Let's Face It - We are the Kings of November and December

[CDu]

I am happy to discuss it. If I take a thread entitled "King of November/December" as antagonistic, and you do not, I hope we will just agree to disagree on it.

To be clear, I am not picking at you. I respect your posts and often agree with you. This just obviously strike us differently.

It was a poorly-worded title by the original poster, I agree. But I don't think the content of the post itself was worthy of the snarky response.

To the main point: different teams peak at different times. Some, like 2010, peak at just the right time. Others peak earlier. Some never quite get there at all. I would simply say that, historically, our season gets more difficult once conference play starts. Part of the reason our % falls is because we have to play @ Carolina, @ Md, etc. I would also suggest that a conference team ranked 10-25 is tougher to beat than one you do not have to play every year (especially when it is in a neutral site, as the pre-Christmas games are).

That's a perfectly fair opinion/theory. Familiarity does factor in here.

I would suggest the more relevant inquiry is our % at home, at neutral courts, and in true away games. The last category is significantly below the other two. And we don't play those until after Christmas.

I also agree that a good bit of the difference is accounted for in the true road games. I'd say that there are multiple things playing in here to varying degree:

- Coach K gets his teams ready sooner than most coaches, so we're better focused/ready than others in November
- We typically (though not always) have had less attrition to the NBA than most, so there is more continuity of team than our opponents early in the season
- We play no true road games and no conference foes in November/December, and familiarity tends to lead to tougher contests
- We have had significant in-season injuries in 2 of the 10 years that have greatly affected our ACC schedule results

[vick]

It's really tough to draw any conclusions without seeing how other programs perform. Maybe this is common for many programs. I remember feeling shocked at how many players were transferring out of Duke until I looked around and saw that it happens to almost all the big programs. If I had to guess, this happens just about everywhere. Well maybe not the utter dominance of November and December.

There is something to this. The point above about how Duke has "underperformed the expectations based on seeding in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, maybe 2009 if you include margin of victory, 2011, and 2012" is an objectively horrible metric, because all top seeds have "underperformed based on seeding"--this literally has to be the case unless there are never any upsets. What you want to do is compare Duke's performance as X seed vs. the NCAA average. Here is a table I found of wins per seed for the first 26 years of the 64-team bracket (so missing the last couple of years but close enough):

1	3.42
2	2.43
3	1.84
4	1.46
5	1.18
6	1.22
7	0.83
8	0.65
9	0.59
10	0.65
11	0.49
12	0.52
13	0.25
14	0.17
15	0.04
16	0.00

For the 1995-present period, Duke has "expected" wins of 2.8 on average, and has actually won 2.4, if my quick calculations are right. So a little bit below seeding but not catastrophic. For 2004-present, the same expectation of 2.8 wins, but only 2.1 in actuality. So, there is an underperformance, but not as much as often made out to be. You can't mechanically look at a long string of 1 and 2 seeds and think we should be in the Final Four, or at least the Elite 8, every year.

[Wander]

There is something to this. The point above about how Duke has "underperformed the expectations based on seeding in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, maybe 2009 if you include margin of victory, 2011, and 2012" is an objectively horrible metric, because all top seeds have "underperformed based on seeding"--this literally has to be the case unless there are never any upsets. What you want to do is compare Duke's performance as X seed vs. the NCAA average.

Actually, I already took that factor into account in my quote that you cite here. It's still the case that Duke has underperformed expectations based on seeding in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, maybe 2009, 2011, and 2012.

[vick]

Actually, I already took that factor into account in my quote that you cite here. It's still the case that Duke has underperformed expectations based on seeding in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, maybe 2009, 2011, and 2012.

You know you're right--I focused on the part about scoring margin and misunderstood. So while I don't think it's as bad as people say, I sold short what you were saying, my apologies.

[CDu]

For the 1995-present period, Duke has "expected" wins of 2.8 on average, and has actually won 2.4, if my quick calculations are right. So a little bit below seeding but not catastrophic. For 2004-present, the same expectation of 2.8 wins, but only 2.1 in actuality. So, there is an underperformance, but not as much as often made out to be.

