Gophers 1 place out of Top 25

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hyaluronic said:
Yes, we are hot right now – but Wisconsin has won more games convincingly than we have.
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How do you figure? MN has won 6 conference games by 9 or more points (5 if you want to throw out Iowa since it was in 2OT). Wisconsin has won 4 games by 9 or more. Both have 3 overtime wins amongst the 10/11. Wisconsin has 3 double digit conference losses, MN 1.
 

hyaluronic said:
We're 22-7 in major conference... that's usually a fringe top 25 team, and that's where we are.
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According to whom? I count 19 Major Conference teams with 22 or more wins, and 7 or less losses. 17 are ranked, 2 are not (MN, Creighton (obviously a unique case, every good win came before their PG was lost for year)). 3 teams with 8 or more losses are ranked.
 

I don't understand how Wisconsin is still ranked..They lost 4 out of their last 5. They just got a lucky break with their pre season ranking being high. There is just no way that i would have put them in the top 25. Its a chance for the Gophers to get another top 25 win though, so i guess that is good if we take care of business.

I was shocked when i looked at the rankings and didn't see the Gophers in there, but if we take care of everything this week it won't matter. Regardless of where we are i know this is a top 25 team, and all of us have witnessed it over the course of the season! I can't wait till next week when I'm sitting in DC watching the Gophers!
 

MaroonGold1 said:
How do you figure? MN has won 6 conference games by 9 or more points (5 if you want to throw out Iowa since it was in 2OT). Wisconsin has won 4 games by 9 or more. Both have 3 overtime wins amongst the 10/11. Wisconsin has 3 double digit conference losses, MN 1.
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Wisconsin has won 4 by 11 or more, Minnesota has won 3 (only 2 if you throw out Iowa). Wisconsin has won 2 by 20 or more, Minnesota has 0. Wisconsin has no losses of 12 or more points, and Minnesota has one. This isn't isolating the BIG season, but Wisconsin's PPG and PPA average is 73.1/62.1 versus 76.1/68.9 - Or roughly 11 point differential to 7.2 point differential per game.
 

MaroonGold1 said:
According to whom? I count 19 Major Conference teams with 22 or more wins, and 7 or less losses. 17 are ranked, 2 are not (MN, Creighton (obviously a unique case, every good win came before their PG was lost for year)). 3 teams with 8 or more losses are ranked.
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My assessment was a bit arbitrary, but you are using the Gophers as the line in the sand, and counting everything better than us as support for your argument. I'm not going to go and dig up every major conference team's record, but 22-7 feels like a fringe top 25 team to me. There could be some bias from the preseason rankings and perceptions, but I also think our margin of victory is relatively small given a .750 winning percentage. Our PPG an PA is comparable to NW and Michigan, who have won 2/3 of their games.
 


hyaluronic said:
Wisconsin has won 4 by 11 or more, Minnesota has won 3 (only 2 if you throw out Iowa). Wisconsin has won 2 by 20 or more, Minnesota has 0. Wisconsin has no losses of 12 or more points, and Minnesota has one. This isn't isolating the BIG season, but Wisconsin's PPG and PPA average is 73.1/62.1 versus 76.1/68.9 - Or roughly 11 point differential to 7.2 point differential per game.
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Ok so your reasoning to rank WI higher than MN is because they blew out Ohio St and Penn St at home 5+ weeks ago. Sound decision making
 

If RPI is a notable statistic and has any bearing on whether you ought to be ranked... we are by far the most slighted. We by far having the highest RPI at 16 yet remain unranked. Followed by Dayton with RPI of 21. Followed by Creighton at 23. Followed by VCU at 24.
 

howeda7 said:
The top 25 isn't meant to be a season-long resume ranking. It's meant to be the 25 best teams right now. Minnesota is certainly one of them. Wisconsin is not.
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The AP Ranking isn't a power ranking like ESPN. It's a full resume ranking (in my opinion)
 

Ski U Master said:
The AP Ranking isn't a power ranking like ESPN. It's a full resume ranking (in my opinion)
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I disagree, it is call the AP Poll. Using political polls as my lens, it is always said that a poll is a snapshot in time.
 



