 |
||
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pittsburgh |  2 |
| 2 | Connecticut |  1 |
| 3 | North Carolina | 1 |
| 4 | Oklahoma | |
| 5 | Memphis | |
| 6 | Arizona St. | 1 |
| 7 | Louisville | 1 |
| 8 | Michigan St. | 2 |
| 9 | Marquette | |
| 10 | Villanova | 1 |
| 11 | Clemson | 1 |
| 12 | Missouri | 1 |
| 13 | Duke | 1 |
| 14 | Washington | 2 |
| 15 | Wake Forest | 5 |
| 16 | Kansas | 3 |
| 17 | Florida St. | 8 |
| 18 | Louisiana St. | |
| 19 | Purdue | 2 |
| 20 | California | 2 |
| 21 | UCLA | 1 |
| 22 | Gonzaga | |
| 23 | Xavier | 1 |
| 24 | Utah | |
| 25 | Illinois | 10 |
| Last week’s ballot | ||
Dropped Out: Dayton (#17), Boston College (#23), Butler (#24).
Apologies and General Lunacy
- I came very close to dropping Illinois from the poll as punishment for only scoring 33 points in a shot clock era game. How in the name of Kendall Gill does a team only score 33 points and lose to a team that only scored 38???? What is this high school? That kind of desecretion of the game requires some sort of punishment and the fact I could not find anyone else is the only reason Illinois is still ranked.
- Pitt took care of UConn while Oklahoma and UNC lost so they get a 2nd crack at #1. Oklahoma gets frozen because yes, they lost but they lost without Blake Griffin who may not remember the game at this point. Am I refusing to penalize UNC for losing to an unranked team? Well of course!
- Wake Forest lost their fifth ACC game and at some point that will catch up. FSU looks poised to make the NCAA Tournament and was impressive enough to consider them for the top 20.
- Given how much parity there is right now it is a good thing we have a tournament to sort it out.
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“Given how much parity there is right now it is a good thing we have a tournament to sort it out.”
No kidding. The BCS computers would fry several motherboards trying to sort out who should be in the Championship between Pitt, UNC, UConn, and OU.
The Griffin injury may even help OU in the polls. I think they would have lost anyway, but with him out, the voters will discredit the loss more than they should. Be curious to see if he plays tonight, and if so, how effective he will be.
Anyone want to bet that Duke loses at least 1 game this week at Maryland, or at VaTech?
All,
Do yourselves a favor and DON’T read Mark Schlabach’s article on ESPN. His last line sums it up:
“They looked like a Final Four team again.”
I mean… really???
My predictions on how the ACC standings will look in 1 week:
UNC: 11-3 (beat GT at home)
Clemson: 9-5 (beat VaTech, lose at FSU)
Duke: 9-5 (split at Maryland / at VaTech; not sure which one)
FSU: 9-5 (lose at BC, beat Clemson)
Wake: 9-5 (beat NC St and UVa)
BC: 9-6 (beat FSU and NC St.)
Duke is really good at home.
Wake has lost to Miami, GT and NCSU on the road.
Methinks this win ain’t all its cracked up to be.
Agreed.
BTW, on March 8th we could be looking at 4 crazy hours of basketball starting at 4 PM. First, if UNC, Duke, Clemson, and Wake all win out, the standings at 4 PM would be:
UNC (12-3)
Clemson (11-4)
Duke (11-4)
Wake (10-5)
At 4, UNC plays Duke. At 6, Clemson plays at Wake.
If UNC and Clemson win, the standings end like this:
UNC (13-3)
Clemson (12-4)
Duke (11-5)
Wake (10-6)
If UNC and Wake win, the standings end like this:
UNC (13-3)
Wake (11-5)
Clemson (11-5)
Duke (11-5)
If Duke and Clemson win, the standings end like this:
UNC (12-4)
Clemson (12-4)
Duke (12-4)
Wake (10-6)
If Duke and Wake win, the standings end like this:
Duke (12-4)
UNC (12-4)
Wake (11-5)
Clemson (11-5)
C. Michael, you have powers beyond my understanding if Duke does in fact lose one of those remaining games and you also having the audacity to predict it. Look, Duke is a decent to good team when their offense works. But against teams such as Maryland & Virginia Tech, it seems their objective is to (on offense) dribble the ball around the peremiter until the shot clock reaches single digits. By that point, the defense is getting frustrated. Then they give a head fake, make a sharp move to the basket, and draw a foul on the guard before they even make it into the second tier of defense. Repeat. And Repeat. On defense, swarm the primary point guard. If given the slightest chance to reach in and poke a hand or two, do so, as the other guard will come in, steal the ball, and layuup, and draw a foul if any contact exists.
