Joe Lunardi’s math last night

[Aike]

I didn’t see this mentioned, but Lunardi did a segment last night during the game on why Cal was successful as a tournament coach.

I thought it was a great example of how you can make data lie or at least tell half truths.

He used a metric of expected tournament wins based on seed line, and pointed out that Cal has done better in that area than Tubby or Rick did. Cal had a ratio of 1.1 win for every expected win.

Lunardi was definitely using the opportunity to take shots at our fan base.

Ok, so here’s the lie. The problem, for the most part, hasn’t been Cal underperforming his seed line. The problem has been UK being seeded too low because Cal underperformed during the season.

A 4 seed who makes the Elite Eight has exceeded expectations. A 1 seed who makes the Final Four has only met expectations.

My contention is that Cal has had too many teams who should have been in position to get that 1 seed. But a dropped game (or 2 or 3) season after season has us up against it come March.

We haven’t gotten a 1 seed since 2015. Not entirely coincidentally, that was our last Final Four.

We caught a little fool’s gold with those deep runs in ‘11 and ‘14 as a 4 and 8 seed, respectively. Those were a lot of fun, but they were the exception that proves the rule.

Glad to see us gut it out last night. The Kansas loss is an issue. A home loss to St. Joe’s could have been a problem 4 months from now.

 

[UKBB4Ever]

Talking about making stats lie.

Cherry picking to an agenda.

If that’s what he did then so are you.

Except he used facts and you use imagination.

 

[SmyrnaCatFan]

Missed your posts, Aike.

 

[Skyguyb27]

If you offended UKBB4ever then it must be truth.

 

[Jamal Mercer]

“Ok, so here’s the lie. The problem, for the most part, hasn’t been Cal underperforming his seed line. The problem has been UK being seeded too low because Cal underperformed during the season”

Bingo

 

[Aike]

Talking about making stats lie.

Cherry picking to an agenda.

If that’s what he did then so are you.

Except he used facts and you use imagination.

I haven’t forgotten that you were calling for Cal’s head as you left the SEC Tournament last year.

I’m not sure why you feel the need to defend every aspect of Cal’s performance. He isn’t God.

But feel free to point out the lie in anything I said. I’m always up for a good conversation.

 

[Aike]

If you offended UKBB4ever then it must be truth.

I don’t take it to heart. I know he’s a fan.

 

[EliteBlue]

Talking about making stats lie.

Cherry picking to an agenda.

If that’s what he did then so are you.

Except he used facts and you use imagination.

Not at all. It’s pointing out that a u Uber sally recognized loaded roster in 2014 that underperformed by all measurements in the regular season and earned an 8 seed, largely skews the numbers by finally performing as they should had all year.

Without that season that “1.1” stat looks vastly different. If you want to take the St Peters flop out as well to remove the best and worst outliers to be fair….you still get a drastically reduced number.

Not cherry-picking…it’s why every scientific study w empirical data does an evaluation with all the data but then also an evaluation which removes outliers that sway data on the extremes of the bell curve.

 

[CatPatrick13]

He used a metric of expected tournament wins based on seed line, and pointed out that Cal has done better in that area than Tubby or Rick did. Cal had a ratio of 1.1 win for every expected win.

Ok, so here’s the lie. The problem, for the most part, hasn’t been Cal underperforming his seed line. The problem has been UK being seeded too low because Cal underperformed during the season.

Good stuff.... or if we used the metric where you were ranked preseason vs post season.

 

[bucsrule8872]

I didn’t see this mentioned, but Lunardi did a segment last night during the game on why Cal was successful as a tournament coach.

I thought it was a great example of how you can make data lie or at least tell half truths.

He used a metric of expected tournament wins based on seed line, and pointed out that Cal has done better in that area than Tubby or Rick did. Cal had a ratio of 1.1 win for every expected win.

Lunardi was definitely using the opportunity to take shots at our fan base.

Ok, so here’s the lie. The problem, for the most part, hasn’t been Cal underperforming his seed line. The problem has been UK being seeded too low because Cal underperformed during the season.

