(01-04-2013 10:44 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(01-04-2013 09:07 PM)JPSchmack Wrote:  I don't really have a dog in this fight, I just enjoy the topic; so I don't want you to think I'm crafting arguments to show why MY school should get in over someone else.

A formula assigning a raw number to bids, NCAA wins, Final Fours, is NOT objective data, it is flawed methodology because wins and NCAA bids are "curved grades."

What you're saying makes sense if we're designing a simulation, or trying to determine who the best team is/was on the court. That's not exactly what I'm doing. I'm trying to model the decision making in the room.

They're going to decide based on some mix of 1) historic reputation, 2) current and near-current reputation, 3) current levels of support for the basketball (and other) program(s), meaning athletic budget, basketball budget, attendance 4) potential levels of support, meaning endowment, enrollment, and market size.

Almost all of the candidates have a track record of success and have established some level of local support for the program, so the "Big East" tag and the increased revenue should boost them to the next level, from tournament semi-regulars to Sweet Sixteen semi-regulars. I'm looking for surprises in the data--I was surprised at VCU's Top 25 winning percentage.

JPSchmack, some good points. But John's right in that the decision has to be made on something, and inevitably "the numbers" will play a part. There's lots of relativity at play here. You brought up win%, NCAA bids, but it applies to almost every factor. A school may have a big endowment, but that could just be a mechanical effect because of its size, so maybe you'd want to look at the per-capita alumni giving rate instead of absolute level if using this metric as a proxy for alumni engagement. Or what about markets? Is it better to go for a smaller fish in a bigger pond and try to build on upside? Or do you go for a smaller market with more a of a sure thing? Looking at DMA rankings won't give you the full picture any more than attendance numbers will. A whole bunch of these data points taken over time can give you a trend from which you can make an educated guess, but you're right that there's any number of confounding variables in comparing this or that statistic or aspect of a school and its program....

(01-04-2013 08:36 PM)thegalen Wrote:  

(01-04-2013 08:08 PM)College Basketball Fan Wrote:  Different conference affiliations, scheduling priorities, and other factors make it hard to use a measurement (along with the short time period used).

Very true. If someone has a Kenpom 'scrip we can weight these results by SOS/NCSOS Pyth. Someone pony up!

I could go look up the actual numbers for each road team that each team faced each year, but that will take a fair amount of time (we are talking 421 games, so it would be a fair amount of time to look up the data for each team.

However, I can give you the SOS/NCSOS Pyth each year for each team.

Here is how it broke down by year:

2011
Team (wins-losses), SOS/NCSOS

Wichita State (10-2), .5320/.5336
Richmond (10-3), .5851/.6029
Xavier (8-4), .6330/.7010
Villanova (7-5), .7464/.5107
Butler (7-5), .6766/.8025
VCU (8-6), .6465/.7222
Georgetown (6-5), .8162/.6876
Gonzaga (6-4), .5948/.6439
Dayton (7-7), .5989/.5397
St. John's (5-7), .7841/.5996
Seton Hall (4-7), .7464/.5107
Marquette (3-7), .7498/.4590
Saint Louis (2-10), .5887/.5228
Creighton (2-10), .5092/.4301
DePaul (1-9), .7138/.3037
Providence (1-9), .6724/.2816

2012:

Wichita State (11-1), .5923/.5949
Creighton (10-3), .5874/.5508
VCU (10-3), .5230/.6301
Marquette (6-5), .7139/.5801
Georgetown (6-5), .7129/.5846
Saint Louis (6-5), .6163/.5359
Xavier (5-7), .6924/.6697
Seton Hall (4-7), .6493/.4265
Providence (4-8), .6183/.2575
Butler (6-9), .5382/.6532
Dayton (3-7), .6154/.5271
DePaul (3-8), .6043/.2441
Richmond (4-11), .6068/..5240
Villanova (2-9), .7193/.5500
St. John's (2-10), .6846/.4719

2013

Gonzaga (3-0), .5945/.5981
VCU (3-0), .5316/.5316
Creighton (3-0), .5251/.4860
DePaul (3-0), .3487/.3311
Saint Louis (1-0), .4402/.4402
Wichita State (3-1), .5519/.5462
Villanova (3-1), .5408/.5433
Butler (2-1), .6272/.6272
Richmond (2-3), .5237/.5237
Xavier (1-2), .5871/.5871
St. John's (1-2), .5080/.4803
Seton Hall (1-2), .3261/.2979
Dayton (0-1), .5025/.5025
Marquette (0-2), .5146/.4998
Providence (0-3), .4676/.3843
Georgetown (0-0)

