I’m planning to do all of my independent writing at Substack this season. You can see my piece on the results from the H.U.M.A.N. poll there.
Welcome to the H.U.M.A.N. poll. No longer do you have to wait years hoping the Associated Press will give you one of its 60-ish coveted spots to vote in a poll ranking the top 25. Now, with a kenpom.com subscription, you can participate in the world’s first human-based 1-362 preseason poll for college basketball. Instead of the elite voting in a poll honoring the elite, everyone can vote in a poll honoring every team.
Upon clicking this link you will be given 50 match-ups (subscribers only). In each match-up, your job is to pick the team that will be ranked higher in my ratings at the end of the season (post-tournaments). After polling closes at midnight (Mountain Time) on October 6, everyone’s selections will be aggregated into a 1-362 ranking using the Bradley-Terry algorithm.
Why would you do this? Well, it’s possible that humans can produce something useful for a 1-362 preseason poll. The snag is that it isn’t feasible to ask humans to rank all 362 teams. You could try and do it, and people have. But it’s impossible for humans to organize that much information in a coherent way. And I hear it’s ridiculously time-consuming.
However, humans can build something pretty useful if they just have to focus on a few matchups, especially if we can get a lot more people than vote in the AP poll. Maybe we can produce a poll that beats a computer’s preseason poll or at least informs a better version of a computer-created poll. At least that’s my theory. (more…)
Rd2 Swt16 Elite8 Final4 Final Champ 1MW Houston 93.8 71.6 56.7 38.6 23.5 15.0 1S Alabama 97.6 69.8 52.2 35.8 23.4 13.5 2W UCLA 94.6 71.1 46.5 29.0 17.3 10.6 1E Purdue 98.3 63.4 36.7 23.5 12.7 6.3 2MW Texas 88.8 60.4 39.8 21.3 11.0 6.0 4E Tennessee 84.1 57.7 32.1 20.7 11.3 5.7 4W Connecticut 80.1 51.1 31.0 16.4 9.0 5.1 3W Gonzaga 87.0 60.3 30.1 16.6 8.7 4.7 2S Arizona 87.0 56.4 34.0 16.7 9.0 4.1 1W Kansas 95.4 60.8 31.6 15.1 7.5 3.8 2E Marquette 83.7 53.2 33.1 16.1 7.7 3.3 5W Saint Mary's 69.3 33.5 17.5 7.9 3.8 1.8 6S Creighton 67.7 39.1 20.0 8.7 4.2 1.7 5S San Diego St. 70.4 45.2 17.4 8.7 4.2 1.7 3S Baylor 78.3 42.4 20.9 8.8 4.1 1.6 3MW Xavier 85.0 49.3 22.6 9.6 3.8 1.6 3E Kansas St. 78.4 42.9 20.8 8.4 3.3 1.1 10S Utah St. 62.4 28.0 14.1 5.6 2.5 0.9 6MW Iowa St. 62.3 32.4 14.0 5.6 2.1 0.9 5E Duke 62.7 26.2 10.8 5.4 2.2 0.8 6E Kentucky 57.3 31.3 14.9 5.9 2.2 0.8 9S West Virginia 51.8 15.7 8.7 4.1 1.8 0.7 7MW Texas