Gators In The AP & Coaches Polls (3/10/2025) [Update at #147]

While I want to give Auburn their due respect, davis, don’t confuse me with an Auburn fan. I’d be elated to beat them in the NCAA tournament. And clearly we are capable of that.

I didn’t see another cool graph like that one I posted (which is why posted that old one), but the link I gave you has the data that populates it. Currently (offense/defense):

Auburn: 12.1 / -0.9
Florida: 9 / -1.3

So loss quality dropped slightly, but win quality went way up. Still 3 down from Auburn, but upper echelon for sure.

I’m going to check out the simulation… Unfortunately, on my first run of the simulation Auburn beat Florida. So I’m going to keep refreshing until we avenge the loss.

1. Freakin lost to Memphis!
   
2. Now we lost to damn West Virginia! Come on man.
   
3. Lost to Auburn again.
   
4. Memphis again. WTH, Evan?
   
5. Xavier. Barely better.
   
6. There it is. Beat Auburn. Though lost to Duke. Ok now I need to win it all.
   
7. Auburn. Again. Thanks a lot.
   
8. Lost in the final to Iowa State! This is why no gets a perfect bracket.
   
9. West Virginia again. :/
10. Auburn.
    
11. Boom. Took down Alabama for Florida’s third national title!

And just because I called Evan’s numbers scientific doesn’t mean I am suggesting they are true (whatever true would even mean in this context). Most science isn’t true. I only mean to suggest that it passes the low bar of being systematic, which is more than can be said of most of our Earthly opinions.

 

Well, geez . . . all those simulations and such disparity. If only they could have settled it on the court. Listen, I appreciate the dialogue and the various metrics. I enjoy the numbers crunching and comparisons. Here's what I saw though - a FL team that went into #1 Auburn and stole their lunch money, then spent it on BBQ and ate it in Auburn's kitchen. FL didn't just beat 'em, but embarrassed em. Then FL went to Bama for an apparently unwinnable contest and once again, stole a top team's lunch. I know the tourney committee seeds teams according to season results, but I also think the way a team is playing down the stretch matters. It certainly should. At this point in time, I'll take the 27-4 team that:

• Won 9 of its last 10
• Defeated #1 & #6 on the road - looking dominant in doing so
• Defeated then #1 TN by 30
• Defeated the other team in question on its home floor in sound fashion

All the metrics are fun and interesting, but I'll stick w FL in this particular discussion.

 

Thanks for indulging my nerd rantings, Davis. I respect that you believe that those games provided unique insight into the team’s future. I’ll just leave you with my converse view that single game outcomes can be misleading. A view that I would defend to any Missouri fan who tried to argue the Tiger’s superiority over the Gators.

 

Truth be told it is Auburn or Duke. Duke or Auburn, Houston and Gators as 1, 2, 3 and 4.

 

Importance of single game outcomes . . . a view that I have not espoused purely in the argument. My stance was never simply that FL defeated Auburn and therefore is superior to Auburn.

 

Edit to say that I never suggested such a thing either. C'mon Rade! You are more objective than that.

 

I really like KP and Torvik, but Miyakawa just seems like he’s trying to get subscribers. And the simple fact that he has Aberdeen rated as the worst defender on the team makes me question his Bayesian formula. Just not sure how well it reflects individual contributions or predicts actual performance.

 

Yes, but the Missouri argument isn't valid, any reasonable person knows that. If you watched that game it was more of an off night for us, rather than them owning the court. What Davis is saying is the opposite, any reasonable person would have watched both the Bama and Aub games and concluded we are the better team.

 

I apologize if I misunderstood your criticism davis. Every time I tried to do a comprehensive comparison of Auburn and Florida’s resume, you would come back with something like “if only it could be settled on the court” or “Florida has the three best wins”.

If you don’t believe that Florida’s superiority over Auburn can be demonstrated by those 2-3 wins and team quality should instead be assessed based on its entire body of work, then we don’t have an argument at all.

 

I recreated it for the top 20 teams. I used a log scale for the y-axis due to the difference in scale between x & y.

Worst Losses:
UH to SDSU -0.61
UA to Ole Miss -0.60
UF to UGA -0.55
Duke to UK -0.38
AU to UA -0.33

 

I think I understand what you are saying, Kyle. The disparity in quality between Florida and Missouri is so large that it can’t reasonably be overcome by one head to head outcome. This would beg the question, exactly how small must the disparity be for a head to head result to reverse it? I would guess that you could give no satisfactory answer to this question, because it is an impossible one. Team quality, and thus win quality, are continuous values that offer no natural categorial boundaries. Would our win over Auburn no longer be decisive if Auburn were 10% better? 15%? 15.89%? Any cutoff would be arbitrary.

How can we avoid relying on an arbitrary judgement call? One answer would be just not to give double weight to any particular game. Missouri’s win over Florida is already factored in to their quality rating, and if that alone is enough to push their rating above Florida’s, then fine, Missouri is better. If not, why count it again to see if that would be enough then? Further, as demonstrated above, once we start ranking multiple teams, these head to head bonuses will inevitably lead to conflicting outcomes, where Florida will simultaneously be ranked higher and lower than Auburn.

 

Awesome job, Iam. Those top 8 teams really seem to have separated themselves.

 

Take the season record, those three wins (a collective, not a single event) and then consider head-to-head, which settles the debate io. We indeed have an arg.

 

I guess I am still not seeing the distinction between thinking those three games are extra important and adding them in again after comparing the whole resumes, but it’s probably just my idiocy. Anyway, I don’t want to keep arguing with one of my friends about our own team. Tomorrow night, we get stop talking and watch the real thing again. Hopefully it puts us on a path toward another victory over Auburn.