Bracketology 2024

That's becuase you're trying to figure out which starting 5 plays well together as a team while I'm figuring out who has the better and more talented players. There's no wrong answers here.

Add up Kansas individual player ratings for their 5, then compare that to ours, it's not really close.
Okay, so which one most closely relates to how the game is played?
 
That's becuase you're trying to figure out which starting 5 plays well together as a team while I'm figuring out who has the better and more talented players. There's no wrong answers here.

Add up Kansas individual player ratings for their 5, then compare that to ours, it's not really close.
What does that prove though? Some USA Basketball dream teams have failed. Yes, they typically have the best talent. So why do they fail? Because they don't play well together. Basketball is a team sport. More talent does not equate to more success.
 
Apparently, lots of 'bracketologists' believe Alabama is worthy of a 3 seed. This is their resume. They are above ISU. ******* SEC bias.

  • Alabama (18-7)
    • NET Rank: 5
    • Quad 1: 2-6
    • Record against NET Top 25 (as of 2/20): 1-5
    • Win: #7 Auburn
    • Losses: #2 Purdue, @ #9 Creighton, #3 Arizona, @ #6 Tennessee, @ #7 Auburn
    • Other Losses: #65 Ohio State, #28 Clemson
    • Best win outside of NET top 25: #31 Indiana State
They'll never admit to it, but it's obvious offensive efficiency is propping up some of these teams in NET.
 
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Go look at Torivks metrics on individual players. They match up perfectly with what I was thinking just off the top of my head from watching both teams. We would lose 3-2 if you're comparing starting lineups.

This guy reminds so much of the troll that applied Sagarin's rankings over anyone else's when it came to football.
 
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Wake Forest jumped 14 spots on them Net after their win over Pitt. That seems like a lot with so many data points on now.
Agree this seems odd. Following NET daily changes pretty closely over the years, I've sometimes seen this type of activity "correct" to some extent the next day. I'll be watching for this one. They did stomp Pitt but 33 pts, and Pitt also fell 9 spots in NET, so it may hold.
 
So, if we win out and KU loses the 2 games I think they will: at Baylor and UH, does a 3 game better conference record, better metrics, and beating them head to head get us the 2 seed over them?

The committee doesn't care about their conference record. They are being viewed favorably because in addition to Big 12 wins over Houston, Baylor, TCU, and @ Oklahoma they also beat UConn, Tennessee, and Kentucky OOC. Hopefully someone knocks them off at the Phog but I doubt it and especially now that McCullar seems healthy.
 
HA. Okay buddy. Your "logic" makes my brain hurt.
I guess we're even then.

By your logic teams like Princenton should be rated extremely high. They beat Arizona last year and are alwasy known for playing smart, team oriented basktball despite having all 2-star players.

All the experts I've heard agree with me also. I honestly don't know why you're getting upset about it. I think we are better than Kansas as a whole, we just make up for it in other areas such as quality depth and defense.
 
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The committee doesn't care about their conference record. They are being viewed favorably because in addition to Big 12 wins over Houston, Baylor, TCU, and @ Oklahoma they also beat UConn, Tennessee, and Kentucky OOC. Hopefully someone knocks them off at the Phog but I doubt it and especially now that McCullar seems healthy.
Agree, this seems to be how the committee is evaluating KU. I would hope an ISU win over KU in Kansas City would be enough for the committee to put us clearly ahead of them as a 2 seed. Would be great for ISU to secure the Omaha location.
 
Agree this seems odd. Following NET daily changes pretty closely over the years, I've sometimes seen this type of activity "correct" to some extent the next day. I'll be watching for this one. They did stomp Pitt but 33 pts, and Pitt also fell 9 spots in NET, so it may hold.
I wonder how many "NET points" are between those 14 spots? Like, it could be the difference between the #26 team and the #40 team is very little in "NET points" and the bell curve is really flat there. They only list rank and not anything like points, as far as I could find.

Curious, I looked at Kenpom -- the difference between 25th and 40th is 2.2 (18.7 to 16.5) but the difference between 1st and 15th is 11.6 (32.3 to 20.7). As a comparison, that same 11.6 point difference takes you from 20th to 97th! Looks like 1 standard deviation is about 11.9.

