ACC Weekly Update (1-8)

Photo from News & Observer

Media types love to drone on about how hard it is to win on the road. Usually it comes across to me as just something to fill the air waves, but it was sure true this week in the ACC:

  • FSU over UNC
  • GT over Miami
  • WF over SYR
  • State over Duke

In contrast to these big upsets at home, ND goes into the Carrier Dome down two starters and beats SYR. I’m not sure if I need to think more of ND or less of SYR. As usual, time will tell.

 

RPI SUMMARY TABLE

From ESPN

I found it interesting that L’ville has no Top 100 wins so far this year…and is the only ACC team currently with that “distinction”.

Four ACC teams currently in the RPI Top 10 is nothing to sneeze at. Unsurprisingly, four of the ACC teams (including State) also have some of the hardest conference schedules to start off the New Year.

With the wide variation in schedule strengths, (both OOC and in-conference), it’s often worthwhile to take a closer look at who a given team has actually played and who they’ve defeated. If you go to the ESPN link (just below the RPI Summary Table), each team’s name is a hyperlink to their respective pages where their season to date is broken down. One of the most useful areas on this page is that ESPN’s summarizes the results of the last 12 games and all of the remaining games on their schedule. For instance, State’s first five ACC games are all against teams well on their way to the NCAAT:

This type of chronological breakdown along with the opponents RPI Ranking helps us gage how a team is playing over a given stretch of time…as well as highlighting particularly hard or easy stretches of their schedule. As I mentioned last week, State’s roughest stretch may well be the first five games of the ACC season.

 

RPI TREND GRAPHS

Both Clemson and UVA went 2-0 last week and both made dramatic improvements in their RPI Ranking. Likewise, SYR’s 0-2 week is hard to miss.

But wins and losses don’t always show up like you would expect. For instance, UNC went 0-2 last week, but their mid-week loss to FSU actually resulted in a small increase in RPI Ranking and the butt-kicking by UVA was a pretty small drop. Without doing the math, you can see that road losses, especially to good teams, don’t always have a dramatic effect on RPI Ranking.

If you look at both trend graphs, you can easily see the effect of ND’s 2-0 week and that ND has moved into our “IN” category.

The Bubble is really depleted this week. I’m probably the only person classifying BC anywhere near the NCAAT. But I’ll give their win over Duke more credit than it probably deserves and put them there this week.

 

ACC STANDINGS

It’s obviously really early in the season, but the standings needed to be included so that I could point out that all of NC schools are tied at 1-2.

It’s also worth mentioning that only Pitt didn’t get at least one win out of the first three games of the conference schedule.

Other than UVA, I doubt that anyone would have guessed any of the other three teams that are currently in the top four places.

 

UPCOMING ACC SCHEDULE

Overall, not a lot of can’t miss games this week.

SYR went 0-2 last week and gets to follow that up with a challenging week on the road against UVA and FSU. I haven’t seen the Orange play this year, but you don’t need any first-hand knowledge of their team to know that they are going to have to pick the pace up if they don’t want a four-game losing streak.

State’s games are spot-lighted this week by playing on the off-nights (and thankfully not on Monday).

Duke has already lost on the road to BC and State. They get two more chances this week to see if they can win on the road.

About VaWolf82

Engineer living in Central Va. and senior curmudgeon amongst SFN authors One wife, two kids, one dog, four vehicles on insurance, and four phones on cell plan...looking forward to empty nest status. Graduated 1982

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Home Forums ACC Weekly Update (1-8)

Viewing 25 posts - 1 through 25 (of 42 total)
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  • #128701
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Media types love to drone on about how hard it is to win on the road. Usually it comes across to me as just something to fill the air waves…[See the full post at: ACC Weekly Update (1-8)]

    #128703
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster
    #128705
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    VAWolf….

    Another excellent job of crunching those numbers… visually….

    Keep that up…sir!

    Now the thing that “jumps” out for me… is this…

    The Big Four are all 1-2 in the Conference.
    I’m gonna post more ’bout this later, but for now… I just want to ask a “numbers” question…

    In your number crunching as it leads to ‘projections’ for dancing based on RPI…

    “Do the numbers suggest that ALL Four teams have a relatively equal chance of dancing?”

    If not, what are the specific “variables” that would cause “inequality” in projected outcomes?

    GO PACK!!!
    =botb

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #128706
    wolfmanmat
    Participant

    Great numbers. All added up, we still have a chance. Still got to find 8 more wins in acc to hit the bubble. Hopefully we keep that momentum from Duke. Any chance? Maybe…

    #128712
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    “Do the numbers suggest that ALL Four teams have a relatively equal chance of dancing?”

    No, not by a long shot.

    Simplistically speaking, you need a 0.500 conference record and a Top 50 RPI to go dancing. State and Wake are a long way from a Top 50 RPI ranking.

    #128724
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    If not, what are the specific “variables” that would cause “inequality” in projected outcomes?

    I’m having some difficulty making the leap from descriptive to predictive….