A 4 seed who makes the Elite Eight has exceeded expectations. A 1 seed who makes the Final Four has only met expectations.

My contention is that Cal has had too many teams who should have been in position to get that 1 seed. But a dropped game (or 2 or 3) season after season has us up against it come March.

We haven’t gotten a 1 seed since 2015. Not entirely coincidentally, that was our last Final Four.

We caught a little fool’s gold with those deep runs in ‘11 and ‘14 as a 4 and 8 seed, respectively. Those were a lot of fun, but they were the exception that proves the rule.

Glad to see us gut it out last night. The Kansas loss is an issue. A home loss to St. Joe’s could have been a problem 4 months from now.

Excellent post as usual.

You hit the nail on the head.

 

[kybassfan]

I didn’t see this mentioned, but Lunardi did a segment last night during the game on why Cal was successful as a tournament coach.

I thought it was a great example of how you can make data lie or at least tell half truths.

He used a metric of expected tournament wins based on seed line, and pointed out that Cal has done better in that area than Tubby or Rick did. Cal had a ratio of 1.1 win for every expected win.

Lunardi was definitely using the opportunity to take shots at our fan base.

Ok, so here’s the lie. The problem, for the most part, hasn’t been Cal underperforming his seed line. The problem has been UK being seeded too low because Cal underperformed during the season.

A 4 seed who makes the Elite Eight has exceeded expectations. A 1 seed who makes the Final Four has only met expectations.

My contention is that Cal has had too many teams who should have been in position to get that 1 seed. But a dropped game (or 2 or 3) season after season has us up against it come March.

We haven’t gotten a 1 seed since 2015. Not entirely coincidentally, that was our last Final Four.

We caught a little fool’s gold with those deep runs in ‘11 and ‘14 as a 4 and 8 seed, respectively. Those were a lot of fun, but they were the exception that proves the rule.

Glad to see us gut it out last night. The Kansas loss is an issue. A home loss to St. Joe’s could have been a problem 4 months from now.

You are correct. You have taken unsubstantiated numbers and turned them into crap.

 

[Aike]

Not at all. It’s pointing out that a u Uber sally recognized loaded roster in 2014 that underperformed by all measurements in the regular season and earned an 8 seed, largely skews the numbers by finally performing as they should had all year.

Without that season that “1.1” stat looks vastly different. If you want to take the St Peters flop out as well to remove the best and worst outliers to be fair….you still get a drastically reduced number.

Not cherry-picking…it’s why every scientific study w empirical data does an evaluation with all the data but then also an evaluation which removes outliers that sway data on the extremes of the bell curve.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved ‘11 and ‘14. We all did.

But off the top of my head, I think 7 of our 9 wins in those tournaments came down to the last possession or two.

Part of my point is that it’s tough to survive that way. We’ve seen some evening out of those odds the past few years. I would much rather dominate our way to a 1 seed and somewhat coast into the Sweet 16 at least. It wasn’t too many years ago that we had that as an expectation.

 

[Mike-D]

I didn’t see this mentioned, but Lunardi did a segment last night during the game on why Cal was successful as a tournament coach.

I thought it was a great example of how you can make data lie or at least tell half truths.

He used a metric of expected tournament wins based on seed line, and pointed out that Cal has done better in that area than Tubby or Rick did. Cal had a ratio of 1.1 win for every expected win.

Lunardi was definitely using the opportunity to take shots at our fan base.

Ok, so here’s the lie. The problem, for the most part, hasn’t been Cal underperforming his seed line. The problem has been UK being seeded too low because Cal underperformed during the season.

A 4 seed who makes the Elite Eight has exceeded expectations. A 1 seed who makes the Final Four has only met expectations.

My contention is that Cal has had too many teams who should have been in position to get that 1 seed. But a dropped game (or 2 or 3) season after season has us up against it come March.

We haven’t gotten a 1 seed since 2015. Not entirely coincidentally, that was our last Final Four.

