Huge Pomeroy Jump -- MU up to #40

[🏀]

Pomeroy is the same guy who was insistent on Wisconsin being the best team in college basketball for the majority of last season, right?

No. His system favored Wisconsin's style of play though, he has even admitted they are often way too high.

[brewcity77]

Pomeroy is the same guy who was insistent on Wisconsin being the best team in college basketball for the majority of last season, right?

He wrote an article specifically saying that while his system favored Wisconsin's style of play he didn't think they were as good as his system indicated. Here are some of the highlights...

Q: Why do you think Wisconsin is #2?

A: I actually don't think this. Please stop assuming that I, Ken Pomeroy, personally believe every team is properly ranked. No system can do this. Even if you somehow had the time to rank all 345 teams, by the time you were done with this exercise, you would find some things that you didn't agree with in the rankings you had just made. For fun, spend some time just try ranking the top 50. Through some miracle, if you're happy with the position of each team when you're done, just let the results of games come in for the next 2-3 days and then see if you're still happy.

There are always going to be some outliers in a system. Wisconsin is perhaps the biggest outlier ever in my system. And it's only going to get worse, because they are going to lose more games and not drop very far because most of the teams they play the rest of the season are very good. But to get back to the question, I don't believe they're the second-best team in the country. Something like #20 sounds about right.

Q: The fact that Wisconsin is #2 invalidates all of your work.

I disagree. Let's say you are very good at performing some task. For the next 345 times you perform this task, I will judge you based on your worst effort. I don't think you would feel like this is a fair way to measure your ability to perform the task. Because it isn't.

If you are going to trash the entire system based on the biggest outlier over the last six years, I suspect you had no desire to use the system in the first place. Either that, or your team is ranked lower than you think it should be.

Q. When are you going to fix this?

First off, I'm not sure it can be fixed...Needless to say, I'd like to fix it.  However, fixing Wisconsin can result in messing things up for others.

That doesn't mean improvements aren't possible, but regardless of what I come up with, I can promise you there will still be teams that you feel are mis-rated.

For instance, one of the most respected ratings systems in the nerd world is the LRMC ratings. They had Wisconsin fifth before yesterday's games. Last year, heading into the tournament, they had Belmont fourth, and their system outperforms mine! The Sagarin predictor, also deservedly respected, had Wisconsin second heading into yesterday's games.

Q: Your work is flawed. (Not really a Q, either, I guess, but I get this all the time.)

A: Ugh, I hate it when people say this. Of course it's flawed. The thing is, your knowledge is flawed, too. If you are ignoring potentially useful tools because of a single issue, then your judgment is flawed as well. And I'm guessing you've never tracked the quality of your knowledge so you don't even know how flawed it is. If you're like most people, you think you're knowledge is great because you remember the predictions you made that worked out and you forget about the ones that didn't. It's human nature.

The difference between your flawed knowledge and my flawed system is that I am tracking the results of my system so you can identify all of the flaws for yourself. Ten years from now, you'll be able to look at my site and see that Wisconsin was like 21-13 at the end of the 2012 season and ranked #5. Whereas the time you made some crazy prediction that didn't pan out is quickly forgotten.

Full link: http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/entry/on_wisconsin_the_faq

[CTWarrior]

Name the eight losses.

We've got 8 road games, all of which are loseable for us. 

Of remaining games, I'd say

Highly likely to win  - Seton Hall, Providence, South Florida, DePaul
Could go either way - @ South Florida, Pittsburgh, @ Seton Hall, @ Villanova, Syracuse, Notre Dame, @ Rutgers, @ St Johns
Highly likely to lose - @ Cincinnati, @ Louisville. @ Georgetown

For us to lose 8, we'd go 4-0, against the first group of games, 3-5 vs second group of games and 0-3 against the 3rd group.  That is not unreasonable.  I'd guess, 4-0, 4-4, 0-3 for an 11-7 season if I had to guess right now.  Without playing any worse than we have, we could be 0-3 in Big East right now, just assuming UConn and Pitt each hit one more FT in regulation and Georgetown 2 more FTs.

[dwaderoy2004]

I was on my phone when I wrote that short message and I think I came off as being a bit of a smartass when I didn't mean to be.  I said previously in this thread that I think 10-8 is the floor, so I don't think that is an unreasonable prediction.  I was legitimately curious though as to what the poster thought our eight losses would be if that was his prediction.

All road games are tough, but I still think you are being a little loose with saying that @USF, @Hall, @Rutgers, @Nova and @St. Johns are "could go either way" games.  We will most likely be favored in all of those games so I think anything less than 3-2 would be a disappointment.  Pitt at home is a should win, IMO, and I would actually throw @Cincy in that middle group and move Cuse down to the likely to lose.  But you're right, our final record will most likely turn on those 8 or so games.  Anything from 2-6 and 6-2 is in the realm of possibilities.