    GO PACK!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #128725
    Heelh8r
    Participant

    Simplistically speaking you need a 0.500 conference record

    But would a .500 ACC record not get us or Wake into the RPI top 50?

    #128726
    ryebread
    Participant

    Bill: If you want predictive, go to kenpom.com. He plots out the projected records based on where every team is at the moment. Obviously every game changes the future prediction. Let’s say we beat Clemson Thursday. We would look “stronger” in his eyes and this more apt to win more future games, so our future prediction might increase. Go in and get hammered at home, and it might drop.

    It isn’t the easiest thing to really do. Before the Duke win, kenpom had us at 6 predictive wins in conference. That was where my eyes had us as well. I’m not sure where he has us as of right now, but would suspect we are up to 8.

    The reality for a bubble team in a power conference is that their fate is often decided before they ever play a conference game. They won’t have enough RPI building wins either at the top line or they won’t have played enough good teams. Sadly, we scheduled ourselves off the bubble. We are fine at the “top line” with the Zona win and going 2-2 agains teams with a pulse. Had we played just a solid set of other opponents, we actually could be right in the hunt for the bubble.

    Alas we didn’t. Our only path is .500 or better in the ACC, AND we need wins against the top line opponents. Given our non-conference schedule, it won’t be good enough just getting to .500 if those wins are against Pitt, Wake, GT. We got a good win against Duke. Clemson is critically important. My eyes say they’re a good team, their record says they’re a good team, and the computers think they’re a good team. We really need this one.

    There are two take aways. First the schedule has to improve going forward. I suspect it will and this team’s non-conference schedule was just to give us a lot of working room to implement the system with a higher margin of error.

    The second is the amazing fact that we could actually even talk about the bubble. We’re nowhere near it, but it shows a fan’s optimism about the state of the program, and that we have a couple of good wins such that the fans are waking up to possibly take interest. I have always thought that the bubble was the absolute best possible outcome for this team, and it would be nice to see us reach our “potential.”

    #128728
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    But would a .500 ACC record not get us or Wake into the RPI top 50?

    It wasn’t good enough for Syracuse last year. They were 10-8 in conference, with a miserable OOC schedule, and had an RPI Ranking of 76 going into the ACCT.

    In contrast to SYR, WF played a bruising OOC schedule and finished with an 8-8 conference record. Their RPI ranking was 28th going into the ACCT.

    Syracuse had more Top 25 and Top 50 wins and neither did anything remarkable in the ACCT. But who got into the NCAAT and who was a #1 seed in the NIT?

    http://www.statefansnation.com/2017/03/last-look-at-the-bubble-3/#sthash.PR9wlJkb.dpbs

    Bottom Line: OOC schedule matters.

    #128729
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    If you want predictive, go to kenpom.com. He plots out the projected records based on where every team is at the moment.

    Is that behind a pay wall?

    After the ND and Duke games, teamrankings.com moved State from 6 ACC wins to 6.6.

    https://www.teamrankings.com/ncaa-basketball/team/nc-state-wolfpack/projections

    #128730
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    Syracuse had more Top 25 and Top 50 wins and neither did anything remarkable in the ACCT. But who got into the NCAAT and who was a #1 seed in the NIT?

    As I remember… That had perhaps more to do with Coach Dinosaur and the academic issues at ‘Cuse than W/Ls/RPI, etc….
    ————————
    It seems to me that something that might be overlooked is the fact that there are no zeros in this rankings game…

    Every win is another team’s lose… so every game mathematically can be viewed as a +1 and -1…

    If we win 8-9 more ACC games, then that’s 6-7 other teams that lost games to us that they never shoulda lost on paper…
    so our “relative strength rankings” should increase at a cumulative, not linear, rate…

    Now if We WIN 10 – get to the Semis in the ACC Tourny — THAN We Dance, regardless of the numbers…

    The Kevin Keatts WOLFPACK Cinderella Story will over-ride all the numbers!!!

    GO PACK!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #128731
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    It seems to me that something that might be overlooked is the fact that there are no zeros in this rankings game…

    Every win is another team’s lose… so every game mathematically can be viewed as a +1 and -1…

    That logic works in the ACC standings, but not in the RPI rankings. The 40% or so from the OOC schedule is always there and State’s OOC schedule is probably too big of a drag for this team to overcome. Hopefully you’re right and I’m wrong, but I just don’t see the team that got blown out with ND playing down two starters as having much hope for this year.

    #128732
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    ^Sean Miller && Coach Rat might disagree…

    At this point in the season, I would put us in the category:

    “Deadly as a Snake, on any given night…”

    I really liked three things about the Dook game that could be our leading indicators for the rest of the season…

    1. Batt’s energy at the point and on Defense…
    2. BIGS got MAD on the boards, like upperclassmen should do without being told or coerced…
    3. Believing in yourselves… which is what happened with the rest of guys when they followed Batts && the BIGS…

    This, unfortunately, also might tell us the oppositions’ game plan against the Wolfpack…
    1. Cut the head off the snake…
    2. Don’t make our BIGS MAD…
    3. Make the rest of the team try to do it all…

    GO PACK!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #128734
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    ^Sean Miller && Coach Rat might disagree…

    State’s not the only team to upset either of those two.
    It could just be that both are over rated right now.

