MBB: Dork Polls, 2021-22

[JasonEvans]

That Clemson schedule is weak. They play their only ranked non-conference opponent tomorrow in St. Bonaventure. If they win that one, then they will play either West Virginia/Elon or Marquette/Ole Miss. The only other notable non-con game is a neutral site game against Drake. The only high-major team they are scheduled to play outside the ACC is at Rutgers in the ACC/B1G Challenge. That's a super soft schedule. The game tomorrow against the Bonnies will be telling.

I mean, how many times have we seen Clemson feast on cupcakes in Nov and Dec, often coming into ACC play with gaudy records, and then fall on their face in ACC play? Feels like it happens fairly often. In fact...

2010 - 12-2 record before ACC play... end up 9-7 in the ACC
2017 - 10-2 record before ACC play.. end up 6-12 in the ACC
2018 - 11-1 record before ACC play... end up 11-7 in the ACC (not really "falling on their face")
2021 - 6-0 record before ACC play... end up 10-6 in the ACC

That said, if the ACC is down this year and Clemson shows they can beat up on mediocre teams in the non-conf, it would seem to bode well for them being able to post an impressive ACC record and be a NCAA tourney team, right?

-Jason "they also play South Carolina on Dec 18th, one more high-major club on what is still a pretty unimpressive non-conference slate" Evans

[JasonEvans]

Oh, and as for those other conference that are such juggernauts --

Michigan lost to Seton Hall, Illinois fell to Marquette, Maryland dropped a game against George Mason, and Wisconsin lost to Providence (Big East is beating up on the Big Ten). I have no idea why the computers and others are so high on Iowa. They lost Luka Garza and two other solid contributors and added... Filip Rebrača. I am not saying the ACC is better than the Big Ten, but I have not yet seen evidence in actual game results that the Big Ten is on some different tier from the other top conferences.

Add Ohio State losing to Xavier to the list of Big Ten disappointments. Not a bad loss, of course, but yet another where the vaunted Big Ten was supposed to show its mettle. The Big East absolutely owns the Big Ten thus far.

[UrinalCake]

And, much a I hate to say it, given the experience and talent on their roster, I strongly suspect UNC can play with anyone in the land this year. Sigh...

We'll see. They have struggled mightily against two 200+ KenPom teams. They led Brown by 3 with two minutes left, at home. College of Charleston led by 6 at the half and despite UNC having a massive foul call advantage in the second, CC trailed by 4 with five minutes left. It would be like if our Campbell game had happened, and then happened again. Only Campbell is much better than either of UNC's opponents.

I watched parts of those games and UNC's defense is just terrible. They repeatedly allow guards to just blow by them for layups at the rim. They do finally have the shooter at the 4 that Roy never had - the lumberjack guy can score but looks soft in the paint and can't defend at all. Walton and Love have made improvements over the offseason, and Bacot is very solid. As we'll see a year from now, having a brand new coach is not an immediately smooth transition so they deserve some time to get things sorted out. But it will be a much different test for them this weekend against opponents who aren't at such a massive size disadvantage.

[CDu]

We'll see. They have struggled mightily against two 200+ KenPom teams. They led Brown by 3 with two minutes left, at home. College of Charleston led by 6 at the half and despite UNC having a massive foul call advantage in the second, CC trailed by 4 with five minutes left. It would be like if our Campbell game had happened, and then happened again. Only Campbell is much better than either of UNC's opponents.

I watched parts of those games and UNC's defense is just terrible. They repeatedly allow guards to just blow by them for layups at the rim. They do finally have the shooter at the 4 that Roy never had - the lumberjack guy can score but looks soft in the paint and can't defend at all. Walton and Love have made improvements over the offseason, and Bacot is very solid. As we'll see a year from now, having a brand new coach is not an immediately smooth transition so they deserve some time to get things sorted out. But it will be a much different test for them this weekend against opponents who aren't at such a massive size disadvantage.

Yeah, the product on the floor right now for UNC has not been great to this point. Now, they have had a bunch of turnover from last year, and not least of which is the head coach. That head coach has introduced a new system, so it is not surprising that they are struggling. The question will be how much better they'll get as the season progresses, and how quickly they get to whatever "better" is. If they stay where they are now, they aren't likely to be very good in conference.

There is a good chance they lose 3-4 games over the next month, as they have a pretty brutal out of conference schedule ending with UCLA the week before Christmas. Maybe they "grow up" quickly, but more likely they lose a bunch of those. But does that schedule then help them get prepared for the ACC schedule and speed up their development? Or does it break their spirits a bit? We'll see.

