SOS - What it does and doesn't tell us

[7hottamales]

Based solely on the information provided, Team A would be ranked higher.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

I give up. I wish I could hold this conversation in person because I think we would have better success. Message boards make it so much harder. Many of you have made well thought out statements, but don't seem to be able to see that those statements do not apply to what I'm trying to say. It's like me trying to say "water is good for you" and someone responding with "water causes people to drown".

Apparently this conversation is simply impossible on a message board.

Carry on.

[jdshock]

I give up. I wish I could hold this conversation in person because I think we would have better success. Message boards make it so much harder. Many of you have made well thought out statements, but don't seem to be able to see that those statements do not apply to what I'm trying to say. It's like me trying to say "water is good for you" and someone responding with "water causes people to drown".

Apparently this conversation is simply impossible on a message board.

Carry on.

You're such a tease JH4P.

Now we never get to see your "gotcha" moment.

The least you could do is post it now.

[pogo]

Thats when my doctor tells me to drink lots of water and I tell him beer is mostly water he just frowns. Mmmmmmmmm Beer.

[ShockerFever]

This might be the most narcissistic, egotistical, trolling hunk of junk thread ever created on Shockernet. It absolutely proved nothing other than what we all already knew about its author.

[WstateU]

What a thread... Holy jumping monkeys!

[Dave Stalwart]

No it doesn't. If you are going to ask me to make a determination on a set amount of information, the response that there isn't enough information to say is always a legitimate response.

Here, let me give you an example:

Car A leaves Cleveland at 6:00 am. Car B leaves Chicago at 9:00 am. Which car gets to their destination first?

So, what is your answer. And you can't judge my premise. You can't say you need more information. You just have to answer because I say so.

I know one thing. I would rank both cars ahead of UNI in the polls on Monday and I would probably have Ohio St slightly ahead of both cars by a spot or two because of that decisive win over Maryland.

[SHOXAAC]

Seven hours of JH4P holding court and accomplishing nothing. Your insatiable appetite for needing to control a conversation, thread, point of view, etc...is overwhelming at times. Please don't let me speak for my SN brethren, but I would bet a lot of Oreo cookies that I'll get an Amen from the congregation by saying you are so wrapped around your narrow analytical, data point of view that you can't see the trees from the forest. Retreat is a valuable skill, not a sign of weakness. It's ok not to come across as holier than thou. I have learned a lot from your great insight over the years, but the last 8-10 months you have slowly become the opposite of what I liked from you in the beginning. This SOS thread is a classic and often repeatable occurrence of you not having enough appropriate insight to get to the point when it's obvious the cats are getting restless. I hate giving Fev another opp to pile on, but you have earned this one JH4P. I have no interest in the end result of your case at this point. I have no energy left. I will always be mindful of your insight going forward however, because you haven't lost me forever. Better luck next time.

[ShockTalk]

Seven hours of JH4P holding court and accomplishing nothing. Your insatiable appetite for needing to control a conversation, thread, point of view, etc...is overwhelming at times. Please don't let me speak for my SN brethren, but I would bet a lot of Oreo cookies that I'll get an Amen from the congregation by saying you are so wrapped around your narrow analytical, data point of view that you can't see the trees from the forest. Retreat is a valuable skill, not a sign of weakness. It's ok not to come across as holier than thou. I have learned a lot from your great insight over the years, but the last 8-10 months you have slowly become the opposite of what I liked from you in the beginning. This SOS thread is a classic and often repeatable occurrence of you not having enough appropriate insight to get to the point when it's obvious the cats are getting restless. I hate giving Fev another opp to pile on, but you have earned this one JH4P. I have no interest in the end result of your case at this point. I have no energy left. I will always be mindful of your insight going forward however, because you haven't lost me forever. Better luck next time.

Actually, I'm sorry I got to this thread late. The only reason it lasted 7 hours is that no one would play the game. Pick A or B and say why. Simple. No, you can't have any more information. I'm sure that was intentional and more was to follow later. No, you can't say neither or both. It's just for discussion purposes. Is everyone afraid of just playing the game and they might have a wrong answer when there may not even be a wrong answer? Everyone is too tangled up at who posted the question. Loosen up and have some fun. See where it takes you. Had someone else, who knew where they wanted to take and build this discussion, started this thread, I'm certain this result would have been totally different.

If after the game had ran it course, or at least had a chance to get off the ground, and you don't want to play, that's fine. It's also fine to disagree. It's called opinions. I may not change yours and you may not change mine, but at the least, I may have a better understanding of opposing opinions. I used to, may still, love to play the devil's advocate roll where someone has an opinion that I agree with, but they have shown little substance for that opinion, so I took the opposing position. It challenged me and either torn down my own weak position or made it stronger.

The biggest head shaker were those wondering why two teams had only played 2 games when everyone else had played 21. No one had played 21 games. It isn't about this season, right now.

Of course, had I been here sooner, I may not have like where it later was headed either. But I'll never know.

[wufan]

I think all of us make decisions based on the limited information we have every day. When I have almost no information, I choose to wait. Decisions with zero information are scary to make. I think that's why most everyone hesitated. It doesn't make sense to rush into something for which you know nothing.

Of course this was a harmless hypothetical and there was no danger in making an uninformed choice, but why bother? We all know that there is no right answer based on what we know and we have had enough life experience to understand that it's better to sit back and wait for the answer to present itself.

