I have not done any dive into what the "metrics" actually mean, but I am amazed that wins over Dook, Virginia, Louisville, Kansas, Kentucky, Clemson, Virgnia Tech and even Ohio State, which is looking better and better, do not position us better. Also, does the fact that Trimble, Wilson and Henri have missed so much time affect the metrics at all? I really do not know.
Hubert Davis Catch-all
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Sagarin's ratings are modern, although I will admit I don't know how different they may have been in the mid-80s.
They were kinda hidden back in the day as they were licensed to USA Today and only appeared publicly there and he didn't reveal much at all about the details of his model.
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We are a team that is terribly inconsistent and we often win games by limited margins (which is indicative of limited efficiency), which means we only do so well in the predictive metrics (which are often what folks mean when they say "advanced metrics").
There are also "resume metrics" which take into account wins and losses rather than pure efficiency, such as Strength of Record (SOR) and Wins Above Bubble (WAB). Carolina does better in those this year than in the efficiency metrics.
No version of advanced metrics do much with taking into account injuries, mostly because no one has figured out a good way to do so.
In my experience these are typically people who never played nor been around real basketball in their lives, and they’ve always seen it primarily through this spreadsheet type lens. Instincts and intuition gained from real experience are not infallible, of course. But neither are metrics, no matter how advanced or “advanced.”
To dismiss one for the other, or even to heavily weight one over the other can be foolish either way, IMO.
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Heelsandeers
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I think most (on this board at least) understand how metrics work and why they are important
The annoying aspect is that certain folks can’t seem to discuss the sport at all without them
It’s basically the same level of discourse you would have with someone who has never watched college basketball
The annoying aspect is that certain folks can’t seem to discuss the sport at all without them
It’s basically the same level of discourse you would have with someone who has never watched college basketball
Amen.
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1. Those wins very much have positioned us well for seeding purposes. They are the reason why we are likely going to be seeded well ahead of where efficiency metrics alone would suggest. They have also largely helped in the metrics, though the home games against VT and Clemson are games we were expected to likely win by the metrics so they don't do much. But efficiency metrics are looking at the season as a whole, and are looking at our efficiency across the season, not really our record in particular games or in general.
2. No, efficiency metrics do not account for injuries, and practically I don't think there's any way for them to do so, because trying to account for every injury on every team in the country would be impossible and whatever you did with the data would probably have adverse effects. Luckily for us, the committee can, and likely will, take the Wilson injury, in particular, into account.
This is the part that bothers me. It denies the role of humanics in coaching. The team is penalized for playing bench players earlier and longer to develop them or experimenting with lineups when up big or in early season games and sportsmanship. I still think it's right to sometimes call off the dogs.
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Unless you're doing that a significant portion of each game, it shouldn't have a significant impact on the efficiency statistics.
Roy did a lot of experimenting with lineups and using the bench in November & December and he would often empty the bench with a couple of minutes left in a blowouts...and his efficiency stats were often great because the 80+% of each game he played with his main rotation showed great results.
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I understand this criticism, though I think it's overstated. Some of the efficiency metrics take "garbage time" into account, though all certainly are done on the assumption that scoring margin (not just W/L), adjusted for quality of opponent, are important in predicting future performance. If you are interested, here are some articles that discuss garbage time and its impact on predictiveness, metrics, etc.:
The simplest proof that overtime data is useful (and that garbage time exists) | The kenpom.com blog
T-Rank Methodology Update
Adam Chorlton and Bart Torvik discuss Wisconsin sports, mostly the Badgers.
adamcwisports.blogspot.com
KenPom: Believe NET is influencing lopsided games? Think again
Try as some might, teams aren't having success running up the scoring. And besides it's all about the résumé with the selection committee.
www.nytimes.com
Here's a good passage from one of the articles, from all the way back in 2013:
The takeaway here is that if you are interested in evaluating a team’s ability, simply looking at their record puts you at a disadvantage. Scoring margin matters. This is not to say than an 80-point win over Grambling is more predictive than a 60-point win, but in games involving relatively equal competition, scoring margin is useful – even big margins. At least, it usually matters.
There are exceptions, but identifying them is a challenge and I’m guessing there are many fewer exceptions than people want to believe. The fan of every team that is underrated by a scoring-margin method will claim that this is because their coach is more compassionate than his competitors and empties the bench much earlier in the game than his ruthless colleagues. In reality, though, there isn’t much difference in coaching attitudes.
