By: Eric Fawcett -- October 17, 2022 If you haven’t heard of an analytics tool called KenPom and you’re a college basketball fan, you might be living under the rock. In a world of analytics taking over basketball there is one website that reigns supreme and that’s statistician Ken Pomeroy’s brain child he calls KenPom that is considered the best way of ranking college basketball teams. You will hear coaches talk about KenPom rankings (especially Todd Golden), you will hear commentators talking about where teams sit in KenPom, and if you saw during the SEC Tournament there was even a digital banner that touted how many top-50 KenPom teams the league sported. In fact, when the NCAA decided to come up with the NET Rankings as their official sorting tool they had Pomeroy as a consultant helping them make the best possible algorithm. Ultimately, the NET rankings and KenPom rankings have looked very similar after the last two seasons showing just how much the NET has taken from KenPom. KenPom is also one of the analytic systems that the NCAA Tournament committee will look at when evaluating teams and their prospective seeding, so it’s an important number that teams need to be aware of. Where Florida Sits In KenPom Preseason Rankings | GatorCountry.com
Another great article @Efawcett7 . . . Thanks! I can't complain about Florida's starting position and feel if this team gels it can finish pretty substantially higher than where it starts . . . even though there are some really good teams Florida has to play and pass.
35th is a good place to start. Generally, at-large high D1 teams need to be in the top 45 to get into the NCAAT. However, a bit more concerning is KenPom's projected regular season record of 17-12 (before the SECT) for the Gators overall, 9-9 in the SEC. Despite computer rankings, I believe the Selection Committee is still swayed by emotion and glittery records. We'd better win 2 games in the SECT if we enter it at 17-12. I want to be a lock before the regular season ends.
San Francisco ended up at #23 in the Ken Pom rankings last season. Does anyone on here think that was a more talented team than this year’s Gator team?
Agreed, 17-12 is a bit concerning and is right on the Mike White baseline standard, something that we all want, and expect, to see improve.
I have subscribed to the KenPom site for years and over all of those years it has made me money picking NCAA pools, but now everybody knows about it and I am no longer stealing money. One year I came in first and my wife, with my help, came in second in a decently large pool. He is the gold standard for assessing teams, but only after enough games to accurately do so. Sagarin Predictor is also very good. What he says preseason is almost meaningless. In probability theory it is Bayesian using prior information to make a guess at the odds and that is suspect. After about ten games we will have a better sense.
I would agree that any rankings, by any method, are worthless in preseason, and next-to-worthless until eight or ten games in.
What is interesting in the Kenpom ranking of Florida (#35) is how balanced the adjO (#37) and adjD(#35) have been. However, the top SEC teams have even higher adjO/adjD (top 10/15/25) than UF's in those particular categories, so Florida will be playing against much better quality competition at times than themselves: #1 Kentucky (#2 adjO/#3 adjD) <- 2x(A/H) #4 Tennessee (#10/#2) <- (H) #13 Auburn (#11/#14) <- (A) #14 Arkansas (#25/#6) <- (A) #18 Alabama (#13/#34) <-(A) The SEC schedule doesn't look too favorable either as many of those higher profile SEC games will be on the road (4) - see above. UF will have only two home games against these top5 SEC opponents (against Tennessee & Kentucky). Who comes up with these types of scheduling? (shaking my head) 2022-23 Florida Gators Schedule | ESPN Now granted that this KP ranking for Florida (#35) was under different personal & coach, Florida does return two of its top five scorers in Colin Castleton(16 ppg, 9 reb/g) & Myron Jones (8.5 ppg) along with many of the bench players (Reeves, Jitoboh, Felder & Lane) and 6-7 new additions through either recruiting (D.Aberdeen, R.Kugel & A.Szymczyk) and/or transfers(T.Bonham, A.Fudge, K.Lofton & W.Richards). There seems to be another good foundation of players for the new coach, Golden, to work with who I think did a tremendous job in rebuilding this team on a short notice. Sure, we missed out on another good post player or two that went to Auburn & elsewhere but the other players that he got should be very solid. But in the end, Florida will have to really work hard for it in order to return to the NCAAs! A winning SEC record (i.e, winning > 9 SEC games) will go a long way in qualifying for the post-season. The SEC is again loaded from top to bottom, so any win would be great. But last year, Florida was only 9-9 in the SEC and probably just missed out of the NCAAs. In the 2022 season, Florida was tied for 5th place record along with South Carolina (fired their coach), LSU (fired their coach), Texas A&M and Alabama. However, the Gators were seeded 9th in the SECT. UF went one & done with a loss to TexasAM. One more win would have separated Florida from the pack. 2022-23 SEC Basketball Standings | ESPN 2022 SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament: Bracket, Scores, Seeding, Schedule, Results I think losing two close games late in last season to Texas A&M resulted in Florida not making the NCAAs after 3-4 straight trips. The aggies were on an 8-game losing streak before TexasAM got their victory over Florida and later another one in the SECT which helped the aggies reach the SECT finale. 2021-22 Texas A&M Aggies Schedule | ESPN 2021-22 Florida Gators Schedule | ESPN You can tell, that I want to see Florida get some type of revenge against the aggies. Well, the Gators will have their chance on the Florida schedule of which teams they play twice: Texas A&M (H/A) Georgia (H/A) LSU (A/H) <-- Ends the season against LSU's new Coach (isn't that something?) Kentucky (A/H) Vanderbilt (H/A)
It seems like always we play our games against UK both in the second half of the SEC schedule and never have an early game against them. At least we don't have a Thursday game before playing them on a Saturday like what happens very often.
Yeah, because UK is a one-and-done factory, it would be much better to play them earlier in the SEC schedule. By mid-February, those 5-star freshmen are starting to really pick it up.
Unfortunately, UK has 6 solid upper classmen on the team, including last year’s national player of the year.
Kentucky is all freshmen: Oscar Tshiebwe is a senior. Sahvir Wheeler is a senior. Lance Ware is a junior. Antonio Reeves is a senior. Jacob Toppin is a senior. C J Frederick is a redshirt junior. Brennan Canada is a senior. Look at all those one and done dudes. Plus Oscar Tshiebwe was the player of the year and came back. Tell me some more stories. That is half the team that are juniors or seniors. GEEZE.
Lighten up, Francis. I know UK has a lot more upperclassmen than they usually do. I meant as a general overview of the Cal era, they've been freshmen-dominated, and they were a lot harder to beat in late season than they were before.