We caught a little fool’s gold with those deep runs in ‘11 and ‘14 as a 4 and 8 seed, respectively. Those were a lot of fun, but they were the exception that proves the rule.

Glad to see us gut it out last night. The Kansas loss is an issue. A home loss to St. Joe’s could have been a problem 4 months from now.

Read that again. No 1 seed since 2015. That's unacceptable.

 

[Aike]

You are correct. You have taken unsubstantiated numbers and turned them into crap.

What’s unsubstantiated? We haven’t gotten a 1 seed since 2015, correct?

Now you could argue that we haven’t had enough talent or ability to earn one seeds. So which is it?

Has Cal had inferior teams that he couldn’t coach up? Or has he had superior teams that couldn’t perform to their abilities?

Either way, who is to blame?

Either way, I hope this is our year. Gutting out a win last night was one for the plus column.

 

[Aike]

Read that again. No 1 seed since 2015. That's unacceptable.

It’s unprecedented in my nearly half century on this planet. I’m not clear on why anyone would be ok with it.

Don’t get me wrong, if we’d squeezed in a couple of more Final Fours as 2/3/4 seeds I would tip my cap. But it’s been a while.

 

[JimmyBlue1972]

I didn’t see this mentioned, but Lunardi did a segment last night during the game on why Cal was successful as a tournament coach.

I thought it was a great example of how you can make data lie or at least tell half truths.

He used a metric of expected tournament wins based on seed line, and pointed out that Cal has done better in that area than Tubby or Rick did. Cal had a ratio of 1.1 win for every expected win.

Lunardi was definitely using the opportunity to take shots at our fan base.

Ok, so here’s the lie. The problem, for the most part, hasn’t been Cal underperforming his seed line. The problem has been UK being seeded too low because Cal underperformed during the season.

A 4 seed who makes the Elite Eight has exceeded expectations. A 1 seed who makes the Final Four has only met expectations.

My contention is that Cal has had too many teams who should have been in position to get that 1 seed. But a dropped game (or 2 or 3) season after season has us up against it come March.

We haven’t gotten a 1 seed since 2015. Not entirely coincidentally, that was our last Final Four.

We caught a little fool’s gold with those deep runs in ‘11 and ‘14 as a 4 and 8 seed, respectively. Those were a lot of fun, but they were the exception that proves the rule.

Glad to see us gut it out last night. The Kansas loss is an issue. A home loss to St. Joe’s could have been a problem 4 months from now.

He stated facts to take shots at our “fanbase”. LOL.

 

[Aike]

He stated facts to take shots at our “fanbase”. LOL.

The fact that he’s outperformed his seed line by 10% is only one side of the coin. Lunardi ignored the other side of the coin…to take shots at our fan base.

 

[ukcatz12]

But off the top of my head, I think 7 of our 9 wins in those tournaments came down to the last possession or two.

That's definitely true for '11 and '14. Those runs had a lot of luck involved. But you can say the inverse for '17 and '19. In those Elite 8 games we got the short end of the stick in the luck department. Better officiating and changing the outcome of one shot in both games and those are Final Fours.

I really think a huge different between '10-'15 and '16-'21 is luck. Normalize the luck and you take one or two Final Fours from the first half of Cal's tenure and add them to the back half. If we made the Final Four in '19 I don't think people would be complaining about not being a one seed.

 

[Aike]

That's definitely true for '11 and '14. Those runs had a lot of luck involved. But you can say the inverse for '17 and '19. In those Elite 8 games we got the short end of the stick in the luck department. Better officiating and changing the outcome of one shot in both games and those are Final Fours.

I really think a huge different between '10-'15 and '16-'21 is luck. Normalize the luck and you take one or two Final Fours from the first half of Cal's tenure and add them to the back half. If we made the Final Four in '19 I don't think people would be complaining about not being a one seed.

I said in one of these posts that the odds have evened out over the last few years, so I agree. All the more reason to fight for that one seed.

Generally, you will be in a better position to advance with a one than with any other seed.