I'd argue that a 0.7 win underperformance over a 10-year span is pretty substantial. That's a 25% underperformance.

You can't mechanically look at a long string of 1 and 2 seeds and think we should be in the Final Four, or at least the Elite 8, every year.

Actually, the results suggest you SHOULD expect a #1 seed to make the Elite-8. An average win total of 3.42 wins would put them in the elite-8, and winning ~42% of those elite-8 games (assuming no Final Four wins, of course). For a #2 seed, the expectation is one game less than that, or Sweet-16, with a ~43% win probability in the Sweet-16 (again, assuming no further wins). Duke's 2.8-win expectation suggests that we should be consistently making the Sweet-16 and more often than not making the Elite-8. To be 0.7 wins short of that average suggests that, in 2-3 of every 3-4 years, we're coming up a game shorter than expectations. And when you consider that the 2004 and 2010 teams exceeded expectations, that means that we've fallen short in 8 of the remaining 10 seasons over that span.

Yes, it's harder for a #1 or #2 seed to meet expectations than it is for a #15 seed or even a #8 seed. But that doesn't mean that we haven't played below expectations in the tournament over the last decade.

[Wander]

You know you're right--I focused on the part about scoring margin and misunderstood. So while I don't think it's as bad as people say, I sold short what you were saying, my apologies.

No worries. Thanks for the table - I had figured out the expected wins for a 1 seed a while back, but never the numbers for anything below that, so it's cool to see.

[devil84]

I decided to take a look at the last several years of stats for various teams. I took the last 5 years of NCAA champions: Kentucky, Connecticut, Duke, Carolina, and Kansas, and then added Michigan State and Butler, as they have been in the Final Four multiple times in that time frame. That looked like a fairly decent selection of recently elite teams.

I looked at this year (with incomplete data), and the previous 4 years. Why 4? Because I only have so much time to spend on this project.

I compiled the win percentage for November and December, for January through the end of the season (including the conference tournament, since that wasn't broken out separately), and for January through the end of the tournament. I've shown them in order by January through the end of the season (the second column).

Here are the results:

                  Nov-Dec     Jan-Mar     Jan-Apr
Kansas              88.5        87.2        84.4
Butler              72.3        79.8        79.0
Duke                95.0        78.5        78.3
Kentucky            83.9        75.3        76.7
Michigan State      80.3        71.4        71.7
Carolina            81.5        69.5        72.3
Connecticut         86.7        56.3        58.8

Our Nov-December stat is wonderfully gaudy. From January through the end of the year, we're not chopped liver, though. We're still doing quite well. It just SEEMS bad, because there's such a huge drop-off from 95% to 78%, a drop of over 16 percentage points! Butler is the only one that does better during conference play. Kansas is pretty consistent from non-con to conference play. Kentucky and Michigan State drop about 8 percentage points, Carolina drops 12, and Connecticut over 30!

Winning "only" 78.5% of our games from January on doesn't appear to be horrible. I'm pleasantly surprised with these stats.

[MIKESJ73]

Every year when conference play starts almost every team has great records in major conferences. Duke usually plays a couple of good teams and has a tourney with top competition, but most of the teams in Nov. and Dec or gimme's. Once conference play starts there are no gimme's.

Heck, Clemson looks like world beaters if you go by their Pre-Jan record over the same time period as the first post: Since 04 Clemson has won 80% of their games (101-26) before January. After January they won 46% (83-96).

I wouldn't over analyze the program. We have more championships then anybody else over the last 25 years with the last one only a couple of years back...

[Chicago 1995]

I am happy to discuss it. If I take a thread entitled "King of November/December" as antagonistic/provoking, and you do not, I hope we will just agree to disagree on it.

To be clear, I am not picking at you. I respect your posts and often agree with you. This just obviously strike us differently.

