re: ShotQuality SEC Basketball Rankings - Overall/Offense/Defense

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Seriously, who the frick decides what a "good shot" is? Are you telling me some program can decide that?

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My initial thought on this as well. A shot taken from the same exact place on the court is not always equal. Was the shot well-contested, was it hurried because the shot clock was expiring? Do different people judging different teams grade differently?? We’re going crazy with all these stats.

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What does the record luck number mean? Use AUs -15.79 as an example.

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It basically sets an "expected score" for each team in every game based on their shot quality. That feels like one of those things that is kind of extrapolated out and a bit of voo-doo science (much like the KenPom "luck").

It's basically "there is an unknown that we can't quantify and the word we will use to name it is luck". I think they'd be much better served staying out of the game prediction side of things, and definitely better served finding a different word than "luck".


In Auburn's case they've had 4 games where their expected win % based on shot quality was 60% of less and they went 4-0 in those games. Again, not sure that really tells the whole story.

It looks like they are saying based on shot quality AU should be 15-4 and because AU is 18-1, we label that difference luck.

I get it, but wonder if anyone is doing the work to see what SQ might be missing in its formula as it relates to teams whose results don’t align with the predictive formula. KU and AU being teams that stand out at a moments glance.

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there is a tangible thing that a certain team does well that you can't quantify.

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can’t or just haven’t?

It would be very interesting to me to hear about those trying to quantify the outliers and the working theories on how to better quantify what is missing. Looking down the list there are some extreme outliers.

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When did nerds infiltrate basketball? It's ridiculous.

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You head coach was one of the initial nerd basketball style guys

Play fast, shoot 3s and dunk. He's been doing that for 20 years now.

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Playing fast, shooting 3s, and dunking are just alpha ways of competing. I'm talking about all these stupid metrics and analytics that everyone references in basketball all the time. Over complicated a simple game.

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Pearl and 90% of coaches confirmed betas

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I'm talking about all these stupid metrics and analytics that everyone references in basketball all the time. Over complicated a simple game.

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You said it more eloquently than I did.

I have enough common sense to watch the games, see the talent and style of play, and come to a conclusion of a teams strengths and weaknesses. I don't need a metric or analytic to tell me how good a team is or isn't.

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that’s really not the purpose of most of these metrics. They are typically used to try to gain betting advantages.

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Exactly, if some casual fan wants to watch the games to find out who is good and not good. There is nothing wrong with that and can be accomplished in that simple way. These metrics help us better understand why teams are bad or good and what can be done to change that. Coaches constantly look at this stuff to better understand their team and they are the ones that see the most of them.

Kenpom use to be only really talked about by some of the more hardcore CBB fans but that has certainly changed. I'm glad to see it to but still rough to watch someone try to use kenpom as a ranking site.

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For a while I thought all the BABIP stuff (not to mention the weird defensive shifts) was ruining baseball for me. Now I realize that I just got bored with baseball, cause I love this shite with basketball.

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I think the key to this stuff is just to look at it as some additional insight into the game, at least for me. Sometimes it confirms what I think (he's hitting line drives everywhere and just getting robbed) and sometimes it challenges what I think I'm seeing. It's also much easier for me to use and read in sports that I truly know the game inside and out from experience in (baseball and basketball) than a game that I really like but am far from a in the weeds guy on (football).

I have never liked using these sorts of specific analytical numbers meshed together into some sort of "total rankings", in any sport. I know why they do it, because everybody wants a final number to argue over, but those are kind of silly. Things like a players point per possession on various types of shots and how that compares to other players nationally is super interesting to me.