One of the stupidest misconceptions in college basketball is that the final two teams in the NCA* *********t are the two best in the country, that the four in the “Final Four” are the four best, that the eight in the “Elite Eight” are the eight best, and so on. It’s silly, but it exists, and NIT haters who claim the NIT determines the 69th best team in the country are among its propagators. I know, I know, many are just trying to make a 69 joke. But point out to someone that North Texas finished the year as a better team than Auburn, and they’ll think you’re doing a bit.
Part of what makes the existence of this school of thought so wild is that college basketball has one of the most accurate and popular ratings systems of any sport in the form of KenPom. Few sports have a rating system that is free, publicly available, and aligns as closely with sportsbook odds as KenPom does for men’s college hoops. Does KenPom have its haters? Of course. But if those haters were correct, they’d be making money hand over fist in betting markets, because KenPom is hardly ever more than two or three points away from the spread.
I say all this because people thought I was joking this weekend when I asked if North Texas would beat Miami. (To be fair, I was joking, because the actual question was whether Miami would get shut out, but let’s not talk about that.) They thought I was being ridiculous. They thought I had NIT Brain. Really? KenPom implies the line on that game, if it were played today, would be half a point. Miami would be a 0.5-point favorite. In practical terms? The game would be a tossup.
This isn’t the first time the NIT champion has finished close in the ratings to a Final Four team. At the end of 2018, Penn State graded out as roughly two points better than Loyola. In 2017, TCU was only about a point and a half worse than South Carolina. Even in 2019, which had a strong “Final Four,” Texas would have only been about a four-point underdog against Auburn.
I’m ok with people ignoring the NIT. I can take it from the NIT haters. But people who legitimately think Miami is a lot better than North Texas, or meaningfully better at all, are extremely wrong. It’s not subjective. We have numbers on this stuff. If you think the numbers are wrong, go get rich betting on college basketball. The “better teams” argument only holds up to an extent. It’s not as clear cut as the haters would like.
Transitive Prep
I really should’ve done this earlier, but let’s find who North Texas beat who beat someone who beat UConn, and then let’s do the same thing with San Diego State.
Seton Hall beat UConn. That should be a good starting point. Seton Hall beat UConn, Oklahoma beat Seton Hall, Oklahoma State beat Oklahoma, North Texas beat Oklahoma State. More degrees of separation than we’d like, but we’ll take that for now.
North Texas beat San Jose State. We can work with that one. North Texas beat San Jose State, San Jose State beat Boise State, Boise State beat San Diego State. That one’s a little quicker. I’d guess that’s the best we’re going to do.
If you find another transitive property that beats these, please let me know. We might have been serious about the math above, but I’m not above being a transitive property guy.
Joe Kelly Was Also in Houston
Joe Kelly got charged with an earned run on Saturday in his lone appearance in Houston, and he also took the loss. Not the best start to the year.
Thankfully, it was just one of those outings. He entered with a runner in scoring position, struck a guy out to get out of it, got two outs in the next inning, allowed a 50/50 single and then a cheap grounder single, and was then pulled because his pitch count was rising. The next batter blooped in an RBI single, the Astros took the lead, the Astros went on to win.
Should Joe Kelly just strike every batter out? Of course. I don’t know why he plays with his food like he does. But at the same time, that was a fine outing. Bad result, sure, bummer of a place for it to happen, but it was a fine outing.
In kind of a funny bit, this was better than a lot of his first appearances of the year. In four of his seven seasons as a reliever, he’s been charged with a run in his first outing, and in three of those, he’s been charged with multiple runs.
So, the rust is off. Excited for him to live up to that book, I Kill Giants – by Joe Kelly, which actually does exist.
