Pomeroy preseason rankings

[proudopete]

I know it is mostly speculation as their are no real data points this season. But I did find it interesting that he has started us out in the top 25 in both adj. O and adj. D. We are 22 overall and our adj. O is 24 and adj. D is 22.

Outside of Uconn a couple of years ago, the champions have had both stats in the top 25 and most of them had both in the top 10. Uconn had and adj.O of 39 that year but their adj. D was 10th.

So I looked at the most recent good seasons we had to find a comparison. Once again, I know the numbers will change throughout the season, but I was curious.

In 2009 we finished at 17 overall with an adj. O of 53 and adj. D of 5.

In 2008 we finished at 20 overall with an adj. O of 52 and adj. D of 13.

So our defense of course has been really good when we do well. Yeah not a surprise. But our offense was only decent those two years.

Starting out in the top 25 in both should bode well for this team. I can see both numbers rising as the season progresses. Pomeroy has a pretty decent track record of being ballpark on the overall rankings. He has picked the top teams pretty regularly in his top 25.
His stats at this time of year are based more on the previous seasons and who returns. But once again when a team starts out in the top 25 in both, they have won a lot of games.

But what does everyone think about the fact that we are top 25 in both?
How high can you see this team getting each stat up to? Top 10 in both would be an amazing year and put us in the hunt for the championship according to recent history.

I am assuming that this team can get the adj. D I really the top 10. If not then pretty close. But can they get the adj. O in the top 10? It's not as important according to the stats of recent champs. But it does raise the odds considerably.

Either way I am sure we are all ready for the next 12 days to pass quickly so we can see what this team can do.

Boiler Up!

 

[punaj]

Wisky is at #8 though? Maybe I just don't understand how these rankings are compiled.

http://kenpom.com

 

[yaheardwithPUrd]

Wisconsin was so good last year and my guess is their ratings are inflated because of how efficient the team as a whole was last year. Even the guys who are average looked good because they were playing at the same time as Kaminski and Dekker and Jackson and Dukan and Gasser....holy crap they lost a lot. We know they lost a lot of talent, but it's hard to exactly pinpoint mathematically the impact that Kaminski and Dekker and co had for that Wisconsin team, which likely doesn't help KenPom's ratings. But for real, how does a team lose all of those pieces and still end up at #8?

 

[punaj]

Cinci is in there at 14. I think we were pretty even schools last year. Both really good D. Yeah, they beat us in the tourney, but I would attribute that more to a last minute breakdown on our side, literally. Oh well, we just need to prove it on the court, and assuming Swanigan gets cleared sooner rather than later, I think we will do that.

 

[proudopete]

Wisconsin was so good last year and my guess is their ratings are inflated because of how efficient the team as a whole was last year. Even the guys who are average looked good because they were playing at the same time as Kaminski and Dekker and Jackson and Dukan and Gasser....holy crap they lost a lot. We know they lost a lot of talent, but it's hard to exactly pinpoint mathematically the impact that Kaminski and Dekker and co had for that Wisconsin team, which likely doesn't help KenPom's ratings. But for real, how does a team lose all of those pieces and still end up at #8?

Preseason a lot of weight is added to things such as tempo and coaches returning.
For instance IU retuns Crean and Crean plays high tempo offensively and they return most starters. So they are considered one of the best offenses.
Wisconsin likes to control tempo and return Bo. That puts them as the hugest team in the B1G preseason as what others have added like Maryland and MSU is unknown. One thing I may add here is that newcomers are only considered if they are 5 stars.
He admits the numbers will change once real data is added.

My point was that I think this is the highest we have ever been preseason when considering both O and D.
I don't think we ever began a season since he began his tracking, with both adj.O and adj.D on the top 25.

If the preconference goes as most of us think it should. We very likely will be top 10 in overall and both O and D by time the B1G begins. At least that is how I see it.