[CDu]

The RPI is mainly a dodo these days, but it's a bit funny to look at the oddities and discrepancies. CBS presents the RPI at the moment. Topping the list includes such powerhouses as Drake, James Madison and Oakland. Duke comes in 6th, and is second among the major-conference schools behind only Minnesota. The rankings are totally irrelevant at this point, but what is amusing to me is that realtimerpi has us at #44. Apparently, we lost at home to Davidson. I must have missed that game...

http://www.realtimerpi.com/rpi_Men.html

[AGDukesky]

The RPI is mainly a dodo these days, but it's a bit funny to look at the oddities and discrepancies. CBS presents the RPI at the moment. Topping the list includes such powerhouses as Drake, James Madison and Oakland. Duke comes in 6th, and is second among the major-conference schools behind only Minnesota. The rankings are totally irrelevant at this point, but what is amusing to me is that realtimerpi has us at #44. Apparently, we lost at home to Davidson. I must have missed that game...

http://www.realtimerpi.com/rpi_Men.html

That is hilarious! Davidson’s only win so far is against Delaware- I know those “D” schools are hard to tell apart especially when both wear blue..

[Nrrrrvous]

I guess? I mean I sorta agree with the talent/experience on paper. But the defense has been bad. All three of their wins have been shaky at best against pretty below-average competition, down at the half to both Brown and CofC.

I mean, we'd be pretty nervous if that was our resume to date, right? More than nervous, I suspect.

- Chillin

You rang?

[MChambers]

Yeah, the product on the floor right now for UNC has not been great to this point. Now, they have had a bunch of turnover from last year, and not least of which is the head coach. That head coach has introduced a new system, so it is not surprising that they are struggling. The question will be how much better they'll get as the season progresses, and how quickly they get to whatever "better" is. If they stay where they are now, they aren't likely to be very good in conference.

There is a good chance they lose 3-4 games over the next month, as they have a pretty brutal out of conference schedule ending with UCLA the week before Christmas. Maybe they "grow up" quickly, but more likely they lose a bunch of those. But does that schedule then help them get prepared for the ACC schedule and speed up their development? Or does it break their spirits a bit? We'll see.

Has Davis introduced anything new on defense? All I've seen is about UNC's new more perimeter oriented offense, but the problems have been with the defense. Hoping the defense continues to be bad.

[uh_no]

Has Davis introduced anything new on defense? All I've seen is about UNC's new more perimeter oriented offense, but the problems have been with the defense. Hoping the defense continues to be bad.

Yeah. Defense looks good. hope they can keep it up.

[CDu]

Has Davis introduced anything new on defense? All I've seen is about UNC's new more perimeter oriented offense, but the problems have been with the defense. Hoping the defense continues to be bad.

I don’t know if they are doing anything different defensively. But presumably an inordinate amount of practice has been focused on the overhaul of the offensive system. So that means less practice time for defense. That combined with a bunch of new players could explain the problems.

But it is certainly within the realm of possibility that they are simply bad defensively and won’t get better at it.

[DavidBenAkiva]

I don’t know if they are doing anything different defensively. But presumably an inordinate amount of practice has been focused on the overhaul of the offensive system. So that means less practice time for defense. That combined with a bunch of new players could explain the problems.

But it is certainly within the realm of possibility that they are simply bad defensively and won’t get better at it.

Brian Rauf wrote about UNC's defense in an article for Heat Check. His assessment is poor defensive communication and unwillingness/ability to fight through screens. One of the interesting aspects of this, to me, is that it appears to be coming from the incumbent players, like Caleb Love, RJ Davis, Leaky Black, and Armando Bacot. They aren't talking and aren't fighting to stay connected to their men on defense.

https://heatcheckcbb.com/rauf-report...all-takeaways/

You could interpret this a couple of ways. One could be the new coach and his focus on implementing a new offensive system and principles over focusing on defense. I think there's something to that. The players may be thinking a lot about how to play together and going against whatever instincts they developed under Roy to whatever degree.

Another thing could be a new coach just not accounting for defensive communication. I doubt that's the case since it's not like Hubert hasn't been there on the bench for a decade. Still, maybe he's made a mistake by not properly coaching his players on it. It could be as simple as new coach issues.

