MU versus Pre-season Expectations

[Heisenberg]

I compared Marquette's KenPom preseason rank with its rank just before the NCAA tournament and its final rank for every season since 2012.

You cannot view this attachment.

Bottom line: Marquette has slightly underperformed expectations. It finished the regular season below its preseason rank in 10 of 15 years, typically dropping about 4 spots. The misses tend to be big collapses (2014, 2016, 2021, 2026).

The overachieving years are fewer but large (2022, 2023). In the NCAA tournament itself, rankings barely moved (about 2 spots down on average), so March results mostly matched the ratings.

By coach (average change, preseason to pre-tourney):


Shaka Smart: +12.0. The best overperformer. His first two teams beat their preseason picks by 40 and 64 spots, rising to 12th in 2023. When picked high in 2024–25, his teams finished about where expected. 2026 was a big miss (47th to 84th).  However, notice Smart's Preseason-to-Pre-Tourney trend over the last four years. Worrisome trend.

Buzz Williams: −9.3. His 2012–13 teams met or beat expectations, including an Elite Eight in 2013. His last team, in 2014, fell 37 spots and missed the tournament.

Steve Wojciechowski: −15.3. The clearest underperformer: 5 of 7 seasons ended below the preseason rank, with drops of 53 spots in 2016 and 44 in 2021. He never won an NCAA tournament game.

[The Sultan]

Make this post with a bunch of random colors and Heisey's posts would be like Fieldhouse Flyer's.

[MU82]

AAPL hit its all-time high and became just the second stock ever to have a $5 trillion market cap.

How was kenpom's prediction on that one?