Saturday: Free basketball ticket for toy donation

WGHP Fox 8 is proud to partner with the Deacs to bring Gifts for Kids to the Joel Coliseum on Saturday, Dec. 3rd. Fans are encouraged to bring a new, unwrapped toy to the men’s basketball game versus Richmond. Tip-off is 1:00 p.m. Fans will receive a free ticket to the game with the donation of a new toy with a retail value of $10 or greater. All toys will be collected and given to children in the area.

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liveanddiedeac said:

Can we just bring a toy and leave? Richmond is going to bend us over and make us call them "Daddy."

Bad attitude, I know.

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TBR said:

Good promotion.

And, Richmond isn't as good as they have been the past couple of years. Should be a good game.

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Deacsfan27 said:

Easier to just scream and whine about our team getting blown out without actual opinions...who could blame him LiveandDie??? smh

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TBR said:

Good promotion.

And, Richmond isn't as good as they have been the past couple of years. Should be a good game.

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liveanddiedeac said:

FIFY, people's opinions that Richmond is not as good as last year and it will be a good game are not facts, 27. Look up the definition and for the record I hope we kick Richmond's tail Saturday.

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RacerDeac said:

BS. Kenpom is FACTS!

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Sure. He calls it his "Crazy Uncle." He just started it last year, and had some pretty solid success (his preseason top 4 all went on to become #1 seeds, for example).

It's got 3 factors:
1) Prior years' efficiency
2) Returning players
3) Top 50 recruits

To expand a little bit:
1) He factors in the past 3 years of efficiency data. I would assume that the years are weighted so that the most recent year is the most meaningful. Last year he used the past 2 years, but has since found that using 3 is more accurate. This accounts for the fact that teams that are good tend to stay good (and vice versa).

2) This is the area that is most unknown, I think. He isn't exactly using returning minutes. I think he's essentially using returning usage rate combined in some way with respective efficiencies to estimate offensive efficiency. Estimating defense is trickier. We really don't have the stats to accurately capture an individual player's impact on defense. I'm guessing he uses some combination of returning stl%, blk%, dreb%, and overall returning minutes.

3) Pretty much self-explanatory. Teams with incoming recruits ranked in the RSCI top 50 get a boost (which I'm guessing is exponential...i.e landing #1 Anthony Davis vs. #11 PJ Hairston results in a much bigger boost than landing #31 Quinn Cook instead of #41 Ben McLemore). He also does factor in potential playing time (i.e Dorian Finney Smith is worth more to Va. Tech than similarly-rated Michael Gbinije is for Duke). Last year he attempted to evaluate incoming recruiting classes for every school, and he found that forecasting freshmen seasons for recruits ranked outside the top 50 is nearly impossible; its just way too unpredictable.

Intuitively, it makes a lot of sense. It finds the starting point (Part 1), and then accounts for losses (2) and gains (3).

To answer someone else's question, it is gradually phased out. Team strength is not constant; it fluctuates throughout the season. KenPom is designed to forecast how teams will do, not how they have done. As a result, the more recent a game was, the higher its weight. In March, results from November are nearly meaningless. So, as each game goes by, Crazy Uncle's projection is factored in less and less. Last year, Pomeroy said that the preseason projection was completely zero-ed out around mid/late January. I imagine that'll be the case again this year.

Finally, for those keeping score at home, KenPom went 4-4 today in the Old Spice Classic.

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liveanddiedeac said:

FIFY, people's opinions that Richmond is not as good as last year and it will be a good game are not facts, 27. Look up the definition and for the record I hope we kick Richmond's tail Saturday.

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Deacsfan27 said:

I'm not even saying that KenPom is right all the time especially when it is based on one game (see the Arizona State game where he was way off). My only point is that people see the name Richmond and just assume they are going to kill us because they were good last year. That doesn't really mean anything in terms of this year because they lost 4 seniors that averaged over 63% of the teams minutes last year.

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liveanddiedeac said:

It's not the name Richmond right now, unfortunately it's the name Wake Forest. Seriously, I hope you're right and I hope we win, because it would be a good win I think. Richmond has been one of the most consistent mid-majors over the years and they always seem to play us tough, even when we were good.

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Deacsfan27 said:

I mean I think we could get blown out too. With this team it is always a possibility. I was just raising an objection to people just assuming that we are going to get blown out every single game without any evidence to back that up.

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