So it seems that ken pomeroy (http://www.kenpom.com) has started putting up his predictions from his model now that the season is well underway. I'm curious to see how well his early season predictions line up with the actual results at the end of the season. What can I say? I enjoy large nonlinear models as well as basketball. (percentages in parentheses are the probability of a win)

Here's what he sees for NCSU:
Wed Dec 17 North Carolina St. vs. (100) East Carolina (sr) Home W, 77-73[65] (67%)
Sat Dec 20 North Carolina St. vs. (235) Lipscomb (sr) Home W, 72-58[66] (93%)
Mon Dec 22 North Carolina St. vs. (68) Marquette (sr) Home L, 73-72[70] (49%)
Mon Dec 29 North Carolina St. vs. (237) Loyola MD (sr) Home W, 77-61[65] (93%)
Wed Dec 31 North Carolina St. vs. (203) Towson (sr) Home W, 79-66[67] (89%)
Sat Jan 3 North Carolina St. vs. (44) Florida (sr) Away L, 76-64[65] (12%)
Sat Jan 10 North Carolina St. vs. (21) Clemson (sr) Away L, 83-65[69] (6%)
Tue Jan 13 North Carolina St. vs. (80) Florida St. (sr) Home W, 66-65[67] (58%)
Sat Jan 17 North Carolina St. vs. (52) Georgia Tech (sr) Home L, 70-68[71] (43%)
Tue Jan 20 North Carolina St. vs. (6) Duke (sr) Away L, 81-60[70] (3%)
Sat Jan 24 North Carolina St. vs. (63) Boston College (sr) Away L, 72-63[65] (19%)
Tue Jan 27 North Carolina St. vs. (26) Miami FL (sr) Home L, 73-65[66] (20%)
Sat Jan 31 North Carolina St. vs. (2) North Carolina (sr) Home L, 87-66[74] (4%)
Tue Feb 3 North Carolina St. vs. (344) North Carolina Central (sr) Home W, 86-49[67] (100%)
Sun Feb 8 North Carolina St. vs. (86) Virginia Tech (sr) Away L, 69-64[64] (30%)
Wed Feb 11 North Carolina St. vs. (32) Wake Forest (sr) Home L, 74-66[72] (24%)
Sat Feb 14 North Carolina St. vs. (52) Georgia Tech (sr) Away L, 74-64[71] (17%)
Wed Feb 18 North Carolina St. vs. (2) North Carolina (sr) Away L, 92-62[74] (1%)
Sat Feb 21 North Carolina St. vs. (128) Virginia (sr) Home W, 75-67[69] (77%)
Thu Feb 26 North Carolina St. vs. (32) Wake Forest (sr) Away L, 78-63[72] (8%)
Sun Mar 1 North Carolina St. vs. (28) Maryland (sr) Home L, 71-63[67] (21%)
Wed Mar 4 North Carolina St. vs. (63) Boston College (sr) Home L, 68-67[65] (46%)
Sat Mar 7 North Carolina St. vs. (26) Miami FL (sr) Away L, 77-61[66] (7%)
Projected record** 14-15 4-12

(note: the projected record doesn't necessarily match the sum of wins and losses predicted, because he factors in upsets, etc)

other notable teams:
UNC: favored for all their games, with a final record of 28-2 (14-2). It gives a 12% chance of an undefeated season.
Duke: favored in all games except UNC and georgia tech, with a final record of 25-6 (12-4)

they obviously don't have a clemson meltdown factor because they have them finishing 25-5 (11-5)

davidson is favored for the rest of their games save duke and purdue, with a projected record of 27-3 (19-1)

Pomeroy's model actually ranks georgetown as the number one team right now, though they project their final record to be 26-3. according to his stats they have the number one offense and the number six defense.

the zags are picked to lose two all season.

the only other acc team in the top 30 is miami who is picked to finish 21-8.

I know this probably doesn't interest much of anyone, but if this only serves as a record of the current state of the predictions so i can compare in march, that's fine. flame on.

[Edited on December 16, 2008 at 9:45 PM. Reason : .]

[Edited on December 16, 2008 at 9:47 PM. Reason : .]