(01-04-2013 11:32 PM)thegalen Wrote:  JPSchmack, some good points. But John's right in that the decision has to be made on something, and inevitably "the numbers" will play a part. There's lots of relativity at play here. You brought up win%, NCAA bids, but it applies to almost every factor. A school may have a big endowment, but that could just be a mechanical effect because of its size, so maybe you'd want to look at the per-capita alumni giving rate instead of absolute level if using this metric as a proxy for alumni engagement. Or what about markets? Is it better to go for a smaller fish in a bigger pond and try to build on upside? Or do you go for a smaller market with more a of a sure thing? Looking at DMA rankings won't give you the full picture any more than attendance numbers will. A whole bunch of these data points taken over time can give you a trend from which you can make an educated guess, but you're right that there's any number of confounding variables in comparing this or that statistic or aspect of a school and its program....

The problem I see is that if there were some kind of FIFA World Rankings formula for this type of thing (like Mr. SEC did back two years ago), we'd see the results and say "that can't be right, we need to tweak the formula!" (BTW, Mr. SEC's ranking had Missouri tenth and West Virginia 24th)

Because something would throw it all off. Like Bona's 1970 Final Four offsetting that they're in Olean... Or Holy Cross' athletics budget and market offsetting the fact that they're Holy Cross, and haven't won an NCAA game since the Eisenhower administration.

I do appreciate the data, and the "Hey, did you know...." factor. There's tons of stuff like that people overlook on face value: Like Dayton's under-appreciated market size and MBB spending. Or Creighton's consistency winning 22+ games.

At the end of the day, ESPN/FOX/NBC/CBS is making the call. If Eric Shanks gets some crazy idea in his head that Duquesne is worth $5 million each from FOX, the Dukes would be in. And Shanks is the guy who brought us the glowing puck for NHL games, so don't put it past him. (Hmm. That gives me an idea).

(01-05-2013 12:18 AM)JPSchmack Wrote:  The problem I see is that if there were some kind of FIFA World Rankings formula for this type of thing (like Mr. SEC did back two years ago), we'd see the results and say "that can't be right, we need to tweak the formula!" (BTW, Mr. SEC's ranking had Missouri tenth and West Virginia 24th)

True, but MrSEC also said that people shouldn't stress over the exact rankings and numbers. Missouri was top ten, and the schools above them weren't coming (Texas, Notre Dame, North Carolina, Penn State) that were mostly included for completeness. No. 1 was ---Texas A&M.

And part of the reason I'm posting this is to get feedback and have arguments over whether "that can't be right, we need to tweak the formula" is something that holds up or not. I'm noodling the fact that my "History" rankings might as well start in 1997 for all the difference it would make.

Quote:Because something would throw it all off. Like Bona's 1970 Final Four offsetting that they're in Olean... Or Holy Cross' athletics budget and market offsetting the fact that they're Holy Cross, and haven't won an NCAA game since the Eisenhower administration.

Our total rankings aren't going to be as hard and fast as MrSEC's were, and even those weren't that hard and fast. We're also looking at non-quantifiable factors like geography for Gonzaga, and whether we want public schools like VCU. Those aren't questions that the chart can answer.

Quote:At the end of the day, ESPN/FOX/NBC/CBS is making the call. If Eric Shanks gets some crazy idea in his head that Duquesne is worth $5 million each from FOX, the Dukes would be in. And Shanks is the guy who brought us the glowing puck for NHL games, so don't put it past him. (Hmm. That gives me an idea).

I'm actually not as convinced of that. Because of the structure of NCAA men's basketball program budgets, and because of the history of the Big East in terms of instability, we're in a position to make a serious argument that we're not making our conference lineup with a TV network's wish list in mind. Partially because TV money is a lesser part of a non-football school's budget, and partially because of the fact that we cover the megamarkets New York and Chicago, plus Washington and Philadelphia--TV's not going to be able to make a serious case that they NEED the 2.8M St. Louis market to make C7 Big East basketball work. (Shaky as Saint Louis' on-court credentials are, if they were in Boston instead of Saint Louis, they'd be in. But St Louis ain't Boston.)

