AP/KenPom 22-23

[pdub]

I am going to say this now so you understand why you do get 'banned' when you do:

Don't post a GREAT SEASON I DON'T CARE WHAT HAPPENS thread when we are loosing by 15 in the National Championship game.

[jfish26]

I think we will need 2 good offensive games to win it all. We can get away with 2 bad offensive games and 2 great defensive games, but at some point we will need both. And we can do both.

We are acting like we "suck" at offense. Totally ignoring for the last 2+ months we've been playing almost NOTHING but good teams. Many of which were good defensive teams.

We've already played as hard of a 6 game stretch (maybe 2) as we will see in the NCAA tournament.

It's easy to say "we won't win it all" and be proven right the vast majority of years for ANY team. No matter how good.

We have as good of a chance as anyone. Will we do it? Probably not. But insert any team name there for this season and my answer is still probably not. Nobody is THAT good. Go through each of the top teams. They all have flaws. Glaring ones. They've all lost games to bad teams. Injury concerns. Depth concerns. Off court issues concerns.

This led me down a path I found interesting.

We have won six games in a row eight times this year.

1: Omaha / NDSU / Duke / Southern Utah / NC State / Wisconsin

2-6: (2) Texas Southern / (3) Seton Hall / (4) Mizzou / (5) Indiana / (6) Harvard / Okie State / Texas Tech / WVU / OU / ISU.

7-8: (7) UT / (8) OU / Okie State / Baylor / TCU / WVU / Tech.

How many of those are tournament-quality runs? I'd say...#5 and #6 (both borderline), and #7 and #8 (for sure).

Anyone come close to this? I'd imagine not. And I wonder what this would have looked like in other of our seasons.

[pdub]

Definitely tournament quality runs in there.
The one gutter thing I should mention is that some of those were played at AFH which I consider the best home court advantage in college basketball.

We are likely going to have to play in Des Moines and OHGODWHY the Sprint Center.

[Deleted User 863]

I am going to say this now so you understand why you do get 'banned' when you do:

Don't post a GREAT SEASON I DON'T CARE WHAT HAPPENS thread when we are loosing by 15 in the National Championship game.

It worked didn't it?

We won!

I think my post was the reason why we won. Not your bans and locking of game threads.

AND an added bonus was nobody got chased off the site using my method of positivity and perspective. Your method lost CnB and Doyel.

[pdub]

You can think what you want.
You're still wrong.

[Deleted User 863]

KU won.

And you're down 2 quality posters.

So who lost?

[Deleted User 863]

I am just glad it's not me keeping everyone in check this year about our expectations for this team.

[pdub]

I'm presenting data.
I think we're a top 10 team.
I don't think we have the best team - there are too many flaws offensively.

[jfish26]

Definitely tournament quality runs in there.
The one gutter thing I should mention is that some of those were played at AFH which I consider the best home court advantage in college basketball.

We are likely going to have to play in Des Moines and OHGODWHY the Sprint Center.

No doubt - wasn't intending on being scientific. Just wondering out loud how many times this year we've gone on runs that are somewhat representative of a tournament run as a 1 or 2 seed.

On quickly eyeballing the rest of the top 10, the most impressive runs I'm spotting are...

...Houston --> Oral Roberts / Texas Southern / Oregon / Kent State / Norfolk State / St. Mary's
...Alabama --> Ole Miss / UK / Arkansas / LSU / Vandy / Mizzou
...UCLA --> Maryland / UK / UC Davis / Washington State / Washington / USC
...Purdue --> Gonzaga / Duke / Florida State / Minnesota / Hofstra / Nebraska
...Marquette --> [none]
...Baylor --> WVU / Okie State / Texas Tech / OU / KU / Arkansas
...Arizona --> Indiana / Texas A&M - CC / Tennessee / Montana St. / Morgan St. / Arizona St.
...UT --> UTEP / Houston Christian / Gonzaga / N. Arizona / UT Rio Grande / Creighton
...Gonzaga --> [fuck off, Mark, here's your Lifetime Nonachievement Award]

I don't think any of those are as good as our best runs...and no one can touch our volume.

[Deleted User 863]

This is a year where someone weird could get hot and win. Like someone really weird.

[TDub]

Also, all those big12 teams will also be in the tournament. Plus others.

Also, now that Mich has been outed as a sock, it just makes him even more difficult to take seriously.

I mustve missed that

[jfish26]

...or, it could be a year where there's a dominant team that's been hiding in plain sight.

