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One of Dave Leito’s UVA teams tied for first place in the regular season and got a nice bump.
^Possibly the easiest conference schedule in the history of the league, that season … IIRC.
Doing “well” in the conference tournament doesn’t seem to garner much of a seeding bump.
^Yeah, for the power conferences the end of season tournaments are more for the bubble teams vying for selection as opposed to true bumps in seeding (seemingly N.C. State, every season). I suppose UVa secured their 1-seed with the ACC Tournament Championship last season, but they were going to be on the 2-line at worst (or 3-line if they lost early).
So. I am looking through kenpom’s #s. This – so far – is gott’s 2nd best team defensively.
And its pretty obvious that the only thing that keeps this program from being elite under Gottfried is defense. The last 3 years we have typically been one of the worst defensively of those receiving at large bids.
Chop, which # are you using to determine this? What timespan are you using, just while at NCSU or including Bama?
The reason I ask if you include time at Bama and use Adjusted Defensive efficiency 2015 (currently) is 97.9% and is tied for 5th best (2005 – R64) behind:
#4 (2004 – E8 – 97.6)
#3 (2012 – S16 – 97.1)
#2 (2003 – R64 – 96.7)
#1 (2002 – R32 – 95.1).If you use eFG% then this is by far his best team currently at 44.1% (#2 is 2002 – 46.0%).
I agree that defense is his biggest handicap to taking the program to the next level but it’s not completely that simple. This year’s team is lacking in offensive efficiency, ranking 7th out of those 13 seasons but 5th if you look at the spread (Offensive eff. – Defensive eff.). The offense needs to improve just as much as the defense.
Lord knows those that disagree with me know I constantly beat the drum about defensive rebounding but this team has done surprisingly well so far this season. They are sub-30% in giving up offensive rebounds and shockingly that’s the best his teams have done. There’s still plenty of season left so anything can change but that stat is a pleasant surprise. If he could somehow get his teams to force turnovers even some of the time then you’d see this team move to another level.
Sorry, wasn’t meant to hijack the thread since this discussion can very easily be talked about on just about any other thread. So to get this back to the topic on hand….
….Thanks VaWolf for that insight into the bumps of end of season vs conference tournaments. Hopefully this turns out into an enjoyable watch through the regular season and not constantly wondering which few chances the Pack has left to get those marquee wins.
The issues with our offensive have been more recently mitigated by playing more inside the paint (higher percentage shots), for example with a Martin slashing or an Anya inside move. This was virtually non-existent earlier on, where we were relying too heavily on Lacey and Turner.
Sure defensive rebounding is not bad, but it seems like teams get easy shots against us too easily, so I’d think our overall defense numbers aren’t fantastic. Can we play solid defense without fouling? Against Duke: well enough, Against UNC: um no, and the whistle parade didn’t help.
We’re still learning that line of aggressiveness without fouling; Duke has historically been great at this (grabby hand-checking on the perimeter) and Meeks understands this too (“elegant” moving picks). What’s good though is they are starting to form an identity on defense, well, as shot blockers, so perhaps some of the “tendencies” calls go our way, for once.
Dance card is live and we are 100% in at this point with an overall ranking of #24.
This is no doubt due to the non-conference schedule and their methodology which uses the “old” RPI. (From memory old RPI didn’t give as much weight to road games as current formula does.)
NCAA Dance Card (updated through Sunday 1/18/15)
The formula has correctly predicted 108 of 110 at-large bids over the last three years combined (98%).
In addition to the Dance Card value and ranking, also shown is the probability that a team with the same profile would have gotten an at-large bid in past years, if today was Selection Sunday. The RPI ranks are from the old RPI formula, in which wins on the road and losses at home are weighted equally. This is the version of the RPI used in the Dance Card’s development, and the version used to generate the predictions in all past years.
Since the RPI is the old version and not the new (not weighted for home and away games) don’t try and compare their RPI to CBS Sports or NCAA RPI rankings but I can understand why they haven’t changed since they have only missed 2x in the last 3 years (NC State in 2014 being one of them) using the formula that created the prediction model that is still accurate today even with the weighted RPI being used by the NCAA.
Why do I do post all of that??? Simple….they have NC State with an RPI of 17 but ranked #24 on the list with a 100% Chance of getting a bid.
