a gem from Ernie

Quote :

"The feel-good story about a small-market Major League franchise that beats the odds to miss the playoffs seven out of eight years, and the man that led them to zero postseason series victories."

1/3/2013 8:41:57 PM

leave my Oakland A's alone!

1/3/2013 8:43:19 PM

Quote :

"Sportsbook odds are not exactly a compelling arguement"

not sportsbooks odds, just basketball models

Most of the basketball models are ~75% correct in picking games straight up:
http://www.thepredictiontracker.com/bbresults.php

Sports columnists don't do any better than that

[Edited on January 3, 2013 at 8:44 PM. Reason : .]

1/3/2013 8:43:41 PM

you clowns squibble squabbling over this shit nee dthis as your background music

1/3/2013 8:43:43 PM

^^ hey idiot, the odds change after each fucking game is played.

1/3/2013 8:46:02 PM

Quote :

"Since I have been a fan, I have never seen a content fan base. Nice try though."

http://thewolfweb.com/message_section.aspx?section=2 =/= the fan base

1/3/2013 8:47:43 PM

^^Maybe and so? That's not a problem for me. Is that a problem for you? I don't think you actually know what a prediction is


Just because you are acting like a 5 year old: A prediction is what you think will happen in the future given the best information you have available right now. Of course a prediction will get better when you get more information or you have to predict less far out into the future.

[Edited on January 3, 2013 at 8:50 PM. Reason : .]

1/3/2013 8:49:25 PM

what do you mean 'maybe'?

1/3/2013 8:50:04 PM

Quote :

"I really trust the eye-test opinion of some random person on a messageboard who doesn't even have a track record because he is too afraid to make specific predictions"

He does keep a track record though
message_topic.aspx?topic=577731&page=55

1/3/2013 8:51:09 PM

Quote :

"A prediction is what you think will happen in the future given the best information you have available right now."

predicting the FSU game 2 months from now is a wild guess, and therefore not even worth predicting until maybe a week before the game

1/3/2013 8:54:40 PM

Quote :

"A prediction is what you think will happen in the future given the best information you have available right now. Of course a prediction will get better when you get more information or you have to predict less far out into the future."

So, since there's limited information (i.e 18 games that have yet to be played), one can surmise that it's difficult to predict the outcome of these games. In fact, one might argue that it would be dumb to rely on prediction with such a lack of information.

So you're basically agreeing with us but just trolling because you enjoy the negative attention you're getting...

[Edited on January 3, 2013 at 8:57 PM. Reason : troll]

1/3/2013 8:56:18 PM

Quote :

"surmise"

I LOVE THIS WORD

SO FUCKING MUCH

1/3/2013 8:59:10 PM

just out of curiosity on the whole 75% accuracy thing. I'm randomly predicting the winners of tomorrows 16 games just on records alone and never having seen any of these teams except Tennessee play.

sam houston st
georgia
holy cross
rhode island
iona
st. peters
valpo
loyola
saint louis
memphis
tulane
alabama a&m
alabama st
alcorn st
southern
ole miss

check back in tomorrow to see

my theory is that since theres not a whole lot of parity in college basketball 75% is not that amazing of an achievement

1/3/2013 8:59:14 PM

I actually think 75% is a pretty useful accuracy.

If you eye test guys can prove that you can do better, I'll listen. If you can't, why are you complaining about machines that can do better than you?

1/3/2013 9:02:05 PM

yeah 75% straight up doesnt seem too difficult in college ball pre-conference play

its not really hard to watch michigan play and think they won't beat northwestern tonight...only a fool needs advanced stats to predict that game straight up

wonder what those models are against the spread

and fwiw, im not knocking on the stats in general, just people who worship them as facts, and arent intelligent enough to form their own opinions, instead relying on regurgitating the output of some algorithm

i trust a prediction by someone like jay bilas more than some statistician who doesnt even watch the teams he's predicting

1/3/2013 9:02:08 PM

they are actually WORSE against the spread than 50%

[Edited on January 3, 2013 at 9:04 PM. Reason : 499 to 554]

1/3/2013 9:03:15 PM

anyone gonna start a thread where everyone posts their straight up picks to see which of us beats the 75% threshold?

1/3/2013 9:03:36 PM

nah that sounds dumb and like a total waste of time

1/3/2013 9:04:50 PM

Don't knock statistics just because skokiaan threw together some crap numbers, shoved it into a logistic regression and called it a model. Stats can be useful for individual teams (i.e. Player will drive left 75% of the time or they shoot a lower percentage at certain parts of the court) or predicting outcomes based on tempo-free numbers (see kenpom).

1/3/2013 9:05:18 PM

Colorado plays @ Arizona tonight, Gonzaga plays @ Pepperdine

i'll take the Cats and Zags straight up, bet you I get 100% correct

1/3/2013 9:05:43 PM

i don't think any of us said that stats are useless

stats tell PART of a story

i actually find them pretty interesting, but it's retarded to follow them blindly without any context or critical thought

and LOL @ Twista since AZ is getting WAXED right now...

[Edited on January 3, 2013 at 9:10 PM. Reason : .]

1/3/2013 9:06:47 PM

hmmm.

Arizona is about to lose at home to unranked CO

i guess predictions by computers AND posters are pretty worthless sometimes huh

1/3/2013 9:58:05 PM

lol

Dimwitty is a good player, my eye test told me that when I watched him play in Maui this year

and while Arizona may lose, I'm going to assume with 100% confidence that the advanced algorithms also predicted Arizona to win straight up

[Edited on January 3, 2013 at 10:01 PM. Reason : i know thats not how you spell his name]

1/3/2013 10:00:21 PM

3 point game

i take it all back

1/3/2013 10:05:55 PM

In spite of tittytwister's histrionics, you'd have to be a fucking idiot to look at this team and think we'd go 11-7 in this ACC. We fucking sleep-waliked (slept-walked?) through a 21 point win over UNCG.

