Any guess on how far the Broncos will fall after today’s loss? I’m guessing like 105
I doubt we fall to 100 or worse, probably more like 65 to 75….but well.
But kind of irrelevant as it’s NIT or bust.
I’ve seen comments in recent days here along the lines of….’if we win at least 1 vs. GU or SMC, sweep USF, beat everyone else….’ Unless this team has an immediate correction and improve in several areas then we are bound to lose 2, 3, maybe 4 to middle or low end WCC teams below USF. The offensive rebounding, shot blocking by bigs and more steals than typical Bronco squads via the press obscured and compensated for mediocrity to poor play in other aspects of the game for awhile. But that is not sustainable.
And our flaws are so blatantly obvious on film that the opposing coaches scouting us must be asking: ‘how does this team have a winning record???’ Between our flaws and our vanilla approach to just about everything, we’re about as easy to game plan for as a coach could ask for.
3 Likes
Dropped to 88th on NET, but only dropped a few spots to 51st on Torvik.
It’s still early-ish in terms of the validity of the advanced metrics. NET and Torvik usually end up being somewhat similar, sometimes only 5-10 rank diff between the two.
Within the WCC we’re 3rd and there are several teams lurking behind us…..Seattle U, coming off their Quad 2 win over UW is ranked 94th. They also have a Quad 2 win over Stanford. The had a 2pt, bad Quad 4 loss to CalPoly in their 2nd game of the season otherwise they’d probably be ranked in the 70’s.
Pacific sits at a better than expected 100; they are 8-4 but with no Quad 3 or 4 losses and two losses are Quad 1 and 1A. That said, they have no quality or even decent wins, they are beating Quad 4’s and non-D1 squads so it remains to be seen how they’ll hold up vs. the several decent mid-tier of the WCC (us, USF, Seattle, LMU, etc.).
And USF sits at 115st, they handled Loyola-Chicago easily earlier in the week but their ranking suffers with a bad Quad 4 loss to N. Alabama at home, and no Quad 1 or 2 wins to date, though they do have two neutral site, decent wins over Minnesota and Mississippi St. that are currently Quad 3’s but could inch up to be Quad 2 wins. Also worth noting they are 88th on Torvik, another example of some disparity between the two metrics earlier in the season.
1 Like
I was glancing this morning at where the Broncos sit as they head into conference play. I will leave it to those much smarter than me to dissect.
As of 12/23:
NET……………..89
Pomeroy…..80
Torvik…………50
Is such a disparity of 30+ spots unusual? The Torvik model definitely views SCU far more favorably than the other two.
See my 1st paragraph above.
It’s still early-ish, I’d expect the metrics to trend towards each other as the season progresses.
Would have to go back and check but my recollection is that by end of season, NET and Torvik tend to be within ~20 rank of each other, sometimes as little as 5-10. The other relevant point is that the rank is a result of underlying value and the delta between adjacent or near ranked teams can vary, ie- may be very little difference in Torvik value between a 50th vs. 60th rank team.
1 Like
My guess is that it’s recency bias weighting. All of the metrics have a built-in weight for the most recent games that diminishes over time (i.e. games farther back in time count less than more recent ones). I think this is probably showing that Torvik has weaker recency bias than NET or Pomeroy (i.e. older games are more heavily weighted in Torvik, relative to NET).
That would mean that Torvik is still giving the Broncos more credit for McNeese and Xavier, for example. But in the NET and Pomeroy, those November games are starting to wane in influence. The Broncos’ more recent, much less inspiring efforts have a stronger relative weight.
I’m far, far from a statistician. You can rationalize pretty much any weighting system: teams may have a bad spell due to injuries, so you don’t want to overly weight recent games if the key player may return soon; teams also get “figured out” meaning that older games are less predictive (the Broncos feel like they fall in this category). I had read somewhere that some pundits felt that the Pomeroy rankings were shifting much faster this year which would indicate that his algorithm has increased the recency bias variable.
2 Likes
Broncos had the greatest positive change (11.9%) of any D-1 team over the last 24 hours with an increase to 22.7% from 10.8% as it relates to making the NCAA tournament. (Source: Team Rankings) Our NET rankings improved 27 slots from 89 to 62.
Apparently, a 38 point road win in Corvallis has pretty good value!!
2 Likes
SCU’s latest NET ranking is 62.
Rankings of notable to-date opponents:
Nevada: 68
McNeese St: 49
SLU: 29
Minnesota: 93
ASU: 85
New Mexico: 55
Rankings of WCC opponents:
Gonzaga: 4
SMC: 24
USF: 109
USD: 218
LMU: 141
Pepp: 261
Pacific: 117
Portland: 237
Seattle: 108
OSU: 227
WSU: 157
future WCC member UCSD: 79
I can live with the loss to New Mexico. I think we’ll look back not just to the losses to ASU (we had them down on the canvas for a big chunk of the game) and LUC, but especially to the SLU 1-point loss. That could’ve been a stellar Quad 1 win.
3 Likes
If Santa Clara flips any two of SLU, ASU, or Loyola Chicago (3 losses by a combined 6 points), then SCU has something like a 65% chance of making the Tournament today.
Even just flipping LUC probably puts SCU on the bubble.
2 Likes
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past!
Lots of hoops left to play, but SLU, ASU and LUC are all nearly ‘should’ve’ won games. Very frustrating…
1 Like
St Louis will be interesting to watch. All of the metrics have them with one of the easier non conference schedules in the country (300s in non conference schedule strength). The A-10 has fewer easy wins (bad teams not as bad) than the WCC but it also does not having anything close to a Gonzaga and probably nobody quite as good as St.Mary’s either.
I cringe thinking about how tough our non conference schedule will have to be next year without Gonzaga in the conference if we want any chance at an At-Large.
5 Likes
Minnesota getting a bug home win over #19 Iowa has got to do us some good.
4 Likes
Was just posting the same thing. SCU moved up two spots in Torvik just for Minnie’s win tonight.
3 Likes
Didn’t move us on KP. I checked right after. Minny only moved four spots.
it really makes me scratch my head about we jump 22 spots by beating 200 OSU on the road and Minny jumps 5 spots for beating T20 Iowa. That’s a Q1 win.
I know there is more data now but feels odd. We need Nevada and Mcneese to keep winning and be Q2 games. We’re a ways out right now.
I think the only chance we have for an at-large bid is to somehow figure out a way to finish 2nd place outright or better in the WCC.
2 Likes
Or win the tournament 
2 Likes
Doesn’t KenPom usually run overnight and spit out new rankings in the early morning?
Interesting: NET has McNeese at 50; KenPom has them at 70. Quite a delta.
Nope. Kenpom and Torvik are instantaneous. NET runs overnight!