To the main point: different teams peak at different times. Some, like 2010, peak at just the right time. Others peak earlier. Some never quite get there at all. I would simply say that, historically, our season gets more difficult once conference play starts. Part of the reason our % falls is because we have to play @ Carolina, @ Md, etc. I would also suggest that a conference team ranked 10-25 is tougher to beat than one you do not have to play every year (especially when it is in a neutral site, as the pre-Christmas games are).

I would suggest the more relevant inquiry is our % at home, at neutral courts, and in true away games. The last category is significantly below the other two. And we don't play those until after Christmas.

I think that's right, but I think it's undercut by how weak the ACC has been over the last 5-7 years. Our schedule is tougher in that in conference play we actually play true road games, something save for the ACC-Big 10 challenge, we don't do much of in Nov and Dec -- and I'd note that we lost our last two true road games in the challenge at UW and OSU. But the ACC hasn't been the murderer's row it was at times in the past over the last decade. The ACC certainly hasn't been as tough as the Big East has been for the last several years or as tough as the Big 10 is this year.

I'd also note that the idea of regression -- or at least lack of progression -- has sources other than simple results. Some of it is subjective, in that we just don't look as good as we did early on. A basic example would be last season's wins in Maui to start the season vs. how we looked in February and March before Kelly was hurt. In just looking to winning percentages, a win is a win is a win, but if you're considering team growth, beating Michigan and Kansas on back to back days was more impressive than limping through an OT win over Va Tech.

Some of it has been that we've had a number of seasons too that have ended with a whimper, and that's two factors that make the difference between November and March stark. The first is the number of losses. Last year, we lost three of four to end the season (and yes, Kelly's injury is important to consider). The year before, we had a terrible performance at UNC to end the regular season, looked bad against Michigan and got blown out by Arizona. In 08-09, we lost to UNC to close the regular season struggled in the second round and got blitzed in the Sweet 16. That pattern was similar to 07-08, with a loss to UNC to close the regular season, struggles in the ACC tourney and two bad NCAA performances. The results over those stretches aren't great. Now that's where we're usually playing high level competition -- UNC at least once, the ACC tourney and NCAA tourney. At the same time, the results aren't great.

The other factor is that our NCAA tourney performance, save 2010 has been marked by underachievement since 2004. That's not all our fault. We were overseeded in at least a couple of those years -- 2005 and 2007 -- and we had injuries that got in the way with Kyrie and Ryan the last couple of years. That being said, in 2005, we were a 1 seed that lost to a 4, and a 4 that we'd beaten earlier in the year. In 2006, we were a #1 seed, had two first team AAs and lost to a 4. In 2007, we lost in the first round to an 11 seed. In 2008, we lost in the second round to a 7 seed. In 2009, we lost to a 3 seed BADLY. A 2/3 game is a toss up, but we were totally outclassed by Nova. 2010 was a wonderful, glorious exception that was spurred by growth and improvement arising from a senior being healthy for the first time in his career. 2011 was weird with Kyrie coming back, but we again, got outclassed by an Arizona team that we should have beaten. Last year we lost to a 15 seed.

No win in the NCAA tourney is easy, and everyone, save one lucky team, ends with an L. But when you compare the number of high quality wins we pile up in November and December over teams as good or better than those we're getting beaten by in the NCAA tourney, it's a fair impression that improvement isn't there.

[CDu]

I decided to take a look at the last several years of stats for various teams. I took the last 5 years of NCAA champions: Kentucky, Connecticut, Duke, Carolina, and Kansas, and then added Michigan State and Butler, as they have been in the Final Four multiple times in that time frame. That looked like a fairly decent selection of recently elite teams.

I looked at this year (with incomplete data), and the previous 4 years. Why 4? Because I only have so much time to spend on this project.

I compiled the win percentage for November and December, for January through the end of the season (including the conference tournament, since that wasn't broken out separately), and for January through the end of the tournament. I've shown them in order by January through the end of the season (the second column).

