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Alright ladies and gents, let's sit down and begin today's history lesson. The questions of the day are, Where does this years team "rank" compared to all Gregg Marshall's teams here at Wichita State and How does next year's team project? To get to the bottom of these questions, we will be using the following statistical tools to measure each teams offensive and defensive value over the years. I personally use stats that are forward-looking, otherwise known as predictive analysis. The forward-looking stats are meant to predict the outcome of matchup between any two teams. I particularly use two of these stats.
Ken-Pom: The new stalwart it seems in college basketball analytics. What is interesting to note about ken-Pom is that Mr. Pomeroy recently updated his methodology at the start of the season to make it more human-friendly to understand and to introduce new elements to the stats themselves. For example, the stat used to compute overall rankings is now a linear ranking vs the old non-linear ranking. This means you can compare the numbers of multiple teams rather easily.
Many other items were included in his update. Read about the changes here at his blog post: http://kenpom.com/blog/ratings-methodology-update/ [1]
ESPN's BPI: This one isn't usually touted by college basketball fans as their favorite, but hear me out on this one. Just like Ken-Pom, the BPI also underwent a facelift this season. IT added a new pre-season ranking that looks at 4 elements of each team to determine pre-season rankings, as well as additional changes. What's interesting about the new changes are the nuances they have thrown in. For example, "BPI also factors in the number of days’ rest for each team, difference in distance traveled from home and high-altitude effects." ESPN has included two separate overall stats, the predictive BPI number and the old S-Curve ranking updated and brought back under a new name, Strength of Record (SOR). Use SOR to guesstimate tourney seed, and BPI to figure out who will win in a head to head match-up.
Read about what originally went into the BPI: http://www.espn.com/mens-college-bas...ndex-explained
Read about the enhancements made this season: http://www.espn.com/blog/statsinfo/p...e-they-derived
Now, I personally like to split the difference between these two statistics when making game predictions, but we're not trying to make the perfect bracket right now. We're trying to see how great this team really is. Due to the nature of how the stats are created, we can go back to the start of Gregg's tenure here at Wichita State and review each team's offensive and defensive prowess. So, let's get started!
Ken-Pom's ratings focus on Adjusted Efficiency margin, or adjEM. What does this represent? Well, Ken says "AdjEM is the difference between a team’s offensive and defensive efficiency. It’s simple subtraction. Even your dog can do it. It represents the number of points the team would be expected to outscore the average D-I team over 100 possessions and it has the advantage of being a linear measure. The difference between +31 and +28 is the same as the difference between +4 and +1. It’s three points per 100 possessions which is much easier to interpret."
Alright, so what's offensive and defensive efficiency? Well, they are adjusted stats to start. Any time you see something “adjusted” it refers to how a team would perform against average competition over 100 possessions at a neutral site. Adjusted offense and defense are still rated independently, and the performance of each is now evaluated against the national average in efficiency on the date the game was played. [1] This means that numbers from year aren't directly comparable because the "average college basketball team" changes over time, but this average probably doesn't vary much from year to year. Now here is the data from Kem-Pom.
Note: When you look at his website, rating years represent the year the championship was played, not the year that the season begins in. Notice that Ken-Pom has ratings for 2017, even though the 2017-2018 season won't start until next seasons. I intentionally have matched in my table the ranking with the year that begins the season. In other words, the 2008 ratings on Ken-Pom match the 2007 numbers I have here, because I view the stats as part of the 2007-2008 season.
Alright, so what can we take away? Well for starters, the adjusted efficiency margin for this year's squad is actually higher than any previous Gregg Marshall coached team. At 26.37 currently, this team is more efficient overall than even the 35-1 team. Not only that, but this is our best offensive team too. When Dan Mueller said this is the likely the best Wichita State team he has seen, he meant it. What could be the team's Achilles heel is their defense, which needs to be able to contain high octane offenses like Oklahoma State's in the tourney to advance to the Final 4 and beyond.
So what does BPI say? BPI is very similar to Kem-Pom is that is uses adjusted efficiency numbers to eventually come up with a ranking.
Quick takeaways: BPI consistently ranks the Shockers slightly lower than Ken-Pom except for Gregg's first year. BPI also holds true with the beliefs that this years team is the best overall, with a better offense but worse defense than that 35-1 team. The best defenses were during the Ron and Fred years and the best offense was the senior year for Touré, David, and Garrett, but already we can see that the talent and athleticism levels of the current crop of athletes has all the capability to EXCEED the teams of the past due to already having the highest BPI of any Triple-G coached squad.
