Dayton Message Board

[Flyer Visitor]

Are you serious?

People who make a living betting on sports use advanced metrics first and foremost. It's why you're an underdog in this game (in spite of the higher seed), and why Vandy, Arizona, and Miami were also our dogs last year. Then Indiana and Kansas were our underdogs the year before that. I could go on and on and on with results-based evidence showing advanced metrics being the stronger indicator of WSU's end results, as compared to RPI-based projections. The RPI is essentially dying at the end of this year for a reason.

There is a huge correlation between WSU's regular season, as well as NCAA tournament results, with our kenpom numbers. Ironically, no one ever mentions what our regular season RPI Top 50 or 100 records are these past few five years where we've won 9 NCAA tournament games, had a F4, S16, #1 seed, and beat the likes of Pitt, Gonzaga, Ohio State, Indiana, Kansas, and Arizona, but what do you know... each one of those years we finished in the kenpom top 10/15. Sorta like right now with us sitting at kenpom #8.

I agree rpi has many, many flaws and others are doing a better job of running ranking numbers. And I agree, vegas might be some of the best who run numbers. What I was looking for is if anyone Publishes these stats once the tournament teams are selected. I know of no source, but if someone has a source, I'd appreciate you passing on the link. Thanks.

[Play Angry]

I actually think of Dayton as a sort of kindred spirit. Everyone hates their fan base, they pack their arena, actually spend money on basketball, have a proud history including a Final Four and frequent tournament success, are a "city" school (yes, yes, public v. private, I know) and seem to come up with the short end of the stick from the Committee more often than not.

Let's hate each other until Friday then be friends after that. Would love to have us both land in the AAC.

[Stickboy46]

I agree rpi has many, many flaws and others are doing a better job of running ranking numbers. And I agree, vegas might be some of the best who run numbers. What I was looking for is if anyone Publishes these stats once the tournament teams are selected. I know of no source, but if someone has a source, I'd appreciate you passing on the link. Thanks.

Everything I've been quoting is KenPom. So www.Kenpom.com.

As far as Vegas odds, it really depends, there are lots of books, though they tend to be close in their lines.

[WheatShock]

I actually think of Dayton as a sort of kindred spirit. Everyone hates their fan base, they pack their arena, actually spend money on basketball, have a proud history including a Final Four and frequent tournament success, are a "city" school (yes, yes, public v. private, I know) and seem to come up with the short end of the stick from the Committee more often than not.

Let's hate each other until Friday then be friends after that. Would love to have us both land in the AAC.

This.^

I would love to get a series going with Dayton regardless of Friday's outcome.

[SHOCKvalue]

I agree rpi has many, many flaws and others are doing a better job of running ranking numbers. And I agree, vegas might be some of the best who run numbers. What I was looking for is if anyone Publishes these stats once the tournament teams are selected. I know of no source, but if someone has a source, I'd appreciate you passing on the link. Thanks.

Most if not all of the advanced metric developers do a final run after the tournament. I'm not sure why that's a secret to you, but it might be an indicator your personal context in this discussion is limited.

You're right, the RPI is flawed, and others are doing a better job. It is literally why the NCAA is killing off the RPI, and asking advanced metric guys like Jeff Sagarin and Ken Pomeroy how they should best develop a new number.

[Flyer Visitor]

You can fudge the numbers however you want. You would then be taking WSU's November/December VS You all the way throughout the year. You aren't playing the Nov/Dec WSU.

Your 6-3 looks good until you realize that your wins were against 9 Seed Vandy at home (they aren't a 9 seed and aren't a tourney team, 34 KP), 10 Seed VCU (52 KP) at home, 11 Seed Rhode Island x2 (37 KP), 13 Seed ETSU at home (64 KP), 13 Seed Winthrop at home (112 KP) . Your 3 losses are to 8 seed Northwestern (39 KP), 7 Seed St Marys (14 KP), and 10 Seed VCU

So looking at the tourney teams you beat .. Do you really think ANY of those teams are better than WSU? Not sure why you would only pick those games to compare against.

Your closest comparable game is your HOME loss to Saint Marys. We both played exactly 1 team with a top half seed. 7 Seed St. Marys for you (4 point home loss), 2 seed Lousiville for us (10 point Neutral Loss)

And as I stated, WSU stats may still be better. Just wish there was a source that published tournament team's stats vs. season stats. Do you know of one?

