NET Rankings / Bracketology

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#78      
Everything I have seen so far seems to say that teams should schedule the easiest schedule possible so they can hammer lesser opponents all season long and limit the number of close games to a minimum. Strength of schedule doesn't seem to factor in the NET at all. It seems to be built to make sure Gonzaga is highly rated even though they play no one for over 2/3 of the season.
 
#80      
Everything I have seen so far seems to say that teams should schedule the easiest schedule possible so they can hammer lesser opponents all season long and limit the number of close games to a minimum. Strength of schedule doesn't seem to factor in the NET at all. It seems to be built to make sure Gonzaga is highly rated even though they play no one for over 2/3 of the season.

Agreed. And Away wins aren't factoring in very much at all. Rutgers has only one Away/Neutral win! :LOL:
 
#81      

Deleted member 17568

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Everything I have seen so far seems to say that teams should schedule the easiest schedule possible so they can hammer lesser opponents all season long and limit the number of close games to a minimum. Strength of schedule doesn't seem to factor in the NET at all. It seems to be built to make sure Gonzaga is highly rated even though they play no one for over 2/3 of the season.

There are 5 factors that go into the NET rankings:

Team Value Index
Net Efficiency
Winning Percentage
Adjusted Winning Percentage
Scoring Margin

Team Value Index is based on quality and location of wins.

Adjusted Winning Percentage is weighted based on location and result:

Road win = + 1.4
Neutral win = + 1
Home win = +.6
Road loss = -.6
Neutral loss = -1
Home loss = -1.4

Scoring margin is capped at 10 points per game.

Our losses to Miami and Missouri are killing us while Rutgers win over Seton Hall keeps looking better and better.
 
#82      
Everything I have seen so far seems to say that teams should schedule the easiest schedule possible so they can hammer lesser opponents all season long and limit the number of close games to a minimum. Strength of schedule doesn't seem to factor in the NET at all. It seems to be built to make sure Gonzaga is highly rated even though they play no one for over 2/3 of the season.
Has Gonzaga ever gone 30-1 and not received a 1 seed? You're complaining about the NET when basically every ranking has them at or near the top. If you'll remember, we scheduled an extremely easy nonconference schedule and we lost 3 of those games. Also, Gonzaga, you know, hasn't completed its schedule yet. So its strength of schedule is going to continue to fall over the course of the season, which will undoubtedly hurt its rankings. Ask Auburn if strength of schedule has an impact on your rankings, because they are sitting behind 22 teams they have a better record than.
 
#83      
It seems then that the strength of schedule is 1/3 of 1/5 of the NET rankings. Give or take. Since we dont know the precise formula.

I honestly do hate how highly Gonzaga gets ranked when they play cupcakes most of the year. Then they get a cake walk to the final four. Their ranking should drop each week that they play their conference schedule. Butler moved conferences. So should Gonzaga
 
#84      

Deleted member 17568

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It seems then that the strength of schedule is 1/3 of 1/5 of the NET rankings. Give or take. Since we dont know the precise formula.

I honestly do hate how highly Gonzaga gets ranked when they play cupcakes most of the year. Then they get a cake walk to the final four. Their ranking should drop each week that they play their conference schedule. Butler moved conferences. So should Gonzaga

Gonzaga is #3 on KenPom which fully takes SOS into account.
 
#85      

jmilt7

Waukegan
It seems then that the strength of schedule is 1/3 of 1/5 of the NET rankings. Give or take. Since we dont know the precise formula.

I honestly do hate how highly Gonzaga gets ranked when they play cupcakes most of the year. Then they get a cake walk to the final four. Their ranking should drop each week that they play their conference schedule. Butler moved conferences. So should Gonzaga
Agree. They are the basketball equivalent of Notre Dame football.
 
#87      

kiwanegarris22

South Carolina
Not quite. ND is not in a conference at all and consistently plays a much tougher schedule than many schools.
Not accurate. With ND's current ACC affiliation, they now play six games each fall against the cupcake ACC conference (Clemson Tigers excluded from the cupcake reference). Hence, their schedule is not what it used to be when they routinely played 3 Big Ten schools and USC (when the Trojans were a powerhouse). Instead they now get to load up with Duke, Wake, Georgia Tech, et.al. So I agree ---- comparable to Gonzaga in BB.
 
