Week of 2/22/10 polls

[rotogod00]

#5 in both the AP and ESPN/USA Today

Looks like it may take another loss from above, though, to get a #1 seed in the Tourney as there's a bit of a gap (132 pts in the AP) between them and #4 Syracuse.

We are up to 2nd in the RPI, though, passing Kentucky and trailing only Kansas

and btw, no other ACC team cracks the top 25 of either poll

[HaveFunExpectToWin]

and btw, no other ACC team cracks the top 25 of either poll

Has this happened before? In the last 20+ years?

[Vincetaylor]

First time since 1977. The ACC is terrible this year despite what some people on this board say.

[DeBlueDevil]

I disagree. I think the country in general isn't as strong as it has been in recent years. The only conference I think is totally head over heels better than the ACC is the Big East. But they've been the power for the past fews years. The Pac 10 is terrible and I'm not at all hugely impressed with the Big 12 and Big Ten. Just my opinion.

[HaveFunExpectToWin]

First time since 1977. The ACC is terrible this year despite what some people on this board say.

Can we blame John Swofford for this? At least ACC football is awesome... oh wait.

[hurleyfor3]

First time since 1977. The ACC is terrible this year despite what some people on this board say.

The ACC is certainly pretty thin at the top, but Maryland is not bad at all, and the league is positively teeming with NCAA 5-6-7 seeds. It won't be a three or four-bid year as some recent years have been.

[Chitowndevil]

First time since 1977. The ACC is terrible this year despite what some people on this board say.

FWIW, the ACC is the #1 conference according to Pomeroy, the #2 (B12) according to Sagarin, #3 (B12, BE) in RPI, and is tied for 1st (B12, BE) with 7 teams currently in Joe Lunardi's Bracket(ology).

My own view is that this is the weakest the ACC has been in quite a while, but that is is hardly fair to call the ACC "terrible". A down year for the ACC is an above average year for most other conferences.

[CDu]

FWIW, the ACC is the #1 conference according to Pomeroy, the #2 (B12) according to Sagarin, #3 (B12, BE) in RPI, and is tied for 1st (B12, BE) with 7 teams currently in Joe Lunardi's Bracket(ology).

My own view is that this is the weakest the ACC has been in quite a while, but that is is hardly fair to call the ACC "terrible". A down year for the ACC is an above average year for most other conferences.

It always comes back to how you define "strongest/weakest" conference.

In terms of top-tier teams, we're down moreso than in most recent years. Frequently, we have 2 top-10/15 teams and another top-25 team or two. So in that sense, we're not that strong, with only one team in the top-20 and nobody else really standing out as a sure-fire top-25 team.

In terms of depth of quality teams and/or percentage of teams that are quality, we're on a par with anybody. We have 7 teams that are in contention to make the tournament, and the other five teams are all in the top-third of D-1 teams. That can't be said for any of the other conferences.

[Saratoga2]

We have two away games after Tulsa and one is against a good Maryland team. If we pass that hurdle, we still have to earn our way through the ACC tournament. It is a tall order to go through the next two weeks + and come out without another loss.

Realistically, the only team that we are likely to pass if we don't lose, is Purdue. If we do come out with a #1 seed, we still know this team is somewhat flawed, as are of course all the teams.

I am impressed and pleased by the year Duke is having and look forward to seeing what the guys can do.

[JasonEvans]

More important than the human poll, Duke is now the #1 rated team in Ken Pomeroy's rankings. This is a very big deal because this season, for the first time (I think), the selection committee will bring Ken's rankings with them into the room.

So, the two sources (aside from actual game results) that the NCAA will us to seed the tournament will be the RPI and the KenPom ratings. Duke is #1 in the Pomeroy and #2 in the RPI. That would suggest that we have an excellent chance to get a #1 seed.

--Jason "worth noting, us and Kansas are a lot ahead of the other teams in the Pom rankings" Evans

[Hermy-own]

More important than the human poll, Duke is now the #1 rated team in Ken Pomeroy's rankings. This is a very big deal because this season, for the first time (I think), the selection committee will bring Ken's rankings with them into the room.

So, the two sources (aside from actual game results) that the NCAA will us to seed the tournament will be the RPI and the KenPom ratings. Duke is #1 in the Pomeroy and #2 in the RPI. That would suggest that we have an excellent chance to get a #1 seed.