A&M 57.6 22.9 11.7 4.7 1.7 0.7 4MW Indiana 63.4 37.1 12.2 5.2 1.8 0.7 8E Memphis 51.2 18.9 8.3 4.2 1.7 0.6 8S Maryland 48.2 14.2 7.7 3.5 1.5 0.6 8W Arkansas 55.5 22.8 9.4 3.5 1.4 0.5 4S Virginia 67.7 32.1 9.9 4.1 1.6 0.5 9E Florida Atlantic 48.8 17.7 7.7 3.8 1.5 0.5 7E Michigan St. 52.6 23.0 11.5 4.3 1.5 0.5 9MW Auburn 54.7 15.9 9.0 3.8 1.3 0.5 6W TCU 60.8 24.1 8.6 3.4 1.3 0.5 10W Boise St. 55.4 16.4 6.7 2.6 0.9 0.3 10E USC 47.4 19.4 9.2 3.2 1.0 0.3 5MW Miami FL 55.9 27.3 7.6 2.8 0.8 0.3 11E Providence 42.7 20.2 8.1 2.7 0.8 0.2 8MW Iowa 45.3 11.4 5.9 2.2 0.7 0.2 9W Illinois 44.5 16.0 5.9 1.9 0.7 0.2 10MW Penn St. 42.4 14.1 6.1 2.1 0.6 0.2 7W Northwestern 44.6 11.4 4.1 1.3 0.4 0.1 7S Missouri 37.6 12.5 4.8 1.4 0.5 0.1 11S N.C. State 32.3 13.2 4.4 1.2 0.4 0.10 12MW Drake 44.1 19.1 4.6 1.5 0.4 0.10 11MW Mississippi St. 23.0 9.8 3.3 1.0 0.3 0.09 12E Oral Roberts 37.3 11.2 3.2 1.2 0.3 0.08 11W Nevada 23.4 7.8 2.3 0.8 0.2 0.07 13MW Kent St. 36.6 16.5 3.7 1.1 0.3 0.06 12W VCU 30.7 8.8 2.8 0.7 0.2 0.06 12S Charleston 29.6 13.4 2.7 0.8 0.2 0.04 13W Iona 19.9 6.6 1.9 0.4 0.1 0.03 11W Arizona St. 15.8 4.4 1.1 0.3 0.08 0.02 11MW Pittsburgh 14.7 5.2 1.4 0.4 0.08 0.02 13S Furman 32.3 9.3 1.4 0.3 0.08 0.01 13E Louisiana 15.9 4.9 1.0 0.2 0.05 0.007 14S UC Santa Barbara 21.7 5.3 1.1 0.2 0.04 0.005 14E Montana St. 21.6 5.6 1.2 0.2 0.03 0.005 15E Vermont 16.3 4.3 1.1 0.2 0.03 0.004 14W Grand Canyon 13.0 3.5 0.5 0.09 0.01 0.002 15S Princeton 13.0 3.1 0.7 0.1 0.02 0.002 15MW Colgate 11.2 2.7 0.6 0.1 0.01 0.001 14MW Kennesaw St. 15.0 3.4 0.5 0.06 0.008 <.001 16MW Northern Kentucky 6.2 1.1 0.2 0.03 0.003 <.001 15W UNC Asheville 5.4 1.0 0.1 0.01 0.002 <.001 16S Texas A&M Corpus Chris 2.2 0.3 0.04 0.004 <.001 <.001 16W Howard 4.6 0.4 0.03 0.002 <.001 <.001 16E Texas Southern 1.1 0.04 0.001 <.001 <.001 <.001 16S Southeast Missouri St. 0.3 0.01 <.001 <.001 <.001 <.001 16E Fairleigh Dickinson 0.6 0.01 <.001 <.001 <.001 <.001 Rd2 Swt16 Elite8 Final4 Final Champ 1E Purdue 98.3 63.4 36.7 23.5 12.7 6.3 2E Marquette 83.7 53.2 33.1 16.1 7.7 3.3 3E Kansas St. 78.4 42.9 20.8 8.4 3.3 1.1 4E Tennessee 84.1 57.7 32.1 20.7 11.3 5.7 5E Duke 62.7 26.2 10.8 5.4 2.2 0.8 6E Kentucky 57.3 31.3 14.9 5.9 2.2 0.8 7E Michigan St. 52.6 23.0 11.5 4.3 1.5 0.5 8E Memphis 51.2 18.9 8.3 4.2 1.7 0.6 9E Florida Atlantic 48.8 17.7 7.7 3.8 1.5 0.5 10E USC 47.4 19.4 9.2 3.2 1.0 0.3 11E Providence 42.7 20.2 8.1 2.7 0.8 0.2 12E Oral Roberts 37.3 11.2 3.2 1.2 0.3 0.08 13E Louisiana 15.9 4.9 1.0 0.2 0.05 0.007 14E Montana St. 21.6 5.6 1.2 0.2 0.03 0.005 15E Vermont 