Link.
A second attempt to explain, really not happy with how I worded the first one:
A large part of KenPom's preseason model is simply a weighted average of the past 3 years (it might just be 2 years. He switched at some point, don't remember which way. Either way, t-3 is relatively unimportant). This may seem overly simplistic, but it works in most cases. Good teams tend to stay good. Bad teams tend to stay bad. Take a team like Duke, for instance. Even when they lose a good chunk of their minutes, everyone still assumes they will be good the next year. Their 'replacement level' players tend to be very good. Lose Dawkins? --> plug in Sulaimon. No problem.
So, in [Redacted] year 1, KP's preseason system projected Wake to rank 107. On the one hand, we lost nearly our entire team (Ish, Chas, Rouq, LD, Weav), which generally results in a major drop. On the other hand, our final rank the previous three years was 68-25-58. So, essentially, the system assumed that our young players had similar talent to our departing players, and it would just be a slight step back because we were so young. Obviously, as we all know, TC-JTT-Trav-Tabb-Carson was not an adequate replacement group for the aforementioned 5. As a result, we sucked hard. Looking at VT's graph for year 1, it looks like we declined all year, until about game 20. As someone who watched way more games than I probably should have that year, I don't feel like this paints an accurate picture. In my opinion, we were absurdly terrible all year- but it was fairly consistent. Remember, the double-digit home loss to Stetson was game #1. Aside from the Iowa game, there was no point in that season where we played like a top 150 team, but we were ranked in the KP top 150 for the first 10 games. Essentially, KP expected us to be around 110 nationally, even though that quickly proved to be nowhere near accurate. So, from the computer's perspective, it seemed like we were continuously under-performing. By about game 20, the preseason model was eliminated from the ratings, and at that point, as the graph illustrates, our rating stabilized. In short, I believe that our KP rank dropped dramatically over those first 20 games because it took time for the computer to accurately assess how bad we were,
not because we continuously got worse.
[Redacted] year 2 was a somewhat similar story. The system had a better understanding of how bad we were (preseason ~150), but still underestimated our suckiness. As a result, it looks like we declined throughout the year, until about game 20. I don't really believe this is true. If anything, I thought we were getting better during most of the non-con last year, and then actually got worse during conference play.
Now, in [Redacted] year 3, I think its fairly likely the system over-corrected. From the computer's PoV...last two seasons ranks of 251 and 210, combined with losing a huge chunk of minutes off last year's team (Nikita, Fields, Carson, TC, Ty), spelled major trouble. At this point, based on our last couple seasons, the computer assumed our replacement players (the self-proclaimed "Sensational Seven") would, by and large, suck pretty badly. As a result, our preseason rank was in the low 200s. While the jury is still out on whether or not our 2012 recruiting class is good enough to lead us to the top half of the ACC, I think we can all agree that it has pieces you would not expect a sub-200 program to bring in. (By the way, Pos Rep is available for anyone that convinces me that they read this whole post.) Think about the 2010 and 2011 recruiting classes. 7 of the 8 players in those classes were either awful, didn't even get meaningful minutes, or transferred (or some combination of those). That is not a tough bar to surpass. I think we all knew that the 2012 class would beat that threshold, but the computer is naive (and it has to be. Pomeroy cannot feasibly, objectively, add a human touch to all 347 teams. Most teams coming off back-to-back years ranking in the 200s don't bring in a handful of top 125 recruits. The system works decently well for most teams; Wake has been a major exception the past few years).
Anyway, long story short, is it possible our KP ranking drops significantly over the next few weeks? Sure. Of course its possible. I just don't think its very likely. If it happens though, it would not be following the same pattern as the previous two years (I mean, on the surface, it would look similar, but in my opinion, its completely different). Again, those two years, our ranking dropped after almost every single game because it took time for the computer to 'catch up' to how bad we were,
not because we got worse each game. That should not be an issue this year. If we did drop, it would be because we actually began playing worse. Right now, the computer knows how bad we are; if anything, I would argue we were significantly underrated in the preseason, and so the computer actually thinks we're worse than we are. As a result, I would be very surprised if our ranking dropped significantly in the near future.
(exhale)