 

[Heller]

Wisconsin was so good last year and my guess is their ratings are inflated because of how efficient the team as a whole was last year. Even the guys who are average looked good because they were playing at the same time as Kaminski and Dekker and Jackson and Dukan and Gasser....holy crap they lost a lot. We know they lost a lot of talent, but it's hard to exactly pinpoint mathematically the impact that Kaminski and Dekker and co had for that Wisconsin team, which likely doesn't help KenPom's ratings. But for real, how does a team lose all of those pieces and still end up at #8?

Bo Ryan is why.

 

[blockm2]

tempo has nothing to do with KenPom rankings in the preseason.

His preseason rankings are an amalgamation of several different data points. Things they consider:
1) how the school has done the last few years (teams that were good the last few years will probably be good again this year). He actually uses the past 9 years and regresses so the most recent are worth the most.
2) returning players weighted by minutes played and usage/efficiency
3) incoming top 100 recruits

That's really about it. A notable weakness is transferring or redshirted players as his system has no way to account for this adding in to a team. That's a big reason Maryland is so low as it doesn't account for Robert Carter or Rasheed Sulaimon.

Wisconsin is ranked relatively high because they have been very good for several years. Their end of year KenPom rank going back is 3, 6, 13, 7, 8, 11, 28, 5, 8, etc. It's only natural his system would predict them to be very good again this year since they are always good. They obviously lost plenty of talent, but the return of Nigel Hayes and Bronson Koenig and the fact they are always really good is enough to start them off highly.

Purdue on the other hand has struggled recently with final season ranks of 48, 97, and 61 going back, but his system does credit them for the high number of returning players from last season plus the addition of Swanigan and it still gives them some credit for previous good seasons under Painter in the 4-9 years ago range.


Pomeroy is very open about his methodology and analyzing it after the fact to see where it can be improved. His current iteration of preseason guesses is likely as good as any preseason publication you will find although there will be notable outliers likely from the data he cannot (or does not yet) include like transfers.

For whatever worth it might have, KenPom's preseason Purdue ranking the last few years going back prior to this has been 40, 30, 37, 19, and 25.

 

[punaj]

tempo has nothing to do with KenPom rankings in the preseason.

His preseason rankings are an amalgamation of several different data points. Things they consider:
1) how the school has done the last few years (teams that were good the last few years will probably be good again this year). He actually uses the past 9 years and regresses so the most recent are worth the most.
2) returning players weighted by minutes played and usage/efficiency
3) incoming top 100 recruits

That's really about it. A notable weakness is transferring or redshirted players as his system has no way to account for this adding in to a team. That's a big reason Maryland is so low as it doesn't account for Robert Carter or Rasheed Sulaimon.

Wisconsin is ranked relatively high because they have been very good for several years. Their end of year KenPom rank going back is 3, 6, 13, 7, 8, 11, 28, 5, 8, etc. It's only natural his system would predict them to be very good again this year since they are always good. They obviously lost plenty of talent, but the return of Nigel Hayes and Bronson Koenig and the fact they are always really good is enough to start them off highly.

Purdue on the other hand has struggled recently with final season ranks of 48, 97, and 61 going back, but his system does credit them for the high number of returning players from last season plus the addition of Swanigan and it still gives them some credit for previous good seasons under Painter in the 4-9 years ago range.


Pomeroy is very open about his methodology and analyzing it after the fact to see where it can be improved. His current iteration of preseason guesses is likely as good as any preseason publication you will find although there will be notable outliers likely from the data he cannot (or does not yet) include like transfers.

For whatever worth it might have, KenPom's preseason Purdue ranking the last few years going back prior to this has been 40, 30, 37, 19, and 25.

Nice explanation. Thank you!

 

[proudopete]

R

tempo has nothing to do with KenPom rankings in the preseason.

His preseason rankings are an amalgamation of several different data points. Things they consider:
1) how the school has done the last few years (teams that were good the last few years will probably be good again this year). He actually uses the past 9 years and regresses so the most recent are worth the most.
2) returning players weighted by minutes played and usage/efficiency
3) incoming top 100 recruits

That's really about it. A notable weakness is transferring or redshirted players as his system has no way to account for this adding in to a team. That's a big reason Maryland is so low as it doesn't account for Robert Carter or Rasheed Sulaimon.

