KenPom 2015-2016: Back on Top: #1 in Luck (1/11)

[deacs1995]

so are we lucky, unlucky, or skilled to lose out on giles?

 

[deacvision7]

Well DV7 said that being lucky was actually a skill, so it should reason that the top 50 teams in KenPom would rank highly in "luck" too because they are ranked higher overall than those that aren't as skilled, and therefore less "lucky".

LOL

I never said that being lucky was a skill. I entirely reject the notion that their is much, if any, luck involved in sports. You are good enough to make the shot, stop the offense, etc. etc. Or you aren't.

 

[deacvision7]

Anyway, there is no consistent rhyme or reason as to why a team wins all of their close games, while another team loses all of their close games. There are certainly reasons for specific instances (age, experience, skill), but at the end of the day, sometimes weird, fluky shit happens that causes the better team overall to lose a game to an inferior opponent.

Exactly. They weren't good enough to win on that day.

 

[Deacsfan27]

LOL

I never said that being lucky was a skill. I entirely reject the notion that their is much, if any, luck involved in sports. You are good enough to make the shot, stop the offense, etc. etc. Or you aren't.

If Wake lost on 5 straight contested halfcourt shots you wouldn't think that was unlucky?

 

[deacvision7]

I just don't buy into the notion at all that teams "know how to win close games" or are "clutch".

They are just cliche buzzwords that don't have any statistical truth to them other than an invalid sample size.

like "lucky" ??

Nothing is 100%. It is a fact that if you win by 1 point you easily could have lost. Whether it's a last second shot from the other team that misses or a last second shot that you had to hit or a FT you had to make or a FT they had to miss. None of those situations are close to completely controllable.

I feel like everyone gets this but have just staked out their position and now are unwilling to budge.

All those situations seem controllable. Players are trying to make shots or stop them. The basket doesn't randomly move around the entire game.

If Wake lost on 5 straight contested halfcourt shots you wouldn't think that was unlucky?

That would assume that the 5 straight shooters were just lucky to make the shot and I don't think that is the case -- he was trying to make the shot and made the shot. I just don't view that as luck. It would be amazing for that to happen in 5 straight games, but maybe we should have blocked one of those shots, especially after it being done to us 2 or 3 straight times?


But I'll take back my contention that there might not be any luck in sports. There is some. Very little, but it is there.

For instance, JR Rider was not trying to make this shot but was lucky that a desperation heave to prevent a turnover somehow went into the basket instead. Losing on a play like that would be most unlucky.

 

[DeacsATS]

There are a lot of people here that don't understand statistics and what KenPom is all about.

Not sure you can argue against data and statistical probabilities, but, by all means, please continue!

 

[scooter84]

LOL

I never said that being lucky was a skill. I entirely reject the notion that their is much, if any, luck involved in sports. You are good enough to make the shot, stop the offense, etc. etc. Or you aren't.

No luck in sports? That might be one of the dumber things I have ever read. Sure, "good players make their own luck" and all that, but luck definitely plays a role in every sport - some more than others.

Think about the odd shape of a football and the role luck plays in which way an onsides kick bounces, or a fumble. You can do everything right and a weird bounce completely changes how the play ends up.

What about golf where a bad shot can hit a tree or a bank and end up good - or a good shot can hit a sprinkler head and bounce over the green into a hazard?

Or even basketball - a 20% 3-point shooter making a game winner has to include a good percentage of luck - no matter the fact that he was trying to make it.

What about questionable calls by an official? They have to be considered good or bad luck, depending on how they impact your team.

 

[ThreeDogDeacon]

I'd rather be lucky than good. At least that is the old saying.

 

[deacvision7]

No luck in sports? That might be one of the dumber things I have ever read.

That's just like, your opinion, man.

Think about the odd shape of a football and the role luck plays in which way an onsides kick bounces, or a fumble. You can do everything right and a weird bounce completely changes how the play ends up.

OK, thinking about the shape of the football and how it bounces weird on a fumble. OH WAIT, it was a fumble. Somebody didn't do their job right.

