2023-2024 MBB computer projections thread

[Sigmapolis]

Colorado State is terrifying as well. Ball dominant point guard that's scored a million points and 8 other guys on the roster that shoot the 3 at a high clip.

It's a good league. They've made the wise, IMO, decision to dump a bunch of their football money into basketball and it's really paid off for them.

MWC + Oregon St. + Washington St. + Gonzaga + St. Mary's = 11 + 4 = 15

That's a good western league.

The problem would be some of the dregs (mostly Wyoming, Fresno St., San Jose St., and Air Force) would be challenging DePaul for the title of worst "power" team this season.

Maybe their fortunes would improve if the MWC could firmly stake a claim to be a power conference and have some increase in prestige, money, and recruiting that would come with it.

 

[AuH2O]

Colorado State is terrifying as well. Ball dominant point guard that's scored a million points and 8 other guys on the roster that shoot the 3 at a high clip.

It's a good league. They've made the wise, IMO, decision to dump a bunch of their football money into basketball and it's really paid off for them.

Yes - MWC basketball is a fun league. It's been solid for a while, but they are getting more depth over the years. Probably the most fun non "P6" since peak MVC back when WSU, Creighton and UNI were all good.

I suppose it's so easy to transfer now that it's tough to be a multi-bid league outside the P6. MWC is doing as well as you can in this environment. MVC CAN produce multi-bid years, but it's a pretty tight needle to thread, as they pretty much need a dominant team to lose in Arch Madness.

 

[qwerty]

Torvik's TournyCast seed predictions for ISU
1: 27.3%
2: 35.6%
3: 26.3%
4: 9.1%
5: 1.3%
6: 0.3%
7: 0.1%
8-16: 0%

Roughly a 80% chance at least a top 3 seed in February. Not too shabby.

Add them up again. It is 89.2% for top 3 seed, 98.3% for a top 4 seed.

 

[NWICY]

How the heck is TJ doing this with a team that features zero P6 transfers (unless you count Tre King from Georgetown, though he never played a minute for them) and one 4* recruit.

Yeah there's a 5* recruit on the roster but he can't even find minutes.

Coaching and getting the players to buy in makes the sum greater than the parts. IMO.

 

[NWICY]

Isn't it already named after Johnny?

And I agree with you about the Mountain West. It's close to a power conference as it is right now and probably should be considered the western power conference once the Pac-12 vaporizes here soon and the de facto Pac-12 remnants (and poor OR St. and WA St.) end up joining with the MWC.

I don't think it should be one for football, but it has a compelling case for hoops.

I don't think the floor is named at least it isn't painted on anywhere that I can remember with out looking.

 

[cycloneworld]

I think it's really important to have bigs who are capable and old. CW has really hammered home how tough it is for young talented players like Omaha to compete against 24 year olds. Then you extrapolate out how hard it is to find capable big men on the transfer market and think about how we have 3 in Jones, Ward, and King. Our guards are great, but a lot of teams have great guard play.

I agree with the premise but I think it has more to do than Omaha himself and not who he is playing against.

Milan is playing against 24 year olds too. And if you want to look directly at Omaha’s position and size, there are many other McDonald’s AA very comparable to Omaha than are playing significant minutes for key programs - Castle (UCONN), Edwards (Kentucky), Evans Jr (Oregon), Mgbako (Indiana), etc.

Omaha is the exception, not the rule. It’s fine because this team is better without him but the “he has to play against 24 year olds” is pretty lazy analysis.

 

[rosshm16]

The 2000 team that finished 10th in Kenpom is best in program history in Kenpom era. So this year has the potential to finish higher than that.

I was just thinking about the 2016 team today. Anyone who thought Fred was going to spend his career at ISU was delusional IMHO. He clearly wanted to get into the NBA. But I didn't think he'd leave after five years with his roster stacked with six future NBA upper classmen (plus McKay who was close) to go coach that terrible Bulls team. The 2016 team was way too talented to finish 10-8 / 5th in league / #4 seed.

ISU had two teams that I think were legitimately close to winning a national championship. 2000 should have been a #1 seed, playing MSU in the Elite 8 on essentially their home floor was such bull****. They were a good team that year but that game should have been a Final Four or Nat'l Championship game on a neutral floor. Even in the Elite 8 I think ISU wins that game seven times out of 10.

