Up to #17 in AP

[Cj_cy]

From the KenPom website, luck is "the deviation in winning percentage between a team’s actual record and their expected record using the correlated gaussian method."

I'm not a statistician, but I could see how losing a lot of close games would be "unlucky." In reality, some coaches and teams lack the mental toughness to win close games. Stat nerds don't buy mental toughness as a factor though. The players are just a bunch of emotionless droids who eventually throw the ball at the hoop enough times to be able to be accurately predicted.

All this is doing is comparing actual W/L to expected W/L using something similar to a pythagorean record often seen in baseball.

"Stat nerds don't buy mental toughness as a factor though"

That is literally part of what this attempts to measure, some teams are better at taking advantage of situations laid in front of them, don't be thrown off by KenPom calling it "Luck".

 

[VeloClone]

Depends on what the score is at the time.

Of course you want to be careful about rushing it if you are up by more that 3 points per minute remaining in the last 3 minutes of the game. Time is on your side. Go look at the second half of the Illinois game and you can see an example of a poor decision. Illinois was up 15 with something like 5 to 7 minutes left and the press was turning them over every few possessions. I don't think Illinois ever attacked the lone defender but just brought it out every time. The result was Iowa bringing it back to 3 and having several chances to tie it up or take the lead. You have to create at least some cost for putting 4 pressing players in the front court, especially if their press is somewhat successful in gaining possessions for the pressing team - especially breakaway dunks/layups.

 

[CyLyte2]

Steve Prohm was here for the paycheck and that’s as far as it went.

 

[SolarGarlic]

All this is doing is comparing actual W/L to expected W/L using something similar to a pythagorean record often seen in baseball.

"Stat nerds don't buy mental toughness as a factor though"

That is literally part of what this attempts to measure, some teams are better at taking advantage of situations laid in front of them, don't be thrown off by KenPom calling it "Luck".

That he did call it "luck" tells you what he thinks of intangibles like "taking advantage of the situations laid in front of them". Your conclusion supports what I posted. We're not "luckier" this season. We're better coached.

 

[MartyFine]