Here are the results:

                  Nov-Dec     Jan-Mar     Jan-Apr
Kansas              88.5        87.2        84.4
Butler              72.3        79.8        79.0
Duke                95.0        78.5        78.3
Kentucky            83.9        75.3        76.7
Michigan State      80.3        71.4        71.7
Carolina            81.5        69.5        72.3
Connecticut         86.7        56.3        58.8

Our Nov-December stat is wonderfully gaudy. From January through the end of the year, we're not chopped liver, though. We're still doing quite well. It just SEEMS bad, because there's such a huge drop-off from 95% to 78%, a drop of over 16 percentage points! Butler is the only one that does better during conference play. Kansas is pretty consistent from non-con to conference play. Kentucky and Michigan State drop about 8 percentage points, Carolina drops 12, and Connecticut over 30!

Winning "only" 78.5% of our games from January on doesn't appear to be horrible. I'm pleasantly surprised with these stats.

Thanks for compiling this. It does appear, from this small sample of elite teams, that we are outperforming our Jan-March numbers in Nov/Dec moreso than other really good teams by virtue of playing that much better than the others in Nov/Dec.

[bedeviled]

Yes, we are the Kings of Nov/Dec!! We are also quite good the rest of the year. Other posters have presented reasonable explanations, so I'll just add more data (source). It is based per-coach rather than per-team. It uses the Pythagorean winning percentage for up to the last 10 years if available. I've separated out the tables to rank for Nov/Dec, Jan/Feb, and Mar/Apr respectively.

	Avg. Pyth. Win%	Current Team	Nov/Dec
1	Mike Krzyzewski	Duke	0.969
2	Bill Self	Kansas	0.952
3	Bo Ryan	Wisconsin	0.94
4	Roy Williams	North Carolina	0.938
5	Rick Barnes	Texas	0.931
6	Billy Donovan	Florida	0.917
7	Rick Pitino	Louisville	0.916
8	Jamie Dixon	Pittsburgh	0.915
9	Thad Matta	Ohio St.	0.914
10	Jim Boeheim	Syracuse	0.904
11	Bob Huggins	West Virginia	0.903
12	John Calipari	Kentucky	0.901
13	Tom Izzo	Michigan St.	0.896
14	Mark Few	Gonzaga	0.895
15	Bruce Weber	Kansas St.	0.891
16	Frank Martin	South Carolina	0.885
17	Dave Rose	BYU	0.883
18	Tubby Smith	Minnesota	0.882
19	Jay Wright	Villanova	0.875
20	Mike Montgomery	California	0.872
21	Sean Miller	Arizona	0.851
22	John Thompson III	Georgetown	0.85
23	Steve Alford	New Mexico	0.846
24	Kevin Stallings	Vanderbilt	0.843
25	Leonard Hamilton	Florida St.	0.843
26	Matt Painter	Purdue	0.841
27	Lorenzo Romar	Washington	0.84
28	Tony Bennett	Virginia	0.837
29	Josh Pastner	Memphis	0.837
30	Brad Stevens	Butler	0.829
31	Ben Howland	UCLA	0.822
32	Mike Brey	Notre Dame	0.821
33	Mark Gottfried	NC State	0.818
34	Frank Haith	Missouri	0.814
35	Chris Mack	Xavier	0.799
36	Mick Cronin	Cincinnati	0.786
37	John Beilein	Michigan	0.781
38	Buzz Williams	Marquette	0.768
39	Scott Drew	Baylor	0.662