    At this point in the season, I would put us in the category:

    “Deadly as a Snake, on any given night…”

    …and like a stuffed teddy bear on others.

    #128736
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    …and like a stuffed teddy bear on others.

    That’s a fact, Jack!

    It could just be that both are over rated right now.

    Which also may be true… and true of Kentucky, Kansas and others playing the one-and-done circuit…

    That raises another interesting question with RPI / KenPom / Analytics…

    How do they factor in “freshman wildcard” and the “one-and-done – maybe this team comes together, maybe it does not” factor ?
    From where I sit… if the Coach don’t know…it’s anybody’s guess….

    GO PACK!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #128737
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    How do they factor in “freshman wildcard” and the “one-and-done – maybe this team comes together, maybe it does not” factor ?

    As far as I know, no one adds a wildcard factor for anything. It’s all points for, points against, SOS, etc.

    #128738
    freshmanin83
    Participant

    To get the Packs RPI up to where it needs to be I think they are going to have to beat some teams on the road. If memory serves a home win counts as .6 of a win and a road win as 1.4 wins when calculating winning percentages for RPI.

    Oh yeah and don’t lose a home game as the reverse is true for losses.

    Of course your own winning percentage is only like 25% of the calculation I think.

    #128739
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    … same question, different way…

    How do they filter out ‘media hype’, ‘name recognition’, call it “the blue filter…” ???

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #128740
    wolfmanmat
    Participant

    To go 10 and 8 in Acc, we pretty much have to have 2 or 3more top 25 wins. The Acc is that good and we will lose 1 or 2 to teams we may be better than but don’t beat (wake/vt/pitt/bc/gt). If we finish 10 and 8 and win 1 or 2 in tourney, we will get in based on who we will need to beat to get there.

    #128741
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    … same question, different way…

    How do they filter out ‘media hype’, ‘name recognition’, call it “the blue filter…” ???

    The polls are not included in RPI, Kenpom, Sagarin, ESPN’s BPI etc. So media hype, name recognition, etc have absolutely no effect on these different “measuring” systems.

    #128743
    ryebread
    Participant

    Kenpom’s predictive is behind the pay wall. I believe Packi has access.

    He has a factor called “luck” in his metrics. I believe they go into the predictive stats.

    #128744
    WolfpackCoach17
    Participant

    How is the ESPN RPI so far off from the live-rpi.com RPI. Right now, #91 vs #109. In years past they have always been very similar. Any changes in the formula that one of the two sites aren’t getting? realtimerpi also has us at #109, but that site is major pop ups. Just looked at CBSSPORTS rpi, and they have us at #109 as well. So ESPN is either off, or they know a secret that everyone else doesn’t.

    #128745
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    So ESPN is either off, or they know a secret that everyone else doesn’t.

    Back in Dec, ESPN was way off from CBS and realtimerpi but then they got much closer to the other on-line RPI values. As you’ve shown, ESPN is once again off in left field. In the past, I’ve looked at a handful of end-of-year numbers from ESPN and NCAA and found that ESPN is off the mark (but not as much as they are right now).

    ESPN gives me a great summary of the whole conference which dramatically speeds up these weekly blog entries.This link shows why I’m using ESPN for the weekly updates:
    http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/rpi/_/groupId/2

    Jerry Palm at CBS Sports used to run his own pay site and blog and he talked about some of the details that lead to differences in the calcs. Back then, Palm would track down differences between his calcs and the NCAA’s and contact the NCAA about them.

    The only difference I remember him talking about were some differences between classifying a game as home/away/neutral. The example he gave was that Indiana playing in Indianapolis was considered neutral by the NCAA and he had included it as a home game. So Palm changed his calcs for this and others but reported that in some instances the NCAA had changed their inputs.

    I say all of that to say that if I had to trust one of the daily update sites, I would pick CBS because of Palm’s attention to detail (while making the assumption that he is still as picky as he used to be.) I used to use CBS and manually create the summary table….which took a lot of time.

    I’m hoping that ESPN will straighten their stuff out. If not, I’ll take a closer look at the end of the year to see how big the difference in various RPI calcs are and if these differences are affecting our analysis of the ACC bubble teams. But right now, you would reach the same conclusion for State no matter which RPI calc you used.

    #128746
    bill.onthebeach
    Participant

    VaWolf — check the WordPress filters in the Admin panel please and see if you can release a post I made earlier this am…
    thanks!

    #NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!
    #128748
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    VaWolf — check the WordPress filters in the Admin panel please and see if you can release a post I made earlier this am…
    thanks!

    I’m going to have to talk to someone about exactly where missing posts are shelved. I found a two-year old comment from an ECU fan that was “pending”, spam (alot of which were construction related), and nothing in trash. I’ll keep looking while we hope someone else knows where to look.

    EDIT
    Bill, I found a second spam folder that had a number of legitimate posts from long-time and frequent posters, but nothing from you today.

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