2022-23 NET/Bracketology Discussion

[Southgate0809]

I think you're actually being a bit pessimistic with that projection. If the season ended today, and they seeded the tournament based solely off of the mostly non-conference slate played to this point, it's highly likely we'd be a 3 or 4 seed now. We're #13 in the NET, and two teams ahead of us (Florida Atlantic and Utah State) are clear early-season outliers. Our two Q1 wins are behind only 3 teams (Purdue, Kansas, and Wisconsin), and we have another game against OSU that is literally just outside that boundary. Our two losses have come against Top 10 teams at neutral sites, including a very close one against Kansas, so we have no bad losses.

Now, the weak ACC means we have a smaller margin for error, but it's also worth recognizing that the Big Ten isn't anywhere near as strong this year as it was last year (evidenced by the ACC taking the Challenge and the NET rankings)... it seems like the Big 12 and SEC have separated themselves from the pack a bit. The ACC seems to be in a second tier of conferences behind them and with the Big Ten and Pac 12, and a bit above the Big East. With that in mind, we probably have a bit more wiggle room than last year, where any loss in the ACC was essentially a bad loss since the consensus was the conference was among the weakest amongst the Power 6.

It's also worth remembering that our tougher than average (if I recall others' analyses correctly) ACC schedule may work in our favor for seeding. We get two cracks at Virginia Tech, both of which would currently be Q1 games. Our road games against Miami and NC State look like they'll be Q1 opportunities as well. And road contests against Virginia and UNC could be opportunities for marquee Q1 wins.

I know we haven't looked as good as we might've hoped at various times this season, and the Oregon State/Purdue games left some bad tastes in our mouths. But as it stands, our resume is actually quite solid, with plenty of opportunities to improve. If we can avoid a "bad" Q3/Q4 loss, I think we'll be securely in the discussion for a Top 4 seed with as many as 5 ACC losses. If we stay under that number, especially if it includes some big Q1 wins, that could go much higher.

I think limiting it to 5 ACC losses would be an incredible feat for Scheyer to pull off in his first season. If he can do that, he's fully answered the questions for me about whether or not he can maintain the standard of excellence. With his coaching inexperience and our youth, I am expecting road games in the conference to be really tough this year. I hope to be proven wrong, just like Elko proved us all wrong this year about our projections for the football team.

[sagegrouse]

It is December though.

"Busted, disgusted, the ratings can't be trusted."

[Bluedog]

FWIW, the NET seems to roughly agree with these tiers. Right now UVA and Duke have separated themselves from the rest of the ACC pack at #9 and #13 respectively, and both have 2 Q1 wins (our home win against OSU has fallen just outside Q1 territory for the time being).

The next tier is Virginia Tech at #27 (if they stay in the Top 30 that's a big boost for the rest of the ACC in terms of a potential resume-boosting game), and UNC at #37... teams in this range typically would be on the right side of the bubble.

Then there's the bubbly ACC teams: Miami at #55 and NC State at #58. If these teams stay in this range, a road victory would be Q1.

Then there's the "outside chance" squads, who also have an outside chance of eventually representing a Q1 opportunity for us: Pitt at #83 and Wake at #86.

There's then a big drop to Clemson at #121 (they've really fallen off the map after looking promising early), Georgia Tech at 143, Syracuse at #158, and Notre Dame at #164. There's an even bigger drop to the bottom 4 of the conference (starting with BC at #242).

As the rankings start to equilibrate and outlier teams from mid/low majors descend down the rankings, most of these teams will get a bit of a bump. If UNC keeps stinking, though, they might equilibrate in the other direction as any pre-season skew dissipates. So to my eye, I see three teams that should make the tournament, three around the bubble, and two more with an outside shot of making it. If that ends up with us getting 6 teams in, that wouldn't be horrible, especially since we should have at least two (and potentially 3 if Va Tech continues to impress) top seeds.

It is December though.

I'm surprised ND is that low. I'd expect them to be top 100. They aren't great, but have had some good games are are dangerous as a team ranked #164. Of course, if they continue to be "dangerous", their rank will move up.

Seems, to me, the ACC is really lopsided this year with a few elite teams, a good chunk of middling teams, and a horrible set of 4 teams. In the past, I feel like it's more evenly distributed with one truly awful team, not 4. Not sure if this helps the others or not (i.e. racking up wins against bad teams) -- probably doesn't help.

