Saturday Feb 28 games

[stever20]

Good game Hoyas, maybe one day we'll play a close game in this new big east. haha

Home court seems to be worth about 10 points in the Big East.

With Georgetown/St John's- seems to be about 20!
77-60 +17 GU
82-60 +22 SJ
79-57 +22 GU
70-81 +11 SJ

so 39 pt difference last year, 33 pt this year. That's ridiculous.

[Bill Marsh]

That's just incorrect. Basketball (or any other sport) is not deterministic. What determines who is 'best' is who's distribution of results is typically better than other teams distribution. Of course Xavier intersects Providence that would result in wins, the percentages wouldn't even be that low. Most of the league is like that. The odds are obviously astronomical but the 'best' team in the conference could finish 0-18. Let's just say for this that they would win 8 of 10 vs the average team (generous), that means the odds of going 0-18 is just .2^18

Not deterministic. Stop thinking like that.

Um...if the best team in the conference went 0-18 then they weren't the best team in the conference. Even if the best team in the conference went 9-9 then they aren't the best team in the conference.

Good point.

Although we often here's election committee members say that they're charged with identifying the 36 "best" teams for at-large bids, I think the use oft term "best teams" gets the conversation off on the wrong foot. As a result, they tend to favor teams with the best talent, teams with whom they like what they see.

In reality, they should be identifying team who have accomplished the most. If a team with lesser talents the one which has accomplished the most, more power to them.

[Edrick]

That's just incorrect. Basketball (or any other sport) is not deterministic. What determines who is 'best' is who's distribution of results is typically better than other teams distribution. Of course Xavier intersects Providence that would result in wins, the percentages wouldn't even be that low. Most of the league is like that. The odds are obviously astronomical but the 'best' team in the conference could finish 0-18. Let's just say for this that they would win 8 of 10 vs the average team (generous), that means the odds of going 0-18 is just .2^18

Not deterministic. Stop thinking like that.

Um...if the best team in the conference went 0-18 then they weren't the best team in the conference. Even if the best team in the conference went 9-9 then they aren't the best team in the conference.

I don't know why this is so hard for you. It's really not that hard of a concept to grasp.

You could take the 96 Bulls and have them play this year's Knicks. There is some probability that the Knicks would win every game in their series. That's just how small numbers (events) work. Not playing a large enough sample to approximate the distribution does nothing to change the distribution.

So again, if you go back to the original point and assume that your conference's best team has an 80% chance of winning any (and all) of their 18 games, that means they also have a 20% chance of losing. So, the best team in the conference in that case has a .2^18 chance of going 0-18.

[RDinNY]

That's just incorrect. Basketball (or any other sport) is not deterministic. What determines who is 'best' is who's distribution of results is typically better than other teams distribution. Of course Xavier intersects Providence that would result in wins, the percentages wouldn't even be that low. Most of the league is like that. The odds are obviously astronomical but the 'best' team in the conference could finish 0-18. Let's just say for this that they would win 8 of 10 vs the average team (generous), that means the odds of going 0-18 is just .2^18

Not deterministic. Stop thinking like that.

Um...if the best team in the conference went 0-18 then they weren't the best team in the conference. Even if the best team in the conference went 9-9 then they aren't the best team in the conference.

I don't know why this is so hard for you. It's really not that hard of a concept to grasp.

You could take the 96 Bulls and have them play this year's Knicks. There is some probability that the Knicks would win every game in their series. That's just how small numbers (events) work. Not playing a large enough sample to approximate the distribution does nothing to change the distribution.

So again, if you go back to the original point and assume that your conference's best team has an 80% chance of winning any (and all) of their 18 games, that means they also have a 20% chance of losing. So, the best team in the conference in that case has a .2^18 chance of going 0-18.

What's that little symbol between the .2 and the 1? This is a sports board for God's sake!

[NJRedman]

That's just incorrect. Basketball (or any other sport) is not deterministic. What determines who is 'best' is who's distribution of results is typically better than other teams distribution. Of course Xavier intersects Providence that would result in wins, the percentages wouldn't even be that low. Most of the league is like that. The odds are obviously astronomical but the 'best' team in the conference could finish 0-18. Let's just say for this that they would win 8 of 10 vs the average team (generous), that means the odds of going 0-18 is just .2^18

Not deterministic. Stop thinking like that.

Um...if the best team in the conference went 0-18 then they weren't the best team in the conference. Even if the best team in the conference went 9-9 then they aren't the best team in the conference.

I don't know why this is so hard for you. It's really not that hard of a concept to grasp.

You could take the 96 Bulls and have them play this year's Knicks. There is some probability that the Knicks would win every game in their series. That's just how small numbers (events) work. Not playing a large enough sample to approximate the distribution does nothing to change the distribution.

So again, if you go back to the original point and assume that your conference's best team has an 80% chance of winning any (and all) of their 18 games, that means they also have a 20% chance of losing. So, the best team in the conference in that case has a .2^18 chance of going 0-18.

Hard for me? If a team goes 0-18 they are no longer the best team. If Villanova went winless in the Big East they would not be the best team. I don't know how hard that is for you. Probabilities are great to talk about in what if's but in reality there are no ifs ands or buts, just results of the games. If a team is projected to be the best in a conference and doesn't win a conference game that doesn't mean that that 20% happened it just meant that that team wasn't as good as those projectors thought. In the end the best separate themselves from everyone else. Villanova didn't win 14 of their games because of probabilities, they won because they have the best team.

[Steve Lavin]

Good game Hoyas, maybe one day we'll play a close game in this new big east. haha

Home court seems to be worth about 10 points in the Big East.

With Georgetown/St John's- seems to be about 20!
77-60 +17 GU
82-60 +22 SJ
79-57 +22 GU
70-81 +11 SJ

so 39 pt difference last year, 33 pt this year. That's ridiculous.

And Sat's score was misleading too. 11 points makes it seem like G'Town had a fighting chance. Truth is they were down by about 14-16 almost all game. It was basically another 20 pt win. I kept waiting for the G'Town run. It never came. And I kept waiting for us to miss a few 3's, but we didn't. In other news, after a few drinks, I slipped walking down the stairs at MSG on the way out and swear I would've broken something (it was pretty steep) but I caught the railing somehow and kept myself on my feet. Didn't even care though, huge win!

[MUPanther]

Georgetown at St.John's got a 0.9 rating on CBS.
Villanova at Xavier got a 0.5 rating on FOX.