2015-16 Media love thread

[WuDrWu]

And he could say that about Bradley too.

And if Carolina finishes 0-7 they'll need a deep run in the ACC to get in and may need to win it. It's a stupid argument. Right now, we're IN. ZERO doubt.

Not one WSU fan thinks our margin for error is as big as most other teams. But that isn't the point. We're in. PERIOD. Tomorrow is a different day.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Are you using KenPom's pre-tourney calculation or the final calculation?

I was using pre-tourney ranks which equate to Selection Sunday. For example, I didn't include 2011 WSU, who was #56 on Selection Sunday but rose to #25 by winning the NIT. Kudos to you @Signman: for thinking to ask about this distinction.

[WuDrWu]

Not to completely derail the conversation because it's not necessarily media "love", but did anyone else catch this?

http://www.kansas.com/sports/college...e59754151.html

I actually like Doug Elgin and he's always been cordial and friendly to me and helpful to people I know and care about.

But this:

The aftermath, which also included stopwatches, featured media members and athletic directors watching a replay in a TV truck and MVC commissioner Doug Elgin explaining the mess in a hallway in the Scottrade Center.

“We looked at it in the truck and it was clear to us the shot left the shooter’s hand between 1.0 and 0.9 left, “ Elgin said that night. “We took a stopwatch to the inbounding of the ball from the time the ball was touched to the time the clock started. The clock clearly started late, there’s no doubt about that. We determined there was at least 0.4 differential between the end of the game and when the shot left the hand. The shot was before the expiration of time (had the clock started properly).”

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/sports/college...#storylink=cpy

Is simply an out and out lie and one of the reasons Gregg will always be pissed off at the Valley and St. Louis. It's a lie, to protect Creighton or the refs or the union or St. Louis or whatever.

I've timed it a zillion times over the years. The closest I ever got was 1.91. Usually it's 2.00+

He didn't get the shot off in time, we didn't lose, we won the game, cu lost, lick the cheese off my scrotum Valley.

[WuShock16]

I actually like Doug Elgin and he's always been cordial and friendly to me and helpful to people I know and care about.

But this:

The aftermath, which also included stopwatches, featured media members and athletic directors watching a replay in a TV truck and MVC commissioner Doug Elgin explaining the mess in a hallway in the Scottrade Center.

“We looked at it in the truck and it was clear to us the shot left the shooter’s hand between 1.0 and 0.9 left, “ Elgin said that night. “We took a stopwatch to the inbounding of the ball from the time the ball was touched to the time the clock started. The clock clearly started late, there’s no doubt about that. We determined there was at least 0.4 differential between the end of the game and when the shot left the hand. The shot was before the expiration of time (had the clock started properly).”

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/sports/college...#storylink=cpy

Is simply an out and out lie and one of the reasons Gregg will always be pissed off at the Valley and St. Louis. It's a lie, to protect Creighton or the refs or the union or St. Louis or whatever.

I've timed it a zillion times over the years. The closest I ever got was 1.91. Usually it's 2.00+

He didn't get the shot off in time, we didn't lose, we won the game, cu lost, lick the cheese off my scrotum Valley.

If I remember correctly, they took five minutes to put 1.9 seconds on the clock and five seconds to decide that the shot was good. That was convenient.

Here's the other deal. Booker Woodfox was a smart player, so had the clock started when it should have, he wouldn't have taken the shot he did. He would have been backed up another 5-10 feet. Maybe he misses that shot.

The unfortunate thing is that had Clevin just caught the damn ball on Creighton's desperation shot and not fumbled it out of bounds, it would have never come to 1.9. That is probably the most painful part of this story.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

lick the cheese off my scrotum Valley.

Sounds like a Trump slogan in the works

[WSUwatcher]

Nobody has ever finished top 20 in KenPom and missed the tourney. 4 teams in 14 years of his rankings have finished top 30 and missed. Those include examples such as 2004 Florida State, who collapsed and went 6-12 in the 2004 part of the 03-04 season and got shipped off to Wichita for a memorable NIT game.

WSU is sitting at KenPom #12 today and winning by 20+ pts a night. Enough already with the bubble talk.