And, I recognize you know this, but our own NET ranking is basically meaningless as it relates to seeding (as the mentioning of us being #13 puts us in the 3/4 seed range on another post - not sure if it was you/someone else). Our rank is only impactful insomuch it impacts OTHER team wins/losses. So, it's a bit funny that we use NET to assess the quality of a team's OPPONENT (and then see the WINS/LOSSES against that set of opponents) and NOT to assess the quality of the team we're judging itself. Of course, if a team has a lot of wins against top opponents, their rank should reflect that. But not always, you sometimes see some anomalies. In an extreme case, a team that has several 1-point losses to top 50 teams but destroys everyone else would NOT be viewed favorably from a seeding perspective but would probably have a very high "raw" NET rank.

[Kedsy]

I think limiting it to 5 ACC losses would be an incredible feat for Scheyer to pull off in his first season. If he can do that, he's fully answered the questions for me about whether or not he can maintain the standard of excellence. With his coaching inexperience and our youth, I am expecting road games in the conference to be really tough this year. I hope to be proven wrong, just like Elko proved us all wrong this year about our projections for the football team.

I understand that Jon Scheyer is not Coach K, but if we have more than 5 conference losses this season, it would be Duke's fifth-worst ACC regular season performance in the past 25 years (really, 26, but who's counting?). The rating systems have Duke as either the best or 2nd-best team in the ACC right now. Based on pure talent, we're the best. Why should that translate into one of Duke's worst seasons in a quarter of a century? (Personally, I don't think "coach and youth" is a reasonable answer to that question.)

Seeding is another story, since the ACC is not as highly regarded as it once was. but it should be noted that Duke has been worse than a #2 seed only four times in the past 25 (26) seasons, and only worse than a #3 twice (not counting the Covid years when our season was canceled before the NCAAT; though obviously if we'd made the tourney in 2021 we would have been a bottom-eight seed).

Season	Cnf Ls	Seed
2022	4	2
2021	9	n/a
2020	5	n/a
2019	4	1
2018	5	2
2017	7	2
2016	7	4
2015	3	1
2014	5	3
2013	4	2
2012	3	2
2011	3	1
2010	3	1
2009	5	2
2008	3	2
2007	8	6
2006	2	1
2005	5	1
2004	3	1
2003	5	3
2002	3	1
2001	3	1
2000	1	1
1999	0	1
1998	1	1
1997	4	2

[CDu]

I understand that Jon Scheyer is not Coach K, but if we have more than 5 conference losses this season, it would be Duke's fifth-worst ACC regular season performance in the past 25 years (really, 26, but who's counting?). The rating systems have Duke as either the best or 2nd-best team in the ACC right now. Based on pure talent, we're the best. Why should that translate into one of Duke's worst seasons in a quarter of a century? (Personally, I don't think "coach and youth" is a reasonable answer to that question.)

Seeding is another story, since the ACC is not as highly regarded as it once was. but it should be noted that Duke has been worse than a #2 seed only four times in the past 25 (26) seasons, and only worse than a #3 twice (not counting the Covid years when our season was canceled before the NCAAT; though obviously if we'd made the tourney in 2021 we would have been a bottom-eight seed).

Season	Cnf Ls	Seed
2022	4	2
2021	9	n/a
2020	5	n/a
2019	4	1
2018	5	2
2017	7	2
2016	7	4
2015	3	1
2014	5	3
2013	4	2
2012	3	2
2011	3	1
2010	3	1
2009	5	2
2008	3	2
2007	8	6
2006	2	1
2005	5	1
2004	3	1
2003	5	3
2002	3	1
2001	3	1
2000	1	1
1999	0	1
1998	1	1
1997	4	2

While accurate, this is a bit misleading in that we play 4 more conference games than we did in 1997-2012 and 2 more than we did in 2013-2019. So it would be more appropriate to compare winning percentage. So 5 losses means a 75% winning percentage. Which would be better than 5 of our last 7 seasons, and tied for the 2nd best in our last 7 seasons. And better than 6 more seasons on the list. So, solidly in the middle of the pack over the last ~25 years.

It's also misleading in that it includes an era that no longer exists (the pre-early entry and pre-1-and-done eras). As can be seen in our conference record decline, since we started suffering heavy annual player attrition, our seasons of better than 75% went down dramatically in the last decade or so.