16.3 4.3 1.1 0.2 0.03 0.004 16E Texas Southern 1.1 0.04 0.001 <.001 <.001 <.001 16E Fairleigh Dickinson 0.6 0.01 <.001 <.001 <.001 <.001 1S Alabama 97.6 69.8 52.2 35.8 23.4 13.5 2S Arizona 87.0 56.4 34.0 16.7 9.0 4.1 3S Baylor 78.3 42.4 20.9 8.8 4.1 1.6 4S Virginia 67.7 32.1 9.9 4.1 1.6 0.5 5S San Diego St. 70.4 45.2 17.4 8.7 4.2 1.7 6S Creighton 67.7 39.1 20.0 8.7 4.2 1.7 7S Missouri 37.6 12.5 4.8 1.4 0.5 0.1 8S Maryland 48.2 14.2 7.7 3.5 1.5 0.6 9S West Virginia 51.8 15.7 8.7 4.1 1.8 0.7 10S Utah St. 62.4 28.0 14.1 5.6 2.5 0.9 11S N.C. State 32.3 13.2 4.4 1.2 0.4 0.10 12S Charleston 29.6 13.4 2.7 0.8 0.2 0.04 13S Furman 32.3 9.3 1.4 0.3 0.08 0.01 14S UC Santa Barbara 21.7 5.3 1.1 0.2 0.04 0.005 15S Princeton 13.0 3.1 0.7 0.1 0.02 0.002 16S Texas A&M Corpus Chris 2.2 0.3 0.04 0.004 <.001 <.001 16S Southeast Missouri St. 0.3 0.01 <.001 <.001 <.001 <.001 1MW Houston 93.8 71.6 56.7 38.6 23.5 15.0 2MW Texas 88.8 60.4 39.8 21.3 11.0 6.0 3MW Xavier 85.0 49.3 22.6 9.6 3.8 1.6 4MW Indiana 63.4 37.1 12.2 5.2 1.8 0.7 5MW Miami FL 55.9 27.3 7.6 2.8 0.8 0.3 6MW Iowa St. 62.3 32.4 14.0 5.6 2.1 0.9 7MW Texas A&M 57.6 22.9 11.7 4.7 1.7 0.7 8MW Iowa 45.3 11.4 5.9 2.2 0.7 0.2 9MW Auburn 54.7 15.9 9.0 3.8 1.3 0.5 10MW Penn St. 42.4 14.1 6.1 2.1 0.6 0.2 11MW Mississippi St. 23.0 9.8 3.3 1.0 0.3 0.09 11MW Pittsburgh 14.7 5.2 1.4 0.4 0.08 0.02 12MW Drake 44.1 19.1 4.6 1.5 0.4 0.10 13MW Kent St. 36.6 16.5 3.7 1.1 0.3 0.06 14MW Kennesaw St. 15.0 3.4 0.5 0.06 0.008 <.001 15MW Colgate 11.2 2.7 0.6 0.1 0.01 0.001 16MW Northern Kentucky 6.2 1.1 0.2 0.03 0.003 <.001 1W Kansas 95.4 60.8 31.6 15.1 7.5 3.8 2W UCLA 94.6 71.1 46.5 29.0 17.3 10.6 3W Gonzaga 87.0 60.3 30.1 16.6 8.7 4.7 4W Connecticut 80.1 51.1 31.0 16.4 9.0 5.1 5W Saint Mary's 69.3 33.5 17.5 7.9 3.8 1.8 6W TCU 60.8 24.1 8.6 3.4 1.3 0.5 7W Northwestern 44.6 11.4 4.1 1.3 0.4 0.1 8W Arkansas 55.5 22.8 9.4 3.5 1.4 0.5 9W Illinois 44.5 16.0 5.9 1.9 0.7 0.2 10W Boise St. 55.4 16.4 6.7 2.6 0.9 0.3 11W Nevada 23.4 7.8 2.3 0.8 0.2 0.07 11W Arizona St. 15.8 4.4 1.1 0.3 0.08 0.02 12W VCU 30.7 8.8 2.8 0.7 0.2 0.06 13W Iona 19.9 6.6 1.9 0.4 0.1 0.03 14W Grand Canyon 13.0 3.5 0.5 0.09 0.01 0.002 15W UNC Asheville 5.4 1.0 0.1 0.01 0.002 <.001 16W Howard 4.6 0.4 0.03 0.002 <.001 <.001
I have previously acknowledged my appreciation for the preseason AP poll. Once the season starts, the poll becomes a clerical exercise that isn’t useful in the analytical realm, but before the games are played, humans and computers alike are trying to do the same thing: figure out which teams are the best.
