The anonymous coach feedback is useless. If you ask the friend of the coach, then he will sugar coat it. If you ask another coach who is a rival, then he will look for something negative. Very few coaches would be unbiased and give you honest feedback.
Seth Davis anonymous coaches chatter
- Thread starter JD1976
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I disagree on picking teams based on their "potential" and not their results.
For example: Pitt has beaten UNC twice this season. On a neutral floor tomorrow, UNC will still be favored over Pitt. So selecting UNC over Pitt would be rewarding POTENTIAL, and not RESULTS. At some point, you have to reward what actually happened on the floor - and not which team is better "on paper".
There are lots of metrics that are better than the RPI..... .75% of RPI was based on how your opponents did and only 25% was based on how YOU did. But NET is seriously flawed too, way more than RPI even was. If a team has five 1-point wins and one 30-point loss, a 5-1 record ... they are considered worse than a team that has one 30-point win and five 1-point losses, a 1-5 record. Scoring margin doesn't figure into how playoff teams are chosen in literally ANY other sport, except as maybe the 5th or 6th tiebreaker.
No one is unbiased. That does not mean that their feedback is useless, or isn't honest, it just means that it is one voice among many.
It's not rewarding POTENTIAL over RESULTS. It's rewarding the team that is more likely to win the game if they played again tomorrow. Or to put it another way, the better team.
But I am wondering, since we are all on the "only who won or lost matters" bandwagon do we all also agree that Michigan should be ahead of us in the bracket? And VCU? And Vanderbilt? Or in those cases do we concede that maybe more than just who won one particular game should come into play?
Have to give you the first ‘like’ for your comment. It is spot on. We frequently get in media, game announcer and in this case coaches comments about our team. But it’s exactly like you say, we watch and scrutinize every game and every player. Doesn’t matter if you’re media/reporters, announcers or other coaches, they don’t watch as much Pitt as we do.
I see very few similarities. Seems a guy who knows nothing about Pitt but the Dixon Era so any random success we might have MUST be the same as those teams, right?
If all things are equal, then yes... head-to-head matters.
If Pitt and UNC end up similarly in their Q1/Q2/Q3/Q4 records then yes, you have to look at head-to-head.
If Michigan goes on a run and ends up similar to the place Pitt ends up in overall wins and quality wins... then yes, their head-to-head win over us should be a deciding factor between the two.
But it matters only when the two teams are similar in their accomplishments. FSU would never be ahead of Pitt in seeding, and shouldn't be. Pitt wouldn't be ahead of Virginia in seedings, and shouldn't be.
But UNC and Pitt are similarly accomplished - actually Pitt's accomplishments this season are better.... so the two wins should definitely take precedence.
Again..... selecting a team for the tournament based on how they look on paper (or in Vegas) is not how this should work. If the team can't translate their talent into tangible results on the court - then they shouldn't be selected. If the selection committee was picking TODAY, they have zero grounds to put UNC in ahead of Pitt. Nothing on UNC's resume is better than Pitt's resume - not one single factor. Putting them in over Pitt would be rewarding POTENTIAL over RESULTS.
ps. I didn't ever say... or even hint at "only who won or lost matters". That's a strawman you built.
I said scoring margin should have far less influence in rating teams - for a tournament selection purpose - than it does. It should be way down on the list of criteria in building a resume.
The committee's goal isn't to put the best 68 teams in the tournament. If that was the case, no team from the MEAC or SWAC would EVER be in the tournament. The goal is to put the 68 most-deserving teams in the tournament. Kentucky might be the best team on paper... but if they end up with a 16-15 record, they have absolutely no business being in the tournament. At *SOME* point, your talent has to have shown up on the court with tangible results.
The comparisons to "old Pitt" are very very lazy. The only similarities are we are old and not overly talented individually. This team isnt good defensively (a big reason why our NET is so low), is a below average rebounding team, and is winning primarily due to 3 point shooting and Burton mid-range.
I never realized how much you DON'T know about basketball.
Thanks for making it clear.
The fact of the matter is the NET is one of SIX computer ratings that they look at. And it (or any of them for that matter) isn't one of the primary things that they look at. The NET is, in fact, way down on the list of criteria in building a resume.
It's like as if for all the talk about the NET, people still have no idea what it is or how it is used.
When they used the RPI, a far, far dumber way of comparing teams, it was a much bigger factor than NET is now.
I really wish your first paragraph were true.
But being that NET was created by the NCAA, it seems that they do give it more preference than you let on.
The NET is the rating that is used to determine which wins are Q1/2/3/4.
So any committee member who talks about "Team A had X Q1 wins, and Team B only had Y Q1 wins" - which is how they talked after last year's selections - is using the NET ratings.
If "Quad 1 and 2 wins" and "Quad 3 and 4 losses" are what the committee is looking at - which again, is what they SAY is the thing they're looking at.... then they're using NET. Because NET solely determines the "quads".
But those are all part of the "resume". Which is what you want them to pay attention to.
The team sheets have every result for the entire season on them. When the committee is talking about Pitt, the members aren't saying, "gee, Pitt has a Q4 loss, it's too bad we can't figure out who that was against and where the game was played and what the score was, that would be really useful information." And they aren't saying that because that information is all right there at their finger tips.
When you hear someone from the committee say "Team A had 8 Q1 wins" or something like that, what they are saying is "Team A has a lot of good wins." Or vice versa, "Team B has three Q4 losses" that means that Team B has some really shitty losses on their resume.
But what is determining which opponents are Q1... or Q4?
NET.
Pitt is currently a "Q2" team on a neutral floor........ according to what?
NET.