After all that's happened, Tagliabue or Pilson can walk into that room, review the history of how well the Marinatto/Swarbrick/Aresco market chase went, and review the gap between, say Saint Louis' TV market and Dayton's, and tell TV that the C7 is going with Dayton, and an extra $250,000 per school isn't changing any minds. (If that's what we want to do.)

Taking another crack at ranking the members and candidates by history. NCAA bids + Sweet Sixteens + Final Fours.

Villanova 31 + 16 + 4 = 51
Marquette 30 + 15 + 3 = 48
Georgetown 28 + 11 + 5 = 44
St John’s 27 + 6 + 5 = 35
Providence 15 + 5 + 2 = 22
DePaul 18 + 2 + 2 = 22
Seton Hall 9 + 4 + 1 = 14

Xavier 23 + 6 + 0 = 29
Dayton 14 + 6 + 1 = 21
Gonzaga 15 + 5 + 0 = 20
Creighton 17 + 3 + 0 = 20
Butler 11 + 5 + 2 = 18
Wichita St. 9 + 4 + 1 = 14
VCU 11 + 1 + 1 = 13
Richmond 9 + 2 + 0 = 11
Geo Mason 6 + 1 + 1 = 8
Saint Louis 7 + 0 + 0 = 7

fwiw, Xavier has the 3rd most number of NCAA tournament appearances among teams never to reach a Final Four (after Mizzou and BYU). Creighton is 8th on that list. Pretty impressive.

VCU is historically a good program. What many people don't know or forget is that they were a pretty consistent NCAA tourney team when they were in the Sun Belt and Metro conferences, especially the J.D. Barnett years in the Belt when it was a halfway relevant conference nationally in basketball.

VCU got completely screwed when the Metro dissovled and they fell all the way down to the one bid CAA. To their credit they were undeterred and built themselves into a top mid-major program. They'd be a great addition. For personal reasons I'd prefer that they remain in the A-10 because I think that conference is getting reamed hard enough as it is with the certain loss of Xavier and Butler. I think that if VCU remains in the A-10 they will immediately fill the flagship role currently held by Temple / Xavier and the A-10 will desperately need a perennial winner to fill that void. Nevertheless, they'd be a good addtion to the Pilson league and I'd wish them well if that happens.

(01-05-2013 08:38 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  I'm actually not as convinced of that. Because of the structure of NCAA men's basketball program budgets, and because of the history of the Big East in terms of instability, we're in a position to make a serious argument that we're not making our conference lineup with a TV network's wish list in mind. Partially because TV money is a lesser part of a non-football school's budget, and partially because of the fact that we cover the megamarkets New York and Chicago, plus Washington and Philadelphia--TV's not going to be able to make a serious case that they NEED the 2.8M St. Louis market to make C7 Big East basketball work. (Shaky as Saint Louis' on-court credentials are, if they were in Boston instead of Saint Louis, they'd be in. But St Louis ain't Boston.)

After all that's happened, Tagliabue or Pilson can walk into that room, review the history of how well the Marinatto/Swarbrick/Aresco market chase went, and review the gap between, say Saint Louis' TV market and Dayton's, and tell TV that the C7 is going with Dayton, and an extra $250,000 per school isn't changing any minds. (If that's what we want to do.)

I agree with what you're saying in principle. But I also think that's more due to the fact that there are six to eight worthwhile candidates for 3-5 spots, and because I don't think they're a conflict between what the C7 is inclined to do and what TV would want.

I could see TV saying "You should take SLU over UD for spot #10." But I think the C7 is taking both to form a 12-team league.

Really the only situation I could see coming up where what TV wanted and what the C7 wanted being at odds would be a situation where Duquesne gets that 12th spot over VCU and Creighton. But I really don't think that's all that far-fetched because of Creighton's geography and VCU's public school classification (Plus you have the AD connection with Duquesne and Xavier, and to a lesser extent Dayton).

They've said they want to build the new conference in the image of the original core values of the old Big East. Well, Pitt was a part of that original core Big East. Duquesne could be their new Pitt (Hey! Bona could be your Syracuse!). Then again, so was UConn (state school like VCU), but while VCU has zero plans for football, UConn didn't in 1979 either.

Duquesne could emerge as a very crowd-pleasing consensus compromise pick for the #12 spot.

PS - Could you please humor me and include St. Bonaventure in your data? I'd think that Richmond, Bonaventure and Duquesne, while not being candidates at the forefront, are not going to be categorically dismissed (while La Salle, St. Joe's, GW, GMU, URI and Fordham pretty much ARE going to be categorically dismissed).