Wisconsin is ranked relatively high because they have been very good for several years. Their end of year KenPom rank going back is 3, 6, 13, 7, 8, 11, 28, 5, 8, etc. It's only natural his system would predict them to be very good again this year since they are always good. They obviously lost plenty of talent, but the return of Nigel Hayes and Bronson Koenig and the fact they are always really good is enough to start them off highly.

Purdue on the other hand has struggled recently with final season ranks of 48, 97, and 61 going back, but his system does credit them for the high number of returning players from last season plus the addition of Swanigan and it still gives them some credit for previous good seasons under Painter in the 4-9 years ago range.


Pomeroy is very open about his methodology and analyzing it after the fact to see where it can be improved. His current iteration of preseason guesses is likely as good as any preseason publication you will find although there will be notable outliers likely from the data he cannot (or does not yet) include like transfers.

For whatever worth it might have, KenPom's preseason Purdue ranking the last few years going back prior to this has been 40, 30, 37, 19, and 25.

This is from the Kenpom page explaining the preseason rankings and what goes into it.

While the projections for offense and defense are no longer state-of-the-art, I think the tempo projections are the best around. (Mainly because I’m not aware of any competition.) It’s far more accurate to project a team’s pace using their head coach’s history than the team’s history, and that is how this season’s tempo projections work. In the case of rookie head coaches, there’s just some regression to the mean applied to the team’s tempo from its previous season. But for coaches with a history there’s a lot of weight

 

[blockm2]

R

This is from the Kenpom page explaining the preseason rankings and what goes into it.

While the projections for offense and defense are no longer state-of-the-art, I think the tempo projections are the best around. (Mainly because I’m not aware of any competition.) It’s far more accurate to project a team’s pace using their head coach’s history than the team’s history, and that is how this season’s tempo projections work. In the case of rookie head coaches, there’s just some regression to the mean applied to the team’s tempo from its previous season. But for coaches with a history there’s a lot of weight

But who cares what tempo a team projects to or plays to? The KenPom rankings are "tempo free". The only point of listing the tempo is to give you context for their counting stats should you choose to find those elsewhere. The offensive and defensive efficiency stats are independent of the tempo.

Wisconsin is an example of a team that played at a slow pace last year but had an outstanding offense. They ranked 346th in tempo but had the highest ever adjusted offensive efficiency rating KenPom has ever measured.


To me the most interesting thing KenPom does with tempo is break it down to individual offense and defense numbers. For example, Wisconsin ranked 350th nationally in how slow they played on offense, but their opponents ranked 167th. So most of Wisconsin's slow play was their own choosing on offense. Syracuse, on the other hand, had the 25th shortest offensive possessions but ranked 331st on defensive possessions. They run, run, run on offense but teams take forever to shoot against their zone. North Carolina was another outlier ranking 11th on offense and 206th on defense in terms of tempo. West Virginia went the other way ranking 252nd on offense, but 1st on defense. Teams either turned the ball over against their full court press or got a quick shot but the other way they took their time.

 

[proudopete]

But who cares what tempo a team projects to or plays to? The KenPom rankings are "tempo free". The only point of listing the tempo is to give you context for their counting stats should you choose to find those elsewhere. The offensive and defensive efficiency stats are independent of the tempo.

Wisconsin is an example of a team that played at a slow pace last year but had an outstanding offense. They ranked 346th in tempo but had the highest ever adjusted offensive efficiency rating KenPom has ever measured.


