That’s what I would have suspected too. I was hoping that Purdue would be an intriguing Virginia 2019-type pick with everyone writing them off after what happened last year. But Purdue is actually the third most favored team to win by the public, according to both Yahoo! and ESPN. Wild!
Unfortunately the CBS interface makes it impossible to retrieve the data in a timely manner, needing to click through every possible matchup scenario to get all the data. That’s my experience at least…if I’m mistaken and there’s a comprehensive page that displays all the data in one place, please let me know!
But I’ve been able to make due. I’ve been extrapolating the Yahoo data while using Excel Solver and some other interesting math concepts to project an ESPN “who picked whom” with the data that is readily accessible (which is only the champion and first round selections). There’s such a wide discrepancy between Yahoo and ESPN (UConn is 34% and 24% to win on those sites, respectively). I’m using an average of those two datasets.
Chalky indeed, especially the South region with Houston having a >50% chance making it to the Final 4, Marquette dealing with injuries, and Kentucky being a heavy betting favorite relative to expectations. Going to be difficult to justify having anyone but Houston coming out of the region. Texas Tech > Kentucky and Florida/Colorado (if they win their play-in) > Marquette might be some juicy picks I use in my pools. Colorado in particular if they get past Boise has one of the best players in the country in KJ Simpson. The Buffs rank 6th and 8th for my roster Star and Rotation ratings, respectively, for the tournament field.
The Midwest is a bit more interesting with Tennessee and Creighton being viable teams to make the F4 in addition to Purdue (all have >15% shot). Gonzaga/Kansas is a real toss up too.
But yeah, the East and West regions might be the real money makers with UConn and UNC being such heavy betting favorites.
I think that top 2% threshold is true for larger pools, but for smaller pools (for example, a work or family pool) you can definitely place in the money being in the top 5%-10%. Hell, the winner of my work pool last year finished in only the top 15% (no one picked UConn).
As far as strategically picking outliers, that's entirely what the model is designed to do, and I've written about it in past diaries. Using the advanced team ratings systems paired with public selection data and running simulations for competing bracket entries for various pool sizes, the model specifically helps identify those outlier picks that are statistically justified in improving your odds of winning pools. As a case study from last year:
San Diego St. to the Sweet 16, Elite 8, and Final 4
UConn to the Elite 8, Final 4, and beyond
Tennessee over Duke to reach the Sweet 16
Creighton over Baylor to reach the Sweet 16
Those are examples of actual picks that I made across my bracket entries where going against the grain was significantly in my favor. Not just in retrospect (because obviously those ended up being the actual results) but because they were statistically justified picks before the tournament even started. The point of the new relative allocation functionality of the model is to help even more in this regard. In last year's case, there would have been even more support to mix things up in earlier rounds with chalking Arizona and Marquette to the Elite 8 being the most egregious examples.
Not the same thing unfortunately. Who Picked Whom was a comprehensive dataset that displayed every team round-by-round. It looks like they replaced that with just showing the data for the champion selections.
There are some rumors on the interwebs that ESPN will publish it in the next day or so. Hoping that’s true. But if not, I’ll be able to manage with the data that is currently available on ESPN, Yahoo!, and CBS.
FYI - It seems as though ESPN has discontinued their “Who Picked Whom” page, which provided comprehensive public selection data. That is both unfortunate and annoying, as this data is a crucial component of the model. It seems that CBS and Yahoo! may offer alternatives for the data that I can use, which is good. But if anyone can offer help/insight with regard to this issue, I’d be very appreciative!
I was in undergrad 2013-2017. The conference adding Rutgers/Maryland and subsequent changes to the scheduling meant that my four-year class only had one MSU home game (13, 14, and 16 were away; only 15 was home).
Being from the state of Michigan, as well as all of my roommates (lived with five other guys in a house on Packard), made this a huge deal with equal parts of our friends/families being M/MSU fans. It was extremely personal, and being college-aged it felt like the most important thing in the world. That it was at the pinnacle of MSU’s reign (won 6 of the last 7 and coming off Rose/Cotton Bowl wins) and the first year of Harbaugh just added gas on top of the fire.
That weekend was maybe the most fun I had ever had in college. Our house became a hostel and all our friends’ friends’ friends were there. Friday night and Saturday were the largest party and tailgate we ever threw at our house.
