Measuring The "Night Off"

[Not A Serious Person]

I was thinking about Power Conference Teams' ability to have a "night off" and pile up wins.  So, as of January 9, here are the KenPom rankings of the bottom five teams per conference.


Rank      B10      BE      B12      ACC      SEC      P12
1             34      44      51          85      65        84
2             39      46      54          89      101       98
3             42      63      62          93      111       120
4            100      66      75          95     126      147
5            138      80      91          132    164      198
Avg         70.6   59.8   66.6     98.8   113.4   129.4
Med            42      63   62        93      111      120

The idea is to measure the easiest 8 to 10 games on the conference schedule, to potentially pick up an "easy" 6 top 8 wins.

The B10 has the best "worst" teams.  Second and third are the BE and B12, with the edge going to the BE.

Questions ...

* Does the committee or the rankings take this into account? 

* Will the SoS of the B10, BE and B12 rise a lot by the end of the year so an 18-13 record in these conferences will be viewed like a 21 -10 record in other conferences? 

* Or, does the committee, like fans, view 20 wins as the benchmark regardless of how hard the "easiest" part of your conference schedule may be?

Thoughts?

[Shooter McGavin]

That’s pretty interesting.  No nights off.  Team needs to show veteran leadership and bring energy every night.  Not that they should not have already known that.

[GoldenWarrior11]

The data will be even more fascinating to look at as more and more power conferences go to 20 conference games.  For the BE teams that inevitably go 8-12, or even 7-13, even with strong OOC performances, you are looking at - maybe - 18-13 or 17-14-like records.  Will be interesting to see what the committee "rewards" in those types of scenarios. 

[Galway Eagle]

The data will be even more fascinating to look at as more and more power conferences go to 20 conference games.  For the BE teams that inevitably go 8-12, or even 7-13, even with strong OOC performances, you are looking at - maybe - 18-13 or 17-14-like records.  Will be interesting to see what the committee "rewards" in those types of scenarios.

I feel like that happened with sju last year and they snuck in

[Not A Serious Person]

That’s pretty interesting.  No nights off.  Team needs to show veteran leadership and bring energy every night.  Not that they should not have already known that.

When people argue what conference is the best, they always look at the best teams.  I think looking at the bottom is at least as important yet that almost never gets into the conversation.

For instance, see the ACC.  It's a 16 team conference.  It has five teams ranked 85 or worse (that is NIT to no postseason).  That gives the top teams 7 or 8 "easy" conference games. 

Contrast this with the BE.  It has only one team that is not in the conversation for the tourney (Prov), and they are probably an NIT team.  The bottom of the BE makes this year's conference schedule tougher even if the top of the ACC is impressive.

[WhoaJoe2020]

One would hope they wouldn't have a predetermined threshold in that situation. Last year I thought they rewarded the tougher conferences with more and higher seeds despite some questionable records. Of course the results for the BEast in the tournament may have them rethinking things.