Kenpom offense just went to #1...
- Thread starter Aike
- Start date
Maybe someone said this but I'd imagine our defensive PPP avg is due to less than stellar 3 pt D.
We've let a bunch of no names jack threes most of the losses. Today overcame with stellar offense.
Which I love about this team - they can damn sure score.
We've let a bunch of no names jack threes most of the losses. Today overcame with stellar offense.
Which I love about this team - they can damn sure score.
Yeah. And in our SEC games, we have won the majority of them by double digits.......it's possible we just let up at the end of most of those which skews the data a bit.
Also the flipside to this is the SEC has a bunch of very good defensive teams. The fact that our offense is putting up this much output against good defensive teams can only be good for the NCAA.
Our 3 point D isn't that bad. We are hurt more by being called for too many fouls, and giving up offensive rebounds.
It's also skewed by refs blowing a lot of whistles at the tail end of those blowouts.
I doubt it makes a significant difference, but I'm sure it hurts us somewhat, and that is that in most of our games we have won easily, we give up a good number of points late in the game when we are just running out the clock and the other team pours in pts in the final min or two. We aren't exactly playing good defense at that point.
We are currently 1st in opponents assist %, 5th in block percentage, and 10th in opponents' effective field goal percentage.
So we do a few things really well on defense.
Cut down on the fouls and do a slightly better job on the glass, and we are right where we need to be.
So we do a few things really well on defense.
Cut down on the fouls and do a slightly better job on the glass, and we are right where we need to be.
Just freaking rebound the ball. Drives me insane.
With our FG% defense being excellent if they just held teams to one shot each trip, that would make all the difference in the world.
I think the fouling is what it is at this point. We may get refs in the tournament that call the game a bit less crazy than the way it's called in the SEC. Still I don't see Poy and Lee magically not turning into non foul machines.
With our FG% defense being excellent if they just held teams to one shot each trip, that would make all the difference in the world.
I think the fouling is what it is at this point. We may get refs in the tournament that call the game a bit less crazy than the way it's called in the SEC. Still I don't see Poy and Lee magically not turning into non foul machines.
I think one aspect of Poythress and Lee's foul troubles is body language. They give off a vibe that they are fouling even if they aren't. Alex lacks a smoothness to his play at times, and Lee is often a bull in a china shop. Some players sell their defense with a swagger, and don't look at the ref like they are expecting to be whistled.
Random thoughts:
1. For those comparing last year to this year re whether it's better to have a top rated offense or defense, don't forget our offense was top 5 last year. That was with a better strength of schedule in a much, much more competitive year (in terms of number of strong teams).
2. If we get on the kind of run we all think we're capable, that #70 D will come down quickly. Same situation Duke was in last year.
1. For those comparing last year to this year re whether it's better to have a top rated offense or defense, don't forget our offense was top 5 last year. That was with a better strength of schedule in a much, much more competitive year (in terms of number of strong teams).
2. If we get on the kind of run we all think we're capable, that #70 D will come down quickly. Same situation Duke was in last year.
Agreed about year to year as last year had better teams but FWIW Kenpom breaks down SOS by total, offensive and defensive.
This year we have actually faced the 14th toughest as far as defenses go.
Last year .,,,,,,,,29th.
Duke's defense was ranked 57th by Pomeroy entering the NCAA tournament. No it was mentioned before but I didn't know what it was, saw a tweet about it tonight
That is a big discussion. First, I'll let kenpom explain it. http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2011/03/ratings_madness.html
Then Jon.
http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/rpi.html
The sos issue for me is its self perpetuating tendencies. So long as a conference has planned properly, it can appear in RPI that the entire conference is better than it actually is. Therefore, as the teams in that conference play each other, the conference improves by perception. The converse is also true. Another problem I have with RPI is using a teams current standing instead of the teams standing when the game was played. Use Duke this year. We had to play them at full strength when they were much better and higher rated, but after they lost Jefferson and the season dragged on, their RPI got worse. Why is UK penalized now for having played a stronger team? Answer me this, which team played a tougher schedule. Team A played the 1 and 2 in the country, but also played the 250 and 251 teams. Team B played teams 100, 101, 102 and 200. RPI is so flawed that it is nearly useless and it can be manipulated far to easily.
