ESPN says Zags are 5th best team according to BPI

[Malastein]

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...2020-21-season

Villanova, Baylor, Iowa, and Virginia are all rated better. This article tries to defend the justification for this, but it is bulletin board material.

[scrooner]

I think this says something about the BPI.

[Malastein]

I do too, but this is ripe bulletin board material nonetheless.

[Kong-Kool-Aid]

Two games is too early to tell anything. Could be right, could be wrong.

[tinfoilzag]

From the article:

"Despite Gonzaga's strong start and the Cavaliers' loss to San Francisco, Virginia has crept ahead of Gonzaga thanks to its better-than-expected performance against Towson to start the season."

"Baylor, on the other hand, was third in BPI to start the season, but its 34-point win over Washington, a team BPI currently considers NIT-quality, moved it ahead of Iowa."

So marquee wins against Towson and Washington are what are moving the BPI rankings right now?

I also love how they state right in the article that BPI 'quantifies' the quality of experience of existing players and the ranking of incoming recruits which are both qualitative data points. This is the same model that created the housing bubble. As a data analyst, every time I see this I know the result of the model will just reflect the opinion of the group that determines quality.

It is good BB material, I just wish GU was lower in the BPI rankings so the BPI's flaws would be more obvious.

[SanDiegoZag]

Well, considering they only give the Zags a 75% chance of at least sharing a WCC regular season title (which they have done 95% of the previous 20 years)...it's hard to take the analytics behind it very seriously. I mean, is the 25% chance they don't win or share the title based on the possibility of multiple starters missing four or more games due to Covid? I would think the Zags have AT LEAST a 75% chance of only losing 1 conference game this year at most...which would GUARANTEE them at least a share of the regular season title. Of course, any WCC team that hypothetically beats the Zags this year isn't going to run the table across the rest of their games too....so even 2 losses would not be sufficient to at least share the title.

ESPN may want to check under the hood there if they want anyone to take their BPI seriously. I think their FPI for football always seemed well off compared to other analytics rankings too.

[Malastein]

Well, the writer is a BYU/Virginia Tech guy, so maybe it is wishful thinking on his part.

[webspinnre]

Early in the year these metrics lack data - they become more reliable as the year goes on.

[krozman]

Well, considering they only give the Zags a 75% chance of at least sharing a WCC regular season title (which they have done 95% of the previous 20 years)...it's hard to take the analytics behind it very seriously. .

Exactly this.