	Avg. Pyth. Win%	Current Team	Jan/Feb
1	Bill Self	Kansas	0.953
2	Mike Krzyzewski	Duke	0.95
3	Roy Williams	North Carolina	0.936
4	Bo Ryan	Wisconsin	0.929
5	John Calipari	Kentucky	0.927
6	Rick Barnes	Texas	0.923
7	Thad Matta	Ohio St.	0.915
8	Rick Pitino	Louisville	0.907
9	Bob Huggins	West Virginia	0.903
10	Tom Izzo	Michigan St.	0.903
11	Jamie Dixon	Pittsburgh	0.902
12	Billy Donovan	Florida	0.9
13	Jim Boeheim	Syracuse	0.899
14	Frank Martin	South Carolina	0.899
15	Mike Brey	Notre Dame	0.888
16	Tubby Smith	Minnesota	0.883
17	Mike Montgomery	California	0.872
18	Bruce Weber	Kansas St.	0.871
19	Jay Wright	Villanova	0.871
20	Matt Painter	Purdue	0.866
21	Chris Mack	Xavier	0.866
22	Kevin Stallings	Vanderbilt	0.862
23	Mark Few	Gonzaga	0.859
24	John Thompson III	Georgetown	0.857
25	Dave Rose	BYU	0.854
26	Ben Howland	UCLA	0.854
27	Steve Alford	New Mexico	0.846
28	Sean Miller	Arizona	0.837
29	Tony Bennett	Virginia	0.834
30	Leonard Hamilton	Florida St.	0.832
31	Frank Haith	Missouri	0.829
32	Lorenzo Romar	Washington	0.828
33	Mark Gottfried	NC State	0.812
34	John Beilein	Michigan	0.794
35	Josh Pastner	Memphis	0.786
36	Brad Stevens	Butler	0.78
37	Buzz Williams	Marquette	0.778
38	Scott Drew	Baylor	0.735
39	Mick Cronin	Cincinnati	0.723

	Avg. Pyth. Win%	Current Team	Mar/Apr
1	Bill Self	Kansas	0.948
2	Roy Williams	UNC	0.942
3	John Calipari	Kentucky	0.942
4	Tom Izzo	Michigan St.	0.924
5	Rick Pitino	Louisville	0.921
6	Thad Matta	Ohio St.	0.919
7	Billy Donovan	Florida	0.917
8	Jamie Dixon	Pittsburgh	0.915
9	Jim Boeheim	Syracuse	0.915
10	Mike Krzyzewski	Duke	0.893
11	Mark Few	Gonzaga	0.882
12	Rick Barnes	Texas	0.881
13	Bo Ryan	Wisconsin	0.877
14	Josh Pastner	Memphis	0.869
15	Brad Stevens	Butler	0.869
16	Tubby Smith	Minnesota	0.868
17	Leonard Hamilton	Florida St.	0.862
18	Chris Mack	Xavier	0.856
19	Bob Huggins	West Virginia	0.855
20	Frank Martin	South Carolina	0.853
21	Lorenzo Romar	Washington	0.852
22	Bruce Weber	Kansas St.	0.85
23	Mike Brey	Notre Dame	0.848
24	Mark Gottfried	NC State	0.844
25	Ben Howland	UCLA	0.84
26	Jay Wright	Villanova	0.835
27	John Beilein	Michigan	0.834
28	Frank Haith	Missouri	0.832
29	Tony Bennett	Virginia	0.827
30	Steve Alford	New Mexico	0.826
31	Sean Miller	Arizona	0.809
32	Matt Painter	Purdue	0.797
33	Mike Montgomery	California	0.793
34	Kevin Stallings	Vanderbilt	0.793
35	Dave Rose	BYU	0.771
36	Scott Drew	Baylor	0.751
37	Buzz Williams	Marquette	0.735
38	John Thompson III	Georgetown	0.725
39	Mick Cronin	Cincinnati	0.639

[Rich]

This is an interesting thought. It seemed to me in years past that Coach K cared a lot less about any individual game than maybe he does now. It almost seemed like sometimes he left the players on their own to lose the game in order to make an important teaching point that would help them later on (although it's not at all clear that he actually did that; this is only an impression I got watching some games in the past). That used to bug me a lot, because I kind of thought "you play to win the game." But now maybe I can see that there may be times when it is wiser to look at the long goals rather than the short ones.

