The Dork Polls 2015

[Kedsy]

I'm caching kenpom on a daily basis this year with the goal of analyzing what the standard deviation from the end of the year a ranking for a team is on a given date during the season

I don't know if you're serious, but that's a cool idea.

[hurleyfor3]

I'm caching kenpom on a daily basis this year with the goal of analyzing what the standard deviation from the end of the year a ranking for a team is on a given date during the season

Pomeroy did midday updates last year at least during the conference tournaments. You might have to be reloading more often.

[uh_no]

I don't know if you're serious, but that's a cool idea.

yes i'm serious

[kevin@kevin-fedora kenpom]$ ls
nov18 nov19
[kevin@kevin-fedora kenpom]$ cat nov18 | grep Duke
<tr><td>1</td><td style="text-align:left;"><a href="team.php?team=Duke">Duke</a> <span class="seed"></span></td><td><a href="conf.php?c=ACC">ACC</a></td><td>2-0</td><td>.9483</td><td class="divide">118.6</td><td><span class="seed">1</span></td><td>92.1</td><td><span class="seed">7</span></td><td class="divide">70.4</td><td><span class="seed">78</span></td><td class="divide">+.000</td><td><span class="seed">54</span></td><td class="divide">.1757</td><td><span class="seed">276</span></td><td>94.9</td><td><span class="seed">273</span></td><td>108.5</td><td><span class="seed">278</span></td><td class="divide">.1757</td><td><span class="seed">276</span></td></tr>
[kevin@kevin-fedora kenpom]$

[uh_no]

Pomeroy did midday updates last year at least during the conference tournaments. You might have to be reloading more often.

he is doing them most days now. The frequency of the datapoints sholuldn't matter though...only the difference between the final ranking and the ranking on a given date.

I'm usually taking them at like 9:30 am.

[ChillinDuke]

he is doing them most days now. The frequency of the datapoints sholuldn't matter though...only the difference between the final ranking and the ranking on a given date.

I'm usually taking them at like 9:30 am.

Hats off. I like this.

- Chillin

[grad_devil]

[kevin@kevin-fedora kenpom]$ cat nov18 | grep Duke

Funny. I often use cat | grep instead of

 grep Duke nov18

Maybe it's a Duke thing

[bob blue devil]

I'm caching kenpom on a daily basis this year with the goal of analyzing what the standard deviation from the end of the year a ranking for a team is on a given date during the season

Sounds like fun. Tricky part would be how to interpret the data given that none of the observations are independent. You could maybe do some momentum analysis too.

[uh_no]

Sounds like fun. Tricky part would be how to interpret the data given that none of the observations are independent. You could maybe do some momentum analysis too.

well the the question is, "how much of a predictor of final ranking is ranking on day X," and that should be independent of the system which generates the ranking on day X.

KenPom talks in his blog all the time about people who move around and what bad predictions are before the graph is "connected"...but what i'm interested in is say, if we are rated X on day Y, what is the % chance we move as high as Z by the end of the year. I'm sure kenpom runs those kind of calculations all the time...but it's also nice to record it to look at our movement over the course of the year.

[Kfanarmy]

well the the question is, "how much of a predictor of final ranking is ranking on day X," and that should be independent of the system which generates the ranking on day X.

KenPom talks in his blog all the time about people who move around and what bad predictions are before the graph is "connected"...but what i'm interested in is say, if we are rated X on day Y, what is the % chance we move as high as Z by the end of the year. I'm sure kenpom runs those kind of calculations all the time...but it's also nice to record it to look at our movement over the course of the year.

In this context, what is "Z?"

[uh_no]

In this context, what is "Z?"

whatever you want it to be...

for instance "duke is ranked 7 on nov 28, what are the chances they get to #1 by end of year?"

[bob blue devil]

well the the question is, "how much of a predictor of final ranking is ranking on day X," and that should be independent of the system which generates the ranking on day X.

KenPom talks in his blog all the time about people who move around and what bad predictions are before the graph is "connected"...but what i'm interested in is say, if we are rated X on day Y, what is the % chance we move as high as Z by the end of the year. I'm sure kenpom runs those kind of calculations all the time...but it's also nice to record it to look at our movement over the course of the year.

and that's great if that relationship interests you - it is fairly interesting to me as well. i'm excited to see what you come up with. however, i'd have a little trouble extrapolating a meaning from that since the final ranking is partially defined by the data that defines the observation (i'm guessing you get this). the value, i guess, is doing things like predicting our odds at a kenpom championship or top 5 finish, etc. but i can't think of a direct way to tie that information to saying the team is going to perform as a top 5 kenpom team during the remainder of the season (because we don't have a ranking that measures performance and excludes the information in the observation). if i remember right, kenpom emphasizes more recent results, so perhaps that mitigates the challenge by making the end of year ranking effectively uninfluenced by the data used in the early season rankings.