So what? They have to use something to sort the teams. Well, I guess technically they don't have to, but it sure does make it a lot easier. Would you rather they use a sorting system that attempts to rank the teams based on quality or, what, jersey color? Age of the head coach? Place on the all time wins list?
Do you think that teams should get the same amount of credit for beating North Carolina on the road as they do for beating Alabama State at home? Because if you do then that's just nuts. And if you don't then you clearly want some sort of sorting system. What system is better than attempting to rank the teams in the order of how good they are?
The number one thing that every college coach I’ve heard talk about Pitt says is how tough and physical we are. That’s where the Howland/Dixon comps are coming from.
Sometimes I like to use extremes to illustrate a point. For NET, if a team went 0-30 but lost each game by 1 point to the Top 30 teams, they would have a higher NET than a team who went 30-0 but beat the bottom 30 teams all by 1 point. Listen, I know that the 0-30 would be significantly favored over the 30-0 team and would likely have the better NET ranking but is that what we're doing here? We cant be letting Vegas pick the teams.
There are lots of systems I favor over NET that seem to more accurately "sort" the teams. NET rankings fail the eye test so so so badly. At the very least, NET needs to be tweaked badly.
KenPom has a better algorithm. I'd rather they sorted on that.
Also.... you said that NET plays a very minor role in the selection committee's determinations.
But you also seem to realize that NET is the source the selection committee uses for sorting the teams into quadrants.
That's a pretty MAJOR role that NET plays. Much more major than any other computer ranking they use.... because none of the others are determining the quadrants.
If they are truly only using NET to make quadrants, then I am fine with it because I think its ok to evaluate a team based on which teams "that Vegas likes" that it beat.
No kidding. As any coach would have done back in 08-09! The game is much, much different today than it was then.
I don't see him micromanaging guys like Miles, Miller, and Baugh. They all look to have a green light. They don't shoot 3s very well but they may be the best fast break team he has ever had anywhere. He still doesn't ever sit down during a game which may look like he is micromanaging all the time.
Agree with your premise about what other coaches may think of this Pitt team. But I think it’s somewhat misconstrued.
This team is VERY competitive, gritty, determined, together and mentally tough.
But extremely physically rugged? Not really comparable to the Pitt teams of the BH/early JD era, IMO. Of course games in the old Big East were played a lot differently than most ACC games now are.
Maybe Pitt is one of the tougher physical teams in the current ACC according to the media observers, too? Could see that maybe being the case? 🤷♂️
You have basketball knowledge but let your opinions build and don’t challenge them.
Nelly Cummings has been a great addition.
I agree with you that there are other better systems out there. The NCAA didn't want to use one of them because they wanted their system to be their system, not someone else's.
But two things. First of all, Pomeroy's rankings are one of the ones on the team sheets. So they do use that, to at least some extent.
And secondly, if you are bitching because our NET is currently 55 and that's obviously way too low, it's interesting that the system you would rather they use currently has us at 61. There is no way North Carolina should be higher than us in the NET at 44, but Pomeroy has them at 36. It's ridiculous that the NET has the Hoopies, who are a lower level Big 12 team, ranked 20, but Pomeroy has them 14. It's pretty unlikely that any system is going to give you results that you look at and say, hey, that looks not kind of right, but exactly right.
Generally complimentary, but I don’t understand the premise of being a Howland/Dixon type team. Quite the opposite way of getting it done.
Yeah we're winning in completely different ways. Hinson has the green light from anywhere on the court and at any point on the shot clock. I can't remember a single instance where Dixon would have permitted a guy to shoot 14 three-pointers in a conference game. It's just a totally different game of basketball for this team versus 2009.
I think that what we're saying is that if you are truly using a ranking system to make in/out and seed decisions, the metrics have to put more emphasis on resumes. Like I get that UNC has more talent than we do and would be favored on a neutral court tomorrow but their resume is beyond terrible. They are 1-8 in Q1 games and I dont see how they're even an NCAAT team at this point. NET uses too much Vegas.
The toughness, physicality and the togetherness is the basis for the comparison - and it’s probably the aspect of those teams that sticks in the collective memories of coaches more that anything else.
The quote wasn’t that Pitt’s offensive or defensive scheme reminds them of one of the Dixon or Howland teams. It’s that the *team* reminds them of one of those teams. Kenny Payne said it again last night.
The quote wasn’t that Pitt’s offensive or defensive scheme reminds them of one of the Dixon or Howland teams. It’s that the *team* reminds them of one of those teams. Kenny Payne said it again last night.
Right. Payne didn’t pile on the lazy narrative about the comparisons of Pitt’s past teams. He actually saw it firsthand. Thinks Pitt is tough and well coached.
One of things I enjoy most about watching this team is the adaptability of the offense. And the fact that we have at least five guys who can get hot from beyond the arc on any given night as opposed to the old Big East days when we tended to have just a few. The more I watch our team as the season progresses, the more I think we can make some serious noise in March (trying not to get ahead of myself). Especially given how our bigs seem to be growing more confident with every game.
Believe it or not, that's one thing that bothered me about last night. All season I've been thinking that one or two guys having an off night can be overcome, because there are three or four others to pick up the slack. But watching five guys all have a good night made me aware that it's also possible for all five to have a bad night.
And what I am saying, that you keep on not getting, is that the NCAA DOES NOT USE THE NET TO MAKE IN/OUT AND SEED DECISIONS.
And not only that, but it's obvious that they don't. Just last year, Rutgers, NET 80, in. There had to be what, 30 teams that had better NETs than Rutgers on selection Sunday last year that didn't make it. And yet Rutgers in, other 30 out. Because they are not using the NET to make in/out and seeding decisions.
Which, oddly enough, is something that you have said before. But apparently don't actually believe. Or understand.
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