We got to the the stadium relatively early and were maybe 20-30 rows up. Given that we were winning all game (and all the fun we’d been having up to that point), that was probably the most fun I’d ever had at UM. Moments before the play actually happened, my roommate literally said, “Best punter in the Big Ten!” Obviously the student section resides in that corner of the endzone where Jalen Watts Jackson took it in, so everything happened right in front of our faces. I see the small sections of Spartans in the stadium go absolutely berserk, 00:00 on the scoreboard, and the entire MSU team run to that corner of the endzone and taunt the students with Paul Bunyan.
The absolute most whiplash I ever felt, going from total euphoria to ultimate shock and despair. I felt like an absolute zombie walking back to our house.
And of course, all our MSU friends stayed back at our house to watch the game on the TV. So as soon as I get back home, I’m met with tons and tons of MSU people just rubbing the result of the game in my face. I go to my room (I was too distraught to stay up and party) and find some random kid sleeping in my bed, under the covers and all. Don’t even remember what I said to him.
I quickly turn on The Office to help cheer me up. But of course, having a house on Packard (which was a major thoroughfare for traffic leaving Ann Arbor) all night I hear chants of “Go Green / Go White” and cars honking to the tune of the MSU fight song.
Went into the S16 with all my brackets in the 95th percentile on ESPN. And now, well…they are not that.
Still have a shot of winning some money if Texas or UConn wins it all, just not what I was hoping for.
But regardless, the madness has been fun to watch. MSU-KSU and Gonzaga-UCLA were all-timers, and I enjoyed seeing Alabama go down. Really looking forward to UConn-Gonzaga and (hopefully) UConn-Texas matchups. Good basketball is always a nice consolation prize.
- San Diego State (only 31% of brackets submitted to ESPN picked them to the S16, while UVA was at 52%)
- Creighton (30%, Baylor at 58%)
- Tennessee (42%, Duke at 47%)
Those were absolutely the three big ones that set all my brackets apart from the rest.
The greatest value picks for the Elite 8 were most definitely Tennessee (18%, Purdue at 47%) and UConn (23%, Kansas at 60%). Those are looking pretty damn good right now.
Only time I went “against the math” was sprinkling in a little Purdue over Tennessee across my pools. Because I was worried about Tennessee losing their starting PG and how that may have impacted them.
Major highlights are being T-1st and T-4th with most max points available for pool sizes of 71 and 122, respectively. Also in 1st place for some smaller pools.
Pretty much the only scenario I don’t win $ is if Gonzaga makes a deep run. But the ideal scenario is Tennessee running the table, which would mean I win multiple pools and a couple grand. So go Vols (but also UConn and Houston)!
Interesting. I would still urge you to use the Bracket Entry tab to see how your specific bracket performs relative to all the simulations (particularly the 100-entry simulation). E[PAP] is a tool but not the toolbox, so to speak.
As an interesting case study, in 2019 I was in a 120-person pool (or thereabouts). This was before my model included the simulations component, and I was relying solely on E[PAP]. Turns out that I got 3 of my Final 4 picks correct (MSU, UVa, and Texas Tech). But before the Final 4 games even began, I realized I had a zero percent chance of finishing in the top 3 of the pool (and winning money). That's because I was so focused on E[PAP] in the earlier rounds, and I got unnecessarily aggressive/risky with my picks and diluted my score. Had I picked fewer upsets in earlier rounds, I could have been in the money.
There is a bit of breakeven when it comes to selecting picks based on E[PAP]. It's a great way to set your model apart with some strategic selections, but it can definitely become counterproductive if you get too upset happy.
If you do want to do a full E[PAP] bracket, try building your bracket backwards. Start with your champion, championship game, Final 4, etc. This'll help keep you from getting too upset happy.
The E[PAP] figures shown above are per round, not cumulative. The numbers increase as you move on to later rounds because the point values of the later rounds are higher than earlier rounds (e.g. first round in a standard ESPN format is 10 points, while the championship is 320 points).
This is a great example of how something like Seth’s tool can serve as a complement to mine. I don’t specifically adjust the team ratings for injuries anymore than Kenpom/Torvik/BPI would have. I thought of also including evanmiya.com’s ratings for this year’s edition of the model, but didn’t get around to it. I believe he makes manual adjustments for injuries, but even then Tenn is #4 in his rankings currently.
