Has KY 18-13 overall 8-10 in SEC. Personally I think we win minimum of 20.
Kenpom Season Prediction- Kentucky
- Thread starter TOMCATS1990
- Start date
Hmm. Well that’s a bit worrisome if you believe this stuff. That resume may not make the NCAA’s. I think this team is better than that.
It's way off. He doesn't have enough applicable data to work with yet - especially in the era of brand new teams every year. And I think there was a lengthy thread on this already.
KenPom and other statistically based rankings are meaningless before the season starts, or even very early in the season (before Dec). There just isn’t any or enough data for them. Therefore they rely upon subjective ASSUMPTIONS. Not objective data.
And I should know, as I am a Statistician, and even created a statistical computer ranking system for college basketball about 20 years ago.
And I should know, as I am a Statistician, and even created a statistical computer ranking system for college basketball about 20 years ago.
Assuming that's about a third or so of the season in, do you know what sort of analyses they do to take into account the low sample size? We don't get into the sweet spot of 30 minimum data points until the season is basically over.
30 to 1 to win the sec
I put a Ulysses on that go cats
I put a Ulysses on that go cats
Let’s just play the games. Screw the computer projections!
No way bro.
This team has it all and then some-just believe-
Cal is gone, you can come out from under the covers now.
Just made up numbers based on close to nothing at this point.
Not claiming we'll win the the SEC, but I just don't see us dropping 10 conference games. Even if the conference is really good, 10 is a lot.
This isn’t a 13 loss team unless we are playing top 10 teams every week. I wouldn’t be surprised to see us in the top 10 at some point this season
I know that it's hard to judge success by one exhibition game, but that team I watched the other night is impressive. Scoring 123 against ether would have been impressive. And they made it look effortless. KenPom is a joke.
Yeah i think anyone making these rankings and predictions are just being reserved. A wait-and-see approach..
Which is still funny, because this sort of thing only applies to UK. Any other new coach just gets the benefit of the doubt it seems. Scheyer, Hubert Davis... even BYUs first time coach gets more respect than Pope at UK lol.
It's pretty clear that the directive from ESPN and the NCAA is that they don't want UK winning.. it's not one of their academia programs, and it's not Duke or UNC or Kansas. Therefore we're the biggest threat.
Which is still funny, because this sort of thing only applies to UK. Any other new coach just gets the benefit of the doubt it seems. Scheyer, Hubert Davis... even BYUs first time coach gets more respect than Pope at UK lol.
It's pretty clear that the directive from ESPN and the NCAA is that they don't want UK winning.. it's not one of their academia programs, and it's not Duke or UNC or Kansas. Therefore we're the biggest threat.
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Great post LSC. Im glad Im not the only one preaching this be cause its soooooo true and blatant.
I don't understand how Kenpom predicts anything in regards to a team with all new players. With the way the transfor portal functions in 2024: It seems much harder to build a statisical model than the days when teams returned 70% of their players.
Our problems the last few years: Some teams didn't have enough shooters. Some teams didn't play defense very well. Most teams didin't have enough experience.
Now we have the most experienced team we've seen in 15+ years. We've got shooters for days. We have elite defenders at multiple positions.
The only thing you could ding us for is lack of chemistry. And that looks far better than anyone expect.
Our problems the last few years: Some teams didn't have enough shooters. Some teams didn't play defense very well. Most teams didin't have enough experience.
Now we have the most experienced team we've seen in 15+ years. We've got shooters for days. We have elite defenders at multiple positions.
The only thing you could ding us for is lack of chemistry. And that looks far better than anyone expect.
I don’t put any stock in the KP rankings. But it still may not be far off. This is a roster that was constructed in about a month and a half when there wasn’t a lot in the portal to begin with. I do think pope got a really good roster out of what was available. Pope should not be judged by year 1
When I saw the thread title I said to myself that I’d take the over. Absolutely sticking with that now.
My belief is that not only will Kentucky be a top 10 team this season but also the national media will love Mark Pope.
Beating Duke would go a LONG way into getting everyone's attention. I believe a Duje win vaults us into the top15 and we open a lot of eyes.
I don't think casual fans and even a lot of the media think we're a better team without Cal. That's always been the thought: "well they got Pope, but they lost Cal".
When in reality Pope won't have to do much to be better than Cal was these last 5 years. And that's kind of something they don't get at the moment.
Most of these are possession based, so 10 games in teams each have hundreds of possessions - plenty enough to make some sense.
They do tend to get sharper and sharper as the season goes on, but some weight different parts of the season differently as well. A mix of science and art.
A third of the season sounds exactly right. Ken has said that his model doesn't operate fully on the current season's data until around the new year some time. Until then it operates on a lot of historical data, including last year's, and reasonable assumptions based on last year's data. He won't ever tell us for sure though.
I'm guessing for a situation like ours it's more difficult because we have a new coach with a completely new team. If it was a returning coach and a good portion of the team returned, then last year's data would be a lot more useful. His model can look at how Pope's teams have performed in the past with things like offensive tempo, shot distribution, etc., but that's probably a lot harder to do when you have to apply it to players who have never played together before. You also might have mid-major transfers (keep in mind his data is always adjusted for opponent strength) who don't project very well into this season because all their data from last year is based on lesser competition.
If you subscribe you can see a lot more in-depth data, including things like most utilized lineups, which players get which percentage of minutes at different positions, which is cool and doesn't really rely on large sample sets of data. But I don't really use it to make any determinations on which teams are good until at least January.
Ah, that makes sense. Statistics, being a mathematical science, is both fascinating and out of my wheelhouse. 😂
With those data, I have to assume there's some sort of modeling that can be done with current players based on estimations of minutes distributions, productivity, and previous systems. Even if the confidence values are garbage, we might be and to discern something.
Sea of Blue has the story someone post the link it also predicts game by game scores along with Wins and loses
I wanted to do the same but I couldn't pull the trigger. The SEC having a zillion teams now does not allow for a balanced schedule. We always seem to draw the short end of the stick regarding schedule strength to boot. So that seems to work against us. I'll save my ammo for an SEC tournament play later.
No way in hell this team only wins 18 games...agreed on above. Personally think we are going to be very very good.
KenPomPom is fake numbers.
He doesn’t count an offensive rebound as a possession.
If a player has a controlled tip and tips it in it’s a rebound and a shot on the stat sheet. It’s a shot whether it goes in or not.
But according to KenPomPom it can’t happen since it wasn’t a possession.
His story is because he’s just tracking pace. Ok, that’s fine.
But pace will not tell you anything about win/loss. Just how fast or slow a team plays.
Take KenPomPom projections to Vegas and go broke.
He doesn’t count an offensive rebound as a possession.
If a player has a controlled tip and tips it in it’s a rebound and a shot on the stat sheet. It’s a shot whether it goes in or not.
But according to KenPomPom it can’t happen since it wasn’t a possession.
His story is because he’s just tracking pace. Ok, that’s fine.
But pace will not tell you anything about win/loss. Just how fast or slow a team plays.
Take KenPomPom projections to Vegas and go broke.