12/16/2008 9:44:24 PM

In before TreeTwista tells us that numbers are stupid

12/16/2008 9:48:56 PM

In before people start bitching about a 4 point win against ezu

12/16/2008 9:51:28 PM

he did a pretty good job last year, I didn't like his predictions until it was more or less true

but they get more accurate the more games are played I believe, so this early it's probably not as solid as it will be

12/16/2008 9:54:52 PM

In before some one says that kobe would win everything

12/16/2008 9:58:10 PM

It's probably not too useful right now... has Big 10 as the best conference

12/16/2008 9:58:35 PM

Quote :

"In before people start bitching about a 4 point win against ezu"

why bitch? ECU beat State last year. and ECU is better this year.

12/16/2008 10:00:20 PM

Because it's ECU. We should never beat them by less than 15.

[Edited on December 16, 2008 at 10:04 PM. Reason : ]

12/16/2008 10:04:05 PM

i made like 10 bets on centsports using pomeroy's score predictions last year and lost every one of them.

12/17/2008 9:35:04 AM

Quote :

"I enjoy large nonlinear models as well as basketball"

12/17/2008 9:47:11 AM

I could see us going .500 this year

12/17/2008 9:52:44 AM

Quote :

"Tue Feb 3 North Carolina St. vs. (344) North Carolina Central (sr) Home W, 86-49[67] (100%)"

we're doomed

12/17/2008 9:56:41 AM

We will win as that is a home game on my birthday. We are 1-0 on home games on my birthday.

12/17/2008 12:14:38 PM

clearly a trend

12/17/2008 12:19:12 PM

that's clearly wrong atm

I wouldn't be surprised to see us beat both Marquette and Florida. We'll win at least 6 ACC games, but I think it'll be more like 8.

30 pt loss to unc? Herb aint the coach no more, Ken.

12/17/2008 3:53:44 PM

Um, we lost to UNC by 31 last year with Lowe. We were down by 30... at the end of one half.

You have way too high expectations and are only going to get pissed off with the results, imo.

[Edited on December 17, 2008 at 4:22 PM. Reason : x]

12/17/2008 4:20:56 PM

I'm always pissed with the results.

The only thing I've really liked since i've been at State (Amato's last year) is that we always win a couple big games, or at least a couple in thrilling fashion, every year.

12/17/2008 4:26:32 PM

Quote :

"30 pt loss to unc? Herb aint the coach no more, Ken."

just to be clear, ken pomeroy just made the model and let it run.

12/17/2008 4:32:53 PM

They aren't as accurate at the moment. As the season progresses and teams start playing less of their back-ups and get more data for the model, it will become more accurate.

12/17/2008 5:13:12 PM

Wed Feb 18 North Carolina St. vs. (2) North Carolina (sr) Away L, 92-62[74] (1%)

12/17/2008 5:14:47 PM

Quote :

"They aren't as accurate at the moment. As the season progresses and teams start playing less of their back-ups and get more data for the model, it will become more accurate."

yeah definitely. i just want to see if the model is any good at long-range predictions.

also, i'll probably post an update of our predictions just before acc play.

12/17/2008 5:26:50 PM

one of the parts of his model i like to look at is the scouting report.

http://kenpom.com/sr.php?team=North%20Carolina%20St.&y=2009

It shows how we haven't really played bad, but it was against bad competition.

We've shot well from 2, but most of our shots from 3 come from people who aren't very good at hitting it from three.

Defensively we're good at holding opponents to bad shots, but we don't force enough turnovers. We're good about not fouling, but we don't rebound well enough.

Also, it's a very rough figure, but it shows that our scoring by position is very well balanced.

12/20/2008 6:12:46 AM

I go to Miami.

Miami is not beating NCSU twice, if even once.

12/20/2008 6:21:50 AM

^why are you here then, pray tell?

12/20/2008 6:42:45 AM

Studies have shown that 48% of TWW sports talk posters have transferred from State at some point in time.

[Edited on December 20, 2008 at 7:05 AM. Reason : s]

12/20/2008 7:03:57 AM

Quote :

"30 pt loss to unc? Herb aint the coach no more, Ken."

^^^How do you go to Miami and not know their team is light years ahead of us???

