Gonzaga's Recruiting
- Thread starter MWes11
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Kentucky didn’t get throttled either and wouldn’t have. Also, Kentucky had a much tougher path. Gonzaga didn’t play anyone above a 5 seed until last night.
You can’t tell, and it’s shown over and over and over again. How many times do you need to see them lose to an athletic team that plays up tempo to understand playing Pacific and San Diego and Pepperdine does nothing to prepare them?
Let’s take it a step further if UK this year played AAAA basketball in KY and beat every team of high schoolers by 75 while out scoring them by an average of 1.25 per possession Does that really tell you anything? Didn’t think so, and the WCC amounts to little better than high schoolers.
True we lost in a closer game. Then again we almost didn't even make it to the final four that year. Notre Dame almost beat us as well.
Plus who knows what we would have done in the title game.
As far as them not playing anyone above a 5 seed, I mean you can't control that. I'd argue tho that as teams moved on it was becoming clearer and clearer that perhaps teams like UCLA were a bit underseeded. In other words it may even have been an easier path facing some teams despite the seeding being worse.
We had a ton of teams with good seeds go out very early this year.
Plus who knows what we would have done in the title game.
As far as them not playing anyone above a 5 seed, I mean you can't control that. I'd argue tho that as teams moved on it was becoming clearer and clearer that perhaps teams like UCLA were a bit underseeded. In other words it may even have been an easier path facing some teams despite the seeding being worse.
We had a ton of teams with good seeds go out very early this year.
I don’t understand how on Earth people don’t get this. I’ve racked my brain and can’t some up with any logical reason as to why. Other than they’re just hellbent on defending Gonzaga.
Did we ever come remotely close to being blown out?! Kentucky 2015 was exponentially better than the 2021 Zags.
You're undervaluing the WCC. I mean the consensus is this year you had the power conferences, the American, and then the WCC.
College {Football|Basketball|Baseball} Ranking Composite
www.masseyratings.com
So we shouldn't act as if this was the MEAC or NEC or SWAC.
The whole athletic thing that plays up tempo is a load of crap. They played teams like that in the non conference and beat them by double digits. It's a false narrative.
Take last night's game for what it's worth. Just two of the best teams in college basketball this season and one played extremely well and the other did not.
I think they wish we looked more like Gonzaga roster wise and it doesn’t fit their agenda to have a team built like that consistently lose to athletic teams and not be able to seal the deal. They’d love nothing more to be able to point and say look look look! And then proclaim that’s how we need to do it and Cal needs to get out of here!
LMAO WHAT?! Did you see the numbers that @Lempface just posted a minute ago?! You can’t be serious!!!! Also, it’s NOT a false narrative! When did Iowa, WVU and Virginia become so athletic?! Kansas just wasn’t very good.
Oh yeah. LMU at 13-9 in 3rd place and Pepperdine at 15-12 in 4th place were real powerhouses. Where do you guys think this shit up?
I’ll tell you how they’d roster IS built — way better than ours. It’s why they’ve gone as far or farther than us in the tournament every year since 2015.
Not those numbers, although, very telling. Show the WCC historical tournament numbers again.
Still had just as good or better teams than them all those years but this year. Definitely in 2017. I don’t care how far they got.
Yeah we’ve been awful in the tourney barely missing the final four in 2017, 2019.
I would have bet everything I own on that 2017 team beating the Zags by 10 had the rooferee not shingled us.
What makes this board fun for me is having differing opinions, debating the hell out of each other without name calling, and just being respectful. I enjoy debating with you. I might not agree with you. But it’s fun.
False. You think our 2017-2018 team was better? No way. Also last year. By my count at least 3 of the last 5 years, Gonzaga has been better than us.
It’s not a definitive they were better than us last year. I’ll give you 2018 and 2021. I doubt they would’ve even won the SEC last year, let alone by 3 games.
