Ken Pom BB Rankings

[Cyrok]

One thing about the Kenpom rankings that has shocked me this year is how close to the top wisconsin is. They've been around the top the whole time and are sitting at 3 right now.

Ken wrote a blog entry about how Wisconsin's stats are an anomaly and he personally thinks his system overrates them substantially.



Q: Why do you think Wisconsin is #2?
A: I actually don’t think this. Please stop assuming that I, Ken Pomeroy, personally believe every team is properly ranked. No system can do this. Even if you somehow had the time to rank all 345 teams, by the time you were done with this exercise, you would find some things that you didn’t agree with in the rankings you had just made. For fun, spend some time just try ranking the top 50. Through some miracle, if you’re happy with the position of each team when you’re done, just let the results of games come in for the next 2-3 days and then see if you’re still happy.
The bottom line is that is impossible to rank 345 teams that will make any particular individual happy. There are always going to be some outliers in a system. Wisconsin is perhaps the biggest outlier ever in my system. And it’s only going to get worse, because they are going to lose more games and not drop very far because most of the teams they play the rest of the season are very good. But to get back to the question, I don’t believe they’re the second-best team in the country. Something like #20 sounds about right.

(Edit: I added the "bolding".)

the kenpom.com blog

[HFCS]

Ken wrote a blog entry about how Wisconsin's stats are an anomaly and he personally thinks his system overrates them substantially.



Q: Why do you think Wisconsin is #2?
A: I actually don’t think this. Please stop assuming that I, Ken Pomeroy, personally believe every team is properly ranked. No system can do this. Even if you somehow had the time to rank all 345 teams, by the time you were done with this exercise, you would find some things that you didn’t agree with in the rankings you had just made. For fun, spend some time just try ranking the top 50. Through some miracle, if you’re happy with the position of each team when you’re done, just let the results of games come in for the next 2-3 days and then see if you’re still happy.
The bottom line is that is impossible to rank 345 teams that will make any particular individual happy. There are always going to be some outliers in a system. Wisconsin is perhaps the biggest outlier ever in my system. And it’s only going to get worse, because they are going to lose more games and not drop very far because most of the teams they play the rest of the season are very good. But to get back to the question, I don’t believe they’re the second-best team in the country. Something like #20 sounds about right.

(Edit: I added the "bolding".)

the kenpom.com blog

I'd say half of his entire ranking system is in the error zone. He had 11-20 Iowa as a better team than 265 D1 schools last year. According to his rankings they weren't that far from being in the top 68 teams.

Wisconsin is #12 in Sagarin, still high, but not #2. It's just a better computer model in every way. Kenpom just seems to have cashed in on social media and current internet trends in spite of having pretty crappy rankings.

If any of you look around, you can find dozens of obvious flaws compared to Sagarin. What's better? Sagarin's ranking that has Texas as 4 spots ahead of ISU? or Kenpom's that thinks Texas who we recently beat without playing out best game having them 25 spots ahead of ISU? His rankings are a joke when other superior models are available.

[Cyrok]

It's also a little silly to you just one data point for LE. either use them all or none, but you can't just point to his last year and say "we're back to the LE days".

Kenpom data only go back to 2003 - hence why the OP only linked LE's last year.

[Cyrok]

I'd say half of his entire ranking system is in the error zone. He had 11-20 Iowa as a better team than 265 D1 schools last year. According to his rankings they weren't that far from being in the top 68 teams.

Wisconsin is #12 in Sagarin, still high, but not #2. It's just a better computer model in every way. Kenpom just seems to have cashed in on social media and current internet trends in spite of having pretty crappy rankings.

Sagarin's system is based on Wins-Loses which is what almost all the popular computer ranking systems use (including the RPI). Kenpom is based on efficiency. This allows fair comparisons between teams that play at different paces.

For example, Air Force is only allowing 57.2 points per game which is #11 in the nation (and better than everyone in the Top 10 but Ohio State). But Sagarin ranks AF defensively at #129 and you can see that the reason for the discrepancy is that AF plays at a terribly slow pace and limits the number of possessions, but their opponents score at a high rate.

I like Sagarin. I tend to like Kenpom better because in my experience it has been a better predictor. The real kicker is that I love his website. It is the best tool out there for researching a particular team's season.