[Tappan Zee Devil]

I'm caching kenpom on a daily basis this year with the goal of analyzing what the standard deviation from the end of the year a ranking for a team is on a given date during the season

Are you assuming then that a team's final ranking is where they "should" have been at the beginning?
But doesn't this exercise assume that teams don't change (grow or fall apart) during the year.

[uh_no]

Are you assuming then that a team's final ranking is where they "should" have been at the beginning?
But doesn't this exercise assume that teams don't change (grow or fall apart) during the year.

oh, i think that's equally as interesting...obvioulsy in a perfect system a team would start from A and travel linearly to B (in terms of their rating and ranking...but that's obviously not true...

the point is that kenpom has proven to be a very good predictor of tournament success...certainly not perfect, as teams like uconn showed last year...but pretty darn good. All the time in november/december/january, we see exchanges like "we can't win because we're only kenpom ranking XYZ"..."you can't trust kenpom because it's not fully connected!!!"...i'm interested in knowing how much can you trust kenpom? obviously the answer is not 0, and obviously it's not 100%...kenpom indicates sometime in january is when his ratings start to have meaning...but we also know that his preseason rankings are generally decently accurate...i'm interested in how the accuracy in predicting the final rankings changes over the course of the year...analyzing the cause of why they deviated from their initial ranking is somewhat orthoganal.

[grad_devil]

...analyzing the cause of why they deviated from their initial ranking is somewhat orthoganal .

Anybody that uses the word orthogonal in an Internet forum is an immediate friend of mine. I'd spork you, but, alas, I must first spread the love.

[Skitzle]

yes i'm serious

[kevin@kevin-fedora kenpom]$ ls
nov18 nov19
[kevin@kevin-fedora kenpom]$ cat nov18 | grep Duke
<tr><td>1</td><td style="text-align:left;"><a href="team.php?team=Duke">Duke</a> <span class="seed"></span></td><td><a href="conf.php?c=ACC">ACC</a></td><td>2-0</td><td>.9483</td><td class="divide">118.6</td><td><span class="seed">1</span></td><td>92.1</td><td><span class="seed">7</span></td><td class="divide">70.4</td><td><span class="seed">78</span></td><td class="divide">+.000</td><td><span class="seed">54</span></td><td class="divide">.1757</td><td><span class="seed">276</span></td><td>94.9</td><td><span class="seed">273</span></td><td>108.5</td><td><span class="seed">278</span></td><td class="divide">.1757</td><td><span class="seed">276</span></td></tr>
[kevin@kevin-fedora kenpom]$

Two quick notes.

1) I highly doubt that you would ever see this post on ANY other college basketball message board
2) I doubt even more highly that there would be anyone on that board who would read the post, understand the post, and comment on the post.

I love this. Sporks for you and grad_devil for his comment!

[MChambers]

I'm following Northwestern this year, since my daughter is a freshman there, and since Collins is coach.

Right now, in Pomeroy, the Wildcats are #92. Right below Northwestern is, wait for it, Northeastern. Kind of cool.

[Edouble]

Anybody that uses the word orthogonal in an Internet forum is an immediate friend of mine. I'd spork you, but, alas, I must first spread the love.

I slouch too much at my desk, so I've been trying to keep my hips and spine in an orthopedically correct, orthogonal positioning.

(I will take my sporks now, thank you )

[-jk]

I slouch too much at my desk, so I've been trying to keep my hips and spine in an orthopedically correct, orthogonal positioning.

(I will take my sporks now, thank you )

Where've you been, greybeard?

-jk

[uh_no]

wanted to point out that after UVA's thwomping of harvard, they jumped us in kenpom...dumping us to #3

their best win is a decent maryland team, but they also have wins over VCU and harvard...there's a very good chance IMO they come into the duke game undefeated...about 47%...duke only has an 11% chance of getting their undefeated

[MCFinARL]

wanted to point out that after UVA's thwomping of harvard, they jumped us in kenpom...dumping us to #3

their best win is a decent maryland team, but they also have wins over VCU and harvard...there's a very good chance IMO they come into the duke game undefeated...about 47%...duke only has an 11% chance of getting their undefeated

Well, sure, because they don't play Louisville until after that game and Duke plays Louisville before that game. Don't get me wrong, I think Virginia looks formidable, and I suppose it might give them even more of psychological edge if they come into the game undefeated, especially since it is a home game for them. On the other hand, it could take a bit of pressure off of Duke to come in as the underdog. But either way, in the abstract I'm not sure how important it will be that Virginia might be undefeated then and Duke might not.