MBB Nerd Polls 2024-25

DavidBenAkiva

DavidBenAkiva

Member
The annual release of KenPom overnight means that college basketball season is near. Duke is higher in all the algorithm-based polls at the start of the season.

T-Rank and KenPom have Duke at #2
EvanMiya has Duke at #3
Haslametrics has Duke at #5

I'm interesting in seeing how this shakes out. Are the algorithms aware of something the humans are ignoring? Or is it the other way around?
 
DavidBenAkiva said:
The annual release of KenPom overnight means that college basketball season is near. Duke is higher in all the algorithm-based polls at the start of the season.

T-Rank and KenPom have Duke at #2
EvanMiya has Duke at #3
Haslametrics has Duke at #5

I'm interesting in seeing how this shakes out. Are the algorithms aware of something the humans are ignoring? Or is it the other way around?
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Ironically, I would've expected the preseason expectations for Duke to be inverted from what they are... I would've thought that the Cooper Flagg hype would've inflated our preseason rankings in the human polls, while that would've been abstracted away in the dork polls. I think the easiest explanation for the discrepancy is that the metrics are higher on our experienced players, particularly the transfer class, than the humans are... that would make sense since, IIRC, the analytics love Gillis' offensive efficiency and Maliq's defensive efficiency, even if neither was a fixture atop the human transfer rankings.
 
scottdude8 said:
Ironically, I would've expected the preseason expectations for Duke to be inverted from what they are... I would've thought that the Cooper Flagg hype would've inflated our preseason rankings in the human polls, while that would've been abstracted away in the dork polls. I think the easiest explanation for the discrepancy is that the metrics are higher on our experienced players, particularly the transfer class, than the humans are... that would make sense since, IIRC, the analytics love Gillis' offensive efficiency and Maliq's defensive efficiency, even if neither was a fixture atop the human transfer rankings.
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The players Duke got through the portal weren't splashy names or expected to be major scorers like Aiden Maheny or AJ Storr. I think the computers are showing that the portal stars are not quite as bona fide contributors as the media members think.
 
DavidBenAkiva said:
The players Duke got through the portal weren't splashy names or expected to be major scorers like Aiden Maheny or AJ Storr. I think the computers are showing that the portal stars are not quite as bona fide contributors as the media members think.
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I think there is some major survivor bias. Teams with successfully contributing transfers do well (baylor, uconn), and it becomes the meta....ignoring the fact that LOTS of teams have transfers and not all of them are successful.

On the whole, i doubt the dorks have enough data in the new transfer era to find the right metrics to articulate how much a given player is likely to contribute to a new team, and I suspect they will want some easy metric that has SOME correlation...like kpom player ranking change year to year with previous team, and apply it in much the same way that they apply recruit rankings...with some adjustment for how much transfers vs recruits iimpact teams on the whole year to year.
 
Can we maybe come up with a less pejorative term than Dork?

Stats predictions? Analytic polls? Anything but dork, please. There are worse snarky terms, but, still….
 
JayZee said:
Can we maybe come up with a less pejorative term than Dork?

Stats predictions? Analytic polls? Anything but dork, please. There are worse snarky terms, but, still….
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Nerd polls? Kyle Smith, Stanford's head coach, says they'll play "nerd ball":


I'm all for the change. There's a tradition of DBR having a Dork Poll thread, but I don't think people are aware of its alternate meaning.
 
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JayZee said:
Can we maybe come up with a less pejorative term than Dork?

Stats predictions? Analytic polls? Anything but dork, please. There are worse snarky terms, but, still….
Click to expand...
As a chief dork, I don't disapprove, but understand others may feel differently.
 
"Nerd" or "geek" are DEFINITELY preferred to "Dork."

Dork isn't usually smart, but simply silly/out of touch/socially awkard/ridiculous. In fact, it can mean stupid.

Nerd or geek are more about smarts/speciality. It can also be about lacking social skills to an extent, but has a much more positive bent.
 
I guess most don't remember when a geek was one who bit the head off of chickens (and often ate them).
Hunter Thompson knew.
 
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