Tennessee has been seen as a darling all season by the computers buoyed by their defense. They rank as top 5 by most all computer rating systems including NET.
Thanks for asking.I should be able to post as a diary by tonight.
I’ve been working the last week or so on making the model run faster, accommodate more simulations, have more functionality, and be easier for anyone to use.
Your optimism is refreshing, TB9. And your bubble posts have made MGoBlog fun these past few weeks, despite the bad luck on the court. March is for believing, so I appreciate them!
As far as the BTT, I live in Chicago and look forward to going every time the tourney is here. Just seems like too often we get the short end of the stick and get slotted in these 11am local game times. Best bet for me right now is hope the win Thursday, and then play hooky from work or go to a “doctor’s appointment” on Friday.
FYI for out-of-towners - This Saturday 3/11 will be St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the city, so it should be a zoo.
Dug getting cyan’d after his first Kenpom MVP game seems harsh. Though probably not wrong.
Offensive cyan definitely threw me off for a second, because I only remember seeing it for defense. Seems redundant if included alongside a negative stylistic indicator (e.g. brick, banana peel, disaster factory). Whereas on defense, there’s no stylistic indicator that says you play poor defense, necessitating the cyan.
The flea-flicker to Sainristil, for me, was the eureka holy-shit-we-might-actually-do-it moment of the game.
The hurdle of Cam Brown was the misty-eyed, weight-of-the-world-off-my-shoulders, we-actually-fucking-did-it moment. There was no way we weren’t going to score to go up 15 with ~2 minutes left.
- Michigan ran a successful fake punt in the first half. Basically a FB draw straight up the middle…I think it was Michigan’s longest play from scrimmage all game.
-Big house was 80% full and the fans booed at attendance announcement of 100,000+
- Mike Weber de-committed in the middle of the game.
- Michigan band and student section was doing the Temptation/“You Suck” chant as the clock expired and Maryland was victorious. Embarrassing lack of awareness.
Unfortunately, I remember the game vividly because I was a student at the time and was fully prepared that my four years of football as a student would be ultimate suckage. Fortunately I was just a sophomore and at least got two years of Harbaugh.
What a win. Listened to the entire game on the radio broadcast, driving from Lake Huron to Chicago. Brian Boesch and Terry Mills don’t get enough credit for how good they are. Brian’s play-by-play is some of my favorite.
Huge game for T-Will!! Loved seeing that from him. And Kobe with the clutch three! This team’s had to overcome a lot, and it’s very rewarding to see them succeed.
Edit: I only learned this just earlier this year, but every live radio broadcast for games are available on mgoblue.com (so I can just listen on mobile). Maybe I’ve been living under a rock not knowing that, but it’s been huge for me and the people gotta know.
The whole situation just makes me so sad. Not only is it extremely embarrassing for the program and school, but it jeopardizes the rest of the season.
Michigan is squarely on the bubble, and Juwan owes it to his players to do everything in his power to set them up for success. Now you’re looking at likely multiple-game suspensions for the head coach and maybe a few of the players. You’re heading into a crucial home game stretch, and now the team is significantly compromised and facing enormous distractions.
You are potentially taking away a postseason from Hunter Dickinson, who has been carrying the team on his back all season. Taking it away from captain and super senior Eli Brooks. Taking it away from senior up-transfer Devante Jones, who’s trying to make his first NCAAT. Taking it away from the fans who’ve endured and supported the team through what has been a disappointing season.
Very ashamed of what Juwan did yesterday.
What constitutes Houstan to be NJAS? Rock bottom assist rate, lowest number of 2pt attempts of the starters (and not hitting them at high clip), and an average FTR. At this point of the season, I think he's the epitome of Just a Shooter.
Love me some MBB. But I live in Chicago, so it’s obviously tough for me to go to any home games.
Try to go to games when they’re in town. I went to Allstate Arena in 2017 when we lost a clunker to NW. What an awful venue lol. Also went to two games in 2018 when the BTT was in Chicago.
My biggest pet peeve about the attendance issues is that it gives an obvious justification to expand the Maize Rage, but they continue not to do so. Why not make tickets cheaper and more easily accessible for students? Fill out the lower bowl and have students behind either basket and pump some energy into the place. Instead, students who don’t get the bleacher seats are relegated to the 300 level seats…what a stupid effing idea.
