Kenpom

blockm2

Senior
Jul 9, 2001
4,354
584
0
Kenpom is worthless until it phases out previous season data

KenPom saw the Wildcats as the 53rd best team in the country today and had them as a 1 point underdog to OSU. Winning by 1 point is only 2 points different than the expectation so barely changes the ranking.
 

SimpsonElmwood

Redshirt
Nov 20, 2004
1,715
45
48
KenPom saw the Wildcats as the 53rd best team in the country today and had them as a 1 point underdog to OSU. Winning by 1 point is only 2 points different than the expectation so barely changes the ranking.
Exactly.

KenPom has one of the most robust analysis/ranking systems out there. There's a carryover year over year in the rankings, but rankings are set not by prior year's team W/L, but the ratings of the individual players' past year's performance. When players use up eligibility or transfer, the team rankings move in accordance to their individual rating.

As blockrm2 suggests, significant game over game changes happen only when outlier events happen. And this year is especially challenging because there are so few non-con games.

I only recently renewed my subscription to go into this year's data deeply, but NU's 2020-21 rankings are lower than they would be otherwise because their non-conference strength of schedule is so low (2/3 of non-con games that count in the analysis are against Chicago State and Pine Bluff).

I have no vested interest in KenPom, but I take exception to criticizing one of the most rigirously-built databases in college sports without a fact base. This is not RPI or Sagarin.
 

macarthur31

Redshirt
Nov 9, 2006
1,536
39
48
Exactly.

KenPom has one of the most robust analysis/ranking systems out there. There's a carryover year over year in the rankings, but rankings are set not by prior year's team W/L, but the ratings of the individual players' past year's performance. When players use up eligibility or transfer, the team rankings move in accordance to their individual rating.

As blockrm2 suggests, significant game over game changes happen only when outlier events happen. And this year is especially challenging because there are so few non-con games.

I only recently renewed my subscription to go into this year's data deeply, but NU's 2020-21 rankings are lower than they would be otherwise because their non-conference strength of schedule is so low (2/3 of non-con games that count in the analysis are against Chicago State and Pine Bluff).

I have no vested interest in KenPom, but I take exception to criticizing one of the most rigirously-built databases in college sports without a fact base. This is not RPI or Sagarin.
Also - kenpom is pretty transparent about all the numbers - just read the accompanying blog to get the skinny on how he comes up with the ratings. If anything, it's sites like kenpom that have gone a long way towards ensuring that teams get more equitable assessments than the previously used RPI.
 

NJCat

All-Conference
Mar 7, 2016
21,186
1,304
113
Also - kenpom is pretty transparent about all the numbers - just read the accompanying blog to get the skinny on how he comes up with the ratings. If anything, it's sites like kenpom that have gone a long way towards ensuring that teams get more equitable assessments than the previously used RPI.
I encourage you to also view Bart Torvik's site. His model predicted NU would win 71-70 today (I checked it before the game). Amazing.

NU is 40th in T-Rank. And predicted to win 10 B1G games. I'd love to see that.

 

hdhntr1

Senior
Sep 5, 2006
36,131
634
113
How are we still so low in his rankings? I don’t get that.
The rankings are only as good as the data they use to do them and up to now there has not been much data. We had far fewer than normal preseason games and they were weaker than they would have been with a preseason tourney, etc. We have only had one week of BIG BB (one hell of a week but only one week) If we continue and beat IA, I would guess it will start showing us a stronger than it has so far