I tend to agree. I remember Coach K would occasionally sub out the entire starting lineup for a few minutes to make a point. I know, in last night's game he subbed 3 at once, but still not the same. Here's another example somewhat on point - When Billy King played in the '80's, he was a defenisve stalwart, but a lousy free throw shooter. Nevertheless, Coach K left him in in close end-game situations under the premise "I'm going with the guys that got me here." He purposefully did not do the offense/defense substitutions we often see because he didn't want King to feel like he was going to get pulled from the game. Granted, Coach K didn't necessarily run a play to get the ball in King's hands either, but he didn't pull him from the game. At least last year with Plumlee, we would see Coach K make the substitution so that Plumlee wouldn't end up on the line. It's a different way to manage a game and players and I think Coach K's philosophy has changed somewhat in this regard.

[mr. synellinden]

Thank god for Scheyer, Smith, Singler, Thomas, and Zoubek. Can you imagine what the perception of us would be without 2010?

Truthfully - I think this is a huge point. Since 2001, and other than 2004 and 2010, Duke has been abysmal in the NCAA tournament. Before anyone says anything - yes 99% of the programs would kill to have our abysmal record. But we're talking about Duke and its performance relative to its seeding. Obviously this is separate and apart from incredible success in the ACC tournament, which makes the following all the more perplexing.

In 2002, as defending national champions, with four NBA starters on the roster, we lost to #5 seeded Indiana in a Sweet Sixteen game we were favored to win by 13 points.

In 2003, as a #3 seed, we lost to #2 seeded Kansas in a Sweet Sixteen game in which we were a 3.5 point underdog.

In 2004, as a #1 seed, we lost to #2 seeded UCONN in a Final Four game in which we were a 2.0 point underdog. **I still think the referees cost us this game and we outplayed them.

In 2005, as a #1 seed, we lost (by 10) to #5 seeded Michigan State in a Sweet Sixteen game in which we were a 4.5 point favorite.

In 2006, as a #1 seed, we lost (by 8) to #4 seeded LSU in a Sweet Sixteen game in which we were a 6.0 point favorite.

AT THIS POINT, WE HAD LOST FOUR OUT OF FIVE YEARS IN THE SWEET SIXTEEN, THREE OF WHICH WE WERE THE #1 SEED AND AN AVERAGE 8.0 POINT FAVORITE

In 2007, as a #8 seed, we lost to #9 seeded VCU in a first round game in which we were a 6.5 point favorite. (BY THE WAY, WE LOST 8 OF OUR LAST 12 GAMES THAT YEAR)

In 2008, as a #2 seed, we lost to # 7 seeded West Virginia in a second round game in which we were a 4.0 point favorite.

(**Also worth noting we beat #15 seeded Belmont by 1 in a first round game in which we were a 20.0 point favorite.)

In 2009, as a #2 seed, we lost to #3 seeded Villanova (by 23 points) in a Sweet Sixteen game in which we were a 2.0 favorite

AT THIS POINT WE HAD LOST 5 STRAIGHT TOURNAMENT GAMES IN WHICH WE WERE A FAVORITE

2010 - ONE SHINING MOMENT

2011 - as a #1 seed, we lost to #5 seeded Arizona (by 16 points) in a Sweet Sixteen game in which we were an 8.5 point favorite.

2012 - as a #2 seed, we lost to #15 seeded Lehigh (by 5 points) in a first round game in which we were a 12.0 point favorite.


Thus, without 2010:

Duke has been eliminated in the NCAA tournament seven straight times as a favorite.

Duke has not made the elite 8 or Final Four in seven straight years despite being a #1 or #2 seed in six out of seven of those years

Duke has underperformed, relative to the spread, by an average of 16 points in its elimination games during the past seven years.

Duke has not exceeded expectations in the NCAA tournament, relative to seeding, once since 1991 and the UNLV game.


Objectively, Duke has been terrible in the NCAA tournament since 2001 - abysmal since 2004, and 2010 saved us from that narrative being discussed more often.