A third thing that might be going on is that the roster last season covered up this issue with the backcourt. Teams going against Carolina last season knew they were going to face a brick wall of post players when they got past the perimeter. Teams were more interested in taking jumpers. In fact, UNC was rated 221st in the nation in 3-point rate defense (meaning teams took a lot of 3's). UNC was pretty good - although not great, just 78th - at 2P% defense. Best to try for a long jumper than deal with those trees around the rim. This year, the 2P%D is noticeably worse and teams are taking advantage, spreading out the shots between jumpers and shots at the rim. The 3-point defense rate has fallen to middle-of-the-pack at 127th. Teams are not intimidated by the post presence. The guards may have been just as bad defensively last season, but they had a safety blanket with Brooks, Sharpe, Kessler, and Bacot behind them. Bacot is still there, but Brady Manek and Dawson Garcia are not the same kind of players as the other three. The belly is soft and now the whole thing is like swiss cheese. The guards are going to have to compensate for that or the defense won't be able to resist dribble penetration. It isn't now.

[sagegrouse]

I think Carolina's going to win quite a few games this year just on the basis of their shotmaking. That said, if they (or even just Bacot or RJ Davis) have off shooting nights, they could lose to ANYONE. Could be a stressful year for the wine and cheese crowd.

As a member of the wine and cheese crowd -- although a Duke fan in the Class of Mullins -- stress declines with sips of a well-decanted grand cru.

[-jk]

Up to 6 in KenPom and Torvik this morning.

When do the dork polls get "connected" and lose the preseason bias?

-jk

[uh_no]

Up to 6 in KenPom and Torvik this morning.

When do the dork polls get "connected" and lose the preseason bias?

-jk

sometime in january

[MChambers]

Up to 6 in KenPom and Torvik this morning.

When do the dork polls get "connected" and lose the preseason bias?

-jk

Here's what T-Rank says, about it and KenPom. "As with Kenpom, there is also a preseason component that is phased out once a team has played 13 adjusted games (since not all games count for 100% of a game, it typically sticks around for 15 or 16 games)."

The FAQ is interesting, by the way: https://adamcwisports.blogspot.com/p...on-counts.html

[DavidBenAkiva]

The NCAA released the first iteration of the NET ratings this morning and Duke checks in at #10. That matches right around (+/- 5) where they are on T-Rank, KenPom, Haslametrics, BPI, and Sagarin, so no surprises there.

The rest of the ACC looks like this:

10. Duke
26. UNC
31. Wake Forest
40. VT
53. Louisville
70. Virginia
77. FSU
97. Clemson
111. BC
117. Syracuse
123. Miami
136. NC State
147. Georgia Tech
157. Notre Dame
256. Pitt

The cutoff for Q1 games is top 25 at home and top 75 on the road (top 50 on neutral site, which will only happen in the ACCT).

Right now, only Duke will count as a Q1 opponent when they are the visiting team, although UNC is very close to being a top 25 team (sigh).
Only 6 teams will provide Q1 opportunities when they are the home team, with FSU very close to joining that group.

Right now, Duke's ACC schedule only includes four Q1 games @UNC, @Wake, @Louisville, and @Virginia. Duke can "add" 2 more if UNC is top 25 and FSU is top 75 at the end of the year. Given how the non-conference has gone, I don't see any other team in the conference joining the top 25 for a home Q1 or the top 75 for the road Q1 opportunity.

Yuck.

[CDu]

With the collapse of most of the ACC, we are now listed as the favorite in every remaining game on our schedule according to Torvik. I don't have access to KenPom's insider stuff, but I'd imagine the same is true there.

Note: this does not mean either site expects us to go undefeated in the ACC. Torvik has us losing 5 conference games, which would win the ACC by at least 2 games according to his math.

[Billy Dat]

I came across a twitter feed that puts together some Kirk Goldsberry-style data visualizations for the college game. It's pretty cool. You can check it out at

@jgtrends

https://twitter.com/jgtrends

[UrinalCake]

Great info from DBA. I would say overall that this initial NET ranking looks much more "reasonable" than the initial rankings have looked in past seasons. It usually takes a while for the metrics to settle, but other than LSU being an outlier these are within range of the human polls with Purdue being at the top as expected.

We are currently 1-1 in Q1 games and would likely need to go 3-1 in our four scheduled Q1 games and win either the ACC regular season or ACCT to be in the hunt for a #1 seed. We may need to win both given our overall SOS. With that said I also expect there to be significant movement in the NET rankings between now and March, so maybe we'll have more opportunities to pick up quality wins.

[rasputin]

With the collapse of most of the ACC, we are now listed as the favorite in every remaining game on our schedule according to Torvik. I don't have access to KenPom's insider stuff, but I'd imagine the same is true there.

Note: this does not mean either site expects us to go undefeated in the ACC. Torvik has us losing 5 conference games, which would win the ACC by at least 2 games according to his math.

KenPom does indeed have Duke the favorite in all the remaining games. The closest margins are the game at Florida State (Duke by 2) and at Louisville (Duke by 3).