Abrupt Shift in Crystal Ball projections for Hand (To Bama)
Thought I'd mention it. I just availed myself of 24/7 and suddenly noticed a bunch of insiders making crystal ball projections of Hand to Alabama. Like...a lot. AT first I thought nothing of it, as three of the insiders were from the same Bama website, but a couple other insiders chimed in on it as well. All of this in the last hour. The reasons for this would be speculation on my part, so I won't bother. Link: http://247sports.com/Player/DaShawn-Hand-16094/PlayerInstitutionPredictions
Hand is going to be courted to the end. Take it in stride - there's a long ways to NSD.
JC Shurburtt, 3 'Bama Insiders, 247's national director of scouting, and a guy from land-grant holy land who I thought was not completely full of shit. All this afternoon.
That is a little concerning. But offset a bit by Mike Farrell. I'll resume a 50/50 assumption
Gerry Hamilton troll so hard. I wouldn't read too much into it.
I see it as one guy at the Alabama site feels confident about Hand (who knows if it is real sources or just a feeling from an interview), and the rest of these guys are just piggybacking off it. The Ohio State blogger doesn't have any inside info here, and that is what makes me more confident that this is just a bunch of people jumping on the bandwagon of someone else's lead.
Might've mentioned they could be his new leader or something. This happened right before Winovich committed, a whole gaggle of people predicted Michigan out of nowhere within 12 hours. I'd guess there's some legs to this
we started that and it was pretty obvious conclusion: no OSU visit means they're out and the Pitt stuff was obviously crap.
I posted this at our site, but will share that I know why JC/Bama guys switched their picks, but am keeping my pick for Michigan.
Can you tell us then? Or link us? That'd be great.
he'd be happy to
/joke
Reason: Driving clicks to 247 like no other.
Alternate Reason: Analysts gain points for how early they make a correct crystal ball prediction, and thus these guys are hoping to strike it rich knowing that they can always switch to Michigan/VT at a later date.
I think it is a great addition to your site, but the fact people can change their predictions so late takes some of the utility of it away. Someone breaks the commitment story, and a bunch of people who had it wrong change their prediction and get credit for for it.
If the predictions locked when a commitment story broke or commitment about to be made, it would provide readers more insight into whose predictions to follow/trust, and it would keep so many analysts from throwing out predictions for every recruit in the database even though they may know just as much about most of those recruits as the rest of us.
I think you are on the right track, but I feel like all "predictions" shouldn't take effect for 24 or 48 hours (or something like that). Otherwise, you get the Chase Winovich situation where everyone and their mother finds out the night before/day of announcement that the recruit is announcing for a certain school, and they all look equally smart in the rankings because they got it correct. Thus, they should only count predictions that are made when they are predictions, not reactions to late-breaking news (like you said).
Yeah they really need to revamp that system. Their CEO, who basically has picks in on every person that a lot of his analysts picked a while ago, has an average of 5 days of being correct. So on average his gues is right for 5 days before the recruit commits. That's pretty stupid and useless when the recruiitng process is 2 or 3 years long for some players.
It seems like you're missing the point... Why would they want you to think some of their reporters aren't trustworthy or have bad connections? You're supposed to be focused on the general consensus of where the guy is going, not on the analysts. Things change regularly in recruiting, so the predictions change. I don't understand why you would care if they change their predictions.
There is no "consensus." Everyone just changes their prediction minutes after commitment news breaks from one of the true insiders for that recruit. For me, I want to see the predictions from the people who are actually plugged in (the guys from the sites or region who are talking to that prospect and know him). Who cares what some guy from Minnesota's blog thinks where Hand is going? Most of these people are only making their picks based on off what one insider is picking. That is not a consensus. That is just 10 people piggybacking off someone else and it skews the results.
If the predictions locked at the right time (when the commitment news broke), it would force the analysts and bloggers to only pick on the prospects that they have some actual knowledge about. And then you would get a true consensus.
