Should preseason predictions be used to determine success?

I know there is a lot of angst after the Clemson game and many people are upset we lost the game. The question I have been asking myself is “Should we have expected to win that game?” Or to extend it further “Are we expecting too much by wanting to win the division?”

The argument is, since we were predicted at 4^th place, finishing higher than that is considered success. This argument relies on believing the preseason predictions are an accurate portrayal of a team’s and its foe’s abilities. So we need to determine how accurate the predictions verses results have been in the past. If the predictions are accurate then the argument is valid.

To test this I went back to find the preseason and the final results back to 2005. Here is the chart for that data (note 2010 is not final data)

The Coastal division is pretty easy as VT is at the top and Duke is at the bottom and since we are not in that division I will not dwell on that.

The Atlantic seems to be much more difficult to predict.

Here is the chart on how often the predicted finish is correct for the Atlantic division(2010 information is not included as it is not final)

Conclusions from this chart

1)      It is much easier to pick the bad teams than the good. Only three times out of 10 did the bottom two finish higher than predicted.

2)      It is hard to pick the top two. 6 out of ten times the teams picked to finish in the top two finished lower than the top two.

3)      The teams picked in the middle of the pack had a 40% chance of ending up in the top 2.

4)      The winner of the division came from the top two 3 out of the 5 times.

What does that mean? It means preseason predictions are wrong far more often than they are right and indicates using preseason predictions to determine success is not very accurate. Once the season is underway then the preseason expectations lose importance because they are made on inexact information and assumptions.

Other random observations

1)      The fourth place team never finished below fourth and 80% of the time finished higher than fourth.

2)      NCSU has dominated the bottom two slots for the past four years.

3)      The third place team never finished third. 60% of the time it finished higher.

4)      4 different schools have won the division in the last 5 years