To me the most interesting thing KenPom does with tempo is break it down to individual offense and defense numbers. For example, Wisconsin ranked 350th nationally in how slow they played on offense, but their opponents ranked 167th. So most of Wisconsin's slow play was their own choosing on offense. Syracuse, on the other hand, had the 25th shortest offensive possessions but ranked 331st on defensive possessions. They run, run, run on offense but teams take forever to shoot against their zone. North Carolina was another outlier ranking 11th on offense and 206th on defense in terms of tempo. West Virginia went the other way ranking 252nd on offense, but 1st on defense. Teams either turned the ball over against their full court press or got a quick shot but the other way they took their time.

I think what he is saying is that who the coach is and how the coach likes to play is considered. For instance. He probably assumes IU will score more then Purdue on a game to game basis and that they will score more On a consistent basis. That gives him an idea of their offensive rank.
I don't see how he has IU in the 80's on defense however as they were in the 200's last year. But when I looked at 2015 he has then predicted in the 40's preseason. So although he predicts they should be better. When looking at the preseason predictions only, he in fact predicts they will be worse.

 

[blockm2]

I think what he is saying is that who the coach is and how the coach likes to play is considered. For instance. He probably assumes IU will score more then Purdue on a game to game basis and that they will score more On a consistent basis. That gives him an idea of their offensive rank.
I don't see how he has IU in the 80's on defense however as they were in the 200's last year. But when I looked at 2015 he has then predicted in the 40's preseason. So although he predicts they should be better. When looking at the preseason predictions only, he in fact predicts they will be worse.

That's not quite correct. Adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency ranks are tempo free. They are unrelated to pace. For example, Wisconsin was #1 in offense on KenPom but they ranked 65th overall at 71.9 PPG by traditional stats. Why does KenPom rank IU ahead of PU on offense in the preseason? Because the combination of past performance and returning talent suggests IU will score points more efficiently than PU this year. Nothing more, nothing less.

Why is IU in the 80s on defense in the preseason prediction? Last year they were 214th, but the years before they were 47th, 28th, and 84th.

 

[gd4now]

Imo it will not be till some where in the middle of the season before his stats have any real meaning. Do not sweat where teams are currently listed.

 

[SIBoiler2]

I want IU to start out higher than us. It makes their fall and our rise all the sweeter.

 

[blockm2]

Imo it will not be till some where in the middle of the season before his stats have any real meaning. Do not sweat where teams are currently listed.

it's usually around December-January when there starts to be enough data that all teams are "connected" and more meaningful. His preseason algorithm gets a little tweak each year to try to make it more accurate and he compares his preseason ranks to other preseason rankings out there.

Somewhat for fun at the start of the year but definitely has some meaning behind it as well.

 

[septimusharding]

That's not quite correct. Adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency ranks are tempo free. They are unrelated to pace. For example, Wisconsin was #1 in offense on KenPom but they ranked 65th overall at 71.9 PPG by traditional stats. Why does KenPom rank IU ahead of PU on offense in the preseason? Because the combination of past performance and returning talent suggests IU will score points more efficiently than PU this year. Nothing more, nothing less.

Why is IU in the 80s on defense in the preseason prediction? Last year they were 214th, but the years before they were 47th, 28th, and 84th.

I've followed KenPom for quite a few seasons, and you do a good job of explaining what goes into his preseason rankings and where the weak spots are.

I will say, I think IU's high ranking is an interesting test case for his preseason methodology. Now there's no question that their offense is going to be very, very good. But the reason their preseason ranking (#13) is so much higher than where they were at the end of last season (#53) is that his method projects their defense to be not too shabby. And that is a pretty big prediction.

IU's defense last year was AWFUL by B10 standards. They had the worst defensive rating of any conference team since that 2007-2008 Northwestern team that went 1-17. And the main reason their defense was so bad was that opponents could essentially score at will inside the arc. Now, this season they do add some size with Thomas Bryant and Max Bielfeldt, but can a freshman and a lightly-used senior transfer fix IU's interior defense? That seems like a tall order.

In this particular case, I'd be willing to bet that the numbers from last season are a better predictor of IU's defense this year than the numbers from the two seasons before that. And for that reason, KenPom's preseason rankings are slightly overvaluing IU. Or maybe I'm just a homer!