[Kedsy]

While accurate, this is a bit misleading in that we play 4 more conference games than we did in 1997-2012 and 2 more than we did in 2013-2019. So it would be more appropriate to compare winning percentage. So 5 losses means a 75% winning percentage. Which would be better than 5 of our last 7 seasons, and tied for the 2nd best in our last 7 seasons. And better than 6 more seasons on the list. So, solidly in the middle of the pack over the last ~25 years.

It's also misleading in that it includes an era that no longer exists (the pre-early entry and pre-1-and-done eras). As can be seen in our conference record decline, since we started suffering heavy annual player attrition, our seasons of better than 75% went down dramatically in the last decade or so.

OK, but your rebuttal is also a bit misleading. Six losses this season would give us a league winning pct of 70%. We've done better than .700 in 10 of our past 13 seasons and 19 of our past 26, so not squarely in the middle at all.

[Southgate0809]

I understand that Jon Scheyer is not Coach K, but if we have more than 5 conference losses this season, it would be Duke's fifth-worst ACC regular season performance in the past 25 years (really, 26, but who's counting?). The rating systems have Duke as either the best or 2nd-best team in the ACC right now. Based on pure talent, we're the best. Why should that translate into one of Duke's worst seasons in a quarter of a century? (Personally, I don't think "coach and youth" is a reasonable answer to that question.)

Seeding is another story, since the ACC is not as highly regarded as it once was. but it should be noted that Duke has been worse than a #2 seed only four times in the past 25 (26) seasons, and only worse than a #3 twice (not counting the Covid years when our season was canceled before the NCAAT; though obviously if we'd made the tourney in 2021 we would have been a bottom-eight seed).

Season	Cnf Ls	Seed
2022	4	2
2021	9	n/a
2020	5	n/a
2019	4	1
2018	5	2
2017	7	2
2016	7	4
2015	3	1
2014	5	3
2013	4	2
2012	3	2
2011	3	1
2010	3	1
2009	5	2
2008	3	2
2007	8	6
2006	2	1
2005	5	1
2004	3	1
2003	5	3
2002	3	1
2001	3	1
2000	1	1
1999	0	1
1998	1	1
1997	4	2

Well, I still think that Scheyer is all he's hyped up to be, so I'm hopeful that he can meet that mark. But overall, we performed so well year-in-and-out in the conference that the 5th worst performance in the last 25 years is still a really good season. I can see us losing 6 or 7 games in the conference, getting better after each loss, and still feeling like we can go on a run to win a championship with an incredibly young team with no non-transfer seniors. I think losing 6 or 7 in the conference is a good season. Losing 5 or less is a spectacular one.

[CDu]

OK, but your rebuttal is also a bit misleading. Six losses this season would give us a league winning pct of 70%. We've done better than .700 in 10 of our past 13 seasons and 19 of our past 26, so not squarely in the middle at all.

Even this feels misleading, as it doesn't address the second of my two points (the era is totally different than 1997-2014, when we had much more experience and continuity). While true that it would be only better than 3 of the past 13 seasons, it would also be better than 3 of the past 7 seasons. Which is probably more of an apples to applies comparison than the 1997-2014 seasons are, given the youth and lack of continuity that we've dealt with since the "one-and-done factory" really took off with the 2015 team. So a 6-loss (.700 win %) season would be right in the middle of the pack for Duke in the freshman-dominated rotation era.

[MarkD83]

Since we are talking about ACC W/L for Duke I took a stab at the rest of Duke's schedule and rated the games from most likely to least likely to lose.
This is based only on my opinion (and some conversation on this board).
The games in bold are the critical ones to keep the win total > 15.

at 3 Virginia
at North Carolina
North Carolina
at Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech
at Miami
at Wake Forest
Miami
at Clemson
Wake Forest
at NC State
Pittsburgh
NC State
at Syracuse
Notre Dame
at Georgia Tech
Florida State
at Boston College
Louisville

[UrinalCake]

^not that it changes your point about FSU, but the score of that game with Louisville was 75-53. If the Seminoles make a miraculous turnaround in the ACC, it can point to several injuries factoring in some of the early losses. (My parents met at FSU so I probably pay more attention to it than most here)

They also have that international center who was ruled ineligible because received a gift as a newborn baby and his parents subsequently repaid it but the NCAA decided he was the devil and should be flogged. I'm exaggerating only slightly... but point being if he starts playing in January and they knock off a couple of the top teams plus they have Leonard Hamilton's credibility, I wouldn't completely rule out them making the tourney.