MaroonGold1 said:
Ok so your reasoning to rank WI higher than MN is because they blew out Ohio St and Penn St at home 5+ weeks ago. Sound decision making
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They also beat us head to head - on the road. Their margin of victory is greater than ours. They have more top 25 wins. As I said in another post, you can make an argument that we should be ranked higher. I think their body of work is a little better, especially when you consider margin of victory, and the fact they have a better overall conference record. If we win our next two games, I agree, we should be ranked higher than Wisconsin and in the top 25. And we will be if that happens. Predictive models I've seen have us in the 28-38 range... we're ranked #26 and #32 by human polls. That seems fair.

Madman - Our RPI is higher than other teams in the BIG because margin of victory doesn't count - which makes it a poor predictive model relative to others that do.

Win our next two, and we'll get 'respect.'
 


hyaluronic said:
I'd say we took one of the two paths that would have us ranked this high after being 7-5: either win a bunch in a row to start, and than hit a horrible losing streak
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a.k.a. The Tubby Tank.
 







Using average margin of victory to compare two teams is really not a valid test when the strength of schedule is drastically different between the two. You could use average margin of victory vs common opponents, but it probably still wouldn't really be valid because the sample size is small.
 

SM_25 said:
I don't understand how Wisconsin is still ranked..They lost 4 out of their last 5. They just got a lucky break with their pre season ranking being high. There is just no way that i would have put them in the top 25. Its a chance for the Gophers to get another top 25 win though, so i guess that is good if we take care of business.

I was shocked when i looked at the rankings and didn't see the Gophers in there, but if we take care of everything this week it won't matter. Regardless of where we are i know this is a top 25 team, and all of us have witnessed it over the course of the season! I can't wait till next week when I'm sitting in DC watching the Gophers!
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This! If we handle the Sconnies this week like i know we will it will only help our rankings and seeding in the BTT. Let the "experts" ignore us, it won't make a difference to these kids. This is the best Gopher team since 97' by far and if we keep it rolling theres no reason we can't make a deep run in the tourney.
 

Ski U Master said:
The AP Ranking isn't a power ranking like ESPN. It's a full resume ranking (in my opinion)
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Admittedly it's subjective. But we have the same overall record as Wisconsin and have won 7 in a row while they've lost 4 of 5. And does anyone really think we're not better than Dayton and Middle Tennessee?
 

hyaluronic said:
And how do you determine right now? 1 game? 2 games? 5 games? The college season is short enough that all games matter to help inform your decision. More recent games matter a little more, but the past games will give you broader context as to what may be a fluke streak versus how good a team actually is. Before Maryland and Penn State, I thought most of our wins were lucky, and most of our losses were unlucky in BIG play. Overall, it has evened out.

Yes, we are hot right now – but Wisconsin has won more games convincingly than we have. They also beat us on the road. They deserve to be ranked higher, imo. Predictive models bear that out, as well – even some where recent games are favored. For example, Sagarin’s ‘Recent’ predictive model has Wisconsin ranked 18th and Minnesota ranked 29th.

Minneosta's RPI is inflated against the rest of the conference because margin of victory, to my knowledge, doesn’t matter. That will also play out if you do a ‘blind resume’ and try to compare records vs Top 25, Top 50, or Top 100. You don’t see how close the games were.

I think one of the best indicators would be to look at the Vegas odds to win the NCAA tourney or BIG tournament. Unfortunately, I can’t go to gambling sites at work. I hypothesize Wisconsin has better odds than we do.

That said – I really like where we are right now. You can argue that we are playing the best in the BIG. If someone puts us ahead of Wisconsin in their rankings, I get it. The last 5 games they are 1-4 and we are 5-0 with signature wins. If you expand to 10 games, we are 7-3 and they are 6-4 – and there’s not much of a difference.
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I'll put it this way: If Wisconsin or MSU or OSU or Indiana had Minnesota's exact resume they would be ranked right now.
 

Tim – I actually agree there – I didn’t realize that when I was quoting the stat. That said, it shows statistics can slice and dice a lot of different ways depending on what you emphasize. Many people here are fixated on the overall W-L, with a strong emphasis on the last seven games or February, or record versus top 50, or lack of losses below top 100.

