Comments for Outside the Hashes

Comment on Evaluating QBs: Peyton Manning is a Better Playoff Quarterback than Tom Brady by sturling watches for men

sturling watches for men — Tue, 14 May 2013 17:29:35 +0000

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Comment on The Achievement S-Curve – 2013 Final by Monte

Monte — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 03:17:20 +0000

Scott, just saw your Iowa post. Interestingly enough, I think they should be in both in my rewards-based system AND in the predictive rankings that you prefer for selection. Basically, I think the committee has trouble correctly adjusting for extreme schedules (or, conversely, my system could be the one with the issues).

One thing John Gasaway and I discussed before was selecting based on reward but seeding based on who the “best” teams are. While I prefer my system, having something where Pitt is an 8-seed does seem unfair to Gonzaga.

Comment on The Achievement S-Curve – 2013 Final by Scott Turner

Scott Turner — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 03:09:18 +0000

It’s funny to read this — I was making the case for Iowa just today. Friends were complaining that Minnesota was overseeded — and I was arguing that Minnesota is overseeded and in fact Iowa deserved an invitation.

Comment on Conference Tournament Predictions – Update 3/14/2013 by Monte

Monte — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 19:08:15 +0000

Ok, so here’s what I’m thinking. I still like the way I’ve done it as basically for each team you can think of the question as: How likely is it they make it exactly to this round? You essentially have 100% to divide up for each team.

The more I think about it, in your scenario, isn’t the chance that Team A is predicted to advance further already taken into account? Simple example: Team A and B are both 25% likely to win in Rd1, but Team A is 15% likely (total) to win in Rd2 while Team B is only 10%. However, both lose in Rd1 and Teams C and D win in Rd2. Team C’s prediction is lower because we gave 15% to Team A, while Team D’s prediction is higher since we only gave 10% to Team B. Does that make sense?

Comment on Conference Tournament Predictions – Update 3/14/2013 by David

David — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:03:23 +0000

If you want to have each round be like a “game” you could use conditional odds to advance past each round.

For a team with advance-to odds of:
75% 50% 25% 10%

Their individual round conditional win odds would be:
75%
67% (50/75)
50% (25/50)
40% (10/25)

Hmm, I suppose this doesn’t fix the problem of not penalizing projections of a team to go deep, as you can still only look at the results for rounds that really happened.

Comment on Conference Tournament Predictions – Update 3/14/2013 by David

David — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:56:56 +0000

Yes, exactly.

Comment on Conference Tournament Predictions – Update 3/14/2013 by Monte

Monte — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 16:56:40 +0000

I see what you’re saying, David. I was starting from the point of trying to mimic a scoring system if we had each individual game predictions. I think what you’re saying is to grade each team’s probability of reaching each round. So in your scenario, two teams that both win their 1st game at the same rate, but Team A is predicted to advance further more often. My system would treat them equally, but you’re saying we should punish the Team A prediction more severely.

I’ll take a look at that tonight and see how it looks.

Comment on Conference Tournament Predictions – Update 3/14/2013 by David

David — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 07:27:22 +0000

Maybe i am missing something, but this scoring system seems to ignore a lot of the predictions, since only 1 or 2 round odds values are used for each team’s score. For example, say a team lost in the first round, and each system saw that initial game as a toss up. They’d all get the same score, even if one system had them with a much lower chance to advance deep into the bracket. (Obviously that scenario seems unlikely, but I think it illustrates my point.)

Comment on Bid Stealers – 2013 Conference Tournament Edition by Monte

Monte — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:59:27 +0000

First of all, I just want to point out that my Achievement system is not designed to project who the selection committee WILL pick, but instead to say who I think they SHOULD pick. Just wanted to make that clear so we’re on the same page.

As far as MTSU in particular, I admit that my system may no perfectly handle the extreme cases, specifically teams that win a lot of games against a very easy schedule. However, let’s take a look. My system says that an average tournament team (think an 8-10 seed) would lose just over 5 games against MTSU’s schedule, on average (5.11 to be exact). MTSU lost 5, so they are right at my baseline “average tournament team”.

Compare that to Mississippi. I have them just a couple spots below MTSU, as they lost 8 games against a schedule they should have lost 7.29 against. It’s not like they have a ton of good wins. According to KenPom, their best win is at home vs Missouri. They have a handful in the 60-100 range with all those mediocre SEC teams.

But what I think humans are really bad at is taking a 30-game resume and comparing it to another. We look at “good wins” and “bad losses” and ignore the middle. Well, Middle Tennessee’s middle is that they beat a ton of teams between 130 and 250. And Mississippi’s is that they beat a handful of 60-100 but also lost to 101, 105, 203, and 261. How are we supposed to distill that to one number (which is essentially what you’re doing when comparing two or more teams) in our head? I don’t think we can.

Now if you want to fiddle with my system and come up with your own, that’s fine. I’ve laid out a framework to work from. You can add in a bonus for “big wins” or lower the benefit of beating middling teams like those in the Sun Belt. Whatever it is, lay it out so we can consistently apply it to every team. To me, I think Middle Tennessee SHOULD be right in the conversation.

Comment on Bid Stealers – 2013 Conference Tournament Edition by Tony C.

Tony C. — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:00:51 +0000

I, like many pundits, don’t think MTSU’s resume is AL-worthy. They are basically hanging their hat on beating Ole Miss. The UCF and Vandy winds aren’t really much to brag about this year. Since they got upset in the SB semis, I think that looks even worse to the selection committee. In any event, 100 percent seems WAY too high for MTSU.