 

[blockm2]

my deep thought is that you shouldn't expend too much mental energy on the KenPom preseason rankings. They are what they are. Personally I think Maryland is way underrated because it doesn't account for their high impact transfer players. I also think Wisconsin is overrated because it is appreciating their annual high rankings but under appreciating the sheer volume of talent and experience they have to replace unlike any they've had to before.

As for IU? Who knows. One other under appreciated aspect of the KenPom rankings is that they aren't actually forecasting end of season rankings relative to other teams but they are forecasting absolute values for how good each team will be.

For example, Duke is #1 in the preseason ranking @ .9384. That's higher than any other team. But last year at the end of the year that would've placed them 7th nationally. Every year the teams at the end of the year top of the rankings have well exceeded what any team was predicted for in the preseason. So to be at the top or near the top you have to do quite a bit better than predicted because other teams will also exceed expectations.

 

[cdfunk1]

Preseason rankings don't mean anything.

I know it is mostly speculation as their are no real data points this season. But I did find it interesting that he has started us out in the top 25 in both adj. O and adj. D. We are 22 overall and our adj. O is 24 and adj. D is 22.

Outside of Uconn a couple of years ago, the champions have had both stats in the top 25 and most of them had both in the top 10. Uconn had and adj.O of 39 that year but their adj. D was 10th.

So I looked at the most recent good seasons we had to find a comparison. Once again, I know the numbers will change throughout the season, but I was curious.

In 2009 we finished at 17 overall with an adj. O of 53 and adj. D of 5.

In 2008 we finished at 20 overall with an adj. O of 52 and adj. D of 13.

So our defense of course has been really good when we do well. Yeah not a surprise. But our offense was only decent those two years.

Starting out in the top 25 in both should bode well for this team. I can see both numbers rising as the season progresses. Pomeroy has a pretty decent track record of being ballpark on the overall rankings. He has picked the top teams pretty regularly in his top 25.
His stats at this time of year are based more on the previous seasons and who returns. But once again when a team starts out in the top 25 in both, they have won a lot of games.

But what does everyone think about the fact that we are top 25 in both?
How high can you see this team getting each stat up to? Top 10 in both would be an amazing year and put us in the hunt for the championship according to recent history.

I am assuming that this team can get the adj. D I really the top 10. If not then pretty close. But can they get the adj. O in the top 10? It's not as important according to the stats of recent champs. But it does raise the odds considerably.

Either way I am sure we are all ready for the next 12 days to pass quickly so we can see what this team can do.

Boiler Up!

 

[cdfunk1]

my deep thought is that you shouldn't expend too much mental energy on the KenPom preseason rankings. They are what they are. Personally I think Maryland is way underrated because it doesn't account for their high impact transfer players. I also think Wisconsin is overrated because it is appreciating their annual high rankings but under appreciating the sheer volume of talent and experience they have to replace unlike any they've had to before.

As for IU? Who knows. One other under appreciated aspect of the KenPom rankings is that they aren't actually forecasting end of season rankings relative to other teams but they are forecasting absolute values for how good each team will be.

For example, Duke is #1 in the preseason ranking @ .9384. That's higher than any other team. But last year at the end of the year that would've placed them 7th nationally. Every year the teams at the end of the year top of the rankings have well exceeded what any team was predicted for in the preseason. So to be at the top or near the top you have to do quite a bit better than predicted because other teams will also exceed expectations.

I'm with you on Wisconsin, but Bo Ryan has NEVER finished worse than forth in the Big Ten.

 

[blockm2]

Preseason rankings don't mean anything.

Why? KenPom has shown rather amusingly that the preseason AP poll better predicts NCAA tournament success than the postseason (last before the tourney) poll. Not a lot better, but a little better. Kinda interesting, right? Sometimes when you actually watch people you get your opinion changed by small samples and luck when the innate talent level didn't change.


So no preseason rankings are some set in stone destiny for a team. But it's equally true that postseason rankings don't mean anything either.