Kenpom and RPI are totally different in methodology and what they measure. Kenpom is a margin of victory based system intended to make predictions about future performance while the RPI attempts to measure the quality of the W/L record. Winning and losing is irrelevant in Kenpom while margin of victory is ignored by RPI.
Your question depends on what you are measuring. Are you measuring a team's actual strength or are you interested in discerning the quality of the record? Your query matters for the latter, but not necessarily for the former. That's because a team's expected winning percentage is likely to be less in the first scenario, but their overall point margin will likely be less influenced in both scenarios.
Last edited:
Wait, what? I know their differences, but did you just say Team B from my example is likely to have a lower winning percentage that team A? That statement is completely arbitrary. Who is the assumed opponent? Or are you saying it doesn't matter who the opponent is, it is true. I'm talking about reality here. The 10th best team has a good chance against 1,2 and is almost automatic against 250, 251. It would beat the other 4 the vast majority of the time.
The other poster was originally talking about the efficiency numbers being weighted by SOS. You then said that SOS is arbitrary and biased.
He wasn't talking about RPI, but then you shifted gears to RPI to explain your position.
I think that Kenpom SOS is much more accurate than RPI, because more factors than wins, losses, and location are considered.
Nothing is perfect, though, and at the end of the day it's only one factor.
SOS is part of both systems, they jst use different formulas to come up with a number. I'm not really fond of any of them.
I don't pay much attention to Kenpom and the rest of them, but they are certainly more accurate with a better perspective than the old days. Use to drive me crazy years back, when b'ball writers and commentators would sing the praises of Pete Carril at Princeton, in that they would have the top defense year in and year out. Of course they never mentioned that Princeton's offense wasn't much more than a speeded up version of the '4 corner' and that Princeton would average about 45 points a game.
somehow this isn't surprising
seems like an awful lot of hero ball garbage shots this year, and in cal's tenure overall
It's a stat where we consistently do well under Cal. We take teams out of what they are trying to do.
cal wants to stay compact and force contested shots out of rhythm. teams get very little out of running their offense against an average-performing uk defense
no tricks or gimmicks. the water-tight fundamental soundness of cal's approach is something he seems to get very little credit for
no tricks or gimmicks. the water-tight fundamental soundness of cal's approach is something he seems to get very little credit for
So what exactly is the flaw in Kenpom's calculating of SOS?
I'm curious. I think by breaking it down between offense and defense makes the SOS more accurate than other systems IMO.
I'm curious. I think by breaking it down between offense and defense makes the SOS more accurate than other systems IMO.
I think it's difficult to quantify.
I think when the very best teams ratchet up their level of intensity, there is more separation between them and mid-tier teams than data alone would indicate.
To a degree, most teams go through the motions, most of the time. It's hard to capture the strength of a team at the moment you played them, and discount what they do the rest of the time.
Part of this is the "we're everybody's Super Bowl" argument. How do you measure the strength of our game at LSU? They were a top 10 team that night, but barely top 100 the rest of the time.
There's more to it than that, but that's a start. For the record, I don't think Kenpom is bad. Only imperfect like all other measures.
I agree. I mean you're never going to have a perfect system. It's just impossible to measure everything accurately.
And not just SOS wise......but so the other day UGA plays outta their minds and our defense takes a hit.......obviously puts our defense into the 70s in efficiency. Now some of that was bad defense.......but some of that was just UGA playing way over their heads. It's extremely hard to measure just how much of each this all is.
I still feel like computer rankings are the way to go as far as measuring strength goes. I think it would do much better than the committee. There's no reason we should have been a 4 seed this year. Ditto for 2011 and 14.
Similar threads