Also, you should know, we too have not had the team we thought we would have returning this year. We lost our big man to heart failure in the spring. Big Steve's death has forced us to totally change the type of offense and defense we play. Then in the 2nd game we lost our best rebounder and player that appeared to be set to be one of our top 2 scorers. (Cunningham) He has been back only a couple games, but only about 75% healthy and doesn't play a lot of minutes. We also had Pollard out at the beginning of the season. We lost some of those tournament team games with both these players out. And our leading scorer Cooke missed some games. I don't know how healthy your team has been. But it appears you are healthier right now. Cunningham is 75% and our 6th man D Davis might have a concussion. Seasons are long and sos and injuries impact stats. I wish I could find a source that gives a better picture of the here and now for stats.

[The Mad Hatter]

And as I stated, WSU stats may still be better. Just wish there was a source that published tournament team's stats vs. season stats. Do you know of one?

Also, you should know, we too have not had the team we thought we would have returning this year. We lost our big man to heart failure in the spring. Big Steve's death has forced us to totally change the type of offense and defense we play. Then in the 2nd game we lost our best rebounder and player that appeared to be set to be one of our top 2 scorers. (Cunningham) He has been back only a couple games, but only about 75% healthy and doesn't play a lot of minutes. We also had Pollard out at the beginning of the season. We lost some of those tournament team games with both these players out. And our leading scorer Cooke missed some games. I don't know how healthy your team has been. But it appears you are healthier right now. Cunningham is 75% and our 6th man D Davis might have a concussion. Seasons are long and sos and injuries impact stats. I wish I could find a source that gives a better picture of the here and now for stats.

The problem with the stats you are asking for is that it cherry picks certain games, which is a really bad practice if you want stats to be interpreted correctly. Larger sample pools are better, not worse for evaluating teams

This was posted in another thread, but here is Ken Pomeroy's explanation of why cherry picking is a bad practice that hurts smaller conference teams:

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2017/03/how_the_ncaa_abuses_statistics_to_stack_the_deck_against_small_schools_like.html

This doesn't even address the issue of how you publish data that is adjusted for average when you are excluding the vast majority of games that were played that season. It just isn't a workable approach.

[XManCometh]

This.^

I would love to get a series going with Dayton regardless of Friday's outcome.

I was there for the First Four last year. They have an incredibly cool and retro arena and I enjoyed the restaurants I visited when there.

Would be a fun trip for Shocker fans!

[Stickboy46]

And as I stated, WSU stats may still be better. Just wish there was a source that published tournament team's stats vs. season stats. Do you know of one?

Why would you want just those stats ? It's not like you guys have played murders row of people. You have played a collection of really low ranking teams. WSU has played similiarly low, but a smaller sample size and all of them came in a 1 month period where as yours stretch all season. "Tournament team stats" are worthless IMO due to this exactly situation.

Yet again .. cherry picking numbers. The yearly stats adjusted for competition are your best rankings.

If we are going to cherry pick, I'm going to pick games in March because that shows who is playing best right now. That's all that matter in the tourney right? Not how you played in November?

WSU 3-0 with a 26 point win, 15 point win, 20 point win (against 33 RPI)
UD 1-2 with a 7 point win (22 RPI), 6 Point Loss vs 102 RPI, 6 point loss vs 89 RPI.

See how dumb it looks to cherry pick?

[Flyer Visitor]

The problem with the stats you are asking for is that it cherry picks certain games, which is a really bad practice if you want stats to be interpreted correctly. Larger sample pools are better, not worse for evaluating teams

This was posted in another thread, but here is Ken Pomeroy's explanation of why cherry picking is a bad practice that hurts smaller conference teams:

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2017/03/how_the_ncaa_abuses_statistics_to_stack_the_deck_against_small_schools_like.html

This doesn't even address the issue of how you publish data that is adjusted for average when you are excluding the vast majority of games that were played that season. It just isn't a workable approach.

Not saying you use these stats for selection - I'd like to see them AFTER the bracket is announced to get a picture of how teams stack up to the competition that made the dance. One example is I believe you guys have a better bench than we do. A lot less drop- off in production. In a blowout against weak teams - and. Both teams have those games in their stats. When we are up by 20 and bring in the bench, we win that game by 8-10 because there is a drop off. You guys might still win that game by 18-20, or more, because your bench is deeper than ours, etc. if every game was played with normal subbing, not score-based subbing, our margin of victory would be different. And your great bench strength does count in games that aren't blowouts. I realize that. But I'm not expecting a blowout by either team in this one. So where do the stats fall in competitive games for each team? I don't know of anyone who runs those type of stats. Do you? And for the record, I'm a marketing executive so I'm very familiar with sample size and how it impacts numbers. I'm not cherry picking anything in what I'm talking about here. Just wondering if there is a matrix that runs stats for the tournament teams only using something more like tournament-quality teams likely to get out of the first round. Because we all know with the conference auto bids there are some weak teams in every tournament. WSU and Dayton never get to play those teams (except maybe the year you guys were a top seed). Seasonal stats this time of year just don't reflect what's ahead for either team. Wish I had a better source. Our vball team was 30-1 headed into the NCAAs this year. We all knew it was because a young team developed faster than anticipated and played a weak schedule that was put together knowing we would be young. We got bounced in the first round by Pitt. Didn't surprise those of us who had been following the team. Our conference was weak, so it was impossible to know how good we were, but we all knew we weren't as good as 30-1 if our schedule had more tourney teams on it. You guys appear to have some of those unknowns with your men's bball team. It's just hard to tell.