As I noted in another thread, I personally believe the Shocks are stronger than even their very good KenPom rating suggests, because the key KenPom building block AdjO, which is based on results per 100 possessions, understates one of WSU's greatest strengths: namely, GETTING extra possessions. The more extra possessions you get, the more points you get out of your average per 100 possessions. Also, WSU's large number of one sided games causes them to have more possessions played by the deep bench than a team that plays closer games, which probably reduces their per 100 efficiency as well.

And finally, of course, there's still the biggest question of all, which is what WSU's rating would be looking at only the games in which LeFred has played -- and even that probably doesn't fully reflect the impact of his injury, because just looking at their games with him in the lineup doesn't fully consider that he also played in a number of games at considerably less than 100%. I have a hard time believing, for example, that if WSU played Seton Hall in New Jersey right now, the Shocks would lose that game, or that it would take longer than the regulation 40 minutes for them to win it.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

As I noted in another thread, I personally believe the Shocks are stronger than even their very good KenPom rating suggests, because the key KenPom building block AdjO, which is based on results per 100 possessions, understates one of WSU's greatest strengths: namely, GETTING extra possessions. The more extra possessions you get, the more points you get out of your average per 100 possessions. Also, WSU's large number of one sided games causes them to have more possessions played by the deep bench than a team that plays closer games, which probably reduces their per 100 efficiency as well.

@WSUwatcher:, I am not sure I follow your thought process. How does getting extra possessions via offensive rebounds or any other means make KenPom's system underrate the Shox? Yes, extra possessions mean extra opportunities for extra points, but KenPom factors all of that together in his formula. "Extra" possessions are still possessions, and KenPom counts them like any other. WSU's efficiency per 100 possessions should be accurate no matter how many of those 100 possessions were of the "extra possession" variety.

[ShockCrazy]

As I noted in another thread, I personally believe the Shocks are stronger than even their very good KenPom rating suggests, because the key KenPom building block AdjO, which is based on results per 100 possessions, understates one of WSU's greatest strengths: namely, GETTING extra possessions. The more extra possessions you get, the more points you get out of your average per 100 possessions. Also, WSU's large number of one sided games causes them to have more possessions played by the deep bench than a team that plays closer games, which probably reduces their per 100 efficiency as well.

And finally, of course, there's still the biggest question of all, which is what WSU's rating would be looking at only the games in which LeFred has played -- and even that probably doesn't fully reflect the impact of his injury, because just looking at their games with him in the lineup doesn't fully consider that he also played in a number of games at considerably less than 100%. I have a hard time believing, for example, that if WSU played Seton Hall in New Jersey right now, the Shocks would lose that game, or that it would take longer than the regulation 40 minutes for them to win it.

Just a note on possession stats, a possession is only completed after a made basket, defensive rebound or turnover. So our ability to "gain" possessions is accounted for in the stat, so on a possession in which we recover 3 offensive rebounds, it only counts as one possession. Therefore KenPom does benefit us in this ability because "gaining" possession will increase your efficiency, but hurt your pace.

[rayc]

If i'm not mistaken, offensive rebounds are not extra possessions but a continuation of the existing possession. A lot of offensive rebounds will result in fewer possessions and
should impact the 100 possessions efficiencys.

Question for JH4P: You keep talking about KenPom's formula, what is the formula?

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Thanks @ShockCrazy: for the clarification.

I just checked and KenPom has WSU 96th in division 1 in offensive rebounding %. WSU's raw number is 32.2% as compared to the D1 average of 29.9%. WSU is just a bit above average in this area, but I doubt it really has a very big effect on WSU's overall offensive efficiency, and even less impact on WSU's overall rating.

[WSUwatcher]

@WSUwatcher:, I am not sure I follow your thought process. How does getting extra possessions via offensive rebounds or any other means make KenPom's system underrate the Shox? Yes, extra possessions mean extra opportunities for extra points, but KenPom factors all of that together in his formula. "Extra" possessions are still possessions, and KenPom counts them like any other. WSU's efficiency per 100 possessions should be accurate no matter how many of those 100 possessions were of the "extra possession" variety.

As I've said before, I don't pretend to know KP's exact formula -- I'm not even a subscriber, so my knowledge is limited to the first chart that pops up, the one with WSU currently 12th overall. And looking at a couple of other recent posts, it appears that there's some uncertainty by other posters as well, especially as regards offensive rebounds.