Sagarin is much better than Kenpom, but the cumulation of all those years still says a lot about the McD years compared to Fred so far and even Wayne.

For example, who thinks 11-20 Iowa was better than 16-16 ISU last year? Not a single real person who saw the two play or any other computer ranking, but Kenpom's joke rankings for last year did. Sagarain had ISU #87, Iowa #112 for comparison.

There are dozens of other obviously superior differences every year that show Sagarin makes more sense. I just don't get the Kenpom love fest that grows every year. I think people just assume Sagarin must only be for football.

I went back to check and Kenpom had Iowa #80 and ISU #81. That is absolutely annoying from an ISU fan's perspective, but it is a pretty weak argument for your point.

Your bashing of Kenpom seems very unreasonable to me.

[HFCS]

Sagarin's system is based on Wins-Loses which is what almost all the popular computer ranking systems use (including the RPI). Kenpom is based on efficiency. This allows fair comparisons between teams that play at different paces.

For example, Air Force is only allowing 57.2 points per game which is #11 in the nation (and better than everyone in the Top 10 but Ohio State). But Sagarin ranks AF defensively at #129 and you can see that the reason for the discrepancy is that AF plays at a terribly slow pace and limits the number of possessions, but their opponents score at a high rate.

I like Sagarin. I tend to like Kenpom better because in my experience it has been a better predictor. The real kicker is that I love his website. It is the best tool out there for researching a particular team's season.

I went back to check and Kenpom had Iowa #80 and ISU #81. That is absolutely annoying from an ISU fan's perspective, but it is a pretty weak argument for your point.

Your bashing of Kenpom seems very unreasonable to me.

So just in the few quick things I checked today only...

You think Wisconsin should be #2, not #12
You think Texas should be 20 spots ahead of ISU this year, not 4 spots.
You think 11-20 Iowa was the #80 team last year, better than 265 teams including ISU.

The predictor component of Sagarin is just as good for predicting outcomes and the overall rankings are just light years better in looking at who the better team actually is. If we beat Texas a second time wednesday we'll move in front of them in Sagarin and still be behind them in Kenpom.

It's cool the guy puts out a lot of content and is more into current online communication trends, but his ratings suck compared to Sagarin.

[CrossCyed]

a TON of college coaches use Pomeroy.

[Cyrok]

So just in the few quick things I checked today only...

You think Wisconsin should be #2, not #12
You think Texas should be 20 spots ahead of ISU this year, not 4 spots.
You think 11-20 Iowa was the #80 team last year, better than 265 teams including ISU.

The predictor component of Sagarin is just as good for predicting outcomes and the overall rankings are just light years better in looking at who the better team actually is. If we beat Texas a second time wednesday we'll move in front of them in Sagarin and still be behind them in Kenpom.

It's cool the guy puts out a lot of content and is more into current online communication trends, but his ratings suck compared to Sagarin.

1) Kenpom called Wisconsin the biggest anomaly ever in his system. I stated that just 3 posts above yours.
2) I think Sagarin is probably more accurate with ISU/Texas.
3)Pomroy proclaimed Iowa better than 265 teams last year.
Sagarin proclaimed Iowa better than 233 teams last year.
I don't care.

Sagarin rates Missouri at number 1. Do you think they are the best team in the land? I think they are very good, but that Ohio St., Kansas, Syracuse, and Kentucky are all better and so does Kenpom. He puts them at #7 which would equate to losing in the elite 8 which sounds about right to me.

Look the difference here is:
You see Sagarin=Good, Kenpom=Bad.
I see Sagarin=Good, Kenpom=Good+.

So again, your bashing of Kenpom is unreasonable imo.

[cyclones500]

Are there many people really trying to argue Mcdermott did a better job here than Wayne?

Just because the mcdermott era was a colossal failure does not mean that the decision to fire wayne was the incorrect one. That's a completely separate debate as they are separate decisions. I personally believe it was the right thing.

I was going to pose that very question last night.

Perhaps fans who disagreed with both the WM firing and also the hiring of McD as a successor probably assume fans continue to argue for McD's "superiority," when I don't know that anyone — even those who agreed with both decisions — would say that in retrospect.