[vick]

In 2002, as defending national champions, with four NBA starters on the roster, we lost to #5 seeded Indiana in a Sweet Sixteen game we were favored to win by 13 points.

In 2003, as a #3 seed, we lost to #2 seeded Kansas in a Sweet Sixteen game in which we were a 3.5 point underdog.

In 2004, as a #1 seed, we lost to #2 seeded UCONN in a Final Four game in which we were a 2.0 point underdog. **I still think the referees cost us this game and we outplayed them.

In 2005, as a #1 seed, we lost (by 10) to #5 seeded Michigan State in a Sweet Sixteen game in which we were a 4.5 point favorite.

In 2006, as a #1 seed, we lost (by 8) to #4 seeded LSU in a Sweet Sixteen game in which we were a 6.0 point favorite.

AT THIS POINT, WE HAD LOST FOUR OUT OF FIVE YEARS IN THE SWEET SIXTEEN, THREE OF WHICH WE WERE THE #1 SEED AND AN AVERAGE 8.0 POINT FAVORITE

In 2007, as a #8 seed, we lost to #9 seeded VCU in a first round game in which we were a 6.5 point favorite. (BY THE WAY, WE LOST 8 OF OUR LAST 12 GAMES THAT YEAR)

In 2008, as a #2 seed, we lost to # 7 seeded West Virginia in a second round game in which we were a 4.0 point favorite.

(**Also worth noting we beat #15 seeded Belmont by 1 in a first round game in which we were a 20.0 point favorite.)

In 2009, as a #2 seed, we lost to #3 seeded Villanova (by 23 points) in a Sweet Sixteen game in which we were a 2.0 favorite

AT THIS POINT WE HAD LOST 5 STRAIGHT TOURNAMENT GAMES IN WHICH WE WERE A FAVORITE

2010 - ONE SHINING MOMENT

2011 - as a #1 seed, we lost to #5 seeded Arizona (by 16 points) in a Sweet Sixteen game in which we were an 8.5 point favorite.

2012 - as a #2 seed, we lost to #15 seeded Lehigh (by 5 points) in a first round game in which we were a 12.0 point favorite.

You have a point here, and some of these were clearly real disappointments (2002, 2006, arguably 2011 and 2012 although injuries sort of cloud the issue in those years). But other years, I really don't think a reasonable fan base should think of as disappointing. Take 2005--this is a team whose second leading forward by minutes played was Lee Melchionni. This is a team that started Reggie Love at power forward for four games--a walk-on wide receiver from the football team! We shouldn't be upset they lost in the sweet sixteen--we should be on our hands and knees in gratitude for a massively overachieving performance leading to the one-seed. Part of the "problem" in other words is that teams which simply do not have any business talent-wise being thought of as elite wind up being well-coached and get good seeds, but then eventually run out of steam. That's a relatively good problem to have in the grand scheme of being a fan.

[Kedsy]

You have a point here, and some of these were clearly real disappointments (2002, 2006, arguably 2011 and 2012 although injuries sort of cloud the issue in those years). But other years, I really don't think a reasonable fan base should think of as disappointing. Take 2005--this is a team whose second leading forward by minutes played was Lee Melchionni. This is a team that started Reggie Love at power forward for four games--a walk-on wide receiver from the football team! We shouldn't be upset they lost in the sweet sixteen--we should be on our hands and knees in gratitude for a massively overachieving performance leading to the one-seed. Part of the "problem" in other words is that teams which simply do not have any business talent-wise being thought of as elite wind up being well-coached and get good seeds, but then eventually run out of steam. That's a relatively good problem to have in the grand scheme of being a fan.

I agree. A lot of this talk is really about our expectations as fans. Personally, I always hope we'll do well in the tournament, but rationally I don't always expect it. I never expect a national championship, for example. Although some years I expect a Final Four. Specifically, this century, I expected to make the Final Four in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2010, and 2011 (although by the time the tournament came around in 2011, the Kyrie situation tempered my expectations). So, to me, the team underperformed in 2002, 2006, and (sort of) 2011. While I'm always disappointed after a Duke loss, I didn't expect anything past the Sweet 16 in 2000, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, or 2012, so the only times I felt the team underperformed were the two first round losses. Thus, speaking only of my own personal viewpoint, the team underperformed 5 out of 13 years this century. Is that a lot? No idea. My guess is it's no worse than anybody else.

