Have to say I'm a bit surprised to see Michigan St. (now up to #3 in Ken Pom and Torvik and #4 in the Massey aggregator) do as well as it is this year, especially getting almost nothing from Josh Langford.
Having lost Bridges and Jaren Jackson, and minimal contributions from Langford, but still being in the top 5 of the computers indicates that Izzo is doing a great job this year.
I'm particularly shocked to see MSU, which isn't normally thought of as having a great offense, at #5 in offensive efficiency (per Ken Pom; #6 at Torvik) It appears that Winston's cutting down just a bit on their turnovers (my Ken Pom subscription lapsed, so I'm using the splits from Torvik), getting them from around #230 to #130, enables them to have a top 5 offense, when combined with a #8 EFG% (and surprisingly good 3 Pt shooting - rated #25) and their typically strong offensive rebounding (#19).
Yep. Especially impressive is Kenny Goins' story. Unlike Luke Maye (whose mythology of being a "walk-on" is just that), Goins was an actual "preferred walk-on" who came to MSU without a scholarship (turning down offers from the likes of Oakland and Central Michigan), before earning one after his redshirt freshman season. Now, as a 5th year senior, he's averaged just about 9 points and 11 rebounds a game in the eight Big 10 games this season.
Interesting John Gasaway piece on the "analytic perils of [Ken Pom] dual-efficiency fetishism" that looks at the issues Kedsy et. al. have been kicking around here and comes to many of the same conclusions, e.g.: (i) there's lots of ways to be good; (ii) #1 seeds tend to do very well (either because they are the best teams or they get easier paths or both); so (iii) "dual-efficiency" champs don't do much better than #1 seeds generally; (iv) the small sample sizes and randomness in a single elimination tournament really preclude drawing any firm conclusions about the predictive value of this; and (v) use KenPom's pre-tournament rankings for your arguments!
https://johngasaway.com/2019/01/25/t...sm/#more-39637
My name is Kedsy and I approve this message.
Interestingly, there are currently three dual-efficiency darlings in the KenPom rankings, but Gasaway only mentions two (guess which team he didn't mention?). He also didn't mention that Duke did it last year as well. I wonder why? (Actually, I don't really wonder; I assume it's because Duke did well in the tournament last year and mentioning that would have undercut what he was trying to say.)
In KenPom, Duke has leaped over UVa, which is impressive, given how highly UVa was rated. UVa is #2 and Gonzaga is #3. Tennessee is a distant #5. MSU is #4, surprisingly.
Besides the win over UVa, Duke may be benefiting from strong play by Kentucky and Texas Tech.
Still no. 2 on Torvik somehow. But wow, that offensive showing was incredible.
More games have been added now. UVA has dropped to number 3, or Gonzaga has moved up to #2 (it's really a virtual tie for 2nd)
Big gap between #3 and #4:
kenpom 2-10.JPG
Hahaha I know you're kidding but our luck has been been steadily increasing. I think it's basically saying based on efficiency ratings, you'd expect a team to have a certain number of wins based on their competition. So if you lose a lot of close games, you get a negative number for luck. Now that we've also been on the plus side of some squeakers, our luck is more balanced.
And speaking of luck, I was chatting just a couple days ago about how we never seem to bank in any three point shots, but teams seem to bank in quite a few against us....then Cam goes and does that fugly thing yesterday....BACK TO THE MEAN....then he shot lights out after that.
It’s worth noting that we currently have the second-highest KenPom adj. efficiency margin in the KenPom era (beginning in 2002). Obviously, there’s still a lot of season to go, but considering we’ve played half a game without Zion, almost an entire game without Tre and Cam, and a couple more without Tre, that is insanely impressive.
Of course, the sobering fact is that the team with a higher adj eff margin was 2015 Kentucky. Let’s not be like 2015 UK.
We already aren't like 2015 UK...they were probably doomed by staying undefeated, and the pressure of that clearly caught up with them...almost did versus ND...did versus Wisconsin.
I'm very happy not to have that pressure...(altho of course I was not happy at the time of the losses...)
Didn't UK 2015 have three point shooting problems? Hmm...
UK 2015 shot 35% from 3. However, they didn't take a lot of 3s, only 27%. They actually went 3-5 from 3 against Wisconsin in the FF. Also, their defense fell apart in their last two games against ND and Wisconsin.
I think you are remembering UK 2010 who shot 33%. They lost to WVU in the EE after shooting 4-32 from 3.