Well either Fairfield was not as bad as we thought...
- Thread starter mikewebb68
- Start date
Probably a little of both. Remember when we thought North Florida sucked and ended up in the NCAA Tournament? Early season Kenpom or Sagarin are pretty meaningless......
Not surprising considering the inside story here. Remember that Columbia uses many elements of the Princeton offense as well as the 1-3-1 defense-- we saw it in our game against them. Fairfield head coach Sydney Johnson is a Bill Carmody protege who was the head coach at Princeton for four years and played under Bill Carmody at Princeton. Of course, Carmody was a special assistant at Fairfield for a year before taking over the helm at Holy Cross. So if ever a team were going to be prepared for an Ivy League team of the style of Columbia it was that one.
I thought both teams were perfectly fine small conference teams. Both played two better halves than Mizzou's first half, for instance.
I wouldn't call them meaningless. Every season has some surprise teams, things are fluid and the rankings certainly work themselves out as more game data is accumulated. However, the preseason rankings on kenpom certainly aren't random--they are statistically based on previous season (past success is still the best predictor of future success) as well as additional metrics regarding returning players and some informed human adjustments...plus there is already the interwoven data from 2000 games this season applied to current rankings.
My biggest takeaway from the results so far this season (and the associated kenpom rankings data) is that the top-middle of the B1G is not as good as we expected it to be. I presently believe that Northwestern has a great shot at a winning B1G season. The results so far prove that you do not have to be a borderline top 25 team to beat Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan and Ohio State--not to mention Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, Penn State and Rutgers. There are a lot of B1G teams that a pretty good Northwestern team can beat at home and/or on the road. I don't look at the schedule like I might have in years past circling the 9 games that we realistically could win, hoping for almost perfect results and an unexpected upset or two along the way. There are a ton of potential wins sitting on our schedule. I like our team and think have a really good chance finish with a conference winning schedule and the top 6 finish in the B1G.
Regarding Fairfield and Columbia, I suspect that they will both reveal themselves over the season as decent teams and that a close OOC game between them in December won't seem like too much of an anomaly one way or the other by the end of the season.
Excellent analysis, and I would add that from the BIG game results I have seen so far, KenPom has actually been a fairly decent predictor...
I think you just supported my statement: early season regression analysis which uses the previous season is pretty meaningless. Teams outside the top 40 or 50 can be quite a bit different year to year.
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