Again in my personal view, if you expect a national championship every year, you're just asking to be disappointed. Nevertheless, it feels like that's the expectation of a lot of folks around here. If people didn't feel that way, perhaps they wouldn't complain about our tournament underperformance so much and instead (as suggested by Vick) might revel in our regular season overperformance leading to a high seed.

FWIW, before Ryan's injury I expected to make the Final Four this year. Depending on when Ryan gets back and how quickly we readjust to his presence, this season feels a little like 2011 to me right now. Hopefully we'll re-integrate Ryan better than we re-integrated Kyrie, and we'll have a happier ending.

[Greg_Newton]

Thanks for compiling this. It does appear, from this small sample of elite teams, that we are outperforming our Jan-March numbers in Nov/Dec moreso than other really good teams by virtue of playing that much better than the others in Nov/Dec.

From the numbers bedeviled posted, it appears that we're also usually better in Jan/Feb. I'm guessing that if devil84 had separated out Mar/Apr for Jan/Feb in his analysis, it would have shown a more significant late-season drop.

[Ben1029]

From the numbers bedeviled posted, it appears that we're also usually better in Jan/Feb. I'm guessing that if devil84 had separated out Mar/Apr for Jan/Feb in his analysis, it would have shown a more significant late-season drop.

The reason for this is the starters play too many minutes and are tired at this point.

[bedeviled]

The reason for this is the starters play too many minutes and are tired at this point.

I never laugh at these jokes, but this one got me with it's straightforward "honesty"!

I would like to point out that some coaches <cough, Roy> got boosts in their Mar/Apr win% from participating in the NIT instead of the winners' bracket.

[devil84]

From the numbers bedeviled posted, it appears that we're also usually better in Jan/Feb. I'm guessing that if devil84 had separated out Mar/Apr for Jan/Feb in his analysis, it would have shown a more significant late-season drop.

I've got them broken out. They are in order by tournament percentage. Note that this includes a year in the NIT for Carolina, Kentucky, and Connecticut; Butler has 2 years in the NCAA, one in the CIB, and one with no post season tourney. Again, all conference tournament games are in the March column (I had no way of separating them out).

Blue numbers represent the best percentage, red the worst.

	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	Tourney
Carolina	78.1%	84.8%	68.6%	71.0%	68.8%	84.2%
Kentucky	83.9%	83.9%	78.4%	69.0%	78.9%	83.3%
Duke	97.1%	92.3%	75.6%	85.3%	72.2%	76.9%
Butler	69.0%	75.0%	78.0%	82.4%	77.8%	75.0%
Connecticut	90.0%	83.3%	60.5%	54.5%	50.0%	73.3%
Michigan State	80.0%	80.6%	78.9%	62.1%	70.6%	73.3%
Kansas	86.2%	90.6%	90.2%	87.1%	78.6%	60.0%

It's interesting that Kansas has some gaudy numbers in January and leads impressively in February, yet comes in last tournament winning percentage. Note that their championship came in 2008, which the year prior to the window for these stats.

Duke comes in 1st in November by a large margin, 1st in December, 4th in January, 2nd in February, 4th in March, and 3rd in tournaments.

Carolina comes in 5th, 3rd, 5th, 4th, and 5th -- pretty mediocre by these standards. Yet they are first in tournament winnings (aided by a deep run in the NIT the year after winning the NCAA Championship).

[bedeviled]

Duke comes in 1st in November by a large margin, 1st in December, 4th in January, 2nd in February, 4th in March, and 3rd in tournaments.

Thanks for the effort! Small correction: Duke is 5th in January. <shakes fist at January!!>