[ShockTalk]

I think all of us make decisions based on the limited information we have every day. When I have almost no information, I choose to wait. Decisions with zero information are scary to make. I think that's why most everyone hesitated. It doesn't make sense to rush into something for which you know nothing.

Of course this was a harmless hypothetical and there was no danger in making an uninformed choice, but why bother? We all know that there is no right answer based on what we know and we have had enough life experience to understand that it's better to sit back and wait for the answer to present itself.

Of course it was harmless. As to why bother, there is a lot of "informed" opinions on this board about how the inner workings of the Athletic Department should go. Do they matter, probably not, but they are talking points for discussion even if we don't know all the facts. There's also a lot of "right answers" flying around on subjects that opposing posters both think are right. See the latest, and very long, CF thread.

Even though we know the limitations of pre-season and early season polls, sports writers rankings, RPI, SoS, brackets and even Kenpom, we discuss it. Why bother? We and they obviously have very few facts, much less all the facts.

I guess I was surprised that most everyone would rather go off on a tangent, spend 7 hours going no where rather than take the challenge immediately, see where it's going quickly and to be done with it in an hour or two, or, perhaps, find that where it was going might really be worth 7 hours or more. After all, it was harmless if you're going to spend that much time anyway.

Add: Again, I'm certain that the point of almost no information had a purpose.

[AZ Shocker]

Original question:

Team A is 2-0. Beat a team ranked in the top 10 and a terrible 300+ team.
Team B is 2-0. Beat Vermont and Louisiana Lafayette, who are a couple of mediocre teams each ranked in the mid 100s and each with 11-10 records.

You know nothing else about either team. Based on admittedly very limited information, which team do you rank higher?

Depends on the NAME on their jersey according to the voters.

If Coach K, Coach Williams, Coach Pitino, Coach Calipari or Coach Self started the season 2-0 in either of those scenarios...all 5 would be RANKED in the Top-10 regardless who they played.

[Shocker-maniac]

Seven hours of JH4P holding court and accomplishing nothing. Your insatiable appetite for needing to control a conversation, thread, point of view, etc...is overwhelming at times. Please don't let me speak for my SN brethren, but I would bet a lot of Oreo cookies that I'll get an Amen from the congregation by saying you are so wrapped around your narrow analytical, data point of view that you can't see the trees from the forest. Retreat is a valuable skill, not a sign of weakness. It's ok not to come across as holier than thou. I have learned a lot from your great insight over the years, but the last 8-10 months you have slowly become the opposite of what I liked from you in the beginning. This SOS thread is a classic and often repeatable occurrence of you not having enough appropriate insight to get to the point when it's obvious the cats are getting restless. I hate giving Fev another opp to pile on, but you have earned this one JH4P. I have no interest in the end result of your case at this point. I have no energy left. I will always be mindful of your insight going forward however, because you haven't lost me forever. Better luck next time.

A-M-E-N

[shockmonster]

Of course it was harmless. As to why bother, there is a lot of "informed" opinions on this board about how the inner workings of the Athletic Department should go. Do they matter, probably not, but they are talking points for discussion even if we don't know all the facts. There's also a lot of "right answers" flying around on subjects that opposing posters both think are right. See the latest, and very long, CF thread.

Even though we know the limitations of pre-season and early season polls, sports writers rankings, RPI, SoS, brackets and even Kenpom, we discuss it. Why bother? We and they obviously have very few facts, much less all the facts.

I guess I was surprised that most everyone would rather go off on a tangent, spend 7 hours going no where rather than take the challenge immediately, see where it's going quickly and to be done with it in an hour or two, or, perhaps, find that where it was going might really be worth 7 hours or more. After all, it was harmless if you're going to spend that much time anyway.

Add: Again, I'm certain that the point of almost no information had a purpose.

It may be harmless but I don't want to play because it's a dumb game. Too little information makes the scenario meaningless.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

So I've had a couple days to think about what went wrong in this thread. I see a common thread amongst the critics that there was too little information, thus making it meaningless to discuss. It is disappointing that these folks couldn't see that the lack of information was intentional and meant to serve a purpose. So many topics on this board get derailed because of rabbit trails. In this thread, I gave little room for rabbit trails with WHAT I ACTUALLY SAID in my initial post, but many posters decided to predict where I was headed and then start arguing WHAT I MIGHT SAY in future posts. The overall attitude of shutting down conversations you don’t like because of where they might be headed is disappointing. I wish more posters would have just focused on what I was saying and withheld judgment on my thoughts until I had actually had a chance to speak them.

As for those complaining about how long things drug out, why should I be a slave to your impatience? If I had kept the thread open a week, I could understand some complaints, but we were talking about merely a few hours. Many posters hadn’t even had time to read the thread yet and some of you felt that it was your right to instantly hear my entire argument.

This board has a high enough percentage of posters who want to have good discussions, and a low enough percentage of “youtube comments section” posters (I’m sure you know what I mean by that) that it disappoints me that we still seem to struggle with threads that are intended to foster good conversations. It seems like this shouldn’t have to be the case. There are plenty of threads out there for silly trash talk, off the wall predictions, subtle or not so subtle jabs at other posters, etc. There is a time and a place for all of that. However, I think I speak for many on this board when I ask that everyone be a little more respectful of the “serious discussions” that some of us attempt some times. If a topic doesn’t interest you, that is fine. You can even say as much. Just please don’t make it your job to shut down the conversation that others are trying to have and that interests them.

Finally, I don’t want to ignore the fact that some posters honestly did want to see where I was going with this, so I will write a separate post detailing my argument a bit further. Look for that one later today.