This will dismantle any pregame energy, focus, or swagger the opposing team had.
Enough of my ACC reality show.
Yes C. Michael, you are right that some teams will beat them when not allowing the first minutes of Duke basketball to frustrate them to death. Miami almost pulled this off as well. At least there is more than one game separation between us and some other teams now.
Wonder when the Oklahoma, Missouri rankings will be dislodged
The impression of a single game is so compelling yet so misleading. And it’s alwasy usually described in terms of if whomever plays like this for the rest of the season then……..That’s why it’s so important to stick to a fundamental analysis of a teams true strengths and weaknesses, how they match up to other teams, and how they’re built for the long haul. This is the same Duke team many were talking about ,only a few days ago,as having less-than-superior athletes and some fundamental weaknesses. One has to avoid the bandwagon effect (which I described yesterday in more contemptuous terms than I should have), good or bad, from fans and sports analysts alike.
Duke also reminds me a lot of golfers who are always tinkering with different clubs, most often putters. It works for a round or two, but then they come back to the reality that they really can’t putt very well.
What a joke. If Duke had lost, all we would be hearing about is about their monumental collapse. They did burn through 20 points of a 22 point lead, which is not that different, I guess from blowing a 16 point lead in the second half, except UNC was at least on the road.
Just remember, these writers are basically in the advertising business. They need to sell papers or get page hits. Writing an article that says “Duke won, as we would expect in this situation 62% of the time” doesn’t sell.
I would drop the Heels to 7 or 8. Make them win the rest of their games or lose in the ACC finals to be a number one seed. The other teams must keep winning for this to work.
MD is going to lay a big egg to Dook on Wed. They will be lucky to make the tournment. Glad Wake lost, if they had comback and won we had looked even worse. Dook is suppose to win that game at home. Wake could be a force in the acc tornment if they grow up.
That is true William. Sometimes you have to make a story out of nothing if there isn’t anything more notable to offer. In this case, that story would have suited me just fine!
MDTarheel,
If you drop UNC to 7-8, which 4-5 teams behind them can you justify ranking ahead of UNC?
OU? Maybe.
Mmephis? Possibly.
The rest? No chance. UNC had a bad half against Maryland, but they are still clearly one of only 4 or 5 legitimate #1 seeds.
One thing that I would encourage people to look at are the consistency and luck ratings on Pomeroy. He has only been breaking them out since 2006, and surprisingly, thus far, they have not been especially predictive in terms of the eventual national champion, although the sample is yet small.
I believe that consistency is one thing that made me think that UNC’s chances were pretty good last year. UNC was the most consistent team in the Final Four under Pomeroy, but we were also the luckiest.
This year, UNC and Pitt both have good numbers in terms of being consistent and not being lucky. Pitt is the 21st most consistent team, while UNC is 78th, there being 344 in all. In terms of luck, Pitt is 218th and UNC is 220th, which means that they both are less lucky than about two thirds of the teams in the country.
We can talk about bad days, but I wonder whether there isn’t something predictive about a team that is at least competitive in all of its games, like Pitt and UNC, versus teams like Clemson, Duke, UConn, Louisville, Villanova, Marquette, ASU, Michigan State and Wake Forest, all of whom have been either blown out in games, or pasted on their home floors.
MD is going to lay an egg versus Duke because that is generally what happens after beating UNC or any highly ranked team.
Pitt and UNC are remarkably with their offensive/defensive ranks, too. UNC is 2 on offense, 21 on D. Pitt is 1 on offense, 28 on D.
“MD is going to lay an egg versus Duke because that is generally what happens after beating UNC or any highly ranked team.”
But doesn’t this usually only apply when the next game is on the road against an unranked team? Home against Duke, a team Maryland hates more than UNC has to mitigate this phenomenon a little.
Don’t think it can’t happen. Remember UNC’s 50 odd point turnaround in less than a week against Maryland back in 2003.
Oklahoma is poised to lose its second in a row tonight, which is sort of both fair and unfair, given their weak schedule and their injury to BLAKE.
