Northwestern nearly locked up an NCAA Tournament bid last night. It isn’t guaranteed, but it’s awfully close. Bart Torvik’s TourneyCast has the Wildcats 97.1% likely to get a bid. Our own model spits out the exact same number. This, despite losing to Chicago State. This, despite losing Ty Berry with eight games left in the regular season. This, despite missing Ryan Langborg and starting walk-on Blake Smith in his place in last night’s tricky game in College Park.
For some programs, this wouldn’t be impressive. If we read this script about Purdue, we’d be laughing at them for the Chicago State loss, something liable to lower their seed as many as two whole lines. But this is Northwestern. Northwestern isn’t supposed to be good. Even after Northwestern got good, Northwestern wasn’t supposed to get good again.
After 2017’s success, breaking their tournament-less streak, Northwestern started the 2017–18 season with high expectations. They were 19th in the preseason AP Poll. They were 18th in kenpom at the time of their season opener. By November, they’d played their way to the edge of the bubble. By the end of January, they were approaching the other side of the NIT. After losing seven straight games to finish the season, there was no postseason other than a first-round Big Ten Tournament loss to Penn State. With the Big Ten tourney early that year, the Northwestern season was over before the first day of March was complete.
That was the team that was supposed to take Northwestern the next step forward. That was the team with a senior Scottie Lindsey and a senior Bryant McIntosh and experienced juniors Vic Law and Dererk Pardon. That was the team expected to build off the 2017 success. And this is the really impressive thing about what Chris Collins has done in Evanston: He failed, dramatically, on the heels of all that 2017 success. And now he’s succeeding again. Northwestern suffered five straight losing seasons after that first NCAA Tournament appearance. Northwestern took all that momentum and all that new support and failed to make anything happen on their sparkling new court. Pete Nance, Miller Kopp, and Ryan Young all transferred. With the help of Covid, the Wildcats won single-digit games two seasons in a row. And still, here they are, back again.
Does this make Chris Collins a good coach? I’m not sure. On one hand, Northwestern’s had the resources since 2017 to not suffer five losing campaigns in a row. On the other, it’s Northwestern, and the 2019–2022 era was a historically strong one for the Big Ten. This inability to pin Collins down with a good/bad label, though, is kind of the point. In 2017, it was easy to label Collins a good coach. He’d brought Northwestern to the promised land. In 2022, it was easy to label Collins a bad coach. The program had missed its opportunity. The program was spinning its wheels. Now? Well, he’s certainly doing a good job of coaching this team, just as he did a good job of coaching last year’s team, and just as he’s done a good job of building both.
Northwestern is old this year. Another rebuild looms. But unlike 2018’s, 2024’s team has gotten it done. Maybe this time, Year 3 goes different as well.
WAB vs. SOR
The guys at Three Man Weave had a good discussion about Wins Above Bubble (WAB) on yesterday’s podcast, very clearly explaining the concept, which is this:
- Each game has a score assigned to it based on the probability of the average bubble team winning it.
- Example: If the average bubble team is 92% likely to win a specific game, that game is worth 0.08 WAB as a win and –0.92 WAB as a loss.
- Each team’s total WAB score is a sum of their individual game scores.
My impression, based on ten minutes of research, is that Seth Burn may have been the guy who created it. I’m not positive, but that’s the best impression I’ve gathered. My question is how much WAB differs from Strength of Record (SOR), the concept of which is this:
- Each team’s record against its own schedule is compared to the probability an average top-25 team would achieve the same record against the same schedule.
- Example: If the average top-25 team is Kansas, and if Kansas would have an 8% chance of going 25–3 (Houston’s record) against Houston’s schedule but would have a 2% chance of going 25–3 (Purdue’s record) against Purdue’s schedule, Purdue would have the better SOR.
My impression is that SOR was created by ESPN, back when ESPN was investing in its statistics department.
One advantage of WAB, of course, is that it compares to the average bubble team and not the average top-25 team. The average bubble team is more relevant where the numbers matter most. Thankfully, we don’t really need to worry about that, because it’s easy to adjust. Similarly, you can pick and choose which metrics you use to determine the probabilities in either: Do you use kenpom? BPI? Something associated with NET? Do you use Sagarin? Do you use T-Rank? Do you use an elo system? How do you account for home court advantage? What if the game’s in a team’s home city but not on its home court? Which system or systems are chosen can make or break either metric.
