1. Basketball is not like football--upsets happen frequently. Kansas (#10 in kenpom) lost to West Virginia yesterday, which had not won a Big 12 game until then. Virginia Tech (#7 in kenpom), earlier in the year, lost to Penn State, which is 0-8 in the Big Ten. Duke (#2 in kenpom), lost at home this week, and in the process, gave up 95 points to a Syracuse team which had been impotent offensively throughout much of the season. Nevada (#19 in kenpom, lost by 20+ to the #175 team in the country (New Mexico). You get the point. Teams have good games and bad ones. Overanalyzing single game performances, and using them to predict a trend, is not likely to be worthwhile.
2. Further, even trends at this time of the season are often misleading. Villanova lost 3 of 6 between February 7 and February 24 last year, all to teams which either didn't make the tournament (St. Johns) or which didn't survive the first weekend (Creighton, out in the 64s, Butler, out in the 32s), and then stormed through the tournament. Louisville, in 2012-13, lost 3 in a row between January 19 and January 26, only one to a ranked team, before winning the tournament. Michigan has had numerous examples of this. Almost precisely a year ago, we got pounded by 20 by Nebraska, scoring 52 points in the process, and then, a few weeks later equalled that output against a Northwestern team which literally did not win another game the rest of the season, right before going on a winning streak of 14 in a row and making the NC game. Ditto the year before, when we were 4-6 in the Big Ten in early February after a home loss to a mediocre OSU team, before rebounding to win 12 of our last 15 including the BTT, while reaching the Sweet Sixteen. In 2012-13, after starting 20-1, we went 6-6 over the next 12, before going to the NC game. Again, the point, is evident--it is way, way too early to reach judgments about where we will be come March.
3. The same is true for individual players. Last year, Charles Matthews went through a mid-season stretch of 13 games where he was under 100 (average) in offensive efficiency in 10 of them (average 82.9 overall for those games), before flipping things around and averaging 109.4 efficiency over his next 10.
4. But, how about seeding? Barttorvik.com, a site like kenpom, allows you to predict seeding with certain results assumed. If we lost 5 more games between now and the end of the regular season (at Indiana, at Iowa, at Maryland, at MSU and home against MSU, Torvik's algorithm still has us as the top 2 seed. Of course, that could be slightly off, but the truth is that we're going to be a very high seed unless we completely collapse.
5. The bottom line--trying to read anything into yesterday, or even the last (or next) several games is pretty meaningless as far as how we (or any individual player) will fare at tournament time. I'd like to win the BT (and that's still a very real possibility), but the truth is that performance in the NCAAs is what matters in today's college basketball. We've made 2 national championship games in the last 6 years, and played on Thursday of the BTT both times. Is there anyone who would trade seasons with the Big Ten winner in 2013 (IU--out in the 16s) or 2018 (MSU--out in the 32s)?
2. Further, even trends at this time of the season are often misleading. Villanova lost 3 of 6 between February 7 and February 24 last year, all to teams which either didn't make the tournament (St. Johns) or which didn't survive the first weekend (Creighton, out in the 64s, Butler, out in the 32s), and then stormed through the tournament. Louisville, in 2012-13, lost 3 in a row between January 19 and January 26, only one to a ranked team, before winning the tournament. Michigan has had numerous examples of this. Almost precisely a year ago, we got pounded by 20 by Nebraska, scoring 52 points in the process, and then, a few weeks later equalled that output against a Northwestern team which literally did not win another game the rest of the season, right before going on a winning streak of 14 in a row and making the NC game. Ditto the year before, when we were 4-6 in the Big Ten in early February after a home loss to a mediocre OSU team, before rebounding to win 12 of our last 15 including the BTT, while reaching the Sweet Sixteen. In 2012-13, after starting 20-1, we went 6-6 over the next 12, before going to the NC game. Again, the point, is evident--it is way, way too early to reach judgments about where we will be come March.
3. The same is true for individual players. Last year, Charles Matthews went through a mid-season stretch of 13 games where he was under 100 (average) in offensive efficiency in 10 of them (average 82.9 overall for those games), before flipping things around and averaging 109.4 efficiency over his next 10.
4. But, how about seeding? Barttorvik.com, a site like kenpom, allows you to predict seeding with certain results assumed. If we lost 5 more games between now and the end of the regular season (at Indiana, at Iowa, at Maryland, at MSU and home against MSU, Torvik's algorithm still has us as the top 2 seed. Of course, that could be slightly off, but the truth is that we're going to be a very high seed unless we completely collapse.
5. The bottom line--trying to read anything into yesterday, or even the last (or next) several games is pretty meaningless as far as how we (or any individual player) will fare at tournament time. I'd like to win the BT (and that's still a very real possibility), but the truth is that performance in the NCAAs is what matters in today's college basketball. We've made 2 national championship games in the last 6 years, and played on Thursday of the BTT both times. Is there anyone who would trade seasons with the Big Ten winner in 2013 (IU--out in the 16s) or 2018 (MSU--out in the 32s)?
