU's appearance in 2004, only 3.2% of the Big 12 teams in the tournament made the Final 4. Even in the 46% of those appearances that have been as favorable seeds, only 6.9% of those Big 12 teams made a Final 4. And again, both of those were KU. You could also point out that the Big 12 has only made 2 of the 44 appearances in the Final 4 since 2005, good for 4.5%. 7 of those 11 years the Big 12 has been rated one of the Top 3 conferences in the country and 3 times it was ranked first.

That's a heck of a lot of bad luck.

That's actually not much bad luck at all. How many 1 seeds (non-KU) were in that group? not sure how "favorable seed" is defined.

Also, 2004 happened to be the last time a non-KU team won the league outright.

[kso_FAN]

For comparison's sake, if you go back to the tournament's expansion to 64 teams in 1985, 159 teams from the Big 12 or former Big 8 have made the tournament. This doesn't include appearances by the Texas schools or West Virginia before they were in the league. Still, 8.2% of those Big 12 teams made a Final 4 appearance; KU with 8, Oklahoma State with 2, Oklahoma with 2, and Texas with 1. Or, of those 124 total possible appearances in the Final 4, 10.8% of them have come from Big 8/12 teams. The only appearance from a team before they were in the league was 2010 West Virginia.