[Stickboy46]

I think no one runs those stats because they would be completely irrelevant and really wouldn't tell you anything. You'd have sample sizes of 25 compared to samples of 2 ..

[Kel Varnsen]

Yeah, you really have to do your best to use advanced stats + make some assumptions + use your own judgement on that. What you're describing doesn't really exist, although there is a site called haslametrics.com that doesn't take into account events that happen after a game is mathematically over.

We're #4 in the country on it.

[Stickboy46]

Didn't know that, so thanks. I was looking at it from a perspective of stats from tournament teams, and really stats from the tournament teams likely to win a game. Nobody that I know runs those stats. Dayton is 6-3 against tournament teams and I believe (?) you are 1-4. I would guess the stats from these games might tell a different story, but maybe not. And if we take out the teams in these two records that are not likely to win a tournament game, I think the numbers change again. But maybe not. Logic just makes me lean towards that opinion.

One other thing, if RI loses in the first round of the A10 tourney, they likely don't get in and also likely opens a spot for ISU.

So that 1 game changes the "tournament competition" records to:

UD: 4-3
WSU: 3-4 (wins being by 41, 22, 20)

I'm confident those stats heavily favor WSU, but don't mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

[Aargh]

Not saying you use these stats for selection - I'd like to see them AFTER the bracket is announced to get a picture of how teams stack up to the competition that made the dance. One example is I believe you guys have a better bench than we do. A lot less drop- off in production. In a blowout against weak teams - and. Both teams have those games in their stats. When we are up by 20 and bring in the bench, we win that game by 8-10 because there is a drop off. You guys might still win that game by 18-20, or more, because your bench is deeper than ours, etc. if every game was played with normal subbing, not score-based subbing, our margin of victory would be different. And your great bench strength does count in games that aren't blowouts. I realize that. But I'm not expecting a blowout by either team in this one. So where do the stats fall in competitive games for each team? I don't know of anyone who runs those type of stats. Do you? And for the record, I'm a marketing executive so I'm very familiar with sample size and how it impacts numbers. I'm not cherry picking anything in what I'm talking about here. Just wondering if there is a matrix that runs stats for the tournament teams only using something more like tournament-quality teams likely to get out of the first round. Because we all know with the conference auto bids there are some weak teams in every tournament. WSU and Dayton never get to play those teams (except maybe the year you guys were a top seed). Seasonal stats this time of year just don't reflect what's ahead for either team. Wish I had a better source. Our vball team was 30-1 headed into the NCAAs this year. We all knew it was because a young team developed faster than anticipated and played a weak schedule that was put together knowing we would be young. We got bounced in the first round by Pitt. Didn't surprise those of us who had been following the team. Our conference was weak, so it was impossible to know how good we were, but we all knew we weren't as good as 30-1 if our schedule had more tourney teams on it. You guys appear to have some of those unknowns with your men's bball team. It's just hard to tell.

Our "bench" got us the 30-point lead with 5 minutes left when Marshall put the walkons in for the rest of the game. Literally the 3rd team. There are 16 players on WSU's roster, so the mopup minutes were going to the 3rd team, not the 10-11 guys who contributed to the margin that gave the minutes to the walkons.

In the Battle For Atlantis, there weren't enough chairs on the court for all of WSU's players. The end of the bench was suited up and sitting in the stands behind the bench. The announcers got a big kick out of it, "The Shockers just brought in a player from BEHIND the bench. He wasn't even on the bench. He was sitting BEHIND the bench".

If Marshall had stuck to a 10- or 12-deep rotation (a typical team's "bench") in the blowouts , the margin of victory would have been closer to 30 than to the actual margin of around 20

[pie n eye]

It's not hard for me to tell, I've watched every game this year. The KenPom numbers back up what I see on the court. WSU is really good.

I'm sure Dayton is as well but I don't know because I don't have the same exposure to them.

I don't think picking out stats against tournament teams is that fruitful of an exercise. A team shouldn't be judged by just their best performances. Good bad and ugly, what a team did over the course of the regular season should all be considered part of their "resume".