[uh_no]

Well, I still think that Scheyer is all he's hyped up to be, so I'm hopeful that he can meet that mark. But overall, we performed so well year-in-and-out in the conference that the 5th worst performance in the last 25 years is still a really good season. I can see us losing 6 or 7 games in the conference, getting better after each loss, and still feeling like we can go on a run to win a championship with an incredibly young team with no non-transfer seniors. I think losing 6 or 7 in the conference is a good season. Losing 5 or less is a spectacular one.

anyone who thinks we were going to go undefeated is nuts. Scheyer is doing at least a plus job so far, especially given one or two of his recruits don't seem to be fully up to speed yet.

[Southgate0809]

Since we are talking about ACC W/L for Duke I took a stab at the rest of Duke's schedule and rated the games from most likely to least likely to lose.
This is based only on my opinion (and some conversation on this board).
The games in bold are the critical ones to keep the win total > 15.

at 3 Virginia
at North Carolina
North Carolina
at Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech
at Miami
at Wake Forest
Miami
at Clemson
Wake Forest
at NC State
Pittsburgh
NC State
at Syracuse
Notre Dame
at Georgia Tech
Florida State
at Boston College
Louisville

I think that's fair, but those away games near the bottom are no guaranteed wins. I learned a long time ago that any road game in the ACC is a potential loss for Duke, even when we have the #1 team in the country. The opposing crowd is excited, and their players start hitting crazy 3's all game. Was it Wake Forest that rushed the court a couple years ago (which everybody does), but they especially seemed to act like they had just won a national championship?

[CDu]

anyone who thinks we were going to go undefeated is nuts. Scheyer is doing at least a plus job so far, especially given one or two of his recruits don't seem to be fully up to speed yet.

Yeah, I'm pretty impressed with how good the defense has been despite the incredibly young team and the injuries to our top two recruits. That's definitely a promising sign. I'm still agnostic about exactly how good the team will be (could be great like a 1/2 NCAA seed, could just be pretty good like a 4/5 seed), but I've been pretty impressed with Scheyer's coaching so far.

[House P]

For what it is worth, here are the chances Torvik's model currently gives each ACC team of making the tourney.

TEAM	Current Rank	Projected Record	Chance of Making Tourney	Chance of Autobid	Proj. Seed
Duke	12	24-7 (15-5)	99.8%	27.9%	3.4
Virginia	20	23-6 (15-5)	99.7%	19.7%	3.6
Virginia Tech	18	25-6 (15-5)	95.4%	18.8%	7
North Carolina	30	20-11 (13-7)	85.2%	12.6%	7.3
Miami FL	49	22-9 (12-8)	76.0%	6.4%	8.7
NC St.	41	20-11 (11-9)	50.8%	7.2%	9.5
Wake Forest	69	18-13 (10-10)	9.7%	2.6%	10.6
Pittsburgh	89	17-14 (11-9)	3.3%	1.4%	10.9
Clemson	88	17-14 (10-10)	1.6%	1.3%	11.6
Notre Dame	93	17-14 (9-11)	0.9%	0.9%	12.4
Syracuse	100	16-15 (9-11)	0.7%	0.7%	12.1
Georgia Tech	106	16-15 (8-12)	0.7%	0.7%	13.1
Florida St.	167	8-23 (6-14)	0.1%	0.1%	15.8
Boston College	198	10-21 (4-16)	0.0%	0.0%	0
Louisville	282	4-27 (2-18)	0.0%	0.0%	0

A couple things stand out to me.

- Torvik's model agrees with those in this thread who suggest that 5 ACC teams are currently "on track" to make the tourney, with a 6th team (NC State) on track for the bubble.

- Torvik's model doesn't give the ACC teams projected to win 17-18 games much chance of making the tourney. Therefore, the middle of the pack ACC teams (Wake, Pitt, Clemson, ND, Syracuse, Ga Tech) are probably going to have to exceed expectations by 2-3 wins to have a realistic chance of making the tourney. I haven't run the probabilities, but my gut tells me that at least one of these teams is likely to end up with 19-20 wins, putting themselves in the conversation.

