MUScoop
MUScoop => Hangin' at the Al => Topic started by: Muhoops85 on March 30, 2008, 12:04:08 PM
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currently showing highlights of UW Davidson game. Will highlight both teams seasons. I'm still laughing at the sweet "move" by Krabby when curry spots up that three.
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Bunch of stooges. We underachieved because we didn't make the Elite Eight? Wow.
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Total joke.
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Let me guess, Wisconsin finished about where expected despite winning 31 games or whatever it was?
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Let me guess, Wisconsin finished about where expected despite winning 31 games or whatever it was?
Overachieved, I think they said.
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I am not burdened with living in Wisconsin so while I don't like the school because they are our competitors when it comes to recruits, etc, I don't have the ingrained hatred of them that many on this board possess. That said...
Wisconsin was not a pre-season top 25 team, (40 in AP and 37 in ESPN), and yet they finished 6 AP and 5 ESPN with a 31-5 record and won the Big 10 regular season and tournament titles (Michigan State, Indiana and Ohio State were ahead of them in both pre-season polls) and reached the Sweet 16. I would say they have a right to be proud of their season.
We, on the other hand, were ranked 11 AP and 12 ESPN pre-season, and finished ranked 24 AP/25 ESPN with a 25-10 record and were ousted in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Only Georgetown and Louisville were ranked ahead of us in the pre-season polls from our conference, but we finished tied for 5th in the conference and lost in the conference semis.
Which team, if any, underachieved? I know we beat them and we had to contend with a much tougher conference, but by any other measure their season was more successful than ours.
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I am not burdened with living in Wisconsin so while I don't like the school because they are our competitors when it comes to recruits, etc, I don't have the ingrained hatred of them that many on this board possess. That said...
Wisconsin was not a pre-season top 25 team, (40 in AP and 37 in ESPN), and yet they finished 6 AP and 5 ESPN with a 31-5 record and won the Big 10 regular season and tournament titles (Michigan State, Indiana and Ohio State were ahead of them in both pre-season polls) and reached the Sweet 16. I would say they have a right to be proud of their season.
We, on the other hand, were ranked 11 AP and 12 ESPN pre-season, and finished ranked 24 AP/25 ESPN with a 25-10 record and were ousted in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Only Georgetown and Louisville were ranked ahead of us in the pre-season polls from our conference, but we finished tied for 5th in the conference and lost in the conference semis.
Which team, if any, underachieved? I know we beat them and we had to contend with a much tougher conference, but by any other measure their season was more successful than ours.
While I agree with your line of thinking, remember that when you use polls as a measuring stick your evidence will always be a bit flawed in the absolute sense. Polls, especially the Coaches' version, are simply popularity contests. They aren't an index of a team's strength. I mean, even if s/he's more informed then most of his peers, do we really want to put our faith in a writer from Fayetteville or Boise telling us where Marquette should be ranked?
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I am not burdened with living in Wisconsin so while I don't like the school because they are our competitors when it comes to recruits, etc, I don't have the ingrained hatred of them that many on this board possess. That said...
Wisconsin was not a pre-season top 25 team, (40 in AP and 37 in ESPN), and yet they finished 6 AP and 5 ESPN with a 31-5 record and won the Big 10 regular season and tournament titles (Michigan State, Indiana and Ohio State were ahead of them in both pre-season polls) and reached the Sweet 16. I would say they have a right to be proud of their season.
We, on the other hand, were ranked 11 AP and 12 ESPN pre-season, and finished ranked 24 AP/25 ESPN with a 25-10 record and were ousted in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Only Georgetown and Louisville were ranked ahead of us in the pre-season polls from our conference, but we finished tied for 5th in the conference and lost in the conference semis.
Which team, if any, underachieved? I know we beat them and we had to contend with a much tougher conference, but by any other measure their season was more successful than ours.
While I agree with your line of thinking, remember that when you use polls as a measuring stick your evidence will always be a bit flawed in the absolute sense. Polls, especially the Coaches' version, are simply popularity contests. They aren't an index of a team's strength. I mean, even if s/he's more informed then most of his peers, do we really want to put our faith in a writer from Fayetteville or Boise telling us where Marquette should be ranked?
Coobey - excellent point - polls are polls - those who have watched the two teams (like many of us) and have dissected RPI's and strength of Schedule numbers certainly have a different view than what the polls would lead an uniformed reader to believe'
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I am not burdened with living in Wisconsin so while I don't like the school because they are our competitors when it comes to recruits, etc, I don't have the ingrained hatred of them that many on this board possess. That said...
Wisconsin was not a pre-season top 25 team, (40 in AP and 37 in ESPN), and yet they finished 6 AP and 5 ESPN with a 31-5 record and won the Big 10 regular season and tournament titles (Michigan State, Indiana and Ohio State were ahead of them in both pre-season polls) and reached the Sweet 16. I would say they have a right to be proud of their season.
We, on the other hand, were ranked 11 AP and 12 ESPN pre-season, and finished ranked 24 AP/25 ESPN with a 25-10 record and were ousted in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Only Georgetown and Louisville were ranked ahead of us in the pre-season polls from our conference, but we finished tied for 5th in the conference and lost in the conference semis.
Which team, if any, underachieved? I know we beat them and we had to contend with a much tougher conference, but by any other measure their season was more successful than ours.
CT, aren't preseason polls done before a team even plays one game? In other words, its done by a bunch of guys taking a guess on how teams will be this year without seeing anyone in the country, let alone the top 25 teams they are saying are so good play even one second?
Seems a bit strange to me to put stock of any kind into preseason polls, especially ones that would determine whether a team under achieves or over achieves. Just my two cents, but I'd actually like to see how the teams play, how the new recruits REALLY are, what injuries there are, etc before deciding if a team has over or under achieved.
Did that preseason ranking factor in DJ's injury? How about Mkwabe's? Did they factor in Fitzgerald's? How did those preseason rankings not have Davidson in the top 25, let alone the top 10? Did they factor in Pittsburgh's injuries? How about Kelvin Sampson's firing?
Using preseason rankings to determine if a team achieved one way or the other, quite frankly, seems ridiculous, especially since they are done before they play one darn game.
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The preseason rankings certainly are not perfect, but they're not that bad, either. Basically, people look at how you did last year, who you've kept, who you've lost and who you have coming in and estimate how good you will be after performing the same exercise with the other majors, anyway. Certainly not perfect, but I guarantee if you look through history top 10 preseason teams have done significantly better than the 11-20 ranked teams and the ranked teams have done significantly better than the unranked teams.
For example, the top 4 teams in both the AP and the ESPN pre-season polls were North Carolina, UCLA, Memphis and Kansas. I don't think that was meaningless, since they finished as the top four and actually ARE the Final Four. 22 out of 25 of each poll made the NCAA tournament.
They are an excellent gauge for a consensus of pre-season expectations, IMO. Of course they are not perfect but generally, teams that do siginificantly better or worse than their pre-season projections are generally deemed to have over or underachieved unless a major injury occured.
I think, if you told most people on this board before the season started that we would be the 6 seed in the Big East tournament, and a 6 seeed in the NCAA tournament and bow out in the second round of the NCAA tournament, they would have considered that an OK to somewhat disappointing season based on our expectations.
If you told the UW fans, OTOH, before the season started that they would win the Big 10 regular season and tournament, get a 3 seed in the NCAA tournament and reach the sweet 16, they would have considered that much better than they expected.