Get 60-65 experts together and you should have something more powerful than what a computer rating can provide. Wisdom of crowds and all.
For that reason, whenever I have the typical 6-10 outliers in the top 25 to start the season, I usually assume the AP poll has the better ranking. Wisdom of crowds will generally beat my simple algorithm.
But I never really tested how the preseason ratings do when it’s kenpom vs. the world, and instead of continuing to kiss the AP’s butt in the preseason, I wanted to know how good kenpom is when it disagrees with the computer. So I designed a study like so… (more…)
Rd2 Swt16 Elite8 Final4 Final Champ 1W Gonzaga 97.9 84.4 70.8 53.7 38.5 27.5 1S Arizona 97.1 76.3 47.2 29.1 18.1 8.9 1MW Kansas 96.4 68.7 44.3 27.9 14.6 6.6 1E Baylor 94.5 71.9 43.3 25.2 11.6 6.4 2E Kentucky 91.1 64.9 41.3 23.6 11.0 6.2 2MW Auburn 91.5 68.8 47.9 26.3 13.2 5.6 3S Tennessee 91.5 65.4 39.2 20.0 11.4 5.1 5S Houston 77.3 54.4 29.8 17.6 10.5 5.0 3W Texas Tech 89.7 63.7 38.2 15.4 7.9 4.0 4E UCLA 88.4 58.2 31.4 17.2 7.4 3.8 2S Villanova 89.4 58.8 32.3 15.7 8.5 3.6 5MW Iowa 80.5 60.4 31.4 18.3 8.7 3.5 2W Duke 90.4 63.6 35.5 13.6 6.7 3.3 3E Purdue 89.0 50.5 24.1 11.4 4.2 1.9 6MW LSU 62.4 40.2 18.2 7.6 2.8 0.9 6E Texas 55.5 27.9 12.2 5.2 1.8 0.7 5E Saint Mary's 63.0 27.5 11.7 5.1 1.7 0.7 5W Connecticut 70.6 39.1 9.9 4.4 1.7 0.7 4S Illinois 68.8 28.2 10.8 4.7 2.1 0.7 4W Arkansas 64.5 36.0 8.5 3.6 1.4 0.5 8MW San Diego St. 61.0 21.2 10.1 4.6 1.6 0.5 10S Loyola Chicago 54.3 22.2 9.0 3.1 1.2 0.4 10E San Francisco 54.8 19.1 8.6 3.2 0.9 0.3 3MW Wisconsin 75.5 34.8 13.1 4.5 1.3 0.3 11E Virginia Tech 44.5 19.9 7.6 2.8 0.8 0.3 6W Alabama 62.3 23.1 9.9 2.4 0.8 0.3 6S Colorado St. 50.4 16.7 6.5 2.0 0.7 0.2 7S Ohio St. 45.7 16.9 6.2 1.9 0.7 0.2 7E Murray St. 45.2 14.1 5.7 1.9 0.5 0.2 8W Boise St. 50.6 8.1 3.9 1.5 0.5 0.2 11S Michigan 49.6 16.0 6.2 1.8 0.6 0.2 7MW USC 54.5 16.8 7.8 2.5 0.7 0.2 8E North Carolina 55.3 16.1 5.9 2.0 0.5 0.1 11MW Iowa St. 37.6 19.8 6.7 2.1 0.6 0.1 4MW Providence 55.9 18.9 5.7 2.1 0.6 0.1 9W Memphis 49.4 7.1 3.3 1.2 0.4 0.1 10W Davidson 49.8 17.1 6.1 1.3 0.4 0.1 9S TCU 49.9 11.7 4.0 1.3 0.4 0.1 7W Michigan St. 50.2 17.2 6.1 1.3 0.4 0.1 8S Seton Hall 50.1 11.5 3.9 1.3 0.4 0.09 9MW Creighton 39.0 9.7 3.6 1.2 0.3 0.06 10MW Miami FL 45.5 12.3 5.1 1.4 0.3 0.06 12S UAB 22.7 9.7 2.5 0.8 0.3 0.06 9E Marquette 44.7 11.1 3.6 1.1 0.2 0.05 13W Vermont 35.5 14.9 2.3 0.7 0.2 0.05 12E Indiana 21.1 7.0 2.2 0.7 0.2 0.05 11W Notre Dame 22.9 7.0 2.4 0.5 0.1 0.04 13MW South Dakota St. 44.1 12.3 3.0 0.9 0.2 0.03 13S Chattanooga 31.2 7.7 1.7 0.5 0.1 0.02 12E Wyoming 15.9 4.8 1.3 0.4 0.08 0.02 12MW Richmond 19.5 8.4 1.8 0.5 0.10 0.01 