2024-25 Season

[alum84]

The Nebraska loss is just so, so damaging. Playing around with the Teamcast tool on Torvik's website, flipping that game to a win and leaving everything else the same to this point moves CU up to #30 and a projected six seed in the tourney.

So that's fun.

https://barttorvik.com/teamcast.php?tea ... &year=2025

I disagree. There are plenty of good teams with a home loss like Nebraska on their resume. Whether you 37 or 30 in the NET isn't going to matter much with regard to seeding. Now, a 25 point loss to Georgetown hurts much more than the Nebraska loss, imo.

He *literally* did the work of seeing what the data would show without that absolutely inexcusable garbage performance against Nebraska. At home.

Love this team. Happy with the progress. Still can’t excuse that failure to show up against that team. I can live with the road game at Georgetown without Pop Isaac’s waaaaay more easily.

And I *literally* gave my opinion, RH. We played shitty in both games, agreed. But losing to Nebraska (#45 in Kenpom) by 11 at home (while certainly shameful) is not as bad as losing by 24 to a much worse Georgetown team (#84 Kenpom) on the road. And no, I'm not a Husker fan. I graduated from CU. But a lot of you are blinded by your Husker hate. It's sort of the currency on this board.

[JacobPadilla]

I disagree. There are plenty of good teams with a home loss like Nebraska on their resume. Whether you 37 or 30 in the NET isn't going to matter much with regard to seeding. Now, a 25 point loss to Georgetown hurts much more than the Nebraska loss, imo.

He *literally* did the work of seeing what the data would show without that absolutely inexcusable garbage performance against Nebraska. At home.

Love this team. Happy with the progress. Still can’t excuse that failure to show up against that team. I can live with the road game at Georgetown without Pop Isaac’s waaaaay more easily.

And I *literally* gave my opinion, RH. We played shitty in both games, agreed. But losing to Nebraska (#45 in Kenpom) by 11 at home (while certainly shameful) is not as bad as losing by 24 to a much worse Georgetown team (#84 Kenpom) on the road. And no, I'm not a Husker fan. I graduated from CU. But a lot of you are blinded by your Husker hate. It's sort of the currency on this board.

No opinion here, just a fact. The result is the same if you flip either one to a win and leave the rest — 30 NET and the bottom 6 seed.

[Altmanforprez]

I find it a little pointless to talk about actually winning a game where the team that beat us kicked our @ss. It’s the A&M gsme I get hung up on, it doesn’t move the metrics since we didn’t get blown out and they have strong efficiency numbers, but it would bump us up a seed line and put our resume in a great position.

[SeattleJay]

It’s too bad the Purdue game didn’t count.

[SkipJansen]

I have been a long time lurker and I really have enjoyed reading the forum in the last few years. I have a lot of respect for the basketball knowledge and insight that many of you guys possess. I saw this topic and thought it might be a good place to insert my first thought. With that being said...I hope everyone will be easy on me on my maiden voyage. Lastly...I want to apologize up front for the length of this comment. It will not be typical of my comments in the future.

The biggest issue with the NET is....the advanced metrics are weighted far too heavily. IMO....predictive analytics don't really work in college basketball. There are too many teams (364) and there is no way to accurately quantify home court advantage. Home court advantage and the matchup are the two most influential variables in determining an outcome in college basketball (when comparable talent is displayed), yet neither are accurately portrayed in predictive analytics. How can you use an model when the two most important variables are not part of it? The tournament committee keeps tweaking the criteria by adding more analytics that are basically spitting out the same data...that seems redundant. Home court advantage and the matchup both play direct roles in determining the outcome of a game, whereas offensive and defensive efficiency metrics have been formed by those factors, making them a byproduct of the true determining factors in the outcome. The committee insists that the NET is just used as a sorting tool, which hopefully is a fact. Because....any evaluation tool that de-emphasizes or minimizes the outcome is flawed by nature.

Every year there are 1-2 teams that are negatively affected by conflicting analytics/results profiles. This year...Creighton is that team. The Bluejays NET ranking is 35 with the following resume-

16-6 Overall (9-2 T-2nd Big East)
SOS: 33

Result-Based Metrics
KPI: 32
SOR: 21
WAB: 29
Predictive Metrics
BPI: 26
POM: 32
T-Rank: 32
Quadrant Records
Q1: 4-4
Q2: 5-2
Q3: 2-0
Q4: 5-0

For comparison....here are a couple of resumés of higher ranked teams-

Texas
NET: 25
15-7 Overall (4-5 T-10th SEC)
SOS: 23

Result-Based Metrics
KPI: 52
SOR: 39
WAB: 35
Predictive Metrics
BPI: 21
POM: 29
T-Rank: 27
Quadrant Records
Q1: 4-6
Q2: 2-1
Q3: 1-0
Q4: 8-0

Michigan
NET: 16
16-5 Overall (8-2 3rd Big Ten)
SOS: 46

Result-Based Metrics
KPI: 8
SOR: 22
WAB: 26
Predictive Metrics
BPI: 25
POM: 20
T-Rank: 19
Quadrant Records
Q1: 4-3
Q2: 4-2
Q3: 7-0
Q4: 1-0

As you can see....the supporting numbers don't match up with the resulting number. So...it's a good indication of how the efficiency stats affect the ranking. Obviously, the Texas resume isn't as good as Creighton, yet ranked 10 spots better. That means...if the tournament committee used the NET for seeding, Texas would be 3 seed lines ahead of Creighton. The Michigan resume is very similar. Even if you think Michigan's is slightly better...it's certainly not 19 spots (5 seed lines) better. And, those are only two examples. Creighton's resume is as good or better than just about every team ranked between 16-34 in the NET. I think Ken Pom or Bart Tovik both do a good job with what they do. I just don't think the data they are working with is based on the most valid information, therefore it shouldn't be a heavily weighted data point in determining team rankings. I mean, any metric that still has Houston ahead of Auburn is not a data point that should be highly regarded. Ultimately, it only matters how the tournament committee accesses it. I guess we'll see what's important in March. There's plenty of rhetoric bantered about every year regarding selection and seeding, and...this year won't be any different.

Thanks again. Look forward to talking with you guys about Creighton basketball going forward.

[SeattleJay]

Welcome SkipJansen.

One or two other factors that are difficult to determine and factor:
1. Injuries
2. The evolution of a team. We certainly are a better and different team now than we were two months ago for example. How much wait should be given to recency?

[jays34]

I think what you meant to say is....just win, baby.

but otherwise, great first post. Metrics in a bubble are never perfect, and it does feel like we're still getting punished for a brutal early season stretch (some of it deservedly so). If we had made it into the top 25 AP poll prior to our latest win streak, we'd probably be ranked in the top 15 right now. but alas, that wasn't the case.

[SeattleJay]

Kenpom and Torvik still have us at 30

Massey has us at 17 and Nolan ELO has us at 15

Evan Miya at 22

Massey Composite has us at 31 but is always slow to update

Gotta keep winning

[Alphawalt]

Kenpom and Torvik still have us at 30

Massey has us at 17 and Nolan ELO has us at 15

Evan Miya at 22

Massey Composite has us at 31 but is always slow to update

Gotta keep winning

Jays will probably be ranked 24 or 25 this week in the polls. If they win both games this week, probably a bump to lower end of top 20 next week as polls always have east coast bias and would be more affected by win over UConn and road win at St. John’s.

[jays911]

Up to 19 in the CBS Top 25 and one