--Jason "worth noting, us and Kansas are a lot ahead of the other teams in the Pom rankings" Evans

I don't want to distract this thread from it's discussion which is the pursuit of a #1 seed - there are other threads for discussion of whether we deserve one. I just want to say that this is exactly the sort of statistic that makes me distrust Pomeroy. I think most people watching last night's game can agree that it was far from a good game, we shot way too many 3's, and that we showed lots of weaknesses. And suddenly we jump over Kansas to #1 in the Pomeroy rankings? Is there anyone who thinks we are actually the #1 team in the country? That doesn't make me have a lot of faith in the computer generate rankings.

[pfrduke]

I don't want to distract this thread from it's discussion which is the pursuit of a #1 seed - there are other threads for discussion of whether we deserve one. I just want to say that this is exactly the sort of statistic that makes me distrust Pomeroy. I think most people watching last night's game can agree that it was far from a good game, we shot way too many 3's, and that we showed lots of weaknesses. And suddenly we jump over Kansas to #1 in the Pomeroy rankings? Is there anyone who thinks we are actually the #1 team in the country? That doesn't make me have a lot of faith in the computer generate rankings.

I'm not sure we're the best team in the country; I don't think we are, but I'm also not sure we're not. But I have two essentially unrelated comments in response.

First, don't put too much stock in one game. Did Kansas look like the number 1 team in the country when it barely beat Cornell at home, or when Colorado took it to overtime on the road?

Second, while we may not be the best team, I agree with Pomeroy's rankings in the following respect - we have played, on the aggregate, as well relative to our competition as any other team in the country, Kansas included. Duke has played 13 top-50 teams, gone 10-3 against them, and outscored them by a total of 155 points - an average of almost 12 points per game.

I know people keep waiting for the other shoe to drop with this team, and maybe it will. But I think may folks have greatly undersold the performance that this team has put in to date. We are, and have played like, a very good team.

[Duvall]

I just want to say that this is exactly the sort of statistic that makes me distrust Pomeroy. I think most people watching last night's game can agree that it was far from a good game, we shot way too many 3's, and that we showed lots of weaknesses. And suddenly we jump over Kansas to #1 in the Pomeroy rankings?

Computer looks at results, not appearances. It may not have been a pretty win, but in the end Duke's offensive rebounding offset the poor shooting for a decent offensive performance, and Duke was credited with a strong defensive effort due to the fact that Virginia Tech didn't score much.

[mike88]

I don't want to distract this thread from it's discussion which is the pursuit of a #1 seed - there are other threads for discussion of whether we deserve one. I just want to say that this is exactly the sort of statistic that makes me distrust Pomeroy. I think most people watching last night's game can agree that it was far from a good game, we shot way too many 3's, and that we showed lots of weaknesses. And suddenly we jump over Kansas to #1 in the Pomeroy rankings? Is there anyone who thinks we are actually the #1 team in the country? That doesn't make me have a lot of faith in the computer generate rankings.

IIRC, Va tech had the 6th best defense coming in to last night's game per Pomeroy- what you saw last night was the number 1 offense finding ways to overcome a very good defense- when we shoot poorly, it is not always because we have weaknesses, but also because the other teams have strengths. We have faced a lot of good defenses this year, and have had several games where the result looked a lot like last night (ugly % shooting, 12 point win)

[AIRFORCEDUKIE]

I think if we either win out the regular season and make it to the finals of the acc we get a one seed. If we drop one more game in the regular season and then win the Acc tourney we will also get a one seed. I think a one seed will be the key to getting back to the elite eight and then having a shot at the final four. It would do wonders for our confidence to have one easy game, against a 16 seed and then a potentially easy game against an 8/9 seed. If you look at the last few years we struggled in the early rounds and I think it hurt our confidence in the bigger games. If we can get our young guys some confidence in the early rounds it would help a lot. Easiest way to do that is to be a one seed. I see Syracuse and Purdue dropping two more games before seeding time, maybe even Kentucky.

Airforcedukie.

[Memphis Devil]

IIRC, Va tech had the 6th best defense coming in to last night's game per Pomeroy- what you saw last night was the number 1 offense finding ways to overcome a very good defense- when we shoot poorly, it is not always because we have weaknesses, but also because the other teams have strengths. We have faced a lot of good defenses this year, and have had several games where the result looked a lot like last night (ugly % shooting, 12 point win)

Great point...all to often we (at least I know I do) watch Duke games and categorize it as either a good performance or a poor performance simply based on how the Duke players performed and completely ignoring the 12 guys wearing the other uniforms and the impact that they had on said perfromance.