Then there’s just the realty that teams who fight their way to a one instead of “letting go of the rope” multiple times throughout the season tend to be tougher and better prepared by March.

 

[Skyguyb27]

I don’t take it to heart. I know he’s a fan.

Yeah, we all get joked on around here sooner or later.

 

[crestcat]

If we get a one you can be sure we earned its

 

[YardCat]

Winning fixes almost everything, I miss the days where we complained about winning by only 10-15 points.

 

[Aike]

If we get a one you can be sure we earned its

True enough

 

[DreadLox]

I didn’t see this mentioned, but Lunardi did a segment last night during the game on why Cal was successful as a tournament coach.

I thought it was a great example of how you can make data lie or at least tell half truths.

He used a metric of expected tournament wins based on seed line, and pointed out that Cal has done better in that area than Tubby or Rick did. Cal had a ratio of 1.1 win for every expected win.

Lunardi was definitely using the opportunity to take shots at our fan base.

Ok, so here’s the lie. The problem, for the most part, hasn’t been Cal underperforming his seed line. The problem has been UK being seeded too low because Cal underperformed during the season.

A 4 seed who makes the Elite Eight has exceeded expectations. A 1 seed who makes the Final Four has only met expectations.

My contention is that Cal has had too many teams who should have been in position to get that 1 seed. But a dropped game (or 2 or 3) season after season has us up against it come March.

We haven’t gotten a 1 seed since 2015. Not entirely coincidentally, that was our last Final Four.

We caught a little fool’s gold with those deep runs in ‘11 and ‘14 as a 4 and 8 seed, respectively. Those were a lot of fun, but they were the exception that proves the rule.

Glad to see us gut it out last night. The Kansas loss is an issue. A home loss to St. Joe’s could have been a problem 4 months from now.

That assumes that someone knows the effectiveness of the team at every point during the season, and nobody knows that. Seeding is a preposterously vague process. The lie -- and the word is misleading -- is assuming that the numbers reflect reliable measures rather than vaguely informed guesses. People go broke imagining that sports statistics are something they're not.

 

[Aike]

That assumes that someone knows the effectiveness of the team at every point during the season, and nobody knows that. Seeding is a preposterously vague process. The lie -- and the word is misleading -- is assuming that the numbers reflect reliable measures rather than vaguely informed guesses. People go broke imagining that sports statistics are something they're not.

This could be called not seeing the forest for the trees.

And as long as we’re talking about trees, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I have a fairly healthy understanding of what sports statistics are, and what they are not.

 

[DreadLox]

This could be called not seeing the forest for the trees.

And as long as we’re talking about trees, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I have a fairly healthy understanding of what sports statistics are, and what they are not.

It could be called lots of things.

I know lots of stats. For example, Harvey Kuehn won the AL batting title in 1959 with a .353 average. I also know his signature model glove was more like a dog bed than a baseball glove.

 

[Aike]

It could be called lots of things.

I know lots of stats. For example, Harvey Kuehn won the AL batting title in 1959 with a .353 average. I also know his signature model glove was more like a dog bed than a baseball glove.

Can’t argue with that.

 

[kybassfan]

What’s unsubstantiated? We haven’t gotten a 1 seed since 2015, correct?

Now you could argue that we haven’t had enough talent or ability to earn one seeds. So which is it?

Has Cal had inferior teams that he couldn’t coach up? Or has he had superior teams that couldn’t perform to their abilities?

Either way, who is to blame?

Either way, I hope this is our year. Gutting out a win last night was one for the plus column.

Unskilled teams This issue has been devastating the last few years. We get these fabulous athletes that have never been taught to play basketball. This year we seem to have about 3 that can and 3 others that are catching on. Coaches can not teach 3 or 4 years worth of instinct and experience in a few months. I think this is the mechanism for lunarndi’s point.

You just have to look at Reed. You think he is a world class athlete? Why does he stand out? It’s simple. The kid knows how to play basketball. His game is not trivially jack threes and jack threes.