12/20/2008 12:25:43 PM

he had us 72-58 over lipscomb. we won 78-58. What was the spread?

12/20/2008 6:28:58 PM

Even if Miami's program is ahead of state's, that doesn't mean UM wins twice. And it's not light years ahead by any means.

Miami just beat ROBERT MORRIS by 8 points.

Yeah, the team that lost to St. Francis and Marist.

Transitive property aside, I've seen them play and they look like they don't give a fuck.

12/20/2008 7:21:25 PM

interesting. according to pom's stat, javi is the second best stealer in the acc (to ty lawson and ben mccauley is 11th).

the stat is steals/defensive possession.

http://kenpom.com/leaders.php?c=PctStls&y=2009&f=ACC

12/28/2008 12:17:46 PM

not a whole lot has changed since the first post, though the model has downgraded UNC to third in the nation, finishing with three losses.

interestingly, there are four ACC teams ranked between 80-84 nationally:

80 Georgia Tech
81 Virginia
82 North Carolina St.
83 Niagara
84 Virginia Tech

Here's our projected schedule at this point:
Sat Jan 3 North Carolina St. vs. (36) Florida (sr) Away L, 75-64[63] (13%)
Sat Jan 10 North Carolina St. vs. (11) Clemson (sr) Away L, 82-65[68] (6%)
Tue Jan 13 North Carolina St. vs. (70) Florida St. (sr) Home W, 65-63[65] (60%)
Sat Jan 17 North Carolina St. vs. (80) Georgia Tech (sr) Home W, 71-67[70] (65%)
Tue Jan 20 North Carolina St. vs. (2) Duke (sr) Away L, 81-60[69] (3%)
Sat Jan 24 North Carolina St. vs. (57) Boston College (sr) Away L, 75-67[67] (20%)
Tue Jan 27 North Carolina St. vs. (21) Miami FL (sr) Home L, 71-65[65] (26%)
Sat Jan 31 North Carolina St. vs. (3) North Carolina (sr) Home L, 85-70[73] (9%)
Tue Feb 3 North Carolina St. vs. (342) North Carolina Central (sr) Home W, 85-49[67] (100%)
Sun Feb 8 North Carolina St. vs. (84) Virginia Tech (sr) Away L, 68-64[63] (35%)
Wed Feb 11 North Carolina St. vs. (19) Wake Forest (sr) Home L, 73-66[71] (23%)
Sat Feb 14 North Carolina St. vs. (80) Georgia Tech (sr) Away L, 71-67[70] (34%)
Wed Feb 18 North Carolina St. vs. (3) North Carolina (sr) Away L, 90-66[73] (3%)
Sat Feb 21 North Carolina St. vs. (81) Virginia (sr) Home W, 71-67[67] (65%)
Thu Feb 26 North Carolina St. vs. (19) Wake Forest (sr) Away L, 78-63[71] (8%)
Sun Mar 1 North Carolina St. vs. (34) Maryland (sr) Home L, 67-63[66] (35%)
Wed Mar 4 North Carolina St. vs. (57) Boston College (sr) Home L, 72-71[67] (48%)
Sat Mar 7 North Carolina St. vs. (21) Miami FL (sr) Away L, 75-61[65] (9%)
Projected record** 15-14 4-12

as far as evaluating the predictions made for games that have already occurred:
we beat lipscomb and ecu by a larger margin than predicted, the marquette prediction was pretty close.
obviously we were expected to do better against loyola.
and we did better than expected against towson.

i don't recall what our ranking was last time, though i think we have improved a bit since the first post.

[Edited on January 2, 2009 at 5:20 PM. Reason : .]

1/2/2009 5:15:27 PM

Quote :

"interesting. according to pom's stat, javi is the second best stealer in the acc (to ty lawson and ben mccauley is 11th)."

I'm not surprised. He always got a lot of deflections with his quick hands. It's his speed and size that cause him to be a defensive liability.

1/2/2009 5:20:48 PM

javi loves sneakin'.

1/2/2009 5:33:23 PM

looking at http://kenpom.com/sked.php?team=North%20Carolina%20St.&t=p makes me at the quality of opponents state has played so far

1/2/2009 5:45:33 PM

This is the greatest basketball tool I have ever seen.

