Conference Rankings - Basketball
I decided to put this together really quickly because I was bored at work. I used the most recent of two human polls (AP and Coaches) and two computer rankings (KenPom and Sagarin). Both types have their flaws (everyone probably knows about KenPom's love for Wisconsin at this point), so hopefully some sort of average makes sense.
AP | Coaches | KenPom | Sagarin | Total | |
B10 | 98 | 96 | 97 | 86 | 377 |
BE | 74 | 69 | 80 | 70 | 293 |
SEC | 32 | 34 | 43 | 30 | 139 |
ACC | 29 | 31 | 27 | 25 | 112 |
B12 | 19 | 20 | 20 | 22 | 81 |
P12 | 22 | 21 | 15 | 19 | 77 |
MWC | 23 | 19 | 7 | 24 | 73 |
MVC | 9 | 13 | 10 | 23 | 55 |
WCC | 12 | 12 | 15 | 14 | 53 |
A10 | 7 | 1 | 11 | 12 | 31 |
It's a really simple ranking algorithm. The conference gets 25 points for a team in 1st place in whichever poll/model, 24 for 2nd, etc. So theoretically, a single team could earn its conference a total of 100 points. I only look at the top 25 teams, so this isn't incredibly accurate, but it's hopefully a nice little back-of-the-envelope calculation.
Takeaways:
The Big 10 is pretty strong right now. I think everybody knew that.
There is a big drop-off between the B10/BE and the rest of the conferences. Their total point value is greater than the rest of the conferences combined.
The top teams in the SEC are looking better overall than the top teams in the ACC, which is interesting to me. This is especially unusual since Duke is so good (providing the ACC with 97 of its 112 points) and Kentucky surprisingly bad (only 17 of 139) right now.
December 17th, 2012 at 3:25 PM ^
I assume you're using a pivot table, so is there any way we can see the team by team point breakdowns, at least for the Big Ten? Thanks.
December 17th, 2012 at 3:39 PM ^
Suprisingly. Just threw down conferences, didn't put too much effort in. Could expand if you want.
Big Ten ranks, then point totals:
AP | Coaches | KenPom | Sagarin | Total Points | |
Michigan | 2 | 2 | 8 | 5 | 87 |
Indiana | 6 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 84 |
Ohio State | 7 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 74 |
Illinois | 10 | 10 | NR | 17 | 67 |
Minnesota | 13 | 16 | 10 | 7 | 58 |
Michigan State | 20 | 19 | 18 | NR | 47 |
December 17th, 2012 at 4:20 PM ^
ball" somewhere in your title or near the top of your post.
December 17th, 2012 at 4:51 PM ^
This. While I figured it out because the b10 is good, it would probably be best if you put basketball in the title and post.
December 17th, 2012 at 5:06 PM ^
We will definitely earn our ranking through the big ten season.
December 17th, 2012 at 7:05 PM ^
I knew that hte B10 was pretty dang good at basketball this year but this chart shows how big of a difference there is in the country. If B10 teams and get through conference play without beating each other up too much than it could be another 3 B10 teams in the Final Four.
December 17th, 2012 at 7:29 PM ^
An aspect you might want to include is to divide the average at the end by the number of teams in the conference, since your points are a total and not an average and a conference like the BE with 16 teams would have a better chance to have more teams in the top 25 than a conference with 12, etc.
Let's say that the BE score and Big Ten score were identical. It would be more impressive for the Big Ten because we got there with 4 fewer teams.
December 17th, 2012 at 8:17 PM ^
How, again, did the Big Ten manage to tie an inferior (in 2012, anyway) conference in its yearly challenge with them? Oh, yeah -- MSU and Wisconsin played poorly. At least, that's my memory.
December 17th, 2012 at 8:33 PM ^
Although I mostly agree with your reasoning (Sparty blew it), this ranking only ranks the conferences based on the top teams. The top teams in the Big Ten are better than those of any other conference. But the Big Ten-ACC challenge is among all teams, and top to bottom, we aren't that much better than them, which is why 6 of their teams were able to win.
December 18th, 2012 at 8:50 AM ^
That's exactly how I would put it. This is a ranking basically comparing the top teams in each conference. Unfortunately the polls don't have quite as much detail after about 30 teams or so as KenPom and Sagarin do, otherwise I would have tried to go farther down the ladder.