 

[jwphelps]

I didn’t see this mentioned, but Lunardi did a segment last night during the game on why Cal was successful as a tournament coach.

I thought it was a great example of how you can make data lie or at least tell half truths.

He used a metric of expected tournament wins based on seed line, and pointed out that Cal has done better in that area than Tubby or Rick did. Cal had a ratio of 1.1 win for every expected win.

Lunardi was definitely using the opportunity to take shots at our fan base.

Ok, so here’s the lie. The problem, for the most part, hasn’t been Cal underperforming his seed line. The problem has been UK being seeded too low because Cal underperformed during the season.

A 4 seed who makes the Elite Eight has exceeded expectations. A 1 seed who makes the Final Four has only met expectations.

My contention is that Cal has had too many teams who should have been in position to get that 1 seed. But a dropped game (or 2 or 3) season after season has us up against it come March.

We haven’t gotten a 1 seed since 2015. Not entirely coincidentally, that was our last Final Four.

We caught a little fool’s gold with those deep runs in ‘11 and ‘14 as a 4 and 8 seed, respectively. Those were a lot of fun, but they were the exception that proves the rule.

Glad to see us gut it out last night. The Kansas loss is an issue. A home loss to St. Joe’s could have been a problem 4 months from now.

I agree, he was just kissing Cal's butt, because since we lost to UNC in the elite 8 Cal has been a major disappointment, not sure what happened, maybe that article by Tucker hit the nail on the head.

 

[Aike]

Unskilled teams This issue has been devastating the last few years. We get these fabulous athletes that have never been taught to play basketball. This year we seem to have about 3 that can and 3 others that are catching on. Coaches can not teach 3 or 4 years worth of instinct and experience in a few months. I think this is the mechanism for lunarndi’s point.

You just have to look at Reed. You think he is a world class athlete? Why does he stand out? It’s simple. The kid knows how to play basketball. His game is not trivially jack threes and jack threes.

Fair enough. More than a little truth to the idea that we’ve had too many of the wrong players in the fold recently.

I blame that on a couple of things. One was Cal not adjusting fast enough when we were no longer dominating the one and done market. The other is that Cal has made some poor coaching hires, contributing to poorer player evaluation.

For my money, bringing in Welch and allowing him to operate was one of Cal’s best moves in years. Much less dead weight on this staff (but still a couple hundred pounds at least).

 

[Aike]

I agree, he was just kissing Cal's butt, because since we lost to UNC in the elite 8 Cal has been a major disappointment, not sure what happened, maybe that article by Tucker hit the nail on the head.

I honestly haven’t read it.

 

[Ripcord65]

Missed your posts, Aike.

Me, too, Aike.

 

[yoshukai]

It’s unprecedented in my nearly half century on this planet. I’m not clear on why anyone would be ok with it.

Don’t get me wrong, if we’d squeezed in a couple of more Final Fours as 2/3/4 seeds I would tip my cap. But it’s been a while.

Pretty sure our best win is over a 3 seeded Houston team in that time .

 

[Dontworryboutit23]

I didn’t see this mentioned, but Lunardi did a segment last night during the game on why Cal was successful as a tournament coach.

I thought it was a great example of how you can make data lie or at least tell half truths.

He used a metric of expected tournament wins based on seed line, and pointed out that Cal has done better in that area than Tubby or Rick did. Cal had a ratio of 1.1 win for every expected win.

Lunardi was definitely using the opportunity to take shots at our fan base.

Ok, so here’s the lie. The problem, for the most part, hasn’t been Cal underperforming his seed line. The problem has been UK being seeded too low because Cal underperformed during the season.

A 4 seed who makes the Elite Eight has exceeded expectations. A 1 seed who makes the Final Four has only met expectations.

My contention is that Cal has had too many teams who should have been in position to get that 1 seed. But a dropped game (or 2 or 3) season after season has us up against it come March.

We haven’t gotten a 1 seed since 2015. Not entirely coincidentally, that was our last Final Four.

