KenPom Preseason Rankings

[GumbyDamnit!]

I still LOL every time I see SMU ranked so high

You must know nothing about college basketball then. They were a top 25 KenPom team essentially the whole season (once Kennedy became eligibile). After December they only lost 3 games (two to Cincinnati). They bring back the conference
POY and a grad transfer from Texas Tech that figures to be a good replacement for the guy they lost. They lost on a fluke play in the NCAA tournament otherwise they would have been in the Sweet 16. How can a team that loses to double digit seeds every year since 2007 really LOL at anyone? Did you guys even make the tournament last year? I genuinely don't remember.

BcatB, you are clearly a troll but whatever. You can spend your time and energy the way you want. Here's what you have to be concerned about if you are pinning the conference hopes on SMU:

1). You essentially get nothing out them for this year. So any momentum as a program that they showed will be lost.
2). Next year, when you need them to be good again, they will have graduated their two best players in Moore and Kennedy. So instead of stepping forward, they'll be stepping back wards unless Keith Frazier can carry the team. And if he IS that good, he might not be around to wait for SMU to be tourney eligible.
3). There is a good chance that Larry Brown will be gone in the next two years. Players are coming to SMU b/c he is a HOF coach who can tell recruits he's won a Nat Champ and has coached pros. Who are they possbily going to bring in to replace him that is going to maintain the program? We both know the answer: no one of significance.

As a conference I really would like to see the AAC succeed. The enemy of my enemy (the P5) is my ally. But other than UCONN, who realizes that it is a BB school first, every other school in your conference has wide-eyed dreams of playing big time college FB. Maybe Memphis or you guys at Cincy can figure out a way to get a big boy invite (highly, highly unlikely), but FB will eventually be the demise of the AAC as a BB conference. Take Temple as an example. They are so blinded by their short-lived success on the FB field that they will continue to bleed $ b/c of it and will invest less and less into BB. I mean they already disbanded dozens of other athletic teams in order to keep FB around. They used to be a great BB program; now they mirror their conference: OK but nothing special. They generate no excitement. For the largest school in Philly, why is Temple having such a tough time landing any good Philly players? Makes you wonder...

So if you want to keep coming on here and presenting data that just confirms that the BE is a superior BB conference in every way, be our guest. As you enjoy those AAC tourney games vs. ECU in Hartford in front of 2,000 fans, you will find no one on this board that will feel the slightest bit sorry for you. Well, except for maybe one other serial poster that we've all come to know.

[handdownmandown]

The fact that a Cincy fan is reduced to pimping SMU hoops on someone else's conference board is the biggest LOL of all.

[stever20]

I still LOL every time I see SMU ranked so high

You must know nothing about college basketball then. They were a top 25 KenPom team essentially the whole season (once Kennedy became eligibile). After December they only lost 3 games (two to Cincinnati). They bring back the conference
POY and a grad transfer from Texas Tech that figures to be a good replacement for the guy they lost. They lost on a fluke play in the NCAA tournament otherwise they would have been in the Sweet 16. How can a team that loses to double digit seeds every year since 2007 really LOL at anyone? Did you guys even make the tournament last year? I genuinely don't remember.

The thing that Hoya Hoya Hoya was getting at I think is how it's strange to see SMU so good after how bad they were the 20 years before. It'd be like quite frankly if DePaul was preseason top 20- it would be a lol for a lot of folks there as well. Even if they had been as good as SMU was the year before.

Folks(myself totally included) need to stop being so sensitive about everything. As we saw with what happened yesterday with Flip Saunders- life is too short.

[milksteak]

The thing that Hoya Hoya Hoya was getting at I think is how it's strange to see SMU so good after how bad they were the 20 years before.

It's pretty easy to be good when you cheat.

[NovaBall]

I have a tough time taking Tulsa seriously. Even by their kenpom ranking it appears they are no more than a bubble team.

SMU is done. Sanctions make this yr a throw away and brown was always a quick fix temporary hire anyway. Also, schools that live off other program's problems (Marcus Kennedy) aren't really in it for the long haul. That's nt sustainable.

Good thing for the four schools that actually care about hoops (uconn, Memphis, cincy, temple), the is not much competition to be in the top half of the conference of Americans.

[Edrick]

Pomeroy himself would tell you, and he has, that you are not using these numbers correctly. The function of the preseason rankings is to serve as an anchor for the early season or there'd be wild game-to-game swings in rating (it's more or less exponential smoothing). The weight of that anchor progressively lessens until falling to zero after (about) midseason.

It has nothing to do with anything. It's just necessary for the math to work until the model gets enough sample. Congrats on being proud of your scalor.

[XUFan09]

Pomeroy himself would tell you, and he has, that you are not using these numbers correctly. The function of the preseason rankings is to serve as an anchor for the early season or there'd be wild game-to-game swings in rating (it's more or less exponential smoothing). The weight of that anchor progressively lessens until falling to zero after (about) midseason.

It has nothing to do with anything. It's just necessary for the math to work until the model gets enough sample. Congrats on being proud of your scalor.

Lol exactly. When I saw "Kenpom Preseason Rankings," I wondered why anyone was taking them seriously.

[stever20]

Pomeroy himself would tell you, and he has, that you are not using these numbers correctly. The function of the preseason rankings is to serve as an anchor for the early season or there'd be wild game-to-game swings in rating (it's more or less exponential smoothing). The weight of that anchor progressively lessens until falling to zero after (about) midseason.

It has nothing to do with anything. It's just necessary for the math to work until the model gets enough sample. Congrats on being proud of your scalor.

Lol exactly. When I saw "Kenpom Preseason Rankings," I wondered why anyone was taking them seriously.

They are a whole lot more accurate than you think.

[Edrick]

Ken Pomeroy on what the preseason ratings are:

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog ... on_ratings

1. It doesn’t try to project playing time for individual players
2. It doesn’t know about transfers, and all but 5-star recruits are virtually ignored.
3. Components and weighting is based on a regression of the past nine seasons.
4. The main ingredient in the system is inertia. (programs are what they are and will continue to be what they are)
5. Projected offense is largely determined by the quality of a team’s offense over the previous three seasons and its defense from last season. Projected defense uses similar variables.
6. Penalty for a coaching change, with a greater hit for teams ranked higher.

----Again, these are nothing more than a way to prime the model. That's it.

[robinreed]

I still LOL every time I see SMU ranked so high

You must know nothing about college basketball then. They were a top 25 KenPom team essentially the whole season (once Kennedy became eligibile). After December they only lost 3 games (two to Cincinnati). They bring back the conference
POY and a grad transfer from Texas Tech that figures to be a good replacement for the guy they lost. They lost on a fluke play in the NCAA tournament otherwise they would have been in the Sweet 16. How can a team that loses to double digit seeds every year since 2007 really LOL at anyone? Did you guys even make the tournament last year? I genuinely don't remember.

I also LOL at Larry Brown and the kids dumb enough to play for him

Brown does run a successful but very questionable program.
At least he does not offer them strippers and ho's like someone else we know does. Or if he does we don't know about it as yet. I believe this will be Brown's last year as I believe he is in his mid 70's.