#88      

BananaShampoo

Captain 'Paign
Phoenix, AZ
Not accurate. With ND's current ACC affiliation, they now play six games each fall against the cupcake ACC conference (Clemson Tigers excluded from the cupcake reference). Hence, their schedule is not what it used to be when they routinely played 3 Big Ten schools and USC (when the Trojans were a powerhouse). Instead they now get to load up with Duke, Wake, Georgia Tech, et.al. So I agree ---- comparable to Gonzaga in BB.
Ha! Guess I didn't know they were doing that now. Shows how little I pay attention to ND football these days. ;)
 
#89      

Deleted member 654622

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Not accurate. With ND's current ACC affiliation, they now play six games each fall against the cupcake ACC conference (Clemson Tigers excluded from the cupcake reference). Hence, their schedule is not what it used to be when they routinely played 3 Big Ten schools and USC (when the Trojans were a powerhouse). Instead they now get to load up with Duke, Wake, Georgia Tech, et.al. So I agree ---- comparable to Gonzaga in BB.
Instead they played Iowa State, Stanford, Georgia and Michigan and still USC. They still play a tougher schedule than most
 
#90      
It seems then that the strength of schedule is 1/3 of 1/5 of the NET rankings. Give or take. Since we dont know the precise formula.

I honestly do hate how highly Gonzaga gets ranked when they play cupcakes most of the year. Then they get a cake walk to the final four. Their ranking should drop each week that they play their conference schedule. Butler moved conferences. So should Gonzaga

They get ranked high and then stay ranked high because they play and beat good teams in the non con. Then they do what they’re supposed to do vs lesser teams in their conference. Not their fault they’re way better than everybody.

Also the “cakewalk to the final four” means they end up beating a lot of power conference teams. And if it’s a cakewalk, which means it was easy for them, that means they are legitimately, significantly better than those teams, and worthy of their ranking anyway.
 
#91      
I have no problem with Gonzaga. Without going back and checking their recent schedules, it seems like they regularly play a good non-conference schedule. Though some of the teams they've played this year haven't done as well as in recent years, they scheduled Texas A&M (A), neutral site tournament with Oregon and Michigan in it, Washington (A), Arizona (A), and North Carolina (H). And someone said well Butler switched conferences, so should Gonzaga. Well it was much easier for Butler to switch as they had a conference that had teams that made geographic sense -- Xavier, DePaul, Creighton, Marquette -- in the Big East. The only conference that makes geographic sense for Gonzaga is the Pac 12, and since the Zags don't have a football team that is a non-starter.
 
#92      

jmilt7

Waukegan
Instead they played Iowa State, Stanford, Georgia and Michigan and still USC. They still play a tougher schedule than most
tI come not to argue about ND's schedule and it is getting off topic. I guess what I want to say is I don't think they (Gonzaga and ND) should not be ranked but rather they are always overrated by about 10 positions.They are good teams usually just not as good as they are rated.
 
#93      
They get ranked high and then stay ranked high because they play and beat good teams in the non con. Then they do what they’re supposed to do vs lesser teams in their conference. Not their fault they’re way better than everybody.

Also the “cakewalk to the final four” means they end up beating a lot of power conference teams. And if it’s a cakewalk, which means it was easy for them, that means they are legitimately, significantly better than those teams, and worthy of their ranking anyway.
Yeah, basically there is a lot of misinformation floating around this thread. I just ran through sagarin's strength of schedule numbers for the last 10 years. Notre Dame comes in at an average of 25.6 in SOS. Obviously this is above average even for P5 schools. Then I went through Gonzaga's last 10 years of tournaments and compared their wins to the average number of wins for a team of that seed. Average wins for Gonzaga's seeds - 17.548, Gonzaga's wins - 20. So they are outperforming what you would expect a team getting their seeds to do for a decade. If anything, they may be traditionally underrated.

It's a little bit amusing to me that people discount what Gonzaga is doing when we have, already this year, lost at home to Miami, lost to Missouri, and been sent into overtime at home by Nichols St.
 
#94      
Average wins for Gonzaga's seeds - 17.548, Gonzaga's wins - 20. So they are outperforming what you would expect a team getting their seeds to do for a decade. If anything, they may be traditionally underrated.
But are those average 17.5 wins for that seed better than the 20 Gonzaga gets? If that seeds average SOS is like 30 and Gonzaga's is like 100, then I'd argue I'd rather see the 17.5 win team in over Gonzaga.
 
