Dork Poll Tracking 2012-13

[mr. synellinden]

Not to be confused with the Bilas Power Index or the Vitale Bald Dome Index (VBDI) ...

We are ranked number one in ESPN's dork poll:

Also worth noting that Virginia Tech (27) and Maryland (35) and Virginia (47) all are ranked ahead of NC State (48) and UNC (53).

[Turtleboy]

If SoS means strength of schedule, how in the heck is this #1? Am I misreading something?

[DukeBlue666s]

I believe I'm misreading the same thing ...

[Aurelius]

If SoS means strength of schedule, how in the heck is this #1? Am I misreading something?

Their opponents are a combined 44-7. One of the benefits, if you want to look at it that way, of going 0-6 is that your opponents each have an extra win.

Duke's opponents, for comparison, are a combined 57-25, good for an SoS of #10. Nine of those losses, of course, came against Duke, so that does hurt us a little bit in terms of strength of schedule.

[Turtleboy]

Thanks.

[toooskies]

That's not how BPI works-- it's similar to KenPom, but with corrective factors for injury, blowouts, and a few other aspects. The numbers end up pretty different, but the SOS calculations should be similar.

MVST has played teams with ranks of 10, 14, 65, 19(!), 27, 47. According to ESPN's rankings, that's reasonable.

Not sure how LSU got such a high rating, although they do have two games missed by top-5 rotation guys.

The value-add here relative to KenPom is that these don't have preseason weighting factoring in. That's probably why we aren't ranked higher there.

[hurleyfor3]

Y'all are welcome for establishing the term, "dork polls".

[MChambers]

Y'all are welcome for establishing the term, "dork polls".

Don't look now, but Duke is #1 by a huge margin in the blended Sagarin dork poll, 3.87 points better than #2 UF. That 3.87 gap is as big as the gap between #2 and #12.

Duke's #3 in Pomeroy, but moving up, and the defense is up to #13, which is a nice thing to see. (Although I was disappointed in the defense in the first half last night.)

[loran16]

Don't look now, but Duke is #1 by a huge margin in the blended Sagarin dork poll, 3.87 points better than #2 UF. That 3.87 gap is as big as the gap between #2 and #12.

Duke's #3 in Pomeroy, but moving up, and the defense is up to #13, which is a nice thing to see. (Although I was disappointed in the defense in the first half last night.)

Let's be fair - if you're going to use the term "Dork" polls - you need to use the better polls. In other words, you need to use Sagarin's predictor, which he considers his better poll because it includes margin of victory (The Blended poll essentially merges the more useless ELO poll). Duke has indeed jumped to #1 in the predictor, but by a tiny margin.

[MChambers]

Let's be fair - if you're going to use the term "Dork" polls - you need to use the better polls. In other words, you need to use Sagarin's predictor, which he considers his better poll because it includes margin of victory (The Blended poll essentially merges the more useless ELO poll). Duke has indeed jumped to #1 in the predictor, but by a tiny margin.

Sagarin has modified his ELO poll to include margin of victory. From the poll itself:

"ELO_SCORE applies ELO principles to the actual SCORES of the games and so it is now SCORE BASED
and thus should be a good match for the PURE POINTS in terms of predictive accuracy for upcoming games."

By the way, I can't believe I just outdid you on a Dork poll matter.

[hurleyfor3]

Unc's negative-18-point victory against Texas drops them to #58 Sagarin. Some teams that are ahead of them:

North Dakota State, Lehigh, Stephen F. Austin, Canisius, Middle Tennessee, Boise State, Belmont and Wyoming. Sagarin says Wyoming should be a 7-point favorite over unc on a neutral floor.

[Indoor66]

Sagarin says Wyoming should be a 7-point favorite over unc on a neutral floor.

Go Cowboys.

[uh_no]

well, our defense shot up from 18 to 8 after these past two games (confirming the "wisconsin effect"), and after a somewhat slow day offensively (that FT shooting surely hurt...) our offense dropped to just a shade short of pitt...putting us at #3 in O

we stay at 3 overall

(kenpom)

as the other dogs start getting into more of the meat of their schedules, we should see some of their efficiency numbers drop off...I think duke will end up #1 at some point in late january

[loran16]

well, our defense shot up from 18 to 8 after these past two games (confirming the "wisconsin effect"), and after a somewhat slow day offensively (that FT shooting surely hurt...) our offense dropped to just a shade short of pitt...putting us at #3 in O

we stay at 3 overall

(kenpom)

as the other dogs start getting into more of the meat of their schedules, we should see some of their efficiency numbers drop off...I think duke will end up #1 at some point in late january

I don't think a win by less points than Pomeroy expected is even close to the "Wisconsin Effect" - Cornell and Elon aren't bad enough for the computers to overrate.

