Scoring Chances If you think about it, basketball is just a game of creating chances to score or eliminating those chances for the opponent. The quality of those chances that can be created, along with the talent of the players to put the ball in the hoop, with variation in size and side helpings
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Rankings
The biggest thing when looking at rankings is we all need to understand what the ranking is for and how it is being calculated. There has been much consternation of Iowa State’s NET ranking but specifically their NET ranking in how it relates to Iowa. I get it, I personally don’t worry about it, but I get it.
In theory, the NET ranking is some unknown magical formula to homogenize performance rankings and resume rankings, but we really have no idea how. My two main thoughts on this…
It is clearly more tied to performance ratings that can be sorted out pretty quickly just by glancing at NET rankings compared to KenPom in contrast to how the NET rankings compare to a pure resume ranking like WAB (wins above bubble) is essentially the relative number of wins a team his against their schedule when compared to what an average bubble team would be expected to have. At this minute, Iowa State is #28 in NET, #25 in KenPom, and #20 in WAB.
What is interesting is that if you look at the top 30 NET teams the average variation in rank to KenPom is 3.03 while the average variation, when compared to WAB, is 8.07. So yes, NET leans heavier to a performance-based metric than a resume-based metric.
My 2nd beef is the quad win discussion. If a team has a win over the #1 team in the country on the road that is a quad one win just as a win over the #30 team at home is and those are two entirely different things that should be considered at more of a variable level. WAB on the other hand accounts for the variable data more effectively.
Whether we’re ranking team quality or team resumes when we get to March and deal with the selection committee these numbers can matter but we’re mostly at the mercy of a bunch of humans and whatever they want to rationalize, so, God speed!