Here's the KP chart of all AdjEM, the tails are a lot steeper than the middle.
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Yes, you do need depth for 2 games in three days, three times. Foul trouble ends their run if injury doesn't.
I don't think you need depth. There are lot of teams that make deep runs that aren't deep. Kansas won it in '22 ranking 301st in bench minutes playing against UNC who was 348th in bench minutes. They played Nova the game before who was 320th in bench minutes. Duke was the other Final Four team and they were 314th in bench minutes.

But it is important you at least get something out of the bench to make it easier on the starters. But a lot of times come tournament time a lot of the best teams are only playing really 7-8 guys. And the timeouts are longer, half times longer, more stoppages. it makes it easier to play guys longer minutes.
 
I guess we're even then.

By your logic teams like Princenton should be rated extremely high. They beat Arizona last year and are alwasy known for playing smart, team oriented basktball despite having all 2-star players.

All the experts I've heard agree with me also. I honestly don't know why you're getting upset about it. I think we are better than Kansas as a whole, we just make up for it in other areas such as quality depth and defense.
The difference is you are only looking at an individual player's talents. You then use these individual talents to compare against another team's individual talents. As previously discussed, such a comparison doesn't translate to the court. Luckily there are metrics in place which can help people determine which starting lineups play well as a group both on offense and defense. As with any metric, one should determine what other factors to consider, such as strength of schedule. But these metrics are a much, much better starting point than simply using the "eye ball" test, and it's far better than trying to compare individuals between teams. It's a team sport after all
 
I don't think the seedings are going to matter too much because I think this year is going to be chaotic just like last year and brackets are going to be blown up. BUt I hope the committee does a better job seeding this year. Last year the bracket's were very unbalanced. I mean the fact UCONN was a 4 seed was a joke in itself.
 
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The difference is you are only looking at an individual player's talents. You then use these individual talents to compare against another team's individual talents. As previously discussed, such a comparison doesn't translate to the court. Luckily there are metrics in place which can help people determine which starting lineups play well as a group both on offense and defense. As with any metric, one should determine what other factors to consider, such as strength of schedule. But these metrics are a much, much better starting point than simply using the "eye ball" test, and it's far better than trying to compare individuals between teams. It's a team sport after all
Didn't someone share a graphic that showed two separate ISU lineups in the top ten of their lineup metrics? Curious where KU fell on that.
 
I guess we're even then.

By your logic teams like Princenton should be rated extremely high. They beat Arizona last year and are alwasy known for playing smart, team oriented basktball despite having all 2-star players.

All the experts I've heard agree with me also. I honestly don't know why you're getting upset about it. I think we are better than Kansas as a whole, we just make up for it in other areas such as quality depth and defense.
No, that's not my logic at all. You're again using anecdotal evidence and ignoring the numbers.
 
I don't think you need depth. There are lot of teams that make deep runs that aren't deep. Kansas won it in '22 ranking 301st in bench minutes playing against UNC who was 348th in bench minutes. They played Nova the game before who was 320th in bench minutes. Duke was the other Final Four team and they were 314th in bench minutes.

But it is important you at least get something out of the bench to make it easier on the starters. But a lot of times come tournament time a lot of the best teams are only playing really 7-8 guys. And the timeouts are longer, half times longer, more stoppages. it makes it easier to play guys longer minutes.
Media timeouts are 4 and half minutes in the NCAA tournament. Depth isn't a huge concern.
 
The difference is you are only looking at an individual player's talents. You then use these individual talents to compare against another team's individual talents. As previously discussed, such a comparison doesn't translate to the court. Luckily there are metrics in place which can help people determine which starting lineups play well as a group both on offense and defense. As with any metric, one should determine what other factors to consider, such as strength of schedule. But these metrics are a much, much better starting point than simply using the "eye ball" test, and it's far better than trying to compare individuals between teams. It's a team sport after all
So why do all the experts and talking heads agree with me then that they have the best starting 5?

We are just some random people on the internet trying to pass time while we are working and they do this as a profession. You don't think they have access or know anything about sites like Kenpom or Torvick?
 
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