1/2/2009 7:03:54 PM

Quote :

"i don't recall what our ranking was last time, though i think we have improved a bit since the first post."

I believe we started in the mid-90s to low-100s after the first few games

if we can pull it together there are a lot of close losses that I think we could win, but it will probably come down to a handful of 'almost won' losses that drop us out of contention

1/2/2009 7:39:55 PM

an update since we're just past halfway through the acc season:

predictions for the first half of the acc season were remarkably accurate for ncsu. the only game that was not predicted correctly was the loss to fsu (and the win over wake tonight of course).

currently our rank is 90 in the nation. i assume we go up a few after the win tonight. the model still predicts us to win 5-11 (though i assume that will also go up to 6-10 tomorrow). and if that happens, we'll finish the year with a 16-13 record. NIT-worthy? i guess it will depend on how we finish out the season and how we perform in the acc tourney. of course, with duke going into tonight's game at number in the pomeroy ratings, they were expected to win by 5 against unc at home.

and here's our updated, predicted finish to the season:

Wed Feb 11 (17) Wake Forest L, 76-69 25% Home
Sat Feb 14 (96) Georgia Tech L, 69-66 38% Away
Wed Feb 18 (3) North Carolina L, 92-69 4% Away
Sat Feb 21 (103) Virginia W, 72-66 72% Home
Thu Feb 26 (17) Wake Forest L, 80-65 8% Away
Sun Mar 1 (67) Maryland W, 69-68 55% Home
Wed Mar 4 (66) Boston College W, 73-72 55% Home
Sat Mar 7 (27) Miami FL L, 75-63 12% Away

[Edited on February 11, 2009 at 11:28 PM. Reason : .]

2/11/2009 11:27:40 PM

Quote :

"we'll finish the year with a 16-13 record. NIT-worthy?"

I may be wrong, but I think almost every ACC team with a winning overall record goes to the NIT at least. There may have been one or maybe two over the past several years that didn't, but I think I remember looking it up and knowing that over a couple year spread.

2/12/2009 12:45:25 AM

Quote :

"I may be wrong, but I think almost every ACC team with a winning overall record goes to the NIT at least."

didn't they make it more difficult for teams in that situation to get in recently (with at-large bids or something)

2/18/2009 11:05:07 PM

i usually don't look too hard at pomeroy's game predictions, but i check out his stat stuff every now and then. it's pretty interesting to me.

2/18/2009 11:12:15 PM

yeah some of the most interesting and comprehensive (and meaningful) stats out there.

2/18/2009 11:14:03 PM

i usually try and read up on how he determines his stats and they are surprisingly well thought out and calculated. it's really impressive how much he takes into account.

that's just the nerd in me though.

2/18/2009 11:19:05 PM

sound the nerd alarm

2/18/2009 11:24:04 PM

guilty as charged

2/18/2009 11:24:50 PM

2/18/2009 11:25:51 PM

d7nerdstyler

lol

2/18/2009 11:56:18 PM

Quote :

"I may be wrong, but I think almost every ACC team with a winning overall record goes to the NIT at least. There may have been one or maybe two over the past several years that didn't, but I think I remember looking it up and knowing that over a couple year spread."

last year's UVa squad went to that shitty new tournament, and Wake didn't go anywhere, but yeah ACC teams usually get something

Quote :

"didn't they make it more difficult for teams in that situation to get in recently (with at-large bids or something)"

Automatic bids to teams that won their conference season but lost in the tournament

2/19/2009 1:19:51 AM

Tracy Smith is the best offensive player in the ACC

http://kenpom.com/leaders.php?c=ORPct&y=2009&f=ACC

3/1/2009 4:30:58 PM

* Offensive rebounder.

Lol, our top rated offensive player is Dennis Horner, though.

http://kenpom.com/leaders.php?c=ORtg

3/1/2009 4:51:24 PM

tww assures me that this is not possible.

3/1/2009 4:54:40 PM

Whoops, wrong link

http://kenpom.com/leaders.php?c=ORtg&y=2009&f=ACC

3/1/2009 4:54:45 PM