Shocker record poll--end of January edition

[ShockerPhi]

+ 9 quintillion.

Does any math geeks no how many zeros that is?

18 zeroes. It goes million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion.

[SHOXAAC]

18 zeroes. It goes million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion.

Where does bazillion fall in?!?!

[ShockerFever]

ShockerFever, if I made a bunch of positive posts about WSU, defending them against media criticism, comparing them to elite teams of past years using numbers that look favorably on WSU’s resume, would that satisfy your complaint?

Sure, even though it'd be fake as hell, I'd take it.

Let's see if it happens first.

[ShockerFever]

18 zeroes. It goes million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion.

Awesome. Im surprised the grammar/spelling geeks didn't zing me with my post, you "no"?

[Shox151]

You know the valley is going to screw us in Arch Madness so two teams get in...30-1

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

ShockerFever, if I made a bunch of positive posts about WSU, defending them against media criticism, comparing them to elite teams of past years using numbers that look favorably on WSU’s resume, would that satisfy your complaint?

Sure, even though it'd be fake as hell, I'd take it.

Let's see if it happens first.

"If" it happens? Ha. Try reading my posts from just the past month...

Me defending WSU against media criticism...

Murray State played (and beat) 4 top 100 teams all year. WSU is looking at 11 such games. Therein lies Goodman’s failure when comparing WSU to that Murray State team.

I think WSU is more proven then that Murray State team was. I think ******* is wrong…

Making positive posts about WSU and complaining that they deserved more love in the media...

Fred deserves individual awards more than any other Shocker. His play thus far has been amazing. Sad he didn't join Early on the mid-season list.

Is it possible that Cotton's dunk might garner even more national attention for the Shox? Might a few naysayers be converted after watching little 'ole WSU show it has athletes just as good as the "big boys"?

Regardless of SOS, there is a magic about still being undefeated, and especially about being the last undefeated team left. I think there are only a handful of scenarios where WSU could be the last unbeaten and not reach #1 in the polls.

I agree Ohio State is getting much more credit for last year than the Shox are.

Using numbers to favorably compare WSU to elite teams of the past...

I’ll admit this is a bit random, but I looked to see how a handful of teams from last year did against top 100 competition. Average Margin is simply calculated by adding up all the winning margins, subtracting all the losing margins, and dividing by number of games played. Average rank of opponent just helps to show if a team’s opponents tended to be toward the top or bottom of the top 100.

I have to say that 4 games is a small sample size, but the numbers for 2013-2014 look promising so far. I’ll be interested to look at this again after WSU gets a few more top 100 games under their belt and after enough games are played where we can get a better feel of how good teams like Tennessee and Alabama really are.

(All ranks are based on Ken Pomeroy’s website, kenpom.com)

Team . . . . Games vs top 100 . . . . Average Margin . . . . Average Rank of Opp

2012-2013
WSU . . . . . . . . . . 19 . . . . . . . . . . .. 2.6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Louisville . . . . . . . 21 . . . . . . . . . . .. 8.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Indiana . . . . . . . . 21 . . . . . . . . . . .. 8.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Gonzaga . . . . . . . 16 . . . . . . . . . . . 10.9 . . . . . . . . . . . .. 46
Duke . . . . . . . . . .22 . . . . . . . . . . .. 7.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Ohio State . . . . .. 19 . . . . . . . . . . .. 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Kansas . . . . . . . . 24 . . . . . . . . . . . 11.6 . . . . . . . . . . . .. 42

2013-2014
WSU . . . . . . . . . . 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Barring a weird Arizona/Michigan State/Syracuse/Iowa State combo of teams that all have 2 or fewer losses at the end of the year, I completely agree with Lunardi. The only way an undfeated WSU team wouldn't get a 1 seed is if there were 4 BCS schools with amazing records and much better SOS. If the #4 BCS team reaches 3 losses, an undefeated WSU team would take their place as a 1 seed.

In all likelihood, this won't be an issue. Rarely are there more than 1 or 2 BCS schools with that few losses in a given year.