#95      

Deleted member 17568

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But are those average 17.5 wins for that seed better than the 20 Gonzaga gets? If that seeds average SOS is like 30 and Gonzaga's is like 100, then I'd argue I'd rather see the 17.5 win team in over Gonzaga.

SOS is taken into account in most, if not all, efficiency metrics. Here is Gonzaga's final KenPom efficiency ranking with their NCAA tourney seed over the last 10 years:

Year - KenPom final ranking / NCAA Seed
2019 - 2 / 1
2018 - 10 / 4
2017 - 1 / 1
2016 - 21 / 11
2015 - 7 / 2
2014 - 24 / 8
2013 - 5 / 1
2012 - 21 / 7
2011 - 37 / 11
2010 - 44 / 8

So in 2010 and maybe 2013, you could argue Gonzaga was overseeded based on the strength of their team. To argue anything else is to essentially argue that KenPom (and other efficiency metrics are inherently flawed).
 
#96      
The problem I have with classic SOS metric and any ratings that use it is that it is based on opponents winning percentage and opponent's opponents winning percentage. In college sports I don't believe winning percentage is a good indicator of strength of a team.

For example, currently these teams have a higher winning percentage than Illinois and would factor into SOS as a better team than Illinois, but subjectively using the polls only 6 of the 30 teams are actually stronger (SDSU, Gonzaga, Dayton, Villanova, Butler, Seton Hall).

A team that plays Bowling Green State will have a better SOS than a team that plays Illinois.

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#97      
But are those average 17.5 wins for that seed better than the 20 Gonzaga gets? If that seeds average SOS is like 30 and Gonzaga's is like 100, then I'd argue I'd rather see the 17.5 win team in over Gonzaga.
Sorry, the way I posted was confusing. Gonzaga in the past 10 years got 3 1-seeds, 1 2-seed, 1 4-seed, 1 7-seed, 2 8-seeds, and 2 11-seeds. I added up the number of wins you expect those seeds to get IN THE TOURNAMENT (not the number of wins you expect those seeds to have gotten in the regular season). So a 1 seed, on average, wins 3.346 games in the tournament. I added up the expected wins in the tournament per year, based on the breakdown of the seeds Gonzaga has received. So basically, the average number of tournament wins you would expect from a team that got those 10 seeds I listed above is 17.548. Gonzaga, in those 10 tournaments, won 20 games. This means they are outperforming other teams that got the same seed they did which suggests they may actually be getting underrated by the selection committee.
 
#98      
Some love from ESPN, Well...I guess you could consider being called an overachiever love. :unsure:

Overachieving: Illinois. With Kofi Cockburn on the floor, Illinois is one of the best teams in the country. In those situations, Illinois has connected on 53.4% of its attempts inside the arc and held opponents to just 87 points per 100 possessions. Per the Chicago Tribune, a preseason Big Ten media poll projected Brad Underwood's squad to finish seventh. Instead, the program entered the week tied with Michigan State for first place (both 7-2) and chasing a top-eight seed in the NCAA tournament. Saturday's thrilling road win over Michigan was its sixth in a row and third Big Ten road win.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-b...erachievers-underachievers-top-leagues#BigTen

And, related (scrolls further down)

19. Illinois Fighting Illini

Three of the past five champions have ranked as a top-30 team in rebound rate AND top 70 in field goal percentage. Thus far, the Illini rank fourth and 45th, respectively. The Illini are a top-10 team in terms of minute continuity, according to KenPom data, and they are will to battle with anyone. Don't sleep on them!
so when they say "Three of the past five champions" are they referring to the NCAA champ??? huh...

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#99      

Deleted member 17568

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The problem I have with classic SOS metric and any ratings that use it is that it is based on opponents winning percentage and opponent's opponents winning percentage. In college sports I don't believe winning percentage is a good indicator of strength of a team.

For example, currently these teams have a higher winning percentage than Illinois and would factor into SOS as a better team than Illinois, but subjectively using the polls only 6 of the 30 teams are actually stronger (SDSU, Gonzaga, Dayton, Villanova, Butler, Seton Hall).

A team that plays Bowling Green State will have a better SOS than a team that plays Illinois.

KenPom's SOS is based on opponents' offensive and defensive efficiency.
 
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