[uh_no]

I don't think a win by less points than Pomeroy expected is even close to the "Wisconsin Effect" - Cornell and Elon aren't bad enough for the computers to overrate.

that's not the point...the point was our defense was underrated relative to the other top teams because we had played such a tougher schedule...thus when we beat up on a couple patsies, are ranking shot up.

[COYS]

that's not the point...the point was our defense was underrated relative to the other top teams because we had played such a tougher schedule...thus when we beat up on a couple patsies, are ranking shot up.

It was also weighed down by the preseason projections, which were influenced by the large number of returning personnel we had from our poor (for Duke) defensive team last season. The preseason projections have all but disappeared at this point.

[Kedsy]

I don't think a win by less points than Pomeroy expected is even close to the "Wisconsin Effect" - Cornell and Elon aren't bad enough for the computers to overrate.

Call it what you want. The point is that good teams are "more better" than teams like Cornell and Elon than the computers (especially Pomeroy's) think they are. Our defense didn't show so much to justify a jump from 18th to 8th based on our beating up on two sub-150 teams. Clearly our tough early schedule negatively impacted our efficiency ratings.

[MChambers]

Call it what you want. The point is that good teams are "more better" than teams like Cornell and Elon than the computers (especially Pomeroy's) think they are. Our defense didn't show so much to justify a jump from 18th to 8th based on our beating up on two sub-150 teams. Clearly our tough early schedule negatively impacted our efficiency ratings.

What do you draw from this? That Duke's defense is stronger than rated? Or just that Pomeroy's system has some drawbacks, especially in the weight it gives to performance against weaker teams?

Not trying to argue with you, but am genuinely curious.

[uh_no]

What do you draw from this? That Duke's defense is stronger than rated? Or just that Pomeroy's system has some drawbacks, especially in the weight it gives to performance against weaker teams?

Not trying to argue with you, but am genuinely curious.

I think it's just that it's tough to make a valid comparison of teams' efficiencies when they have played wildly different strengths of schedules...that is a drawback in the early season, and he admits as much. By the end of the season, that has mostly evened out...and while one schedule might be tougher than another, most teams have played a good smattering of pretty good teams (conference play), so the deviations are much less than they re now...thus getting more valid comparisons.

I think duke's defense is probably better than 18th. I think that other team's ratings were inflated since they played few very good teams, and as duke is playing some patsies, and they might be playing some toughies, it evens out.

Either way, I think the 8 is much more indicative of the team's defense than 18

[Kedsy]

What do you draw from this? That Duke's defense is stronger than rated? Or just that Pomeroy's system has some drawbacks, especially in the weight it gives to performance against weaker teams?

Not trying to argue with you, but am genuinely curious.

I think this is definitely a drawback to Pomeroy's system, and you can see it every year. Hopefully toward the end of the season most of this bias is gone, but every year there are a few teams Pomeroy rates very highly that really aren't that good (and for whatever reason, quite often Wisconsin is one of those teams), and I believe scheduling is a primary reason for that anomaly.

I don't think this is a drawback distinctive to Pomeroy. I believe pretty much all computer systems contain a similar bias. Why? My guess is that most good computer rating systems use some set of simultaneous equations and, while the overall computations may be reasonably sophisticated the individual equations aren't. It seems to me that even after you take out the "noise" (minor injuries and illnesses, the day-to-day emotional highs and lows of teenagers, good days and bad days, etc.), for which no computer system can fully compensate, it remains that the differences between teams is probably more of a step function than a smooth continuum. And if you're playing against a team several steps down, the results will be less predictive than the computer expects.

Having said all that, to answer your first question, after the Ohio State game our defensive efficiency in Pomeroy was ranked in the low 20s. I think our defense is stronger than that. Since we've now played Delaware, Temple, Cornell, and Elon, we've jumped all the way up to 8 (and most of that jump was due to the last two games). I don't think that's a coincidence and I don't think it's because our defense was significantly better in those last two games. Is our defense even stronger than #8? I have no idea. We'll probably be ranked a bit higher after playing Santa Clara, but then we might settle a bit after we play the stronger ACC teams.