The Holy Land of Hoops

If you're not sick of conference previews yet, here's another one! KenPom's advanced metric rankings were released yesterday.

9 Villanova
22 Georgetown
39 St. John's
47 Creighton
53 Providence
66 Xavier
67 Butler
85 Seton Hall
86 Marquette
197 DePaul

I like what the Model says about Georgetown, but think it's too high on Creighton, too low on Xavier, and Seton Hall and overall I think most of the conference is too low. I think we have 5 top 50 teams in the league.

hoyahooligan wrote:I like what the Model says about Georgetown, but think it's too high on Creighton, too low on Xavier, and Seton Hall and overall I think most of the conference is too low. I think we have 5 top 50 teams in the league.

Yeah, how does Creighton get that high? Did their bench players play that much that KenPom's metrics value them that highly?

My guess is he's somewhat (over)valuing the offensive sets McDermott runs, and the computer thinks the new guys will get plugged in and remain efficient. He projects Creighton as #17 in adj. offense.

And our bench did play quite a bit last season. Brooks, Zierden, Hanson, and Dingman all saw pretty significant minutes off the bench last year. Artino was also insanely efficient on offense last season and returns. I don't expect him to maintain that level with more attention on him. But that's likely where the ranking comes from. Actually, most of the metric ranking systems have Creighton ranked pretty highly. There are a few that have them in the low 20's.

KenPom also takes past seasons (past five seasons, if I'm remembering correctly). Creighton has won at least 20 games for the last five years (including post-season tournaments).

As for the other computer rankings that FlyJays mentioned:
T-Rank - Creighton at 42
Massey - Creighton at 27
Dokter - Creighton at 26

DePaul at 197...That's not too good.

Here's how kenpom creates his ranking:

The system is largely the same as in recent seasons. It independently predicts a team’s adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency. As a reminder, it uses information split into two categories:

- Base level of the program. This takes into account the last five seasons of data for the same unit (offense for predicting offense) and the last season for the opposite unit (defense for predicting offense). It also includes data for how much money the program has spent on men’s basketball for the last three seasons. The bulk of this component is determined by the most recent season’s performance of the unit.

- Personnel. This component handles who’s coming back from last season’s team and which impact recruits are being added to the roster. More impact is given to returning players from earlier classes. And minutes played by those with a high-efficiency/high-usage profile are particularly important. Recruits in the RSCI top 100 have some influence here as well, although most of the influence is in the top 50.

So obviously the base level of the program is probably boosting Creighton quite a bit here, but it also is getting a boost from returning players like Brooks Ortg 104.3, Chatman 114.3, Artino 117.4, Dingman 106.8 who are all Seniors with High efficiencies.

Now most of us are predicting that Creighton will not be able to keep up it's offensive efficiency with out Doug, but if they are then they definitely could surprise.

I don't think it's possible they hit the efficiency they had with Doug. They were the #1 adj. offense in the nation for the majority of the year. I think most fans are cautiously optimistic that our system is one which favors players being able to come in and be efficient pretty quickly though. How quickly remains to be seen, but I think they'll be good enough on offense, and improved enough on defense, to finish middle of the pack in the league this year.

hoyahooligan wrote:Here's how kenpom creates his ranking:

The system is largely the same as in recent seasons. It independently predicts a team’s adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency. As a reminder, it uses information split into two categories:

- Base level of the program. This takes into account the last five seasons of data for the same unit (offense for predicting offense) and the last season for the opposite unit (defense for predicting offense). It also includes data for how much money the program has spent on men’s basketball for the last three seasons. The bulk of this component is determined by the most recent season’s performance of the unit.

- Personnel. This component handles who’s coming back from last season’s team and which impact recruits are being added to the roster. More impact is given to returning players from earlier classes. And minutes played by those with a high-efficiency/high-usage profile are particularly important. Recruits in the RSCI top 100 have some influence here as well, although most of the influence is in the top 50.

So obviously the base level of the program is probably boosting Creighton quite a bit here, but it also is getting a boost from returning players like Brooks Ortg 104.3, Chatman 114.3, Artino 117.4, Dingman 106.8 who are all Seniors with High efficiencies.

Now most of us are predicting that Creighton will not be able to keep up it's offensive efficiency with out Doug, but if they are then they definitely could surprise.

Ken Pom needs to reprogram his computer.

Just looking at last year-
The end of season top 5- Vil, Cre, PC, Xav, and SJ- all were within 14 spots of their final preseason rating.

The only team that they under-estimated was Villanova(26 to 14).

Interesting to compare start of season to end of season last year...

Villanova from 14 to 9
Georgetown from 65 to 22
St Johns from 61 to 39
Creighton from 24 to 47
Providence from 51 to 53
Xavier from 59 to 66
Butler from 104 to 67
Seton Hall from 98 to 85
Marquette from 76 to 86
DePaul from 198 to 197

Big bumps for Georgetown, St John's, and Butler.
Big drop for Creighton.