I think tracking the accuracy of analysts is as much for them as it is for the readers. Analysts would stop putting predictions in for recruits they know nothing about.
It seems like you're making a separate argument now. I'm in total agreement about trying to limit piggybacking, but that doesn't change the fact that recruits change their minds and the analysts get new insider information based off shifts in a player's recruitment. If they were never allowed to change their predictions, they'd be totally useless.
He saying there should be a point at which the prediction shouldn't be able to be changed. If I'm an analyst and I change my prediction every time the wind blows but at the very last minute I hear from a reliable source that the recruit is picking team x and I'm right how good am I at forecasting where a recruit is going?
Maybe you can't lock in a prediction at a certain point, but there should be some mechanism to show which analysts actually are decent at this and not just chaning their predictions every time a guy takes a visit or eats a certain lunch...
Maybe during recruiting they could track the guys predicitons and in hindsight show how many times each "guru" changed his prediction and for how long he was actually right and give them a grade or something. I don't know the answer, but I agree with the point he's making. If I knew a guy changed his predictions on average 30 times per recruit and had a poor success rate I would take his view less serious than say a guy who changed his 10 times and had a good sucess rate.
Too bad they're not allowed to actually bet money with each other. Not much to lose otherwise.
Is there a "Hold me Steve L" meme? Now there is.
I bet... even Hand doesn't know where Hand is going. His mind probably changed regularly. He might be a freak of athletic nature, but he's also freakin' 17 or 18 or whatever. He's got everyone in his ear. So none of these predictions are worth the cost of the air they're spoken with. That's my 2 cents.
I agree with that. We often try to piece together info on where a player wants to go basically based on the assumption that they already know. I think we forget they usually don't know, which is why they didn't commit anywhere yet
When it's June before your Senior year in high school and you can go to any school in the country, you probably shouldn't know. That's what the research and visits are for.
from Michigan fer God sakes
Ah the Crystal Ball. Frequently wrong, no consequences for bad picks, and a huge generator of traffic. Sounds about right.
Ah TheGhostofBlank. Frequently wrong, no consequences for bad posts, and a huge generator of flamebait. Sounds about right.
GO AWAY
That's not very nice.
-1 to TGOF
It's amusing that the lack of news on the MGoBoard has been replaced by instantaneous projections for Hand's school.
Three were Alabama sites, and one was from an Ohio State site, I know that shouldn't mean anything, but I just thought I'd put that out there.
Lets not get crazy.
There are good reasons to go to Alabama, whether we like it or not, and there are good reasons to go to other schools too. It's a long way to signing day.
Darius West committed to Kentucky last night without a planned announcement. Take a look at some of the analysts who got caught offguard and were not able to change their predictions (3 of them just predicted Hand to Alabama):
http://247sports.com/Player/Darius-West-21833/PlayerInstitutionPredictions
another midwest based four star choosing KENTUCKY over a Big Ten school. Embarassing
...Kentucky!
KENTUCKY
But . . . but . . . but . . . they play in the SEC!
Their empty seats are much faster than other conferences' empty seats.
They must be doing a killer job of selling S-E-C! because what in the world else do you sell Kentucky football on?
"You can watch good basketball in your free time. Come to Kentucky"
When you say "selling" SEC...
Alabam is still third behind Tech and Michigan. It's not like they are suddenly in the lead. People are reading way to into this. But 24/7 got their page clicks.
Unfortunately, Da'Shawn hands choice of school is not based on the democratic process. If 6 consecutive guys suddenly pick Alabama, it's probably safe to assume they're in 1st or 2nd right now
Based on our experiences in 2011 and 2012, I'd rather battle with VT.
Has Alabama hired Bud Foster or something?
Roll Damn Tide said that his offer to 'Bama was not committable.
Now, personally, while I lived very close to Maize and Blue deli, I still think that Zingerman's product was superior.
247 is awful. They couldn't pay me to join. Besides the fact that their goofy crystal ball feature is hilariously wrong all the time. Nice insiderz.
still has a better shot according to the crystal ball.