2015 Cats - Aike’s Tourney Predictor

[Aike]

Had this thought the other day - how good were the 2015 Cats relative to current teams?

Did a run this morning based on current model and stats on 1/1/15.

Results were slightly surprising but not entirely. First, the Top 10:

1. Kentucky 3.07
2. Duke 3.05
3. Virginia 2.49
4. Wisconsin 2.15
5. Gonzaga 2.13
6. Ohio St 1.88
7. North Carolina 1.85
8. Villanova 1.77
9. Notre Dame 1.65
10. Arizona 1.54

First 3.07 is a very strong score, but hardly an elite score. Even at the midpoint of the season, our relatively pedestrian shooting numbers were pulling us down.

Seeing Kentucky, Duke, and Wisconsin among the top 4, even on 1/1, is hardly surprising.

I find it interesting what this says about the depth of the pool back then. Very few teams playing at a high level. Height of the one and done era. Pre-Covid. No 6th year seniors with grandkids.

As far as quality of product, we really are seeing high level college basketball in this era.

 

[phunterd]

The low scores of the top 5 immediately stuck out to me. Not comparable to the top scores in your model the last few years.

 

[Aike]

The low scores of the top 5 immediately stuck out to me. Not comparable to the top scores in your model the last few years.

Yeah, falls off pretty quickly. The very top isn’t terrible. In 2023 the top team was at 2.67 entering the tournament, and in 2022 only 1 team was above a 3 entering the tournament.

But the past 3 years (including this one) have been pretty strong with all of these older teams and NIL.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

Yeah, falls off pretty quickly. The very top isn’t terrible. In 2023 the top team was at 2.67 entering the tournament, and in 2022 only 1 team was above a 3 entering the tournament.

But the past 3 years (including this one) have been pretty strong with all of these older teams and NIL.

Which makes sense to me. CBB is far more optimized right now. Your 6-15 teams of the current era would have a pretty significant advantage over the 6-15 teams of a decade ago. Anyone grabbing 2015 film and watching it can see this pretty clearly IMO. I have no idea how you’re building your methodology but it adds up.

 

[Cowtown Cat]

Cal fvcked that team up. He fell in love with KAT surpassing Okafor as the #1 pick, instead of running a free flowing offense, like we did early in that season. That’s WHY we were absolutely DEMOLISHING teams. He bogged down the offense and it killed us.

 

[Aike]

Which makes sense to me. CBB is far more optimized right now. Your 6-15 teams of the current era would have a pretty significant advantage over the 6-15 teams of a decade ago. Anyone grabbing 2015 film and watching it can see this pretty clearly IMO. I have no idea how you’re building your methodology but it adds up.

Optimized is a key word here. So many more coaches are leaning heavily into analytics today.

I feel comfortable that you could drop the 2015 Cats into this season and they’d compete for a title. Their defense would always give them a shot. But there are enough efficient offensives these days that their tourney run could be pretty tough.

 

[Aike]

Cal fvcked that team up. He fell in love with KAT surpassing Okafor as the #1 pick, instead of running a free flowing offense, like we did early in that season. That’s WHY we were absolutely DEMOLISHING teams. He bogged down the offense and it killed us.

Story of Cal’s life.

 

[Cowtown Cat]

Optimized is a key word here. So many more coaches are leaning heavily into analytics today.

I feel comfortable that you could drop the 2015 Cats into this season and they’d compete for a title. Their defense would always give them a shot. But there are enough efficient offensives these days that their tourney run could be pretty tough.

Are we getting a healthy Poythress? LOL

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

Are we getting a healthy Poythress? LOL

I know people hate “injuries as excuses” but I see no way Dekker goes off on my boy Poy

 

[Cowtown Cat]

I know people hate “injuries as excuses” but I see no way Dekker goes off on my boy Poy

Nope! They exploited the mismatch of him defended by Lyles. POY was by far the better defender. Pisses me off so bad! I wanted duke in the title game more than I wanted a matchup in my lifetime of being a UK fan. I think we would’ve smacked duke around. Don’t care what anyone says. They backed into OUR title. Just like 2010.

 

[I’m The Village Idiot]

Nope! They exploited the mismatch of him defended by Lyles. POY was by far the better defender. Pisses me off so bad! I wanted duke in the title game more than I wanted a matchup in my lifetime of being a UK fan. I think we would’ve smacked duke around. Don’t care what anyone says. They backed into OUR title. Just like 2010.

UConn and Duke have built program resumes off our recent misfortune

 

[The_Answer1313_rivals]

I know everyone was severely disappointed with how that season ended, but Wisconsin was a very good team that year. It was an upset but I don't think it was nearly a big an upset as most like to make it out to be.

 

[Aike]

I know everyone was severely disappointed with how that season ended, but Wisconsin was a very good team that year. It was an upset but I don't think it was nearly a big an upset as most like to make it out to be.

For sure. If we’d blown that early SEC game against Ole Miss, or maybe 1 or 2 more, the loss would have stung less. It was the pursuit of the perfect season that crushed us all.

 

[Cowtown Cat]

I know everyone was severely disappointed with how that season ended, but Wisconsin was a very good team that year. It was an upset but I don't think it was nearly a big an upset as most like to make it out to be.

They were a really good team, even historically. Especially on the offensive end. However, we played a terrible game and Wisconsin played a damn near perfect game. Not to mention, we didn’t get any favors from the refs. Let’s not forget, John Higgins officiated that game. That cannot be understated here IMO.

 

[Aike]

I should have said right off the bat that we have an “overfitting” situation here, because the tournament results of the 2015 team were in included in the training set.

So the model already thinks that team looks like a 4, since they actually won 4 games that year.

Doesn’t mean it’s not directionally informative. Just means it could be a bit cleaner.

 

[Cowtown Cat]

I should have said right off the bat that we have an “overfitting” situation here, because the tournament results of the 2015 team were in included in the training set.

So the model already thinks that team looks like a 4, since they actually won 4 games that year.

Doesn’t mean it’s not directionally informative. Just means it could be a bit cleaner.

So we are still ahead of duke even though they won 2 more tournament games than we did that year? Ugh I gotta shower now, after typing that!

 

[Aike]

So we are still ahead of duke even though they won 2 more tournament games than we did that year? Ugh I gotta shower now, after typing that!

This is also based on where all teams were on January 1st that year.

 

[*Fox2Monk*]

I know people hate “injuries as excuses” but I see no way Dekker goes off on my boy Poy

Nope, plus his injury tore up the perfect sub patterns.

 

[BigBlueGuru]

Still one of the worst coaching jobs of the Cal era. It is simply amazing to me how we throttled teams at the beginning of the year in 2015 and at the end of the year they were just doing enough to win. Well that caught up to them in the Tourney.