We should all sleep well for the next year, as Coach Marshall has a team more than capable of winning it all this year, and next year should be a favorite too! Put your shades on Shockers!
What takeaways do you guys find from these stats?
Ken-Pom: The new stalwart it seems in college basketball analytics. What is interesting to note about ken-Pom is that Mr. Pomeroy recently updated his methodology at the start of the season to make it more human-friendly to understand and to introduce new elements to the stats themselves. For example, the stat used to compute overall rankings is now a linear ranking vs the old non-linear ranking. This means you can compare the numbers of multiple teams rather easily.
Many other items were included in his update. Read about the changes here at his blog post: http://kenpom.com/blog/ratings-methodology-update/ [1]
ESPN's BPI: This one isn't usually touted by college basketball fans as their favorite, but hear me out on this one. Just like Ken-Pom, the BPI also underwent a facelift this season. IT added a new pre-season ranking that looks at 4 elements of each team to determine pre-season rankings, as well as additional changes. What's interesting about the new changes are the nuances they have thrown in. For example, "BPI also factors in the number of days’ rest for each team, difference in distance traveled from home and high-altitude effects." ESPN has included two separate overall stats, the predictive BPI number and the old S-Curve ranking updated and brought back under a new name, Strength of Record (SOR). Use SOR to guesstimate tourney seed, and BPI to figure out who will win in a head to head match-up.
Read about what originally went into the BPI: http://www.espn.com/mens-college-bas...ndex-explained
Read about the enhancements made this season: http://www.espn.com/blog/statsinfo/p...e-they-derived
Now, I personally like to split the difference between these two statistics when making game predictions, but we're not trying to make the perfect bracket right now. We're trying to see how great this team really is. Due to the nature of how the stats are created, we can go back to the start of Gregg's tenure here at Wichita State and review each team's offensive and defensive prowess. So, let's get started!
Ken-Pom's ratings focus on Adjusted Efficiency margin, or adjEM. What does this represent? Well, Ken says "AdjEM is the difference between a team’s offensive and defensive efficiency. It’s simple subtraction. Even your dog can do it. It represents the number of points the team would be expected to outscore the average D-I team over 100 possessions and it has the advantage of being a linear measure. The difference between +31 and +28 is the same as the difference between +4 and +1. It’s three points per 100 possessions which is much easier to interpret."
Alright, so what's offensive and defensive efficiency? Well, they are adjusted stats to start. Any time you see something “adjusted” it refers to how a team would perform against average competition over 100 possessions at a neutral site. Adjusted offense and defense are still rated independently, and the performance of each is now evaluated against the national average in efficiency on the date the game was played. [1] This means that numbers from year aren't directly comparable because the "average college basketball team" changes over time, but this average probably doesn't vary much from year to year. Now here is the data from Kem-Pom.
Note: When you look at his website, rating years represent the year the championship was played, not the year that the season begins in. Notice that Ken-Pom has ratings for 2017, even though the 2017-2018 season won't start until next seasons. I intentionally have matched in my table the ranking with the year that begins the season. In other words, the 2008 ratings on Ken-Pom match the 2007 numbers I have here, because I view the stats as part of the 2007-2008 season.