Honestly still pissed at him for that sham of a 2017 graduation ceremony...instead of a commencement speaker, we got a powerpoint presentation of the 200-year history of the university. It was beyond lame. And then the band forgot to play Hail to the Victors at the very end. Realizing they messed up they scurried to play it, but only after about 50% of the stadium had cleared out. A real dud to an otherwise awesome four years.
Bart Torvik has a page on his website which lists all of the available transfer players. You can use his PORPAGATU stat, which is a points above replacement stat to gauge the player rankings.
I’ve admittedly been out of the loop on all rumors regarding Beilein, but is there actual smoke to this?
I just can’t see it, given one of his reasons for leaving CBB was having to deal with roster turnover and recruiting. I just don’t see him wanting to go to a big time program in rebuilding mode where there’ll be immense pressure to succeed. He’s already 68 years old too and quit on the NBA fast.
I don’t laugh out loud when reading too often, but I had a pretty good chuckle reading the paragraph immediately following the Beilein’s Blueprint video. Too funny XD
Could it not just be that Warde low-balled the extension? How often does it happen that a person interviews for and lands a job that pays more than their current job, only for said person to show their current manager and successfully get a pay raise (without ever really wanting the other job in the first place)? Happens all the time.
Warde: “Jim, we love ya and all. But we think your accomplishments thus far warrant a base compensation of $X. If you do all things you were brought here to do (i.e. beat OSU, compete for Big Ten and national titles, etc.) you can earn what you were making before and then some.”
Jim: “Hi Warde. I can’t say I disagree too much with your thinking. However, I think my base compensation of $X is too low. In fact, I think an NFL head coaching gig would pay me $X + $Y + incentives.”
Warde: “I guess we’ll see then. But for now, our offer stands as it is.”
As the person who specifically asked that PORPAGATU! be added to the graphic (probably my greatest single accomplishment on mgoblog), I can try to answer this. And we have to look no further than Michigan's bench. Adrien Nunez, known as Just A Shooter despite not being a marksman, has a career PRPG! of -0.2. Should there be a scenario where injuries thrusted him into the starting lineup (an exact scenario that happened just last year), you'd know that Michigan would have to roll with a roughly replacement-level player that would be a drag on the offense.
Now, how many Big Ten teams would Adrien Nunez start on under normal circumstances? If you guessed 0/14, you're probably right. Which is why Seth set the red/green shading at a mean of 2.0 (or roughly the average Big Ten starter). Playing a Big Ten team or one of the more highly rated MAC teams? Probably less likely you'll see a replacement-level player starting. Playing a buy game or a team decimated by injuries? More likely.
I like PRPG! because it tries to make sense of the correlation between ORtng and Usage. How do you compare Player A (130 ORtng on 10% Usage) versus Player B (110 Ortng on 25% Usage)? How do those factors translate? PRPG! puts this on a single scale and attempts to make sense of it.
Seth, these charts are great. Question, would you consider adding Torvik’s PORPAGATU! metric (which if I remember correctly, is Points Over Replacement Per Adjusted Game at the Usage (!))? This is usually the stat I follow leading up to the game so that I know which opposing players I should be focusing on specifically while watching them on offense. Also goes hand in hand with your mention that there’s an inverse correlation with ORtng and Usage. Thanks.
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That’s what I would have suspected too. I was hoping that Purdue would be an intriguing Virginia 2019-type pick with everyone writing them off after what happened last year. But Purdue is actually the third most favored team to win by the public, according to both Yahoo! and ESPN. Wild!
Shoot me an email if you haven’t already.
Unfortunately the CBS interface makes it impossible to retrieve the data in a timely manner, needing to click through every possible matchup scenario to get all the data. That’s my experience at least…if I’m mistaken and there’s a comprehensive page that displays all the data in one place, please let me know!
But I’ve been able to make due. I’ve been extrapolating the Yahoo data while using Excel Solver and some other interesting math concepts to project an ESPN “who picked whom” with the data that is readily accessible (which is only the champion and first round selections). There’s such a wide discrepancy between Yahoo and ESPN (UConn is 34% and 24% to win on those sites, respectively). I’m using an average of those two datasets.