Interesting to debate for sure.  That's why they play the games...it will all bear itself out on the court.

[JTBMU7]

MU could be 0-3 right now in conf, but if you watched the games, the better team in all 3 games was clearly MU. In all of those I think we led most of the game and then got caught at some point after some sort of run.

UCONN – had them by 10-12 at a few different points, shabazz and boatright pretty much didn't miss a shot in the last 6 min of reg
G Town – should have been a 5-6 pt win if not for missed FT's and a stupid foul
Pitt – should have been a 5-6 pt win in reg if not for a dumb play by Devante and missed assignment by Wilson/lockett.

My point is, MU was the better team in all 3, and had each game won in reg at some point. It took either a huge play(s) by the other team or a dumb decision by us to make it close. We didn't win any games we should have lost, though you can make an argument for the UCONN game being a lucky fluke. Either way, it puts us in great shape for the rest of the month.

[Henry Sugar]

By the way, from Pomeroy's weekend recap

2) #56 Marquette (9%) 74, #7 Pittsburgh 67 (OT) (Saturday) I know there is discussion of how overrated Pitt is in my computer, but I'm not inclined to produce a Wisconsin-style FAQ on the situation. Pitt was favored by 11 in Vegas in this one, so there are still plenty of people that believe in them. Their three Big East losses have been close down the stretch and they punk'd Georgetown in DC. The same Georgetown, though extremely scoring-challenged, that Indiana struggled to put away. Pitt played all but four minutes of this game without the services of starting point guard Tray Woodall after he suffered a concussion early in the first half.

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

[dwaderoy2004]

I think what people are failing to see as well is that this was arguably the toughest three game stretch on our entire schedule, with the only other contender being the Cuse, ND, and either road game on either side of them.  Buzz missed the UConn game as well.  And they went 3-0! 

Also remember that this team should be improving as the year progresses.  We had new players, new roles, midseason additions, etc.  This team is hopefully on the upswing.

[Golden Avalanche]

He wrote an article specifically saying that while his system favored Wisconsin's style of play he didn't think they were as good as his system indicated. Here are some of the highlights...

Full link: http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/entry/on_wisconsin_the_faq

Ah, I see. He made some good points in there for why following his system isn't worth much more than idle chitchat.

[MU82]

The schedule really sets up in our favor. Honestly, I think 15-3 is possible, maybe even 16-2. I know...I'm crazy. But here's another factor regarding the teams we're competing with at the top:

Louisville: Has to play both Syracuse and Notre Dame twice and have to play UConn, 'Nova, and GT all on the road. I'm guessing 14-4 for them.
Syracuse: Mirrors with Louisville and Georgetown, have to play UConn and us on the road. 15-3 or 14-4.
Notre Dame: Louisville twice, must play Marquette and Syracuse on the road, already has a loss. Guessing 14-4.
Marquette: Georgetown, Louisville, and Cincy away look toughest (and Syracuse at home). Think 14-4 or 15-3 is possible. 12-6 still most likely, though.

As always, brew, I love, love, love your optimism. And I hope you are right. I would so "settle" for 12-6!

My nature tends to be a little more skeptical. Maybe it's a defense mechinism ... I'd rather have good surprises than bad surprises.

For example, the super-optimists on the board were waxing poetic of us being "a couple of shots" away from being 11-1 in the non-con, assuming we'd have won the Maui if we had beaten Butler and what-iffing Jake's shot in the UWGB loss. On the other hand, I look at our 3 wins in the Big East and say we are pretty fortunate to not be 0-3 or 1-2.

Suffice it to say, I'm thrilled where we are now. Maybe coulda/shoulda beat UWGB and Butler ... maybe coulda/shoulda lost to UConn, GTown and Pitt.

Bottom line: We're better than I expected us to be so far and, again, I'm hoping brew is right about 12-6.

[CTWarrior]

All road games are tough, but I still think you are being a little loose with saying that @USF, @Hall, @Rutgers, @Nova and @St. Johns are "could go either way" games. 

That's fair.  I need to see us win another game or two on the road before I am a believer.  The destruction at Florida and the loss at UWGB have me too biased against us on the road at the moment.  I'm sure my opinion of the team will continue to evolve as more games are played.  I know that I am perpetually less optimistic when predicting future MU performances then most on this board.  For instance, after watching us squeak past Georgetown at home and then watching Pitt trample them in DC, I figured we'd get beaten easily last Saturday.