As for the onside kick, you don't think the kickers know how they are supposed to kick the ball to give their team the best chance to get the ball back?

Horrible examples. Just horrible.

What about golf where a bad shot can hit a tree or a bank and end up good - or a good shot can hit a sprinkler head and bounce over the green into a hazard?

Yeah, those rare instances do involve luck. But of all golf shots taken they probably occur about as frequently as a freak toss going in the basket, a la JR Rider. I already admitted that there is a minimal amount of luck and that I shouldn't have said no luck.

Or even basketball - a 20% 3-point shooter making a game winner has to include a good percentage of luck - no matter the fact that he was trying to make it.

No. There was no luck in that particular shot going in. That's a horrible argument. The player was trying to make the shot and made the shot. He/she was good enough to make the shot on that instance.

What about questionable calls by an official? They have to be considered good or bad luck, depending on how they impact your team.

No, that is somebody involved with the game not being good enough.

 

[scooter84]

That's just like, your opinion, man.



OK, thinking about the shape of the football and how it bounces weird on a fumble. OH WAIT, it was a fumble. Somebody didn't do their job right.

As for the onside kick, you don't think the kickers know how they are supposed to kick the ball to give their team the best chance to get the ball back?

Horrible examples. Just horrible.



Yeah, those rare instances do involve luck. But of all golf shots taken they probably occur about as frequently as a freak toss going in the basket, a la JR Rider. I already admitted that there is a minimal amount of luck and that I shouldn't have said no luck.



No. There was no luck in that particular shot going in. That's a horrible argument. The player was trying to make the shot and made the shot. He/she was good enough to make the shot on that instance.



No, that is somebody involved with the game not being good enough.

Come on, you have either missed the point completely or are being intentionally dense.

Sure someone messed up if they fumbled. The point is not the fumble - fumbles are going to happen, that is a fact. The point is that, once the fumble occurs, luck may determine how that crazy ball is going to bounce and thus who ends up with it. So players on both teams may react to the fumble in the best way possible but the bouncing ball is still going to determine who gets it.
The same goes for the onside kick - it is like the chaos guy in Jurassic Park says - minuscule differences in input can create big differences in output. The kicker can kick the ball the same way (as best he can, as a human) and the ball will bounce differently each time. So everyone does their job right but the bounce of the ball determines the outcome.

As for golf, good shots (well struck, as intended) end up with poor results (or poorer than expected) all the time. Minor gradations in slope, wind, etc. create fluctuations in results that are unpredictable and uncontrollable - the definition of luck. Over time, if you keep hitting good shots, you are going to get overall good results - but an individual shot can certainly get lucky - or vice versa.

On the low percentage shooter - it depends on your perspective. If you are playing a team with good shooters and one terrible shooter, your best strategy is to guard the other guys and make the bad shooter beat you. You can execute that strategy perfectly, and make the bad shooter take a tough shot under duress - and he makes it anyway. Sure, from his perspective he was trying to make the shot and did. But if he would only make that shot 1/100 times, don't you have to say he was lucky to make it? And, from your perspective, you were certainly unlucky that he did - you did everything 'right' but lost. I would agree this is a less clear-cut example than some of the others - but luck is still involved.

As for an official screwing up, you are looking at it from the wrong perspective - sure he was in control of his actions. But, if the call went in my favor - I was most definitely lucky that it did. Was Colorado lucky that year the officials somehow gave them 5 downs to score? Darn right they were.

 

[RedSoxFaithful]

i was wondering if this year's thread would get to this point without rj in it and looks like yup we're here

 

[BobStackFan4Life]

I trust Numbers and Doofus when it comes to these things.

 

[FckVwls]

In sports there are always teams that are better or worse (from an actual team strength/skill perspective) than their W/L record, even holding schedule strength constant. Kenpom luck attempts to capture that for college basketball.