Then the 2014 team, without the Niang injury I think that team could have beaten anyone that year with how they were playing in March.

 

[SolarGarlic]

And that's with the 3 point line being over 2 feet closer back then too.

The 2000 team would often run their offense inside the 3 point line because teams didn't want to pressure Tinsley with the ball and knew he wasn't looking to shoot threes.

 

[Cyclonepride]

I agree with the premise but I think it has more to do than Omaha himself and not who he is playing against.

Milan is playing against 24 year olds too. And if you want to look directly at Omaha’s position and size, there are many other McDonald’s AA very comparable to Omaha than are playing significant minutes for key programs - Castle (UCONN), Edwards (Kentucky), Evans Jr (Oregon), Mgbako (Indiana), etc.

Omaha is the exception, not the rule. It’s fine because this team is better without him but the “he has to play against 24 year olds” is pretty lazy analysis.

Position and skill set matters. You cannot ignore that detail. Milan isn’t exactly defending the post and banging inside.

 

[madguy30]

I was just thinking about the 2016 team today. Anyone who thought Fred was going to spend his career at ISU was delusional IMHO. He clearly wanted to get into the NBA. But I didn't think he'd leave after five years with his roster stacked with six future NBA upper classmen (plus McKay who was close) to go coach that terrible Bulls team. The 2016 team was way too talented to finish 10-8 / 5th in league / #4 seed.

ISU had two teams that I think were legitimately close to winning a national championship. 2000 should have been a #1 seed, playing MSU in the Elite 8 on essentially their home floor was such bull****. They were a good team that year but that game should have been a Final Four or Nat'l Championship game on a neutral floor. Even in the Elite 8 I think ISU wins that game seven times out of 10.

Then the 2014 team, without the Niang injury I think that team could have beaten anyone that year with how they were playing in March.

The field was wide open that year too but I didn't see that ISU team as dominant as the 99-2000 team. Case in point the '14 big 12 tourney championship they got down like 12-1 half way through the first half to Baylor.

As opposed to the 2000 team that was up by 20 for much of their Big 12 championship game vs. a good OU team.

It's also been stated that the 2014 team wouldn't have been favored in any remaining games with Niang. They still didn't defend very well which is often needed (with efficient offense) to make serious runs.

 

[madguy30]

I agree with the premise but I think it has more to do than Omaha himself and not who he is playing against.

Milan is playing against 24 year olds too. And if you want to look directly at Omaha’s position and size, there are many other McDonald’s AA very comparable to Omaha than are playing significant minutes for key programs - Castle (UCONN), Edwards (Kentucky), Evans Jr (Oregon), Mgbako (Indiana), etc.

Omaha is the exception, not the rule. It’s fine because this team is better without him but the “he has to play against 24 year olds” is pretty lazy analysis.

Are they competing to get time on the court with 23-24 year old teammates that have lots of experience and have developed greatly in their time at ISU themselves?

 

[cycloneworld]

Position and skill set matters. You cannot ignore that detail. Milan isn’t exactly defending the post and banging inside.

I didn’t ignore that detail. I listed several other McD AA that play his position that are playing 15-30 mpg for good programs.

 

[cycloneworld]

Are they competing to get time on the court with 23-24 year old teammates that have lots of experience and have developed greatly in their time at ISU themselves?

I don’t know but they are playing minutes at UCONN, Kentucky, Oregon, and other good programs.

I’m not sure why people are so defensive about Omaha. It’s possible he’s not as good as scouted and ranked or that he’s a slower developer. But to say this is “normal” is not accurate.

 

[Cyclonepride]

I didn’t ignore that detail. I listed several other McD AA that play his position that are playing 15-30 mpg for good programs.

Do they have three quality bigs in front of them?

 

[madguy30]

I don’t know but they are playing minutes at UCONN, Kentucky, Oregon, and other good programs.

I’m not sure why people are so defensive about Omaha. It’s possible he’s not as good as scouted and ranked or that he’s a slower developer. But to say this is “normal” is not accurate.

Iirc he was added as a McD AA late which seemed odd and that may have added to the hype.