[CrazieDUMB]

I don't want to distract this thread from it's discussion which is the pursuit of a #1 seed - there are other threads for discussion of whether we deserve one. I just want to say that this is exactly the sort of statistic that makes me distrust Pomeroy. I think most people watching last night's game can agree that it was far from a good game, we shot way too many 3's, and that we showed lots of weaknesses. And suddenly we jump over Kansas to #1 in the Pomeroy rankings? Is there anyone who thinks we are actually the #1 team in the country? That doesn't make me have a lot of faith in the computer generate rankings.

Often times when looking at these things you have to remember that your (well, at least for me) view of Duke is going to be a lot different from your view of other teams. For the casual fan, it usually means you think your team is better than it really is. For the people who watch every game, read every article and post on message boards, it can often be the opposite. Because we know this team so well, we know their limitations. At the same time, we also know our strengths and potential; thus, if someone doesn't live up to the best game they've had this year it looks like a disappointment.

Right now a lot of people are worried that Miles and Mason have disappeared, that while Z is a monster on the boards of late he's still not scoring too much, etc etc. Do you bring the same kind of critical eye when you watch Kansas or Kentucky play? I doubt it, simply because when you don't know a team as well you tend to notice spectacular plays more and subtle ineffieciencies less.

The wonderful thing about these computer polls is that they strip the game of bias. Of course it's not perfect, and to a degree numbers will never really be able to tell the full story; even with a perfect model, there's too much variation game to game. But these are the best rankings science has to offer, which IMO is better than any scout or human, no matter how much basketball they watch.

[JasonEvans]

The wonderful thing about these computer polls is that they strip the game of bias. Of course it's not perfect, and to a degree numbers will never really be able to tell the full story; even with a perfect model, there's too much variation game to game. But these are the best rankings science has to offer, which IMO is better than any scout or human, no matter how much basketball they watch.

Well, let me correct you about one thing. I do not think the computers do a better job of evaluating teams better than humans. There are things beyond stats that go into evaluating a performance.

If a team has a big lead and goes into a coasting mode which allows the lead to dwindle, a stat-driven computer might see that as a close victory when the human observer saw a blowout that was not as close as the final score. A computer cannot differentiate from a basket made early in the game and one made under a pressure situation. There are a million ways our human ability to judge things like situations and momentum far outweigh a stat-only computer evaluation.

That said, computers have one huge, huge, huge advantage over humans... a computer can "watch" every single game in the country. No human can do that. When Ken Pomeroy or Jeff Sagarin plug in their data, the computers are weighing every single game played across the country. We are talking about more than ten thousand games (350 teams in Div 1 playing about 30 games each). The most passionate and dedicated college hoops fan watches maybe 100 complete games total. Even someone like Andy Katz, who gets paid handsomely to watch and analyze college hoops, probably watches no more than 300 games a year.

So, I would say that most of us who have watched every Duke game this season (and for many seasons) know Duke better than the computers do. Heck, many of us have probably seen enough games by some other ACC teams that we know those teams better than the computers. But, how many Kansas games have we watched? How many Syracuse games? Nova? Kentucky? Purdue? I'd be very surprised if any of us here have seen all of these teams play more than 3 or 4 times (I am talking about complete games, not catching the final 5 minutes of an interesting game). And, to take it a step further, how many of us really know much about the opponents Kansasy/Kentucky/Syracuse/Purdue were playing that day?

That Kentucky-Vandy game was great the other day, but it was the first time I've watched more than 3 minutes of Vandy basketball all year. Were they playing great or poorly or average? I can make a guess based on what I have heard and read about them but my objective analysis of the game is fundamentally lacking a ton of data.

Look, I am not saying the computers are to be 100% trusted over human observation. I agree that Duke probably is not the best team in the land, as KenPom suggests right now. But, when I am weighing how good teams are, I certainly include computer analysis along with my own observations and give it plenty of weight. I am betting that the selection committee will do the same thing.

--Jason "I am thrilled that the committee will have KenPom numbers with them in the room... I think it is very good for Duke!!" Evans

[91_92_01_10_15]

Well, let me correct you about one thing. I do not think the computers do a better job of evaluating teams better than humans. There are things beyond stats that go into evaluating a performance.

What has been interesting to track lately, for me, is how closely Pomeroy's individual game predictions are matching the odds-makers'.

To me, that's a much better basis of comparison between humans' evaluations and his system's evaluations than comparing them with the polls.

FWIW, from my limited sample size, they seem to be correlating very closely. I am hopeful that this is a positive sign for Duke.

[Bluedog]

How about the fact that the Mountain West has more ranked teams than the ACC and Pac 10 combined?! Same with the Atlantic 10.