 

[FckVwls]

Let's say you woke up on March 1st and were given a printed list consisting of two data points for each college basketball team: 1. Their W/L record and 2. Their Strength of Schedule #

From these two items if you are clever you could determine pretty well which teams are good and bad at basketball. However, without question, if you also were also given a 3rd data point of 3. Their Kenpom Luck Rating, you would have an even better idea about the true skill of each team.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

I finally get it. Give Kenpom 20 years of data with no variables, which include all teams remaining the same and the ability of the team members staying the same, and it will have a 50% chance of predicting results.

Except for luck.

No it's pretty good at "luck" too. i would pay cash to see some of you guys sit in an introduction to stats class. Seems like some of you would just raise your hand and say "NUH UHHH!!!!" when the professor said something you didn't think made sense. Whoever had the idea to send RJ to the MIT sports analytics conference was absolutely on the right track.

 

[RChildress107]

I think what Dv7 is saying is that the "luck" portion of Kenpom is really just "all of the variables that are not captured in these efficiency ratings which combine to explain why a team's record deviates from what these efficiency ratings would predict"

Kenpom choosing to call that collection of variables "luck" doesn't really solve the debate. We could argue all day about why Wake is 6-2 when Kenpom rankings suggest we should be 4-4 (or something). It could be that we are lucky, that we are clutch, that Manning would rather send a message or test guys out than put teams away, that we are point shaving, that we were lucky against UMBC, clutch against Indiana and UCLA, tired against Rutgers and lazy against Arkansas, etc.

 

[Deacsfan27]

You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. You can call it whatever you want to, but there are things outside of a team's control that can, and do occur. Whether that be skill of the other team, a "bad" call by the referee, a ridiculous half court shot while falling out of bounds (Devin Harris), or the countless other things that make sports sports.

People are also attacking the strawman that Ken Pomeroy's system is infallible. He will be the first to tell you that there are deficiencies in his system. For example, he has written several times that his substitution analysis is off as to who plays what position. Devin Thomas is listed as the backup point guard for the "most frequent" lineups because assist rate is highly rated in determining the point guard position.

He has also said that there are certain teams that will always break the trend of his system (i.e. highly efficient teams that slow down the game, like Virginia).

Nobody that uses KenPom thinks that the numbers are perfect, nor do they believe that they are 100% correct. It is a very useful ranking system that he makes minor tweaks to each year to more accurately project how good a team is.

 

[DeacsATS]

Just to clear something up (or at least attempt to): The luck factor has nothing to do with the KenPom rating calculation.

Said another way... The fact that Wake Forest is #1 in luck does not play into why we are #85 in the overall rankings. But, yeah, because we've played close games against terrible opponents (UMBC, Rutgers, Arkansas), the #85 Wake Forest ranking is lower than our record & SOS would otherwise suggest.

 

[Deacsfan27]

Just to clear something up (or at least attempt to): The luck factor has nothing to do with the KenPom rating calculation.

Said another way... The fact that Wake Forest is #1 in luck does not play into why we are #85 in the overall rankings. But, yeah, because we've played close games against terrible opponents (UMBC, Rutgers, Arkansas), the #85 Wake Forest ranking is lower than our record & SOS would otherwise suggest.

Right. The only thing that matters AT ALL in his ranking are the Four Factors (eFG%, rebounding %, turnover %, and FTA/FGA rate). Everything else is just peripheral noise that attempts contextualize and frame the rankings.

From KP himself:

The new ones are Cons (Consistency) and Luck. The easiest one to understand is Luck, which is the deviation in winning percentage between a team’s actual record and their expected record using the correlated gaussian method. The luck factor has nothing to do with the rating calculation, but a team that is very lucky (positive numbers) will tend to be rated lower by my system than their record would suggest.

The reason for this is that if you are playing close games against teams consistently (regardless of how good they are), and whether it be a very high scoring game, or a very low scoring game, one part of your offensive or defensive efficiency is going to "suffer".

Teams that blow out their opponents aren't "lucky", nor do they need to be, because one bad call/bounce/lucky shot won't change the outcome of the game.

 

[Demonwolverine]

One man's "luck" is another man's "clutch."

TJDK