Chalky indeed, especially the South region with Houston having a >50% chance making it to the Final 4, Marquette dealing with injuries, and Kentucky being a heavy betting favorite relative to expectations. Going to be difficult to justify having anyone but Houston coming out of the region. Texas Tech > Kentucky and Florida/Colorado (if they win their play-in) > Marquette might be some juicy picks I use in my pools. Colorado in particular if they get past Boise has one of the best players in the country in KJ Simpson. The Buffs rank 6th and 8th for my roster Star and Rotation ratings, respectively, for the tournament field.
The Midwest is a bit more interesting with Tennessee and Creighton being viable teams to make the F4 in addition to Purdue (all have >15% shot). Gonzaga/Kansas is a real toss up too.
But yeah, the East and West regions might be the real money makers with UConn and UNC being such heavy betting favorites.
I think that top 2% threshold is true for larger pools, but for smaller pools (for example, a work or family pool) you can definitely place in the money being in the top 5%-10%. Hell, the winner of my work pool last year finished in only the top 15% (no one picked UConn).
As far as strategically picking outliers, that's entirely what the model is designed to do, and I've written about it in past diaries. Using the advanced team ratings systems paired with public selection data and running simulations for competing bracket entries for various pool sizes, the model specifically helps identify those outlier picks that are statistically justified in improving your odds of winning pools. As a case study from last year:
Those are examples of actual picks that I made across my bracket entries where going against the grain was significantly in my favor. Not just in retrospect (because obviously those ended up being the actual results) but because they were statistically justified picks before the tournament even started. The point of the new relative allocation functionality of the model is to help even more in this regard. In last year's case, there would have been even more support to mix things up in earlier rounds with chalking Arizona and Marquette to the Elite 8 being the most egregious examples.
Not the same thing unfortunately. Who Picked Whom was a comprehensive dataset that displayed every team round-by-round. It looks like they replaced that with just showing the data for the champion selections.
There are some rumors on the interwebs that ESPN will publish it in the next day or so. Hoping that’s true. But if not, I’ll be able to manage with the data that is currently available on ESPN, Yahoo!, and CBS.
FYI - It seems as though ESPN has discontinued their “Who Picked Whom” page, which provided comprehensive public selection data. That is both unfortunate and annoying, as this data is a crucial component of the model. It seems that CBS and Yahoo! may offer alternatives for the data that I can use, which is good. But if anyone can offer help/insight with regard to this issue, I’d be very appreciative!
That’s rough, but I think I got you beat.
I was in undergrad 2013-2017. The conference adding Rutgers/Maryland and subsequent changes to the scheduling meant that my four-year class only had one MSU home game (13, 14, and 16 were away; only 15 was home).
Being from the state of Michigan, as well as all of my roommates (lived with five other guys in a house on Packard), made this a huge deal with equal parts of our friends/families being M/MSU fans. It was extremely personal, and being college-aged it felt like the most important thing in the world. That it was at the pinnacle of MSU’s reign (won 6 of the last 7 and coming off Rose/Cotton Bowl wins) and the first year of Harbaugh just added gas on top of the fire.
That weekend was maybe the most fun I had ever had in college. Our house became a hostel and all our friends’ friends’ friends were there. Friday night and Saturday were the largest party and tailgate we ever threw at our house.
We got to the the stadium relatively early and were maybe 20-30 rows up. Given that we were winning all game (and all the fun we’d been having up to that point), that was probably the most fun I’d ever had at UM. Moments before the play actually happened, my roommate literally said, “Best punter in the Big Ten!” Obviously the student section resides in that corner of the endzone where Jalen Watts Jackson took it in, so everything happened right in front of our faces. I see the small sections of Spartans in the stadium go absolutely berserk, 00:00 on the scoreboard, and the entire MSU team run to that corner of the endzone and taunt the students with Paul Bunyan.
The absolute most whiplash I ever felt, going from total euphoria to ultimate shock and despair. I felt like an absolute zombie walking back to our house.
And of course, all our MSU friends stayed back at our house to watch the game on the TV. So as soon as I get back home, I’m met with tons and tons of MSU people just rubbing the result of the game in my face. I go to my room (I was too distraught to stay up and party) and find some random kid sleeping in my bed, under the covers and all. Don’t even remember what I said to him.
I quickly turn on The Office to help cheer me up. But of course, having a house on Packard (which was a major thoroughfare for traffic leaving Ann Arbor) all night I hear chants of “Go Green / Go White” and cars honking to the tune of the MSU fight song.
