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(12-18-2020 04:23 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(12-18-2020 12:01 PM)Gilesfan Wrote:  

(12-18-2020 11:51 AM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(12-18-2020 11:31 AM)Gilesfan Wrote:  

(12-18-2020 09:05 AM)Chillie Willie Wrote:  Anything can happen because the teams make it happen. They are champions because they win the important games. Statistical analysis and polls are great for conversation but different ones will produce different results. None are perfect. College football used to pick a champion based on polls and it was full of controversy. In today's climate there would be 3 recounts.

Any thing can happen in a game or a small sample. Like UVA losing to UMBC. They could play 100 times and UVA win 99 times.

That is what makes the tournaments exciting. But, they shouldn't be used to suggest who the better team is. The best teams aren't always crowned champions....which is fine.

Yeah but if you make your way to the Title game of the NCAA tourney then you would have had to have won 5 in a row. That's quite the feat for the 36th best team in the nation. Especially to have done it two years in a row. That's really statistically mind blowing. Or maybe they were underrated. Granted they had a favorable path in 2011, that would have been ours but for a last second tip in.

5 games is an extremely small sample size and are essentially statistically irrelevant.

Of course, people have the poor counter argument that they weren't trying as hard in the other 30 games during the season.

I do admit it much more fun not understanding this. I like to think we were better than Syracuse a couple years back.

Statistically speaking, if they played 5 games in which there was an equal chance of winning as losing then the chance of them winning all 5 would be about 3%. Since they were pretty significant underdogs I’m sure by kenpom’s figuring in all but the first game then the chance of winning each of those games is less than 50% then the chance of winning all 5 would be well below the 3% “coin flip” odds. Hey it happens right? But the same team doing that two years in a row? That points to clear bias in your algorithm Ken.

In 2010, Butler was the 12th best team in America according to KenPom.

They played:

UTEP 42
Murray State 52
Syracuse 3
Kansast State 6
Michigan State 20
Duke 1 (lost)

They were a good team and ranked highly for a reason. They also were the better team in 3 out of their 5 wins and not big underdogs (talent speaking, I don't know what the lines were) in the other 3 games.

In 2011, they were the 36th best team.

They played:

ODU- 48
Pitt- 4
Wisk- 6
Florida- 17
VCU- 53
Uconn- 10 (lost)

In that year they beat 3 higher ranked teams and 2 lower ranked teams. That year they lost 10 games, 3 of them vs. good teams (Ville, X, Duke). They also lost to Evansville, Milwaukee, Wright State, Youngstown State. They won some nailbiters and were lucky to draw VCU in the final 4.

You can look at any team, even the number 1 team in the country and their odds of winning 5 games in the tourney are somewhat low.