My suspicion is that if you used the same source for your win probabilities for both WAB and SOR, you’d end up with almost identical rankings. Ultimately, both WAB and SOR are trying to measure something real: How well you’ve performed, in terms of pure wins and losses, independently of how difficultly or easily you scheduled. This is a key difference from KPI or RPI, two other popular metrics for measuring performance. Those are fine systems, and have been admirable at various times, but each is built through arbitrary choices, and RPI is particularly easy to game. Why should your win percentage be worth 25% in RPI? There’s not much of a rationale. They just picked that number. Why does KPI use the specific cocktail of variables it uses to make its game ratings? Because it produces something that makes a decent level of sense. Neither RPI nor KPI, though, measures anything real. They’re just arbitrarily designed grades of résumés. WAB and SOR get at something real.
Personally, after hearing the Three Man Weave guys explain it, I’m partial to WAB rather than SOR, for the reason that it’s easier for amateurs to calculate and it’s easier to conceptualize. It’s a much simpler calculation. It can live in less of a black box. Is it easy for mainstream fans to understand? Not at all. People struggle with the concept that a team’s NET ranking can improve with a loss, or worsen when they don’t play at all. Explaining any number beyond raw wins and losses will always be fraught with confusion from the well-intentioned, and with obstruction from others.
Overall, though, an NCAA Team Sheet with kenpom, kenpom-based WAB, and/or kenpom-based SOR at the top of it would be a great place to start. A Team Sheet that continues with results in order of WAB score would be a good place to continue. It would be a little simpler than the current setup. That would be great for the process, and to get these broadcasts to shut the hell up about the (good in concept, better than its predecessor, not great in practice) quadrant system.
The Rest
College basketball:
- Dalton Knecht was the latest to turn in a sensational performance this week, torching Auburn last night in Knoxville. Something I’m curious about with Knecht: EvanMiya grades him as the fifth-most positive contributor on Tennessee’s roster. He’s well below the pack of Zeigler, James, Aidoo, and Vescovi. His number’s gotten better over the last thirty days, which aligns with the narrative about him coming back from that nonconference ankle injury, but he’s still a defensive liability, and it’s possible he doesn’t actually do as much for the offense as Zeigler does. Of course, this is just EvanMiya, and much smarter analysts than I seem to disagree. Still, I’m a little skeptical of Knecht as the difference-maker for the Vols if they run into a top-line team in March. He adds a dimension they didn’t have last year, and Zeigler adds a dimension they didn’t have last March, and overall they’re a very good offensive team, which hasn’t been true for this program in recent years. But Knecht might not be automatic offense to the degree he gets credit for being. He might be more reliant on Zeigler than it appears. That can work if both are on the court, and both should be on the court so this should all be fine. But I don’t love the incongruence between the narrative and the numbers.
- Iowa State won a really ugly game over Oklahoma, but ugly is what Iowa State does, and they still won by double digits. Demarion Watson was the hero, stepping into a bigger role (both in terms of minutes and position) with Robert Jones and Tre King in foul trouble. Watson delivered 15 points and almost recorded a double double off the bench. After the game, Chris Williams wrote this, which I thought was a great summation of what T.J. Otzelberger has going in Ames. I’m still scared for this team in a single-elimination setting, but what a year it’s been, and what a great direction for this program to be headed. The culture, it sure seems, is there. Maybe even more than it was there under Hoiberg.
The NBA:
- I don’t have much to add on the LeBron-fueled Lakers comeback last night that hasn’t already been said. He’s still got a whole lot, and even those of us who aren’t his biggest fans can appreciate those kinds of moments. Maybe even more now than in a few years, during what will surely be the most obnoxious retirement tour in recorded history.
- The Warriors go to Madison Square Garden tonight, while the Heat are in Denver. One benefit of the Play-In Tournament: Punishing 7th place that little bit is probably a good thing. I’ve thought more about the incentivization of finishing 9th or 10th rather than in the Lottery, but it hadn’t really registered ‘til this year how it helps to finish 6th or better.
The NHL:
- The Oilers beat the Blues in overtime on a Connor McDavid game-winner, but Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’s backcheck was the highlight of the night. The Oilers are back within a point of the Knights for second in the Pacific, with two games in hand. They’re eleven back of the Canucks for first, but they do have four games in hands in that race.
- Speaking of the Knights, they’re in Boston to play the Bruins tonight in the headliner. The Bruins have seen six straight games go to overtime.
Chicago:
- Great, great win for the Bulls, even if they caught the Cavs at a great time, as we discussed yesterday. DeMar DeRozan has never been the problem with this construction of the Bulls.
- The Blackhawks get an ESPN game tonight, hosting the Avalanche. Fun for the brand. Bedard handles this level of spotlight (you have to doubt this game would be on national television without him) amazingly well for an 18-year-old. Hockey culture has some huge issues, but it does produce a number of young stars who are ready for the big stage. It’s puzzling that it works in both those directions.