LSU, Washington, Miami, Tennessee (Last Four In)
Mississippi, Colorado State, BYU, Tulsa (Last Four Out)ACC Teams
In: UVA, Duke, UNC, Louisville, Notre Dame, NCSU
Bubble In: Miami
Bubble Out: Clemson, Syracuse, PittsburghDance card is live and we are 100% in at this point with an overall ranking of #24.
This is no doubt due to the non-conference schedule and their methodology which uses the “old” RPI. (From memory old RPI didn’t give as much weight to road games as current formula does.)
Looks like choppack beat me to it.
Another was to look at it, we just need to keep spitting out 4-2 segments. 12-6 gets us a 6 seed for sure.
Jigs – love the dance card. Thanks to va wolf, yoirself and others I feel more informed on the NCAA than most of the media commenting on it.
It’s sad that an nc state fan has to know the bubble so well, but that’s just our lot right now. Of course, the reality is that everyone not named uva and kentucky is on it right now…that changes with each week, and it would be nice to go into the tournament knowing we didn’t have to win 1-2 games to get bid. It would be even nicer to be playing for a top 7 bid in the tourney.
The Dance Card site linked above has a 35 minute youtube video titled Analytics and the Dance Card..A method to the madness.
May have to watch that tonight.
If memory serves, they only update the Dance Card weekly until the regular season starts to wind down.
I’m not as much of a number cruncher as some of you, but I’ve been watching State since the mid-70s. My eyeball assessment on this team is that it seems to be coming together very well. Was impressed by how they overcame an absolutely horrendous 2nd half at FSU to pull out a win. Good teams win games in which they play dreadfully. I don’t see any team at all remaining on the schedule that is “untouchable” if we play like we did against Duke (and I think it is very likely we will play that well several more times this year–that Duke win, IMO was not flukey like some of our wins vs. ACC elite in the past featuring 10-3 pointers by the likes of Scott Wood and CC Harrison). I see less chance of a bad loss against the really bad ACC teams, because we go at least 8 or 9 deep with players that can come in and have a huge contribution type of game (like Anya’s 14 pt. performance against Duke), so less worries when one of the starters is having a terrible performance.
^ good assessment Classof89. It’s prediction time. I think (hope) that Cat comes back from his bereavement with a new sense of purpose, perhaps even a devil-may-care attitude, and he shuts down A-Rod and scores well above his average. He finds himself. He leads us to a road win and he, himself, carves the roast, er, learns what it takes to compete at a high level, and to lead, in this league. May his finicky heart grow three sizes Thursday….
Lots of folks down on Cat, but I think Lacey was gassed the last 8 minutes against FSU because of having to take more of the PG duties, and that was one reason for our struggling in 2nd half (and I think Cat’s absence was one reason for Turner’s foul trouble). Cat’s role right now is not to have an impressive stat line in terms of scoring or rebounding. It’s to have as few turnovers as possible, make the offense run smoothly, and use his quickness primarily on defense. Others have the primary scoring and rebounding roles.
^I think Cat is a great team player – very unselfish. He was a scorer in high school, but is trying to run a high efficiency offense in college. No doubt, he’s struggled with this at times – but he doesn’t shoot a lot (not a lot of bad shots, at least) and tries to execute what is asked of him.
Not once has any lack of scoring or offensive struggles detracted from his defense. Aside from his speed and quickness, this is what has impressed me the most about him. There are some valid criticisms, but imo we need him on the floor. Imagine what we could be if it all comes together for him.
^yes, just imagine. Imagine that this is a maturity moment for him, and he begins to understand his role, and not only his role in the game, but in the bigger game, and he figures out how to deal with that role. He’s young, but I think he might have grown up in the last week. I wish the best for him. A-Rod will test him..
CBS Sports Bracketology has a nice new feature this year concerning RPI. If you look on the right hand side you see a feature called Palm Reader where you can enter a school and see how they can improve their RPI for that day, outside of a game they are actually playing.
For example today they have the following for N.C. State:
How the Wolfpack Can Boost
Their RPI TodayHofstra needs to beat Drexel
Game Info: 7:00 PMCincinnati needs to beat Houston
Game Info: 7:00 PM | TV: ESNNPurdue needs to beat Illinois
Game Info: 9:00 PM | TV: BTNBoise State needs to beat San Jose State
Game Info: 10:00 PMI thought this is a pretty neat feature in case you want to follow scores of teams State has already played or even catch a some of those games to see how other games will effect State’s RPI.
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