It was the absolute worst.
Nothing will ever hurt me more than 2015 Michigan State.
Not a haiku, but poetry nonetheless:
Here’s the run again,
Donovan Edwards.
Woah!
Can they catch him?
No!
Donovan Edwards again,
85 Yards.
The Don,
Two huge touchdowns,
And the Wolverines go up,
Forty-four - twenty-three.
Y’all weak as fuck!
Y’all weak as fuck!
Break that shit!
Break that shit!
Broke their shit, indeed. Go Blue.
Is Dug about to play the whole 20 mins in the first half. Who’s the backup 1? Committee until Llewellyn comes back?
Went into the S16 with all my brackets in the 95th percentile on ESPN. And now, well…they are not that.
Still have a shot of winning some money if Texas or UConn wins it all, just not what I was hoping for.
But regardless, the madness has been fun to watch. MSU-KSU and Gonzaga-UCLA were all-timers, and I enjoyed seeing Alabama go down. Really looking forward to UConn-Gonzaga and (hopefully) UConn-Texas matchups. Good basketball is always a nice consolation prize.
Nice! Glad you’re not in my pools lol.
For the Sweet 16, the best value picks were:
- San Diego State (only 31% of brackets submitted to ESPN picked them to the S16, while UVA was at 52%)
- Creighton (30%, Baylor at 58%)
- Tennessee (42%, Duke at 47%)
Those were absolutely the three big ones that set all my brackets apart from the rest.
The greatest value picks for the Elite 8 were most definitely Tennessee (18%, Purdue at 47%) and UConn (23%, Kansas at 60%). Those are looking pretty damn good right now.
Only time I went “against the math” was sprinkling in a little Purdue over Tennessee across my pools. Because I was worried about Tennessee losing their starting PG and how that may have impacted them.
My best brackets have 11 or 12 of the Sweet 16.
Major highlights are being T-1st and T-4th with most max points available for pool sizes of 71 and 122, respectively. Also in 1st place for some smaller pools.
Pretty much the only scenario I don’t win $ is if Gonzaga makes a deep run. But the ideal scenario is Tennessee running the table, which would mean I win multiple pools and a couple grand. So go Vols (but also UConn and Houston)!
Interesting. I would still urge you to use the Bracket Entry tab to see how your specific bracket performs relative to all the simulations (particularly the 100-entry simulation). E[PAP] is a tool but not the toolbox, so to speak.
As an interesting case study, in 2019 I was in a 120-person pool (or thereabouts). This was before my model included the simulations component, and I was relying solely on E[PAP]. Turns out that I got 3 of my Final 4 picks correct (MSU, UVa, and Texas Tech). But before the Final 4 games even began, I realized I had a zero percent chance of finishing in the top 3 of the pool (and winning money). That's because I was so focused on E[PAP] in the earlier rounds, and I got unnecessarily aggressive/risky with my picks and diluted my score. Had I picked fewer upsets in earlier rounds, I could have been in the money.
There is a bit of breakeven when it comes to selecting picks based on E[PAP]. It's a great way to set your model apart with some strategic selections, but it can definitely become counterproductive if you get too upset happy.
If you do want to do a full E[PAP] bracket, try building your bracket backwards. Start with your champion, championship game, Final 4, etc. This'll help keep you from getting too upset happy.
The E[PAP] figures shown above are per round, not cumulative. The numbers increase as you move on to later rounds because the point values of the later rounds are higher than earlier rounds (e.g. first round in a standard ESPN format is 10 points, while the championship is 320 points).
This is a great example of how something like Seth’s tool can serve as a complement to mine. I don’t specifically adjust the team ratings for injuries anymore than Kenpom/Torvik/BPI would have. I thought of also including evanmiya.com’s ratings for this year’s edition of the model, but didn’t get around to it. I believe he makes manual adjustments for injuries, but even then Tenn is #4 in his rankings currently.
Tennessee has been seen as a darling all season by the computers buoyed by their defense. They rank as top 5 by most all computer rating systems including NET.
Thanks for asking.I should be able to post as a diary by tonight.
I’ve been working the last week or so on making the model run faster, accommodate more simulations, have more functionality, and be easier for anyone to use.
Stay tuned!
