Bear Down Wildcats

Beachcat97 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 3:29 pm Make of this what you will, but this time of year, an old bit of conventional wisdom always emerges: the teams with the most future NBA players tend to do well in this tournament. How many future NBA players does Houston have? We have at least three (BM, CK, DT) and may have as many as five (AT, OB).

Spaceman Spiff wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 4:24 pm

Beachcat97 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 3:29 pm Make of this what you will, but this time of year, an old bit of conventional wisdom always emerges: the teams with the most future NBA players tend to do well in this tournament. How many future NBA players does Houston have? We have at least three (BM, CK, DT) and may have as many as five (AT, OB).

It's like this. Our best game is better than their best game.

They're also good enough where if they play 80% of their best game and we play 70% of our best game, they'll win.

Alieberman wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 4:35 pm I'm not feeling very nervous right now... which is making me feel very nervous

U.P. Zona Fan wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 4:48 pm I think they have to play 90% to beat our 70%

Illinois held them to 68pts, Memphis held them to 71, in games that Houston won.
They whipped UAB but whatever.

They will need to score more than that to win tonight unless we fall off the face of the earth.

I like our chances.

RondaeShimmy wrote: ↑Tue Mar 22, 2022 11:43 am If Arizona manages to reach the Final Four, Arizona will have made first time history.

As you can see from below, the chances of Arizona going out in the round of 32 were really high.

http://beardownwildcats.com/viewtopic.p ... 26#p541526


The preseason AP is actually a good indicator of tournament success. Kenpom wrote a blog post a decade ago.

https://kenpom.com/blog/the-preseason-ap-poll-is-great/

You might be surprised to hear this, but I’m a big fan of the pre-season AP poll. There is no doubt poll participants have their biases in the pre-season. They may tend to over-estimate the importance of the previous postseason, especially when a team needed more than its fair share of luck to advance. But otherwise, whatever biases are present are uniquely individual, and in the collection of 70 or so ballots, those biases are cancelled out, leaving a useful signal. The end result is that it provides a better picture of the state of college hoops before the season begins than any single person or algorithm could produce. It’s informed groupthink at its finest.
.......
.......

Why? The preseason mostly ranks the talent and potential overall of the team whereas the regular season poll is just performance week to week.

Consider this year's teams in the S16 and where they were ranked in the preseason.

N°1 Gonzaga
N°2 UCLA
N°3 Kansas
N°4 Villanova
N°6 Michigan
N°7 Purdue
N°9 Duke
N°15 Houston
N°16 Arkansas
N°19 North Carolina

Unranked: Arizona, Texas Tech, Iowa St, Providence, Miami (FL), St Peters

RondaeShimmy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 21, 2022 2:27 pm Since March 1st we've had the #3 offense

However our defense has ranked #56

https://www.barttorvik.com/?year=2022&s ... mingames=5#

Kansas and Houston have been the best both ways. Our kenpom before was #6-8 overall at 88-89 ppp, and is now #19-20 at 92+ PPP also confirms the same thing.

This also from Miyakawa from before the tournament says the same. Looking at Kentucky, no surprise they lost early. Duke and Arizona are also in that similar situation.

If I weren't an Arizona fan, I'd bet against Arizona heavily. I didn't pick Kentucky going past the S16 for this reason alone, alarming defensive tanking.

This should honestly be concerning, but we keep winning for now.

RondaeShimmy wrote: ↑Thu Mar 24, 2022 9:40 pm

RondaeShimmy wrote: ↑Tue Mar 22, 2022 11:43 am If Arizona manages to reach the Final Four, Arizona will have made first time history.

As you can see from below, the chances of Arizona going out in the round of 32 were really high.

http://beardownwildcats.com/viewtopic.p ... 26#p541526


The preseason AP is actually a good indicator of tournament success. Kenpom wrote a blog post a decade ago.

https://kenpom.com/blog/the-preseason-ap-poll-is-great/

You might be surprised to hear this, but I’m a big fan of the pre-season AP poll. There is no doubt poll participants have their biases in the pre-season. They may tend to over-estimate the importance of the previous postseason, especially when a team needed more than its fair share of luck to advance. But otherwise, whatever biases are present are uniquely individual, and in the collection of 70 or so ballots, those biases are cancelled out, leaving a useful signal. The end result is that it provides a better picture of the state of college hoops before the season begins than any single person or algorithm could produce. It’s informed groupthink at its finest.
.......
.......

Why? The preseason mostly ranks the talent and potential overall of the team whereas the regular season poll is just performance week to week.

Consider this year's teams in the S16 and where they were ranked in the preseason.

N°1 Gonzaga
N°2 UCLA
N°3 Kansas
N°4 Villanova
N°6 Michigan
N°7 Purdue
N°9 Duke
N°15 Houston
N°16 Arkansas
N°19 North Carolina

Unranked: Arizona, Texas Tech, Iowa St, Providence, Miami (FL), St Peters

RondaeShimmy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 21, 2022 2:27 pm Since March 1st we've had the #3 offense

However our defense has ranked #56

https://www.barttorvik.com/?year=2022&s ... mingames=5#

Kansas and Houston have been the best both ways. Our kenpom before was #6-8 overall at 88-89 ppp, and is now #19-20 at 92+ PPP also confirms the same thing.

This also from Miyakawa from before the tournament says the same. Looking at Kentucky, no surprise they lost early. Duke and Arizona are also in that similar situation.

If I weren't an Arizona fan, I'd bet against Arizona heavily. I didn't pick Kentucky going past the S16 for this reason alone, alarming defensive tanking.

This should honestly be concerning, but we keep winning for now.

Two huge red flags.

But the biggest and reddest of red flags was that Arizona was actually was playing it's worst basketball since March 1st according to the metrics.

And was playing even worse in it's NCAA tournament games. Houston just too good, I wanted Illinois badly.