So leave those aside and focus on turnovers, where WSU is very good at both avoiding and forcing them. Obviously a turnover affects efficiency -- it's a zero for each team -- and so that aspect of the turnover is reflected in the per 100 averages. But if two teams have equal AdjO and AdjD numbers coming into a game between them, and team A gets an extra six possessions because it does a really good job of turning over team B, isn't that a pretty big advantage for team A that's likely to show up on the scoreboard?

And, of course, none of that takes into consideration either of the other possible factors I mentioned: the impact of WSU playing its deep bench more than a team does that plays closer games, and the comparison of WSU's numbers at full LeFred strength vs. what their numbers were in games where he wasn't there at all or wasn't fully himself. Of course, this is all just academic anyway, unless members of the selection committee look at KenPom. But as popular as advanced metrics are these days, I suspect at least some do.

[OregonShocker]

Are we sure about that? Otherwise, if I miss 5 shots, get 5 offensive boards, and make my 6th shot, I'm one-for-one on possessions?? My shooting percentage is 16%, but my efficiency is 100%? Something seems...off.

[ShockCrazy]

That's exactly how it works. Your efficiency is effectively how many points you score divided by possessions(at the end of the game both teams will have the same number of possession or a difference of one, depending on if the team with the last possession also won the tip(or also end of half situation as well).

@WSUwatcher: regarding the T/O question, offensive efficiency is an all encompassing stat. So if a team say turned it over 6 more times on average over the same possessions, if their efficiency matched our they would make up for it in shooting accuracy or offensive rebounds.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Question for JH4P: You keep talking about KenPom's formula, what is the formula?

Unlike RPI, Ken's formula is much more complex. RPI is purely based on wins and losses. KenPom is purely based on points scored and allowed per possessions played. Here is my basic understanding.

Ken calculates raw offensive and defensive efficiencies per 100 possessions. This simply means calculating how many points a team scores every 100 possessions. Nothing complicated here other than compiling the data. The average team in division 1 scores about 1 pt/possession, give or take.

Ken then takes the raw numbers and adjusts them (I'm not sure of his exact formula) to reflect the quality of opponent played. Scoring more than a point per possession against Bradley is far from the same from doing it against a good defense like WSU's. Ken's adjustments take the raw, statistical efficiencies and adjusts for the SOS that has been played so that efficiencies can be compared from team to team. Thus, when WSU's adjusted offensive efficiency is 110.4 it means that WSU would be expected to score 110.4 points in 100 possessions against the average D1 team. They would expect to score more or less than this if playing an above or below average defense.

The great thing about this approach is that it is based on efficiency, not total points scored. By taking tempo out of the equation, teams that play slow, low scoring games aren't penalized, and teams that play fast, high scoring games aren't overly rewarded. It is much harder to win by 30 when the tempo is slow than when the pace is really fast. Removing tempo allows Ken to focus on scoring, but make it fair for all teams.

Overall rank is calculated through one more level of calculation. Ken uses what he refers to as the “pythagorean winning percentage". His formula takes offensive and defensive efficiencies and calculates an expected winning percentage against the average D1 team. You may have seen elsewhere where I have mentioned WSU's KenPom rating has been hovering in the 0.90 range. It is 0.9059 currently. Simply put, this means that WSU would be expected to win 90% of their games against average (approx #175 out of 351 in D1) teams on a neutral floor.

I think using KenPom and RPI side by side is extremely helpful because they are calculated so completely differently. If the 2 ranks are similar, it gives me confidence that the ranks are accurate for a given team. If they are far apart, it helps to give a range of valid rankings. If a team is #20 in KP and #50 in RPI, I may not feel confident giving them an exact rank of my own, but very rarely do I feel that they should be #19 or #51. Usually, I'm confident they belong somewhere within the range.

[Kel Varnsen]

Question for JH4P: You keep talking about KenPom's formula, what is the formula?

His formula, I'm sure, is somewhat proprietary. As in, he lets people know what he takes into account, but not how specific factors influence his ratings (the coefficient).

EDIT: JH4P explained it much more eloquently than I did.