Your optimism is refreshing, TB9. And your bubble posts have made MGoBlog fun these past few weeks, despite the bad luck on the court. March is for believing, so I appreciate them!
As far as the BTT, I live in Chicago and look forward to going every time the tourney is here. Just seems like too often we get the short end of the stick and get slotted in these 11am local game times. Best bet for me right now is hope the win Thursday, and then play hooky from work or go to a “doctor’s appointment” on Friday.
FYI for out-of-towners - This Saturday 3/11 will be St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the city, so it should be a zoo.
Cade McNamara-ass cyan for Dug
W
Dug getting cyan’d after his first Kenpom MVP game seems harsh. Though probably not wrong.
Offensive cyan definitely threw me off for a second, because I only remember seeing it for defense. Seems redundant if included alongside a negative stylistic indicator (e.g. brick, banana peel, disaster factory). Whereas on defense, there’s no stylistic indicator that says you play poor defense, necessitating the cyan.
Possible to get any in long sleeve?
The Essentials say M is a 20-point dog at home.
I knew things were rough, but didn’t think they were that bad!
Is UConn a better team than MSU?
People are talking…
The flea-flicker to Sainristil, for me, was the eureka holy-shit-we-might-actually-do-it moment of the game.
The hurdle of Cam Brown was the misty-eyed, weight-of-the-world-off-my-shoulders, we-actually-fucking-did-it moment. There was no way we weren’t going to score to go up 15 with ~2 minutes left.
My favorite call of the day was before the game started…
Brandy: “On the line today, the Big Ten East title, the Big Ten Championship, and a trip to the College Football Playoff.”
Dierdorf: “I don’t care about any of that.”
I’ll refresh your memory if you can’t find it:
- Michigan ran a successful fake punt in the first half. Basically a FB draw straight up the middle…I think it was Michigan’s longest play from scrimmage all game.
-Big house was 80% full and the fans booed at attendance announcement of 100,000+
- Mike Weber de-committed in the middle of the game.
- Michigan band and student section was doing the Temptation/“You Suck” chant as the clock expired and Maryland was victorious. Embarrassing lack of awareness.
Unfortunately, I remember the game vividly because I was a student at the time and was fully prepared that my four years of football as a student would be ultimate suckage. Fortunately I was just a sophomore and at least got two years of Harbaugh.
(deep breath)…
Cade McNamara
(deep breath)
PUT IT ON
(another deep breath)
THE MONEY!!!
What a win. Listened to the entire game on the radio broadcast, driving from Lake Huron to Chicago. Brian Boesch and Terry Mills don’t get enough credit for how good they are. Brian’s play-by-play is some of my favorite.
Huge game for T-Will!! Loved seeing that from him. And Kobe with the clutch three! This team’s had to overcome a lot, and it’s very rewarding to see them succeed.
Edit: I only learned this just earlier this year, but every live radio broadcast for games are available on mgoblue.com (so I can just listen on mobile). Maybe I’ve been living under a rock not knowing that, but it’s been huge for me and the people gotta know.
Looking forward to more minutes for Jace Howard.
Also, Houstan is Just a Shooter.
The whole situation just makes me so sad. Not only is it extremely embarrassing for the program and school, but it jeopardizes the rest of the season.
Michigan is squarely on the bubble, and Juwan owes it to his players to do everything in his power to set them up for success. Now you’re looking at likely multiple-game suspensions for the head coach and maybe a few of the players. You’re heading into a crucial home game stretch, and now the team is significantly compromised and facing enormous distractions.
You are potentially taking away a postseason from Hunter Dickinson, who has been carrying the team on his back all season. Taking it away from captain and super senior Eli Brooks. Taking it away from senior up-transfer Devante Jones, who’s trying to make his first NCAAT. Taking it away from the fans who’ve endured and supported the team through what has been a disappointing season.
Very ashamed of what Juwan did yesterday.
What constitutes Houstan to be NJAS? Rock bottom assist rate, lowest number of 2pt attempts of the starters (and not hitting them at high clip), and an average FTR. At this point of the season, I think he's the epitome of Just a Shooter.
That said, Michigan by double digits.
Love me some MBB. But I live in Chicago, so it’s obviously tough for me to go to any home games.
Try to go to games when they’re in town. I went to Allstate Arena in 2017 when we lost a clunker to NW. What an awful venue lol. Also went to two games in 2018 when the BTT was in Chicago.
