2024-25 Men's College Basketball Rankings #5 - Thru 12/12/24

Kentucky's big win against Gonzaga in Seattle did nothing to dispell rumors of the SEC's dominance this season to start. Certainly the ACC and Big East's relative struggles have just highlighted it even more.

The Method

Basically this is the same as what I am doing for football. The components.

1. Bradley-Terry model using a small margin of victory component. This is more or less a logistic regression. A team gets 1 point for having a better rating than a competitor.

2. Head to Head record. A team gets as many points as net wins over a competitor. (no negative points for a team with a losing record)

3. Record vs Common Opponents. A pairwin here is worth 1 point.

4. Regular season leader. During the season we will use the highest rated team with the fewest conference losses (then the team with most pairwins based on criteria 1-3 as a tiebreaker). A pairwin here is worth 0.5 points. Based on how the committee seeded teams last year, 0.5 points fit the data better than 0 or 1.

   
   

For each component, a team is compared to the other 365 teams (all non D1 are treated as a single opponent) and points are awarded. Whichever head to head has more points counts a pairwin.

For example: Team A has a better rating than Team B, but they had no head to head, Team B did better against common opponents, and Team A was the regular season champ of its conference. In this example Team A has 1.5 points (1 for rating, 0.5 for reg season champ). Team B has 1 point for common record. Team A would get the overall pairwin.

Half pairwins are used for ties. The team with the most pairwins is the #1 overall team. If there is a tie in pairwins, the Bradley-Terry rating is used as a tiebreaker.

The Field of 68

Through the games of 12/12/2024. Now with some good teams playing each other, at least the field is looking like a plausible tournament field. The SoS is based on the perspective of a .500 team (using the Bradley-Terry rankings as weights)

The Bubble

The first 4 teams are in the field with byes to the Round of 64. Teams 5-8 are the play-in teams. The others are out in order. As you can see, the model is pretty dumb right now, but it is fun to watch it get smarter. I expect UConn, the two time champions to get back in the field but they are 4-3, and that can't be unseen - at least for now. UConn does get back on the board though.

2024-25 Men's College Basketball Rankings #4 - Thru 12/5/24

With the Maui Invitational and the ACC-SEC Challenges in the can, let's see what happened.

The Method

Basically this is the same as what I am doing for football. The components.

1. Bradley-Terry model using a small margin of victory component. This is more or less a logistic regression. A team gets 1 point for having a better rating than a competitor.

2. Head to Head record. A team gets as many points as net wins over a competitor. (no negative points for a team with a losing record)

3. Record vs Common Opponents. A pairwin here is worth 1 point.

4. Regular season leader. During the season we will use the highest rated team with the fewest conference losses (then the team with most pairwins based on criteria 1-3 as a tiebreaker). A pairwin here is worth 0.5 points. Based on how the committee seeded teams last year, 0.5 points fit the data better than 0 or 1.

   
   

For each component, a team is compared to the other 365 teams (all non D1 are treated as a single opponent) and points are awarded. Whichever head to head has more points counts a pairwin.

For example: Team A has a better rating than Team B, but they had no head to head, Team B did better against common opponents, and Team A was the regular season champ of its conference. In this example Team A has 1.5 points (1 for rating, 0.5 for reg season champ). Team B has 1 point for common record. Team A would get the overall pairwin.

Half pairwins are used for ties. The team with the most pairwins is the #1 overall team. If there is a tie in pairwins, the Bradley-Terry rating is used as a tiebreaker.

The Field of 68

Through the games of 12/5/2024. Now with some good teams playing each other, at least the field is looking like a plausible tournament field. The SoS is based on the perspective of a .500 team (using the Bradley-Terry rankings as weights)

The Bubble

The first 4 teams are in the field with byes to the Round of 64. Teams 5-8 are the play-in teams. The others are out in order. As you can see, the model is pretty dumb right now, but it is fun to watch it get smarter. I expect UConn, the two time champions to get back in the field but they are 4-3, and that can't be unseen - at least for now.

Championship Weekend and The College Football Rankings thru 12/1/2024

Sports Are Dumb

Honestly, it took all week for my soul to re-enter my body after Georgia Tech's heartwrenching loss to Georgia in the annual Clean Old Fashioned Hate rivalry. I don't want to relive it too much, but it was objectively a classic - so since I have been offering full service all season, le sigh:

On the bright side, in futbol (note the spelling), Liverpool dispatched of a worn down Manchester City with appropriately little drama - so that was fun. Fandom is pain - alas I am hooked.

This Week's Rankings

This is the last ranking before Championship Week. Now, the rankings did not punish Ohio State for the loss to Michigan - certainly not to the degree that karma did - while Michigan was not good, they also are 7-5 against a hard schedule, and Ohio State other wins (Penn State, Indiana) keep looking better and better. Georgia has control of its fate, but there is little doubt that surviving against Georgia Tech was essential for its ability to make the field as an at-large. So, how did the rankings get shaken up?

Shaking this into the tournament field:

• Automatics: Oregon (1), Texas (2), SMU (3), Boise State (4), Iowa State (10)

• At Larges: Ohio State (5), Notre Dame (6), Penn State (7), Indiana (8), Georgia (9), Miami-FL (11), Alabama (12)

• Bubble: Tennessee, South Carolina, Louisville, Ole Miss

The College Football Playoff Committee Looks Like

• Automatics: Oregon (1), Texas (2), SMU (3), Boise State (4), Arizona State (12)

• At Larges: Penn State (5), Notre Dame (6), Georgia (7), Ohio State (8), Tennessee (9), Indiana (10), Alabama (11)

• Bubble: Miami-FL, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Iowa State

As noted in the introduction, what to do with Ohio State's loss was going to be interesting, I probably agree with the committee more, but the idea that Ohio State has not ruined its resume all that much seems fair.

A Few Thoughts on Championship Weekend Scenarios:

• The ACC probably wants Boise State to lose tonights Mountain West Championship. If Clemson wins, that is likely the only way for SMU to hang on as an at-large (depending on the score).

• If Boise State loses, does it get pushed out of the Top 12? Given how the CFP Committee has acted, I'd say yes. What becomes interesting is what happens if Army wins the AAC championship. Does that move Army into the G5 slot?

• The CFP field and bowls are set after this weekend, but if Army is in the driver's seat for the G5 slot, their season is not actually over! Does the committee wait for the Army-Navy game?

• Another interesting question is what happens to the 4th bye if Clemson wins and Boise State loses? Does Clemson hop over the Big 12 champion?

• The Allstate Playoff Predictor in all these cases is inherently funny. After all, we have a n=0 sample size for this tournament. Any playoff percentages seem even less scientific than normal.