He hasn't played the last two games but I won't be surprised if we see him over the next week or two and he has good minutes.

 

[cycloneworld]

Iirc he was added as a McD AA late which seemed odd and that may have added to the hype.

He hasn't played the last two games but I won't be surprised if we see him over the next week or two and he has good minutes.

Good point. I’m not giving up on him either, he can still turn into a productive player. Some players it takes longer to click.

 

[Sigmapolis]

The field was wide open that year too but I didn't see that ISU team as dominant as the 99-2000 team. Case in point the '14 big 12 tourney championship they got down like 12-1 half way through the first half to Baylor.

As opposed to the 2000 team that was up by 20 for much of their Big 12 championship game vs. a good OU team.

It's also been stated that the 2014 team wouldn't have been favored in any remaining games with Niang. They still didn't defend very well which is often needed (with efficient offense) to make serious runs.

If you go by the Torvik analytics and assume Iowa State defeats UConn then...

OFF RTG / DEF RTG / NET RTG
Assuming 75 possessions per game

Iowa St. = 119.1 / 99.5 / +19.6
Michigan St. = 120.1 / 96.0 / +24.1
Florida = 116.4 / 89.1 / +27.3
Kentucky = 117.7 / 96.9 / +20.8

Michigan St. is probably favored by 3 or 4.

Florida is probably favored by 5 or 6.

Kentucky is probably favored around 1.

I know the "that team wins a national title if Georges doesn't break his foot" narrative is a fun one. But that team doesn't have the analytics profile of a national champion. Something like top 50 on offense and defense is prerequisite for consideration, and Iowa State was #11 on offense and #72 on defense.

The likely outcome is one of those teams find a way to slow down the Cyclone offense just enough and bullies them on defense and on the boards and that's all she wrote for that enjoyable team. It's not like Tom Izzo, Billy Donovan, and John Calipari aren't legends who could have matched X/O wits with Fred.

In some ways Georges breaking his foot was the best possible thing that could happen to that team's reputation. It'll always be a "what if" story of tantalizing possibilities instead of a mundane reality. You can't say that team probably wasn't good enough because it never had a fair chance to see if it was.

 

[cycloneman003]

I didn’t ignore that detail. I listed several other McD AA that play his position that are playing 15-30 mpg for good programs.

Well there are some half truths here. You listed Stephon Castle and Justin Edwards and they definitely don’t play the same position as Omaha. Those guys are guards/scoring wings.

The other two play bigger minutes on teams not making the tourney, which tells plenty of the story by that fact alone. Winning at the high major level with young posts is hard

 

[VeloClone]

This is a good time for an update.

Big 12 Conference Standings
Team...W/L... %...TF
1. UH...8-3... .727...+3
2. ISU...7-3... .700...+2
3. TTU...7-4... .636...+1
4. BU...6-4... .600...+1
------------------------- Top 4 teams get a double bye in Big 12 Tourney (Thur).
5. KU...7-5... .583...+1
6. TCU...6-5... .545...0
------------------------- Teams 5-6 opponents played the night before.
7. OU...6-5... .545...0 (TCU beat OU (@TCU) in what will be their only RS matchup.)
8. BYU...5-5... .500...0
9. KSU...5-6... .455...0
10. UT...5-6... .455...-1
------------------------- Teams 5-10 get a bye in Big 12 Tourney (Wed).
11. UCF...4-6... .400...-1
12. UC...4-6... .400...-1 (UCF beat UC @ UCF. They will meet @ UC Saturday.)
13. WVU...3-8... .273...-2
14. OSU...2-9... .182...-3
------------------------- Teams 11-14 play on Tuesday in Big 12 Tourney.

What a huge stretch coming up for ISU:
Tonight @ UC (Q1a)
Saturday TTU (Q1b)
Monday @ UH (Q1a)

Note: If the Big 12 uses a similar but expanded format next year 9-16 would play on Tuesday, 5-8 would get a single bye (all playing an opponent who played the night before), and 1-4 would get a double bye.

 

[NoCreativity]

Kansas has to be out of the conference race. Their schedule is brutal down the stretch and they already have 5 losses.

I'd say it's between us, Houston, and Baylor at this point, with Tech still in the mix due to an easy schedule.