But now I'm responding to face's trolling, so I'm part of the problem.

1/3/2013 10:09:45 PM

[Edited on January 3, 2013 at 10:12 PM. Reason : jobbed]

1/3/2013 10:09:56 PM

i dont know how i'm the one acting crazy when i base my basketball opinions on a combination of watching basketball, and trusting the expert opinions of basketball analysts/coaches/former players/former coaches

compared to people who think some wall street flunkie / guy with a masters degree in statistics who doesnt even watch sports is all-knowing

the guys who make the algorithms probably fill out all their ncaa brackets as chalk, since thats what the formulas tend to show...whereas only once ever have 4 #1 seeds made the final four

[Edited on January 3, 2013 at 10:17 PM. Reason : .]

1/3/2013 10:14:12 PM

skokiaan has a master's degree?

1/3/2013 10:18:15 PM

lol i was referring to the people who actually put together the algorithms, not the people who blindly buy into them since they're not smart enough to actually watch sports and form their own opinions

1/3/2013 10:18:50 PM

1/3/2013 10:38:48 PM

haha

1/3/2013 10:46:29 PM

Quote :

"guys the eye test is worthless you dont need to watch basketball, just plug box scores into a spreadsheet and see what the formulas come out to its math, its not a sport that humans play "

Exactly

Using bullshit odds RIGHT NOW to predict our record for the next 18 games is ridiculous, if you can't see this you are a fucking idiot.

1/3/2013 10:54:16 PM

Jesus.

face is trolling the everliving shit out of you people right now.

Just stop responding. I realize I did once as well, but damn. At some point you have to recognize his trolling for what it is.

1/3/2013 11:37:27 PM

Stanford loses to Southern Cal

State's RPI drops

1/4/2013 12:13:03 AM

I'm not trolling. We don't project as a very good team right now.

Are you guys watching the games? We don't look very good either so the numbers are backing up the appearances.

I'm still optimistic we can fix things and I think 12-6 is likely and 13-5 is achievable.

But we've got to improve to get there.

1/4/2013 12:18:34 AM

we've won 7 games in a row, and our last loss was over a month ago by single digits to a top-3 team in the country on their home court

we definitely dont look very good

1/4/2013 12:20:34 AM

Do we really have to go through this EVERY YEAR?

Every January people start talking about how amazing we are after we beat our crappy January opponents. Completely ignoring all the problems that will expose us against better competition.

This year is a little different in the fact that we are actually a pretty good team relative to years past, but our expectations are loftier than ever. And based on what we've seen thus far, they are just as unjustified as ever too.

1/4/2013 12:30:17 AM

Quote :

"We don't look very good"

Quote :

"we are actually a pretty good team"

1/4/2013 12:32:47 AM

OK fine, last year we needed a DP jumper to beat Princeton in OOC but went to the sweet 16 anyways. This year we have completely blown away all of the scrub teams without breaking a sweat. final four here we go.

1/4/2013 12:33:55 AM

Quote :

"Are you guys watching the games? We don't look very good"

99% of teams don't look very good right now. I'm not saying we look great out there, but we don't look terrible. Other than Duke, Indiana, and Michigan, I haven't seen any teams that look unquestionably better than us at this point.

[Edited on January 4, 2013 at 1:31 AM. Reason : ]

1/4/2013 1:30:54 AM

^ Really? I can easily name 20. Oklahoma State, for one.

1/4/2013 1:38:59 AM

Read my fucking words you idiots.

1/4/2013 1:41:44 AM

name 19 more, face

1/4/2013 1:44:57 AM

The problem with saying we look good, which we do, is the reason we look good. We are a very athletically talented offensive team. When we play inferior opponents it gets magnified and we run away with games despite how bad we are playing. If we were playing more athletic teams, like ACC competition, this run-away effect would not happen and we would have to win with good basketball.

Its just like UNC. Due to their style, they can beat a crappy team by 50 and put up 110 points but when they play a slightly decent team its all of a sudden a basketball game.

1/4/2013 3:50:19 AM

^

1/4/2013 5:58:42 AM

So you are saying that if margin of victory falls as competition rises, that is a characteristic of a flawed team?

1/4/2013 7:58:25 AM

Eh, we played Michigan as well as any other team has played them all year. The only bad game on our resume is Oklahoma State, and even Lorenzo Brown came out and said our guys "needed that" because everyone was kinda half-assing it and believing all their hype. Our resume is probably stronger at this point than it was at this time last season. And the ACC overall looks weaker this year than last year(FSU and UNC look a good deal weaker than last year).

20 teams that I know for a fact that would beat us on a neutral court? Eh, that would be a tough list to put together, especially since half the teams in the top 25 right now are suspect(like UNLV getting beat by UNC). Heck even Oklahoma State lost to VT by double-digits and then VT turned around and lost to WVU and Georgia Southern in the next week or so. Definitely still too early to be judging, let alone crowning, a lot of teams.

1/4/2013 8:11:20 AM

I can't remember the last time a team has had a perfect regular season (i think not since the 70's?)

We're the best team Duke will play till post-season therefore sounds like a good chance we'll win.

1/4/2013 10:11:27 AM

^ 76 Hoosiers.

1/4/2013 10:13:38 AM

Duke obviously isn't going to win the title and would already have an L if Deng wasn't out for UL, but reg season isn't off the table.

Michigan is a real threat to run the table but they play in the best conference so it'll be tough.

[Edited on January 4, 2013 at 10:16 AM. Reason : X]

1/4/2013 10:16:12 AM