12W New Mexico St. 29.4 9.9 1.2 0.3 0.06 0.01 11W Rutgers 14.8 3.8 1.1 0.2 0.04 0.008 14MW Colgate 24.5 5.3 0.9 0.1 0.01 0.001 15MW Jacksonville St. 8.5 2.1 0.4 0.06 0.006 <.001 14W Montana St. 10.3 2.4 0.4 0.03 0.005 <.001 13E Akron 11.6 2.5 0.4 0.05 0.004 <.001 15E Saint Peter's 8.9 1.9 0.3 0.04 0.004 <.001 14S Longwood 8.5 1.8 0.3 0.03 0.004 <.001 15S Delaware 10.6 2.1 0.3 0.03 0.002 <.001 15W Cal St. Fullerton 9.6 2.2 0.3 0.02 0.002 <.001 14E Yale 11.0 1.7 0.2 0.02 0.001 <.001 16W Georgia St. 2.1 0.4 0.07 0.009 <.001 <.001 16E Norfolk St. 5.5 0.9 0.1 0.009 <.001 <.001 16MW Texas Southern 2.8 0.4 0.05 0.006 <.001 <.001 16S Wright St. 1.6 0.3 0.02 0.002 <.001 <.001 16S Bryant 1.3 0.2 0.02 0.002 <.001 <.001 16MW Texas A&M Corpus Chris 0.8 0.07 0.003 <.001 <.001 <.001
Prior to last night, the last time Arkansas beat AP #1 was on February 12, 1984 against North Carolina. It was a very odd basketball game. You can find the whole thing on YouTube, although the sound and video are mismatched a bit. Here’s the box score.
Anyway, let’s talk about the weird things about this game. (more…)
By giving athletes a free year of eligibility last season, the NCAA made a great decision. Many teams had their seasons cancelled or severely limited by Covid-related issues. It certainly wouldn’t have been fair to take away a year of eligibility from someone when their season was only a few games, or in some cases, no games at all.
A benefit to this for fans is that college basketball will be older than at any time since possibly the era of freshmen ineligibility in the 1970’s. It remains to be seen how that will play out but it doesn’t take a logical leap to assume that the product will be better. (more…)
Here are the probabilities for the NCAA tournament based on the current ratings (no injury information is taken into account)… (more…)
Not sure if I’ll keep up with this or how accurate this will be given seeding irregularities and cancellations, but this will be the home for conference tourney forecasts… (These are complete now.) (more…)
[This is the first of a potentially recurring (though probably not) series called Is It Luck or Is it Skill? A look at various accomplishments with an eye towards whether it is due to luck or skill.]
I’ve been disappointed in recent seasons that even as free throw shooting has reached all-time highs, no team has made a credible run at 1984 Harvard’s record of 82.2% over a full season. The only real challenge in modern times was by 2011 Wisconsin, who entered what would be their final game against Butler in the Sweet 16 having made 423-of-514 attempts (82.3%). They made 13-of-19 against the Bulldogs to drop to 81.8%.