Only if you consider their conference as a good indicator, which I certainly don’t.
It might not be definitive, but I didn’t like our chances last year the way a lot of our hindsight fans do. Hagans was a train wreck at the end of the season.
Didn’t even need Hagans to be good with how good Quickley was playing. Dude was absolutely on fire and has continued that into a fantastic rookie season in the NBA when no one really expected that from him at all. Those are the type of players to put a team on their backs and carry them. Like a Napier or Walker.
I’d say the same thing about us if we played out there. Might be best team in country might be middle of the pack too 25 but it would be hard to gauge that when the best test we would get would be BYU and the Zags.
I
It’s funny, watching us relitigate what we thought about last year’s team. I loved that we came back and won that game in Gainesville from being way down. Turns out that was a fun way to end the year. But that on the heels of the Tennessee debacle, boy oh boy if we had come up short in that comeback at Florida I think a lot of people would have different thoughts about last year’s team.
Was odd, the first half against Tennessee was the best we had looked all year. The second half, one of the worst.
That’s the trip though, both those teams would have been in the NCAAT, and Uk had already won at least 7 games in conference against NCAAT teams as well as Mich St and Louisville ranked 1 and 3 at the time. We showed out in the non conf and in conf. So my faith we were substantially better is unwavering.
That's fine, and there's no way to prove either of our opinions on this one right or wrong.
I'll leave my last thought on last year at this -- you may not believe in kenpom metrics, and if you don't, that's fine. But Kenpom numbers did not like our team last year. Kenpom had us last year at #29 and Gonzaga at #2. Accordiing to the kenpom metrics, last year's team was the 3rd worst of the Calipari era (which I don't necessarily agree with because I'll take last year over 2018). But it is something to consider. The computer models didn't like last year's team.
Kenpom still has the Zags above Baylor this morning LOL. Some model he's got there.
I'm not saying it's a perfect model. But what it does have is Gonzaga and Baylor as #1 and #2, which I agree with. If you want to nitpick that the order is wrong that's fine. In actuality if Baylor hadn't had the COVID interruption and didn't take a couple losses when they came back, they'd be #1 in kenpom. The model can't account for that.
You're talking about 1 vs 2, not 2 vs 29 (which is what I'm talking about).
My answer to that, which inconveniently doesn't appear readily available, is what did KP have UCLA at before the start of the tournament? I'd be surprised if they were higher than 29.
I do wish we could look that up, I'd be interested to see how many spots UCLA's run catapulted them up the computer ratings. I'd be surprised if they jumped 16 whole spots.
Again, I never said it was a perfect model. But there is quite a delta between #29 and #2. You can make the argument that the eye test told you we were better, but the numbers just won't back you up.
While not Kenpom, I did find this.
End of Season: https://barttorvik.com/trankslice.php?year=2021#
Through 3/1: https://barttorvik.com/trankslice.p...ingames=0&venue=All&type=All&mint=0&maxt=200#
So they had UCLA 30 and moved to 18. Curious how similar to the UK ranking from last year, they had us 28.
Even still ... UCLA in this circumstance is still an outlier. Agree? I'd rather not count on being the outlier.
I just don't put faith in the computers too much, and that's coming from a professional who works all day w/ computers and data/analytics. They can get you so far, but they often do really strange things and over value teams that have no business being in the conversation.
There is a reason why were were 7/8 in the polls to close the season out.
I thought it was interesting. Honestly I didn't realize just how much Kenpom didn't like us last year. I just happened to look and was a little surprised I had to scroll all the way to #29 to find us. The model generally likes our teams more than that. I know I didn't have a ton of confidence in last year's group, unlike a lot of others (it seems like many people here have had their confidence in last year's team GROW over the past year).
For the 3rd time, it isn't perfect. But for the model to have Gonzaga and UK separated by 27 spots last year, I think that's significant. I wouldn't even have mentioned it if it were 3 or 4 spots.
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