2024-2025 MBB computer projections thread

Your NET ranking is used to sort games into the quadrants. Your record in various quadrant games has absolutely ZERO to do with your NET ranking, that would be recursive and useless if so.
Recursive is a great word

NET has a lot to do with efficiency ratings and margin of victory is very adjacent to that.

As stated above, NET sorts teams. Then, the quadrants are an after-the-fact statistic derived from the sorts
 
Looking at the upcoming schedules on Torvik - we are 2/3rds of the way through 3 straight Quad 1A games. None of the other top 4 BigXII teams (ISU, Houston, KU and Zona are clearly the top 4) play 3 straight Quad 1A games at any point. Win on Saturday and sweeping those 3 will be HUGE for the conference title.

Someone mentioned upthread that Houston has a tough schedule at the end - an they absolutely do. After 2 more bunnies (@ UCF, Utah) - they have 9 of their last 13 games against top 25 teams. And 4 of their last 6 are Quad 1A - and 5 of their last 7.

Torvik likes them so much that it has with at least a 70% chance of any individual game - but that's a tough stretch that will knock them down a couple notches

Might as well sweep them, then.
 
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Houston has been blowing out the bunnies. Thus the computer love.

Will it translate vs the Top 25 opponents? I guess we will see. Usually it does, and I expect they will be right there down the stretch.
I think the biggest thing is consistency - their Torvik game scores have all been 88 or above - and SDSU was the only one under 94. All but 4 games have been 98 - 100. It's completely crazy to even consider that
 
Recursive is a great word

NET has a lot to do with efficiency ratings and margin of victory is very adjacent to that.

As stated above, NET sorts teams. Then, the quadrants are an after-the-fact statistic derived from the sorts
yep, quadrants are a way to basically understand the data differently. Usually easier for humans to understand "they're 5-5 against great teams, but 9-1 against good teams" than "they're .9423".

I always look at the Sagarin FB rankings that way - he puts teams' records vs his top 30 and top 10. Kind of helps separate the sheep from the goats, in tiers.
 
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I'm going to pistol whip the next person who insinuates that Houston not having any Q1 wins has anything to do with their NET ranking

Drives me insane when I see people bring that up. NET is just another predictive metric similar to Kenpom, Torvik, BPI that ranks how good teams are. The only difference, and in my opinion, major issue with NET, is that we can't see the actual values of the NET; we only see the rankings.

When I see complaints to the effect of "we dropped from 4 to 7 after one game, stupid!" I wonder how one can say that when no one has any idea how far apart 4 and 7 are in terms of the actual NET value. I know the NCAA will never share the math, but I wish they'd share the number that determine the rankings.
 
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Houston is currently in their easy stretch of conference games but have a couple difficult stretches of games. One coming up here next week and then the other starts in mid February.
 
In my mind, here is Iowa State's path to a Big 12 title and #1 seed in the tournament. No, this is not the only path they can take, but in my mind this seems attainable for this team.

1.) Win @WVU this weekend.
2.) Chalking up a win @Okie State (they are horrid)
3.) That leaves SIX road games (@ASU, @UCF, @KState, @Arizona, @Houston, @Kansas) Find a way to go 3-3 in those games.
4.) Protect Hilton and win out at home. Outside of the Arizona game, we should be 10+ point favorites in all remaining home games. I have a hard time seeing this team lose in Hilton.

That path is a 4 loss team. Big 12 champion and #1 seed in the tournament.
 
In my mind, here is Iowa State's path to a Big 12 title and #1 seed in the tournament. No, this is not the only path they can take, but in my mind this seems attainable for this team.

1.) Win @WVU this weekend.
2.) Chalking up a win @Okie State (they are horrid)
3.) That leaves SIX road games (@ASU, @UCF, @KState, @Arizona, @Houston, @Kansas) Find a way to go 3-3 in those games.
4.) Protect Hilton and win out at home. Outside of the Arizona game, we should be 10+ point favorites in all remaining home games. I have a hard time seeing this team lose in Hilton.

That path is a 4 loss team. Big 12 champion and #1 seed in the tournament.
OR... hear me out... we just win them all

Torvik has us as underdogs @ Zona, @ KU, @ Houston - and a 6-pt favorite over Zona in Ames
 
Houston is currently in their easy stretch of conference games but have a couple difficult stretches of games. One coming up here next week and then the other starts in mid February.

yeah, they've got 11 games remaining against Q1 teams, while we only have 7. We have 8 Q2/3 games left, while they have 4.

Hopefully that can result in them picking up a couple losses more than us down the stretch
 
I don't believe the actual NET ranking matters as much as your record against the different Quads in NET. Our Quad 1 wins would put us in front of Houston. But this will all get sorted out anyway as they will have lots more Q1 games

Everything matters when the committee's criteria is a friggin moving target...
 
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KP has them 3rd, and BT has them #1. So not just NET.

It's the challenge in any model that has to compare results against different opponents and extrapolate. Not to mention the inherent variability in performance game to game.

Yeah I get that but it wasn't originally designed to fall in line with those models. It seems like over the last 2-3 seasons they have put more weight into the offensive efficiency numbers. It really contradicts the committees "who did they play/beat" narrative that they always fall back on.
 
In my mind, here is Iowa State's path to a Big 12 title and #1 seed in the tournament. No, this is not the only path they can take, but in my mind this seems attainable for this team.

1.) Win @WVU this weekend.
2.) Chalking up a win @Okie State (they are horrid)
3.) That leaves SIX road games (@ASU, @UCF, @KState, @Arizona, @Houston, @Kansas) Find a way to go 3-3 in those games.
4.) Protect Hilton and win out at home. Outside of the Arizona game, we should be 10+ point favorites in all remaining home games. I have a hard time seeing this team lose in Hilton.

That path is a 4 loss team. Big 12 champion and #1 seed in the tournament.
Bolded are the obvious hardest remaining games. If they can steal 1/3 of those that'll be a huge. I saw somewhere they're battle tested in terms of playing the better competition actually better. So they step it up in big games. It is nice having an array of scorers on the team versus 1-2 and can easily be shut down if they have an off night. Clearly there are more scorers than just Gilbert and CJ. I love Jefferson's game a lot and Dishon took it personal that he didn't start against KU.
 
Looking at schedule of some other top non-Big 12 teams... my god what a joke Duke's schedule is. The ACC is trash this year. 14 games left, only three Quad 1A and, three Quad 2 and EIGHT Quad 3 per Torvik. They are 8+ point favorites in every game other than Illinois at MSG in Feb. They are going to get so much love for racking up blowouts against garbage teams.

Auburn has a brutal schedule. In their last 14 they have eight Quad 1A, four Quad 1B, two Quad 2.

Ours is in the middle, 15 games to go. Five Quad 1A, two Quad 1B, five Quad 2 and three Quad 3.
Last year it was all about how our non-con was weak even though our Conference schedule was rigorous.

Duke this year is the opposite. Strong Non-con with a weak conference schedule because the ACC is stinky doodoo. We'll we hear the nashing of teeth about this? We all know the answer because it's Duke.