We caught a little fool’s gold with those deep runs in ‘11 and ‘14 as a 4 and 8 seed, respectively. Those were a lot of fun, but they were the exception that proves the rule.

Glad to see us gut it out last night. The Kansas loss is an issue. A home loss to St. Joe’s could have been a problem 4 months from now.

I wanted to win the Kansas game but what exactly is the issue with that loss? Is it late game execution?

 

[catsfan3383]

I didn’t see this mentioned, but Lunardi did a segment last night during the game on why Cal was successful as a tournament coach.

I thought it was a great example of how you can make data lie or at least tell half truths.

He used a metric of expected tournament wins based on seed line, and pointed out that Cal has done better in that area than Tubby or Rick did. Cal had a ratio of 1.1 win for every expected win.

Lunardi was definitely using the opportunity to take shots at our fan base.

Ok, so here’s the lie. The problem, for the most part, hasn’t been Cal underperforming his seed line. The problem has been UK being seeded too low because Cal underperformed during the season.

A 4 seed who makes the Elite Eight has exceeded expectations. A 1 seed who makes the Final Four has only met expectations.

My contention is that Cal has had too many teams who should have been in position to get that 1 seed. But a dropped game (or 2 or 3) season after season has us up against it come March.

We haven’t gotten a 1 seed since 2015. Not entirely coincidentally, that was our last Final Four.

We caught a little fool’s gold with those deep runs in ‘11 and ‘14 as a 4 and 8 seed, respectively. Those were a lot of fun, but they were the exception that proves the rule.

Glad to see us gut it out last night. The Kansas loss is an issue. A home loss to St. Joe’s could have been a problem 4 months from now.

Excellent post! Glad someone else noticed this. I was shaking my head on this exact same point all during his “geek out”.
You can’t “reward someone“ for exceeding expectations (seed line) when the only reason they did is by sucking to achieve a worse seed line than the talent on your teams were originally expected to get 🤣.
That was a complete joke of a segment by Lunardi but hey, he is the Kim Kardashian of college sports so what can you expect. He’s gotten wildly famous for literally doing nothing

 

[Aike]

I wanted to win the Kansas game but what exactly is the issue with that loss? Is it late game execution?

I was just saying that in the scheme of things, a neutral court loss to a team of that caliber may or may not cost us a seed line.

As to why we lost? Execution at the end of both halves, and inability to adjust defensively (stop going under the screen, especially up 6 late) would get my votes.

 

[Aike]

Pretty sure our best win is over a 3 seeded Houston team in that time .

Wichita St. and UCLA wins in 2017 were both pretty good too. But we haven’t had much to hang our hats on for a while. At least in the tournament.

 

[North Carolina Blue Wildcat]

No one is arguing through 2016.. but Cal has been worse statistically than Tubby since. Completely unacceptable at UK and if it weren’t for that ridiculous contract, I would have hoped we would have moved on. Like him or not, he has really sucked it up since the Wisconsin game.

 

[Dontworryboutit23]

I was just saying that in the scheme of things, a neutral court loss to a team of that caliber may or may not cost us a seed line.

As to why we lost? Execution at the end of both halves, and inability to adjust defensively (stop going under the screen, especially up 6 late) would get my votes.

Gotcha I was reading and though you were saying it’s a bad loss, you usually don’t do that with games like that. But I agree it could cost UK a seed line, that’s why the Miami game is huge, they need to get that own for sure

 

[Aike]

No one is arguing through 2016.. but Cal has been worse statistically than Tubby since. Completely unacceptable at UK and if it weren’t for that ridiculous contract, I would have hoped we would have moved on. Like him or not, he has really sucked it up since the Wisconsin game.

Not to pile on, but the latest thing Cal does to get on my nerves is to claim that we could have won it all in 2020.

Not saying we couldn’t have, but would we have? 95% chance we wouldn’t have. We were looking at a 2 seed at best with a strong SEC tourney showing. Our PG situation was in flux. And Kansas was the clear number 1.

Trying to deflect from your failures by talking about the one that got away is loser stuff. Definitely far beneath a HOF coach.