Anonymous – that’s true. If you use the Sagarin ratings SOS, Wisconsin is #29 and Minnesota is #54, and their avg PPG versus PA is 3-4 points better.

I just don’t buy the ‘we have to be higher than WI’ or ‘we have to be in the top 25’ argument. We are a fringe top 25 team based on the entirety of the season. I agree we are playing better than that right now, but I’m not sure we continue that trend.
 

26 sounds about right, we're splitting hairs with that 22-30 range. I'm not sure what a split does for our rankings, but 2 wins and we should be in that 20-25 range.
 

howeda7 said:
I'll put it this way: If Wisconsin or MSU or OSU or Indiana had Minnesota's exact resume they would be ranked right now.
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Or Michigan or Maryland or Purdue. I agree. There's some bias.

It just depends how you look at it - you can argue with the predictive models that we're overrated at #26. I put more weight in predictive models than polls, as I think they are going to be better than humans at removing our internal biases. Having watched this team a fair amount this year, we are playing better now than we have all year. I think we'll beat Wisconsin on the road. I didn't think we would beat them at home. For whatever that's worth.
 

hyaluronic said:
Or Michigan or Maryland or Purdue. I agree. There's some bias.

It just depends how you look at it - you can argue with the predictive models that we're overrated at #26. I put more weight in predictive models than polls, as I think they are going to be better than humans at removing our internal biases. Having watched this team a fair amount this year, we are playing better now than we have all year. I think we'll beat Wisconsin on the road. I didn't think we would beat them at home. For whatever that's worth.
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Predictive models can fall short. I don't know exactly how each work but personally I would pick Oregon or UCLA to knock off West Virginia on a neutral court any day of the week. I don't know why they are ranked in that way but it seems to me that they aren't predicting anything that accurately. I think it will not measure a young team who is learning how to win (us) that well as we will play to the level of opponent and our confidence. As a result MN is underrated in those metrics. Average the rpi with one of these advanced metrics and you probably have a decent ranking system.
 

Tim1406 said:
Predictive models can fall short. I don't know exactly how each work but personally I would pick Oregon or UCLA to knock off West Virginia on a neutral court any day of the week. I don't know why they are ranked in that way but it seems to me that they aren't predicting anything that accurately. I think it will not measure a young team who is learning how to win (us) that well as we will play to the level of opponent and our confidence. As a result MN is underrated in those metrics. Average the rpi with one of these advanced metrics and you probably have a decent ranking system.
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Absolutely they can fall short. Instead of the biases of an individual related to a team, you have the biases of the statistics the model focuses on. Most predictive models won't account for a key injury (i.e., Creighton). I do think including RPI in an overall analysis is useful - it shows an intangible quality of 'do you know how to win?' That said, without knowing how each predictive model works, maybe some of those models already include a factor that is based on just winning and losing. I don't know how much you should weight the RPI, but you can certainly argue it should be included.
 

hyaluronic said:
Top 25 at the time of the game, based on espn.com's conference standings.
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Haha ok. So you are giving WI credit for beating Indiana but not giving MN credit for doing the same, gotcha. I'll end this back and forth on that note, not going to ever get me to understand your logic
 



MaroonGold1 said:
Haha ok. So you are giving WI credit for beating Indiana but not giving MN credit for doing the same, gotcha. I'll end this back and forth on that note, not going to ever get me to understand your logic
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My logic: strength of schedule and margin of victory matter. Predictive models emphasize these and Wisconsin beats us on both. These models consistently have us outside the top 25. I'm not offended by being unranked or Wisconsin being ahead of us. You're using arbitrary cut offs on how far we should look back.

I actually said (in a post not to you) that I didn't like the way espn frames it. When two teams are close, you can split hairs either way.
Anyhow, I get why fans think we should be ranked, I just feel there are strong counterarguments as well.
 

The only reason i'm bummed they didn't crack the top 25 is ticket sales. I think there's a pretty good chance they sell out Thursday but a ranking would surely generate a couple hundred more tickets sold.
 

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