- The projected seed for Va Tech seems odd to me. Torvik projects Va Tech to finish the regular season at 25-6, yet he projects them with a 7 seed. It is hard to imagine a 25 win ACC team (with wins vs the Big 10 and Big 12) ending up with a 7 seed.

[duke2x]

I think that's fair, but those away games near the bottom are no guaranteed wins. I learned a long time ago that any road game in the ACC is a potential loss for Duke, even when we have the #1 team in the country. The opposing crowd is excited, and their players start hitting crazy 3's all game.

My rule of thumb: square the win % of road games; square root the win % of home games. A game like @Wake had roughly a 70% chance of victory on Torvik that is probably more like 49%.

[scottdude8]

"Busted, disgusted, the ratings can't be trusted."

Everyone should just assume any analysis/post/rant I make in this thread comes with the "It's just December" caveat from here on out, haha. Not gonna stop me from doing it though... sometimes I need to clear my brain from work by staring at a different set of crazy numbers for a few minutes

[uh_no]

Everyone should just assume any analysis/post/rant I make in this thread comes with the "It's just December" caveat from here on out, haha. Not gonna stop me from doing it though... sometimes I need to clear my brain from work by staring at a different set of crazy numbers for a few minutes

when does the next joey bracket come out???? THEN we'll have something to talk about!

[scottdude8]

And, I recognize you know this, but our own NET ranking is basically meaningless as it relates to seeding (as the mentioning of us being #13 puts us in the 3/4 seed range on another post - not sure if it was you/someone else). Our rank is only impactful insomuch it impacts OTHER team wins/losses. So, it's a bit funny that we use NET to assess the quality of a team's OPPONENT (and then see the WINS/LOSSES against that set of opponents) and NOT to assess the quality of the team we're judging itself. Of course, if a team has a lot of wins against top opponents, their rank should reflect that. But not always, you sometimes see some anomalies. In an extreme case, a team that has several 1-point losses to top 50 teams but destroys everyone else would NOT be viewed favorably from a seeding perspective but would probably have a very high "raw" NET rank.

100% true. That said, the NET ranking has been a fairly good rough predictor of the approximate "range" you can expect to be seeded, at least at the top of the bracket where we expect to be. The four #1 seeds were in the Top 5 of the final NET rankings, the #2 seeds were all in the Top 13, 3 of the 4 #3 seeds were in the Top 12 (Wisconsin was a major outlier at #25), and the #4 seeds were all in the Top 24. If I recall, this trend was similar in previous years as well. So while by no means should we assume that we're safely on the 2 line if we're in the NET Top 8 (for example), if we're in that approximate range it's a good indicator that we should be in that conversation.

[scottdude8]

Since we are talking about ACC W/L for Duke I took a stab at the rest of Duke's schedule and rated the games from most likely to least likely to lose.
This is based only on my opinion (and some conversation on this board).
The games in bold are the critical ones to keep the win total > 15.

at 3 Virginia
at North Carolina
North Carolina
at Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech
at Miami
at Wake Forest
Miami
at Clemson
Wake Forest
at NC State
Pittsburgh
NC State
at Syracuse
Notre Dame
at Georgia Tech
Florida State
at Boston College
Louisville

I largely agree with this ranking, perhaps with the caveat that I think the Va Tech games could end up looking more challenging on paper than the UNC games (although we know that won't be true given the rivalry). The key will be those Top 7 road games in your list (@NC State is probably low for me, since Raleigh seems to always be a trap for us). If we can go 3-4 in those 7, which I'd argue is pretty conservative, we beat the 5 win mark if we hold serve at home... and I think that's very doable given the makeup of this team. I'm much more confident that our defense will travel well on the road, as opposed to the past where we've needed our offense/shooting to carry us. Obviously we need to improve offensively and see how the young guys respond on the road, but this year we can win games if we score 60-65 points, whereas in the past we'd get blown our more often than not if we shot that poorly.

[Southgate0809]

when does the next joey bracket come out???? THEN we'll have something to talk about!

That guy's job security is as good as a weatherman. No one expects them to be right at this point. Especially with his bracketology predictions before the season even starts and before conference play starts.