Pregame: Illinois vs Houston, Thursday, March 26th, 9:05pm CT, TBS
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The Michigan and Michigan State games are great examples. This offense struggles with physicality.
On the defensive end, we struggle with athleticism and quickness.
Houston has both of those things.
Additionally, this game is being played a mere few miles from their college campus. It's historic the last time a team has played a tourney game this close to home.
So many factors going against Illinois here. My comment wasn't that it's impossible; just extremely unlikely.
Houston has just the perfect draw to the f4. In every which way imaginable. 99% of cases, it's not even possible to get a draw like that.
Then you could make some easy money on this- sportsbooks give us a ~40% chance, but they clearly don't know what you know
There are a number of things that common sense would say favor the Cougars....but there are also a number of things that favor the Illini...but maybe fewer. The betting line is likely the best indicator and it says Houston has the better probability of escaping with a win in a very close game. And yet, it is far from guaranteed. After all, this is a 2 vs 3 matchup. The Illini were almost assuredly a 2 seed also until their final BTT game so who is to say with any degree of certainty who will win this game?
I have always felt that hitting shots was the biggest factor in winning and losing against virtual equal competition and that is anything but predictable. However, we know that Houston will not be lacking in preparedness or effort while our guys historically are a bit unpredictable in both.
At this stage of the game, either team will be quite relieved if they are to earn the win....and either could.
Illinicpa14
- Chicago
Yes - in a season where there’s been 1 total game that we havnt had a chance to win in the final 3 minutes…has turned to we are lucky to lose by single digits…as most unbiased views have it as a toss up and many actually favor our style
This game is at the inflection point of this year's NCAA Tournament. Playing in this game is a blessing. I think Houston is more likely to win, but I know our squad can definitely overcome the odds of the metrics to win. No doubt whatsoever, if the guys (lads, if you're British) are locked in.
Underwood has no other task than that, this week: find a way to whisper his squad to do what they can do. If he does that? Coach Underwood will be one of the greatest heroes of Illini lore. I wish him Godspeed.
Underwood has no other task than that, this week: find a way to whisper his squad to do what they can do. If he does that? Coach Underwood will be one of the greatest heroes of Illini lore. I wish him Godspeed.
What!? I don't think we have so little chance of winning! Come on, man! Why so negative?
Bums all around!
Actually, it is simpler than excoriating the overmatched and hapless zebras: the refs don't cheat, the rules are ridiculous, the interpretation of the rules routinely presents impossible problems, and the coaches and the howling fans are hopless. So: don't allow the game to be so close that the refs have an impact.
Simple. Only hard.
Not sure which one you're referencing, but we had two. Michigan and UCONN
Illinicpa14
- Chicago
Fair - forgot UCONN because I think Hurley said something postgame like “if they hit their shots like normal they win”
I have to agree with you. Houston is MSU on steroid. We have to bring our A+ game.
We cut it to 6 with 3 minutes left and that’s when the guy banked in the 35 foot heave that shouldn’t have even counted because they didn’t reset the shot clock
Ryan Hammer picks Houston
After making it to the sweet 16, I felt anything on top is just gravy- And I'm still reminding myself to think/feel that.. But I'd be lying if I said my mind hasn't changed a little now that I know either Nebraska or Iowa is waiting after Houston... The possibilities of being favored in an elite 8 game feels like such a dream scenario...
Analytics have their own unique set of weaknesses and I am saying this as an analytics person. They're very good at showing trends and side by side comparisons based on the idea that your about 30 game sample of data is representative of your play over a vastly large population and gives you the mean of those performances. And for the most part that's a fine approach. But where it tends to struggle is what happens when that 30 game sample isn't truly a representative one and what happens when your basis of comparison deals with asymmetric teams and dependant variables
For the first issue of the non-representative sample, coaches have caught up to the fact that you can juice metrics by scheduling a high percentage of teams at the system boundaries- the very very best opponents and the absolute worst opponents. These data points are generally considered extremely high weight points for regressions as they affect the shape of the regression much greater than points within the the middle 80-90% and are generally treated more carefully as they can strongly bias data and can serve as extreme outliers. So what happens when you basically create a full season schedule worth of weight points and outliers? Well, you basically amplify them and make the weight points the population. So teams are compared largely on how bad they destroy bad teams because margin of victory is much much greater between a good team and a very bad team than between two good teams. So a projection of Houston being 1pt better than Illinois on average is as good as the inputs, i.e. not great, and covered in noise.
The second issue is an interesting one because analytical data for teams is treated like that team is in a vacuum in many ways. You get an average representation of their play based on performance compared to other teams, and as such when comparing these metrics, the assumption you make is that they're "style of play" independent. That though isn't true. While both teams metrics are in a bubble the affect each team has on the other with their play style isn't and is a dependent variable. Now in a lot of cases it's not a huge deal. But for a game like Illinois and Houston where the teams are asymmetric you're left with an interesting question, which is does high offensive efficiency or high defensive efficiency have a statistically significant advantage over the other or is it truly neutral as the built in assumptions of making the metrics relies on?
It'd make for an interesting statistical study in the recent NIL, jacked schedules era, but it's sorta why metrics in this one may be inconclusive at best. This comes down to that fundamental question of is elite physical defense better than elite opportunistic offense and all that comes with it like rebounding ratio. And that is a different answer needed than the one the standard metrics provide. So if eye test tells you defense>>>>offense or offense>>>>>defense, well that's why eye test will be more extreme than the metrics.
Hilariously enough both fan bases have some concerns with where the game is played.
Source?
I agree that sample size and styles of play are important considerations when looking at metrics, but the above does not agree with what I've seen about Torvik and KenPom. It is somewhat true with EvanMiya (because he performs an additional step to evaluate over/under performance as a function of opponent quality), but he has some methods in place to reduce the impact of sample size in that
Also, the fact that the line is relatively close to the metrics (after accounting for a small location advantage) on this kind of makes this argument moot w.r.t. this game
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Hadnt listened to Head East in many years, but blasted it before the VCU game, and look what happened. We got this!
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