(01-20-2018 09:58 AM)jarr Wrote: Can we hang a KenPom banner when the season is over?! Top 10 KenPom, 2028!
Nobody is suggesting as such. However, when discussing how good a team is right now the predictive metrics like kenpom, sagarin, BPI all offer good starting points.
You sometimes get 1 outlier in the final four, but most of the time your looking at teams in or around the top ten in the predictive metrics.
2017:
Gonzage - 1 kenpom
UNC - 3 kenpom
Oregon - 10 kenpom
South Carolina - the outlier, but 3 in kenpom adjusted defense
2016:
Villanova - 1 kenpom
UNC - 2 kenpom
Oklahoma - 10 kenpom
Syracuse - the weird outlier in a busted bracket
2015:
Kentucky 1 kenpom
Wisconsin - 2 kenpom
Duke - 3 kenpom
Michigan State - 15 kenpom (however top 30 in both adj o and adj d, which translates well in march)
2014: This is the oddball year that really doesn't fit with the trend of the last decade+ as far as seeding, but even with this the surprise teams had advanced metrics that suggested they were better than their actual seed.
Florida - 3 kenpom
Wisconsin - 5 kenpom
Kentucky - 13 kenpom (as a supremely talented 8 seed)
UConn - 15 kenpom... the most inexplicable champion of my lifetime and jumped a good amount during their run (though again their advanced numbers even before the tournament suggested they were better than their seed).
Here's the point... being highly ranked doesn't guarantee tournament success...but these predictive metrics are great for telling you what teams really have a shot and every predictive metric suggests the Bearcats have a shot. Nobody is suggesting hanging a banner because of that, people are saying these things are relevant to the discussion of what UC can do.
BTW this is the first Cronin team to look like a legitimate tournament threat when you look at the advanced metrics. This team is quantifiably different from his previous UC teams. That doesn't mean they WILL make a tournament run, but using past teams as a reason they won't kind of discredits what this team is accomplishing right now and how good they are.