Maybe the nice coaches empty the bench with two minutes to go and the meanies play their rotation guys to the end. That still leaves a majority of the game where relatively normal conditions exist. No doubt teams are trying harder in a close game than in a 20-point game, but even in the latter the participants are still trying. And I think that’s why scoring margin matters even at margins where the game contains significant stretches of garbage time.
To the extent that there are exceptions, I‘m inherently skeptical to their existence in the absence of a basketball-related reason to explain them. For instance, I feel like I can come up with a plausible theory as to why 2006 Gonzaga or 2009 Oklahoma might have been significantly underrated by a scoring margin system. Both had a very efficient offensive player that could draw a foul seemingly by snapping his fingers. In the final possessions of a close game, points were easier to come by than for most teams. Perhaps these teams, either consciously or subconsciously, felt less inclined to play good defense because they knew it was easier for them to win close games on the offensive end.
There may be other reasons to explain why a team would be mis-rated by predictive systems that incorporate scoring margin, but the theory that a particular coach is a really nice guy and can’t stand the thought of running up the score on his opponent seems rather weak in light of the evidence presented here. For most teams, scoring margin is a useful tool in evaluating their strength, and a random team that appears to be mis-rated relative to its win-loss record or the media’s perception is probably not an exception.
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I'd be interested to know, by the way, if Pomeroy or anyone else has looked in the last couple years to see if the same conclusion he had in 2019 - that the switch to NET was not leading to more lopsided blowouts - still holds. I couldn't find anything on a quick look.
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While true that is far from something the coach has influence on.
We play the same schedule and have the same record and Stanford, SMU, KY, and Kansas are top 10 teams and the narrative is completely flipped.
Bigs23
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Efficiency metrics are best used as predictive tools and in tie-breaking/hair splitting scenarios.
I'm not sure they should play much of a role in actual seeding, those should be heavily determined by actual wins and losses weighted by the quality of those Ws and Ls (in my opinion).
At the end of the day winning the game is what matters.
I'm not sure they should play much of a role in actual seeding, those should be heavily determined by actual wins and losses weighted by the quality of those Ws and Ls (in my opinion).
At the end of the day winning the game is what matters.
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Are you saying if we have the same outcomes only the teams we played were considerably better than they actually are we’d be considered better because our outcomes would have been achieved against better teams?
I think rodo is correct that the bracketologists and the NCAA are using the metrics appropriately as a tool, which is shown in the fact that most put us in the 4/5 seeding range. That would imply a 13th - 20th level team, which is probably about right for this year's UNC team. I just take umbrage with any metric that puts us in the low 20's (ie Kenpom at 28), and I strenuously object (strenuously?) to anyone who tries to use that metric to minimize this year's performance.
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This feels very much like an "if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle" point. Yes, if we had played a significantly harder schedule and had the same record, that would be more impressive. Is that a controversial point?
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The one thing I'd say in response to this is that I get frustrated when people base their criticism of a model only on a single result they happen to disagree with. No one was complaining last year when good metrics got us into the tourney despite the rest of our resume being pretty bad.
I am inherently skeptical of any criticism that is based primarily on disagreeing with isolated outputs rather than disagreeing with the methodology more generally. In any given season, there will absolutely be teams who efficiency metric rankings seem out of step with the rest of their resume. That does not somehow invalidate or undercut the formulas as a whole. It is impossible for there to be any metric that perfectly ranks every team right where every person thinks they should be.
I have said over and over I am in agreement with using the metrics as a tool, so I don't know where you are getting this criticism that I am somehow invalidating the formula as a whole. I do think it's still important to point out where the metrics miss so those misses can be taken into the context of seeding decisions, as the committee is appropriately doing. It's no different than pointing out that the polls are off by putting Miami (OH) at number 19.
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Unless you’re discussing a specific game and/or specific plays, why would you not focus macros-level discussions of the game/sport on the best tools we have to understand the game at that level?
From my perspective, a lot of the folks who don’t like to focus on advanced metrics seemingly have the biggest beef not with the metrics themselves, but what those metrics reveal about their team.
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I mean this in the least snarky way I can try to make it come across…you essentially don’t like the metrics that say your team isn’t as good as you believe it is and it upsets you when folks use these metrics to make that point?