It seems to be an indictment of the pollster to me that if Oklahoma had won that game against Texas, the pollsters would have mindlessly put them in the first position, but someone coming close on the road, without their best player, does not render the same result.
If I were filling out a ballot, it would be based upon my study of factors in Pomeroy and Sagarin and team record would be largely irrelevant. West Virginia and Georgetown may both be better than Oklahoma.
I love Pomeroy but would always like to know a little more about how he develops his statistical models, especially the “luck” factor. As far as competitiveness, I think even non-Pomeroyers know how well we do in this catagory: 3 losses by a combined 13 points with none in double digits.
They very well may be. I wouldn’t bet against them if those games were to play, would you?
How can you leave West Virginia out? They are probably going to finish 10-6 in the Big East and have only lost to teams that are likely to be in the tournament. Four of their losses are to Pitt, UConn and Louisville and they still have a shot at Louisville at home.
Georgetown is very similar. They beat Memphis, waxed Maryland on a neutral floor, beat UConn on the road, and split with Syracuse, losing in overtime to the Orange on the road. Why pick LSU over Georgetown?
Larry,
The luck factor is just the difference between a teams actual winning percentage and their expect winning percentage. (Gaussian method, not direct.)
What is the distinction between the Gaussian method and the direct one?
I agree about the ironic ascension to the polls throne, William. I guess one could say it’s an indictment of the pollster, depending on the value one gives to the weekly polls vs. all the other types of rankings. Of course, the weekly polls, at least at the very top, pretty much have to deal in the best record / last one standing phenomenon, rather than good losses and bad wins. That’s why, to me, they are more for fun than true value.
I agree. I think it is almost one of those things based on courtesy. Since we all know these polls are almost meaningless and mostly exist to promote the sport, the pollsters follow the unwritten rule of basing them upon wins and losses, regardless, pretty much, of whom the teams play.
I think they did have more meaning prior to 1975. For example, UNC ended up ranked 8th, I believe in 1974, which was nice recognition given that we did not get to play in the NCAA tourney.
I almost put West Virginia in. Probably should have gone with them instead of Utah.
I know it is hard to classify teams based upon “good” losses like WVU has. Something inside all of us wants to think that the difference between a win and a loss is more than just random, i.e., that certain teams lose a lot of close games because they lack killer instinct or guts or aren’t clutch.
It is strange, though. Wilt Chamberlain won two titles and his two titlists set the record for victories. He lost a heartbreaking game to UNC in the Final Four. He also lost a slew of close, series, often in sixth or seventh games to Boston and New York and was often chided as a choker or loser.
Jerry West also lost with WVU in the Final Four and then lost even more close NBA series finals than Wilt and only ended up winning one title, in 1972 with Wilt, when the Lakers won in the post-season in a walk.
Guess what Jerry West’s nickname was? Hint, it wasn’t Mr. Choker…. and his figure ended up being used as the insignia for the NBA logo. Chamberlain should have hired West’s press agent, I suppose….
“What is the distinction between the Gaussian method and the direct one?”
Basically the Gaussian Method looks at the distribution of a team’s offensive and defensive efficiencies when calculating an expected winning percentage, as opposed to using a pure average.
Which ones get weighted more under the Gaussian Method?
I have three bookmarked. Greenfield has really improved his ratings and has almost as many interesting break-outs as Pomeroy, although I find his main rankings not to correspond as closely to how I view the teams as do Pomeroy’s and Sagarin’s Ballantine ratings.
I’m not sure how many standard deviations from the mean he incorporates. This puts me pretty close to the edge of my understanding of his methods. One of these days I’d really like to take a weekend and really dive into the work of guys like Pomeroy and Bill James to see how much further I can push my understanding.
1. I think Michael and William are the same person. Just kidding but I do appreciate your analysis.
2. OU reminds me of Davidson, too much reliance on one player and a weak schedule.
3. Has anyone read the rams club article on UNC loses to “flex” teams.
4. I’d like someone to rank the top 10 point guards for the ACC and the entire field. Please.
Go Heels!
BC and Maryland both play the flex. What offense did Kansas play?
That is hard in terms of being exact because teams don’t distinguish guards in the same way that say, a baseball player is a right fielder. But for the ACC:
1. Ty Lawson
2. Tyrese Rice
3. Jeff Teague
4. Greivis Vasquez
Lawson is probably the worst defender of these guys, but by far the best on offense. I would also say look at the ACC only stats, not the combined stats, to get a better perspective.