Evaluating those Pre-Season MVC Predictions

[Ixiah]

The start of the long off season. I was kind of curious about how good those pre season predictions were so I went back and compared them. Unfortunately, I couldn't find Matt P's predictions (premium content no doubt ;-) ) but below cover a few of the popular ones. Congrats to Sully for giving one of the best predictions for the 2009 => 2010 season :good: . Athlon and Lindy's also did a good job evaluating the MVC.


For the record - here is the MVC finish:

• 1. Northern Iowa 15-3
  2. Wichita State 12-6
  3. Illinois State 11-7
  4. Creighton 10-8
  5/6. Indiana State 9-9
  5/6. Bradley 9-9
  7. Missouri State 8-10
  8. Drake 7-11
  9. Southern Illinois 6-12
  10. Evansville 3-15

Blue = perfect prediction
No color = Reasonable prediction and only 1 or 2 spots off
Yellow = Bad prediction at 3 or 4 spots off
Red = Horrible prediction with 5 or more spots off


Paul Sullentrop:

• 1. Northern Iowa
  2. Creighton (-2)
  3. Illinois State
  4. Wichita State (-2)
  5. Southern Illinois (-4)
  6. Bradley
  7. Indiana State (-1)
  8. Missouri State (-1)
  9. Drake (-1)
  10. Evansville

http://blogs.kansas.com/shockwaves/2009/10/page/2/

Total off on picks = 11.



Athlon:

• 1. Northern Iowa
  2. Illinois State (-1)
  3. Creighton (-1)
  4. Wichita State (-2)
  5. Southern Illinois (-4)
  6. Bradley
  7. Indiana State (-1)
  8. Missouri State (-1)
  9. Drake (-1)
  10. Evansville

Total off on picks = 11.

http://www.msubearnation.com/forum/showthread.php?t=14690&highlight=Athlon

Lindy's

• 1. Northern Iowa
  2. Creighton (-2)
  3. Wichita State (-1)
  4. Illinois State (-1)
  5. Southern Illinois (-4)
  6. Bradley
  7. Indiana State (-1)
  8. Missouri State (-1)
  9. Drake (-1)
  10. Evansville

Total off on picks = 11.

http://valleytalk.net/showthread.php?t=8532

MVC "Official" predictions

• 1. Northern Iowa
  2. Creighton (-2)
  3. Illinois State
  4. Southern Illinois (-5)
  5. Wichita State (-3)
  6. Bradley
  7. Indiana State (-1)
  8. Drake
  9. Missouri State (-2)
  10. Evansville

Total off on picks = 13.

http://www.mvc-sports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPID=2901&DB_OEM_ID=7600&SPSID=36371&ATCLID=204821437

CollegeHoops.net

• 1. Northern Iowa
  2. Creighton (-2)
  3. Illinois State
  4. Southern Illinois (-5)
  5. Indiana State
  6. Bradley
  7. Wichita State (-5)
  8. Drake
  9. Missouri State (-2)
  10. Evansville

Total off on picks = 14.

Seriously underestimating WSU and overestimating SIU mar an otherwise impressive preseason prediction with 6 perfect guesses.

http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/blog/marchmadness/2009/11/missouri-valley-conference-preview.html

Blue Ribbon:

• 1. Northern Iowa
  2. Illinois State (-1)
  3. Creighton (-1)
  4. Southern Illinois (-5)
  5. Indiana State
  6. Bradley
  7. Wichita State (-5)
  8. Drake
  9. Evansville (-1)
  10. Missouri State (-3)

Total off on picks = 16.

http://www.shockernet.net/sn/viewtopic.php?t=14939&highlight=prediction

Dave Reynolds of BradleyHoops

• 1. Northern Iowa
  2. Creighton (-2)
  3. Bradley (-2)
  4. Illinois State (-1)
  5. Southern Illinois (-4)
  6. Indiana State
  7. Wichita State (-5)
  8. Missouri State (-1)
  9. Drake (-1)
  10. Evansville

Total off on picks = 16.

http://www2.pjstar.com/index.php/reynolds/article/despite_woeful_record_i_still_get_to_guess

[BOBB]

That is interesting. I'll go ahead and make excuses for the pickers though. There wasn't a a huge difference bbetween two and seven this year.

[molly jabali]

very interesting post...thanks! Predicting is a tricky business!

[The Mad Hatter]

The general theme seems to be:

CU and SIU picked too high

WSU and MSU picked too low

[ShoxFan45]

I don't think I'm a big homer. But 7th? Come on, I had forgotten that we were picked 7th in some of those preseason rags. I mean...we finished about that in 08-09 and we had everyone back..

[shockball]

I don't think I'm a big homer. But 7th? Come on, I had forgotten that we were picked 7th in some of those preseason rags. I mean...we finished about that in 08-09 and we had everyone back..

We actually tied for 5th in 08-09 with an 8-10 record. (We were also tied for 6th and 7th, but that doesn't sound nearly as good).

CU did their usual OOC tank job and then played better in conference. 0-4 in games against top 50 OOC. They had the 7th best MVC RPI. They came around late or the prognosticators would have been further off.

[1979Shocker]

The general theme seems to be:

CU and SIU picked too high

WSU and MSU picked too low

Here's what I came up with adding up all the overrated and underrated points. SIU was definitely the most overrated and WSU was the most underrated.

                 Over-  Under-
Team             rated  rated
Northern Iowa      0      0
Evansville         1      0
Bradley            2      0
llinois State      2      2
Indiana State      0      4
Drake              0      4
Missouri State     0     11
Wichita State      0     23
Creighton         12      0
Southern Illinois 31      0

[ShockerFever]

Interesting stuff. Thanks.

[WSUwatcher]

Lutz

Interesting review, Ixiah. Thanks for checking. It looks like the off-season is starting to wear already.

For someone who's really bored, has way too much time on his hands, and a large collection of magazines, it might be interesting to do the same thing over a period of years to see which magazine tends to do the best job, or whether certain conferences tend to be picked more or less accurately than others.

Maybe Bob Lutz can take on the task.

[Kung Wu]

The general theme seems to be:

CU and SIU picked too high

WSU and MSU picked too low

Here's what I came up with adding up all the overrated and underrated points. SIU was definitely the most overrated and WSU was the most underrated.

                 Over-  Under-
Team             rated  rated
Northern Iowa      0      0
Evansville         1      0
Bradley            2      0
llinois State      2      2
Indiana State      0      4
Drake              0      4
Missouri State     0     11
Wichita State      0     23
Creighton         12      0
Southern Illinois 31      0

All I can keep focusing on is that _someone_ overrated Evansville.

[kcshocker11]

Alright cancel my subscriptions!