My biggest pet peeve about the attendance issues is that it gives an obvious justification to expand the Maize Rage, but they continue not to do so. Why not make tickets cheaper and more easily accessible for students? Fill out the lower bowl and have students behind either basket and pump some energy into the place. Instead, students who don’t get the bleacher seats are relegated to the 300 level seats…what a stupid effing idea.
Desperate need to win level: +1 for cool new trophy game
Honestly still pissed at him for that sham of a 2017 graduation ceremony...instead of a commencement speaker, we got a powerpoint presentation of the 200-year history of the university. It was beyond lame. And then the band forgot to play Hail to the Victors at the very end. Realizing they messed up they scurried to play it, but only after about 50% of the stadium had cleared out. A real dud to an otherwise awesome four years.
Eat it bitches
So silly of me to forget we're living in some Ohio State kid's NCAA 14 dynasty on xbox.
But the worse alternative here is that he finally gets bored with the game, and then this hellish simulation ceases to exist.
So fucking bring it on, kid. Go Blue.
Bart Torvik has a page on his website which lists all of the available transfer players. You can use his PORPAGATU stat, which is a points above replacement stat to gauge the player rankings.
https://barttorvik.com/playerstat.php?link=y&xvalue=trans&year=2021&minmin=0&start=20201101&end=20210501
I’ve admittedly been out of the loop on all rumors regarding Beilein, but is there actual smoke to this?
I just can’t see it, given one of his reasons for leaving CBB was having to deal with roster turnover and recruiting. I just don’t see him wanting to go to a big time program in rebuilding mode where there’ll be immense pressure to succeed. He’s already 68 years old too and quit on the NBA fast.
Can he enroll now plz?
There’s no way they should be playing this game tonight. Postpone plz.
He’s usage freaky!!
I don’t laugh out loud when reading too often, but I had a pretty good chuckle reading the paragraph immediately following the Beilein’s Blueprint video. Too funny XD
Could it not just be that Warde low-balled the extension? How often does it happen that a person interviews for and lands a job that pays more than their current job, only for said person to show their current manager and successfully get a pay raise (without ever really wanting the other job in the first place)? Happens all the time.
Warde: “Jim, we love ya and all. But we think your accomplishments thus far warrant a base compensation of $X. If you do all things you were brought here to do (i.e. beat OSU, compete for Big Ten and national titles, etc.) you can earn what you were making before and then some.”
Jim: “Hi Warde. I can’t say I disagree too much with your thinking. However, I think my base compensation of $X is too low. In fact, I think an NFL head coaching gig would pay me $X + $Y + incentives.”
Warde: “I guess we’ll see then. But for now, our offer stands as it is.”
As the person who specifically asked that PORPAGATU! be added to the graphic (probably my greatest single accomplishment on mgoblog), I can try to answer this. And we have to look no further than Michigan's bench. Adrien Nunez, known as Just A Shooter despite not being a marksman, has a career PRPG! of -0.2. Should there be a scenario where injuries thrusted him into the starting lineup (an exact scenario that happened just last year), you'd know that Michigan would have to roll with a roughly replacement-level player that would be a drag on the offense.
Now, how many Big Ten teams would Adrien Nunez start on under normal circumstances? If you guessed 0/14, you're probably right. Which is why Seth set the red/green shading at a mean of 2.0 (or roughly the average Big Ten starter). Playing a Big Ten team or one of the more highly rated MAC teams? Probably less likely you'll see a replacement-level player starting. Playing a buy game or a team decimated by injuries? More likely.
I like PRPG! because it tries to make sense of the correlation between ORtng and Usage. How do you compare Player A (130 ORtng on 10% Usage) versus Player B (110 Ortng on 25% Usage)? How do those factors translate? PRPG! puts this on a single scale and attempts to make sense of it.
Seth, these charts are great. Question, would you consider adding Torvik’s PORPAGATU! metric (which if I remember correctly, is Points Over Replacement Per Adjusted Game at the Usage (!))? This is usually the stat I follow leading up to the game so that I know which opposing players I should be focusing on specifically while watching them on offense. Also goes hand in hand with your mention that there’s an inverse correlation with ORtng and Usage. Thanks.
Was literally about to post the same thing lol.
Joe Milton made it happen.
Only one explanation for this. Joe Milton.