Aike’s Model vs. Kenpom

[Aike]

Haven’t done this in awhile. Decided to go back and track performance of my model vs. Kenpom in predicting NCAA Tournament game winners.

Looked at 2022 and 2023 so far. Here is the fairly simple analysis:

If you knew before the tournament who would play in each of the 63 games, who would you pick to win each game before the start of the tournament?

This is a little more fair, because neither model gets dinged as much for early upsets.

For example, when Purdue lost to FDU in 2023, both models missed that one. But they both would have correctly predicted that FAU would beat FDU in the second round.

Here were the results:

2022
KP - 38 correct
Aike - 41 correct

2023
KP - 43 correct
Aike - 44 correct

 

[Aike]

Note that this does not consider any other team outside of the two teams playing each game. Doesn’t factor in that one team may start the tournament with a better draw, etc. Just which team was rated higher before the tournament started.

 

[Dead Cat Bounce]

Suck it, Kenpom.

 

[St.PatterSoN-54-]

Faaaaaaaaar Ken and his poms

 

[Aike]

I’ve always said, and I think this sort of backs up that a good strategy for filling out your bracket would probably be to take my model, Kenpom, and one other that you like.

Pick the team that at least 2 of 3 models agree on, but maybe do a little digging on any extreme outliers.

 

[Aike]

I checked 2024 - Kenpom won that round 45 to 44.

KP was 15/16 in round 2 last year, vs. 13/16 for me.

The overall results flipped on UT/Purdue. I had UT rated slightly ahead of Purdue. That “win” for KP flipped the results in his favor.

Across the past 3 years, I was 129/189 vs 126/189 for KP. I averaged beating him by 1 game per year. 68.2% vs. 66.7% success rate.

For the record, I didn’t personally pick UT to make the FF, despite the model predicting it. Just didn’t trust them to stop being Tennessee.

 

[TucsonCat]

I may have miscounted but in 2022 the better seed from the committee won 44 times

 

[hootervillearnolds]

I have a better idea. My then 7 year old grandson did two brackets in the backseat of my car as I was driving back from FL. He won over a $1000 in his dad's company and my wife's company pools. He pretty much picked chalk the whole way having PU and UConn in the final on both. Moral...chalk it up. He did like NCState as a dog.

 

[LineSkiCat14]

 

[Aike]

.

 

[Aike]

I have a better idea. My then 7 year old grandson did two brackets in the backseat of my car as I was driving back from FL. He won over a $1000 in his dad's company and my wife's company pools. He pretty much picked chalk the whole way having PU and UConn in the final on both. Moral...chalk it up. He did like NCState as a dog.

Congrats

 

[Aike]

I may have miscounted but in 2022 the better seed from the committee won 44 times

Think it was 42, but a lot of chalk that year outside of our region.

 

[BlueSince92]

Represent!

 

[bluegoad72]

All I know is two years ago you made me a lot of money on UCONN. They were looking like a duster fire mid season and you still had them in your top three, so I took the futures and made a couple grand. Ever get out to the Tahoe area I owe you many beers.

 

[permdaddy]

Have you checked your results against Torvik? Kinda curious how he stacks up against You/Kenpom since Torvik was officially added as a NCAA resource.

 

[Aike]

Have you checked your results against Torvik? Kinda curious how he stacks up against You/Kenpom since Torvik was officially added as a NCAA resource.

I haven’t. He has a good reputation, but I haven’t spent much time reviewing his work.

Have some tweak ideas for my model which I think could improve its ability. Have to find the time to test.

 

[PhilipVU94]

I have a better idea. My then 7 year old grandson did two brackets in the backseat of my car as I was driving back from FL. He won over a $1000 in his dad's company and my wife's company pools. He pretty much picked chalk the whole way having PU and UConn in the final on both. Moral...chalk it up. He did like NCState as a dog.

In a standard pool setup there's really little incentive to deviate from the chalk much. I usually find a couple of teams underseeded by Pomeroy ratings and go with them (lately, Houston and UCLA causing me grief). Yeah in a large pool you need to distinguish yourself but not by much, because most of your darkhorse picks are just giving up expected value.

In college I ran a pool where you got the seed of each winner you picked times a round multiplier. That was more fun because your 12 over 5 pick would pay better but you had to balance that against knocking off your likely Final Four teams.

 

[PhilipVU94]

I haven’t. He has a good reputation, but I haven’t spent much time reviewing his work..

Torvik is more transparent than KP if you follow all the FAQ links, and he doesn't charge for the details. (But he's adamant that he's not trying to compete and used Pomeroy as a starting point.)

He has a lot of fun tournament projectors. After around 20 spins I think I got Vandy to finish 11-7 in the conference and maybe a 6 seed, which feels a bit low.