As we all know, WSU’s SOS is a hot topic this year as they push their undefeated streak further and further and everyone tries to analyze just how good they are. With the majority of WSU’s games coming against teams outside the top 100, I took a look at last year’s NCAA seeds to see how they did against the less-than-stellar opponents on their schedules.

Top 12 Seeds vs Opponents Outside Top 100: 691-56 (93%)
Top 12 Seeds vs Opponents Outside Top 150: 444-18 (96%)

Top 4 Seeds vs Opponents Outside Top 100: 216-7 (97%)
Top 4 Seeds vs Opponents Outside Top 150: 125-2 (98%)

Broken down by seed…

vs Opponents Outside Top 100
1 Seeds: 54-1 (98%)
2 Seeds: 51-3 (94%)
3 Seeds: 54-1 (98%)
4 Seeds: 57-2 (97%)
5 Seeds: 52-3 (95%)
6 Seeds: 54-4 (93%)
7 Seeds: 56-4 (93%)
8 Seeds: 63-4 (94%)
9 Seeds: 54-7 (89%)
10 Seeds: 47-5 (90%)
11 Seeds: 90-13 (87%)
12 Seeds: 59-9 (87%)

vs Opponents Outside Top 150
1 Seeds: 35-1 (97%)
2 Seeds: 27-0 (100%)
3 Seeds: 27-0 (100%)
4 Seeds: 36-1 (97%)
5 Seeds: 34-1 (97%)
6 Seeds: 33-1 (97%)
7 Seeds: 34-0 (100%)
8 Seeds: 34-1 (97%)
9 Seeds: 41-3 (93%)
10 Seeds: 28-2 (93%)
11 Seeds: 76-4 (95%)
12 Seeds: 39-4 (91%)

WSU will play somewhere in the range of 20-24 games against teams outside the top 100. If they are looking to be a top 4 seed, then statistically, 1 loss in this range is to be expected. However, going undefeated in these games would be a nice resume booster as they would have exceeded expectations in this area. It would be an especially useful counter point when the argument of “lack of quality wins” inevitably comes up.

Just some interesting numbers I felt like sharing. I think we can all agree that it is wonderful to be discussing such high seed potential.

Have a nice day!

[KC Shox]

I just can't see an undefeated season. It's such a rare, rare occurrence and I'm talking to Syracuse and Zona too. We've had bad halves against against mid-tier MVC teams and ended up winning the game by a closer margin than should be. Obviously, this team is not immune from stinking up the court. ISU(B) will be our first blemish of the season. No more than two losses in the regular season.

I'm more concerned about going into the NCAA's healthy and reaching the Sweet 16 at minimum. Even if we go undefeated all the way up to the NCAA's, if this team goes two 2 and Q, then that will tarnish our season and I could give a damn what we did in the regular season. I want rafter hanging banner material, not regular season moral victories. The, "but we had a regular season for the record books", BFD! I'd rather see a Elite 8/Final Four/Championship banner than a notation in the WSU record books.

[SB Shock]

They could easily lose 2 of their next 3 and be fighting to be ranked by end of next week.

The lack of killer instinct that Marshall has for putting teams away has been bothering me for awhile and I think it going to come back to bite him after seeing last night fiasco. As long as a team is still trying to beat you, you don't take the foot off of his throat.

[wufan]

I'm more concerned about going into the NCAA's healthy and reaching the Sweet 16 at minimum. Even if we go undefeated all the way up to the NCAA's, if this team goes two 2 and Q, then that will tarnish our season and I could give a damn what we did in the regular season. I want rafter hanging banner material, not regular season moral victories. The, "but we had a regular season for the record books", BFD! I'd rather see a Elite 8/Final Four/Championship banner than a notation in the WSU record books.

I agree. Everything we are doing is in order to improve our chance to advance in the NCAA tourney. Sweet 16 or bust!

[wufan]

I personally welcome differing opinions.

I beg to differ.

[bunck]

I wasn't sure how to go with this but as I type this ISUb is down 9-10 @ SIU and UNI is losing to Evansville at home with both games having about 10 min. left in the 1st half, those scores will probably flip around but it makes it easer to make the pick I want...

[MadaboutWu]

Bump.

[shock]

JH4P-


Fever-


@_kai_: -


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