We have a billion good wins. We have zero bad losses; our worst loss was either (1) to a Q1 team, in a ballroom in November, or (2) to a Q1 conference opponent, on the road.

I often don't have a lot of fun watching this team...but the results speak - and speak quite loudly - for themselves. No one has a resume approaching ours.

[pdub]

And here's where kenpom and I disagree, I think we've been pretty lucky in a lot of these wins.
PhD has kind of mentioned this.
I know it's helpful to have these close games under our belt when the going gets tough. And to do so against this top competition isn't easy.

But there are a lot of games where if bounces didn't go our way ( or we didn't get some home cookin -- i'm lookin' at you 79-75 win v Oklahoma ) we'd have an extra L.

v OSU, @ Tech, v OU, v ISU and these last 2 games.
Starting with the win v Texas I thought we had rounded into form, and maybe we still have and these last 2 are an outlier, but if we play like we have in the last two against good teams outside of Allen, we are toast.

I don't think we are that dominant team. The eye test and the metrics both say this team matches up with the offenses of 2015, 19 and 21. Of course, that's not to say the ball bounces your way, Jalen and Dick heat up, and we win six in a row. That can happen. I just think this team is worse than last years and last years team isn't in my top 5 Bill Self coached teams. ( that says a lot about Bill Self though )

[Deleted User 863]

We aren't competing against last year's team or other dominant team's from yesteryear though.

[jfish26]

And here's where kenpom and I disagree, I think we've been pretty lucky in a lot of these wins.
PhD has kind of mentioned this.
I know it's helpful to have these close games under our belt when the going gets tough. And to do so against this top competition isn't easy.

But there are a lot of games where if bounces didn't go our way ( or we didn't get some home cookin -- i'm lookin' at you 79-75 win v Oklahoma ) we'd have an extra L.

v OSU, @ Tech, v OU, v ISU and these last 2 games.
Starting with the win v Texas I thought we had rounded into form, and maybe we still have and these last 2 are an outlier, but if we play like we have in the last two against good teams outside of Allen, we are toast.

I don't think we are that dominant team. The eye test and the metrics both say this team matches up with the offenses of 2015, 19 and 21. Of course, that's not to say the ball bounces your way, Jalen and Dick heat up, and we win six in a row. That can happen. I just think this team is worse than last years and last years team isn't in my top 5 Bill Self coached teams. ( that says a lot about Bill Self though )

I would say that, at this exact point in the seasons, this team is demonstrably better than last year's team.

But, had last year's team had closing Remy all season, it might have been a runaway 1-1 (whereas this team is at best a slight favorite at present to be 1-1).

[Shirley]

Also, all those big12 teams will also be in the tournament. Plus others.

Also, now that Mich has been outed as a sock, it just makes him even more difficult to take seriously.

I mustve missed that

^^^

[pdub]

As mentioned before, last years team entering the tourney was 6th in adjO.
They were 29th however in adjD.
BUT I think we should all remember that eye test and metrics showed we significantly improved in the month of February ( the end of January we were 53rd in adjD ) and March defensively going into that tournament.

This team isn't currently improving it's weakness.
I think the only thing that does that is if Wilson and Dick catch fire.
Maybe that happens before we take on our 16 seed.

I also don't think last season was one of Self's top 5 squads despite the title.
The NCAA field fell apart, our competition picked up some injuries to key players and we went on a run of great basketball at the right time.

[jfish26]

No argument from me on where last year's team stands.

[hoopla]

I think we will need 2 good offensive games to win it all. We can get away with 2 bad offensive games and 2 great defensive games, but at some point we will need both. And we can do both.

We are acting like we "suck" at offense. Totally ignoring for the last 2+ months we've been playing almost NOTHING but good teams. Many of which were good defensive teams.

We've already played as hard of a 6 game stretch (maybe 2) as we will see in the NCAA tournament.

It's easy to say "we won't win it all" and be proven right the vast majority of years for ANY team. No matter how good.

We have as good of a chance as anyone. Will we do it? Probably not. But insert any team name there for this season and my answer is still probably not. Nobody is THAT good. Go through each of the top teams. They all have flaws. Glaring ones. They've all lost games to bad teams. Injury concerns. Depth concerns. Off court issues concerns.

damn when did Illy become our greatest cheerleader? well done, sir

[MICHHAWK]

The NCAA field fell apart, our competition picked up some injuries to key players and we went on a run of great basketball at the right time.

that is how you win nc's.

everything falling the right way at the right time does not happen very often. that is why nc's are few and far between.

if winning a nc was easy, more schools would do it.