| Opponents | Strength | of | Schedule | NCSOS | |||||||||||||
| Notables | Year | Rank | W-L | AdjEM | AdjO | AdjD | AdjT | AdjEM | OppO | OppD | AdjEM | ||||||
| 1st Year | 2007 | 155 | 11-20 | 1.32 | 99.5 | 176 | 98.2 | 139 | 64.4 | 319 | 95 | 102.7 | 86 | 98.4 | 98 | -0.63 | 183 |
| CBI 2nd Round | 2008 | 134 | 17-17 | 2.34 | 98.9 | 173 | 96.6 | 118 | 65.3 | 181 | 101 | 101.5 | 102 | 98.3 | 108 | 1.54 | 111 |
| NIT 1st Round | 2009 | 64 | 25-10 | 11.98 | 105 | 79 | 93 | 65 | 67.1 | 157 | 120 | 101.3 | 114 | 98.5 | 133 | -4.6 | 285 |
| NIT Champions | 2010 | 27 | 29-8 | 17.55 | 109.6 | 32 | 92.1 | 50 | 67.3 | 278 | 119 | 100.1 | 154 | 98.3 | 93 | -1.32 | 195 |
| NCAA Round of 64 | 2011 | 11 | 27-6 | 22.36 | 113.4 | 10 | 91.1 | 26 | 67.4 | 209 | 78 | 103.7 | 72 | 99.1 | 88 | 5.39 | 26 |
| NCAA Final 4 | 2012 | 17 | 30-9 | 20.27 | 110 | 34 | 89.8 | 20 | 65.3 | 184 | 51 | 105.8 | 22 | 98.6 | 80 | 2.66 | 75 |
| NCAA Round of 32 | 2013 | 6 | 35-1 | 25.36 | 117.1 | 17 | 91.8 | 11 | 64.9 | 205 | 120 | 105.8 | 114 | 104.1 | 131 | 4.84 | 35 |
| NCAA Sweet 16 | 2014 | 13 | 30-5 | 22.16 | 113.7 | 19 | 91.6 | 15 | 62.8 | 132 | 92 | 104.2 | 100 | 100.6 | 89 | 4.82 | 32 |
| NCAA Round of 32 | 2015 | 13 | 26-9 | 22.55 | 110.2 | 67 | 87.6 | 1 | 66.5 | 332 | 91 | 104.2 | 144 | 100.3 | 60 | 7.51 | 10 |
| NCAA Tourney | 2016 | 10 | 30-4 | 26.37 | 119.8 | 11 | 93.4 | 20 | 69 | 227 | 125 | 104.6 | 159 | 103.8 | 112 | 0.26 | 158 |
Alright, so what can we take away? Well for starters, the adjusted efficiency margin for this year's squad is actually higher than any previous Gregg Marshall coached team. At 26.37 currently, this team is more efficient overall than even the 35-1 team. Not only that, but this is our best offensive team too. When Dan Mueller said this is the likely the best Wichita State team he has seen, he meant it. What could be the team's Achilles heel is their defense, which needs to be able to contain high octane offenses like Oklahoma State's in the tourney to advance to the Final 4 and beyond.
So what does BPI say? BPI is very similar to Kem-Pom is that is uses adjusted efficiency numbers to eventually come up with a ranking.
| Notables | Year | BPI RK | SOR | W-L | BPI OFF | BPI DEF | BPI |
| 1st Year | 2007 | 159 | 204 | 11-20 | -3.6 | 3.8 | 0.3 |
| CBI 2nd Round | 2008 | 149 | 155 | 17-17 | -4 | 4.9 | 0.9 |
| NIT 1st Round | 2009 | 74 | 70 | 25-10 | 0.9 | 5.5 | 6.4 |
| NIT Champions | 2010 | 37 | 44 | 29-8 | 5.5 | 4.9 | 10.4 |
| NCAA Round of 64 | 2011 | 13 | 23 | 27-6 | 8.9 | 5.3 | 14.1 |
| NCAA Final 4 | 2012 | 23 | 17 | 30-9 | 4.4 | 7.5 | 11.8 |
| NCAA Round of 32 | 2013 | 14 | 6 | 35-1 | 5.4 | 9.2 | 14.6 |
| NCAA Sweet 16 | 2014 | 17 | 17 | 30-5 | 5.1 | 8.6 | 13.7 |
| NCAA Round of 32 | 2015 | 15 | 52 | 26-9 | 3.3 | 11.1 | 14.4 |
| NCAA Tourney | 2016 | 16 | 30 | 30-4 | 7.4 | 8.2 | 15.6 |
Quick takeaways: BPI consistently ranks the Shockers slightly lower than Ken-Pom except for Gregg's first year. BPI also holds true with the beliefs that this years team is the best overall, with a better offense but worse defense than that 35-1 team. The best defenses were during the Ron and Fred years and the best offense was the senior year for Touré, David, and Garrett, but already we can see that the talent and athleticism levels of the current crop of athletes has all the capability to EXCEED the teams of the past due to already having the highest BPI of any Triple-G coached squad.
We should all sleep well for the next year, as Coach Marshall has a team more than capable of winning it all this year, and next year should be a favorite too! Put your shades on Shockers!
What takeaways do you guys find from these stats?
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