Iowa finishes 13th in coaches poll

So, Iowa was the third highest ranked team in the BT. Good for them. The 12 teams ranked above Iowa all look like darn good teams to me. I am lazy. I wonder where those 12 teams were ranked prior to the big dance. In other words, did the big dance have a very heavy impact on the final rankings? If so, should that be the case? Not arguing, just curious.
 
Hmm. Just took another look. Given the points assigned from those rankings, Iowa could easily have been top 10. And I see Iowa went from 5 to 13. That had to be primarily big dance impact, right? Also, take a look at the position rank increases for some of the top 10. Big dance again? Tail wags dog? Maybe.
 
So, Iowa was the third highest ranked team in the BT. Good for them. The 12 teams ranked above Iowa all look like darn good teams to me. I am lazy. I wonder where those 12 teams were ranked prior to the big dance. In other words, did the big dance have a very heavy impact on the final rankings? If so, should that be the case? Not arguing, just curious.

There is a case to be made that the tourney should have a bigger impact this year just because we didn't see much non conference play. This was pitting a lot of conferences together in a way we really haven't seen this year.

Even metrics went totally haywire - KenPom had a bunch of the Pac12 teams very low, and they went up a LOT after the tourney.
 
There is a case to be made that the tourney should have a bigger impact this year just because we didn't see much non conference play. This was pitting a lot of conferences together in a way we really haven't seen this year.

Even metrics went totally haywire - KenPom had a bunch of the Pac12 teams very low, and they went up a LOT after the tourney.
This is the Achilles heel of basketball rating systems. They don't have any interconference analysis. Even when teams do play a bunch of non-cons in a normal year the vast majority of them are non-P5, so that doesn't really help.

Kenpom, Sagarin, and others do an amazing job of statistical comparison among teams that play each other in the same pool (i.e. a single conference), but when you throw all of those conferences together in one list it's not near as rigorous.

However, they are still LIGHT YEARS ahead of some ridiculous popularity contest bullshit like the AP and Coaches polls.
 

Latest posts

Top