greg.w.h said:
What's the methodology for taking zero data and forecasting a result for a team that lost four seniors???
From his site (from 2016, but still true for the most part):
"The components and weighting is based on a regression of the past nine seasons. The system is, by 2015 standards, pretty simple. It doesn't try to project playing time for individual players. All but 5-star recruits are virtually ignored.
In the most general sense, the main ingredient in the system is inertia. If a team has been good in the recent past, it's likely to be rated well in the preseason. As much as we like to think of college basketball as this crazy sport where anything can happen, there's just not much class mobility in the game. I think we all understand that the Big Ten will always be better than the SWAC, but even within conferences there's a clear power structure that might vary from year to year but is very predictable over the long term.
Over the next decade, it's a near certainty that Arizona will win more Pac-12 games than Washington State, Kansas will win more Big 12 games than TCU, and Duke will win more ACC games than Boston College. So in the absence of looking at specific players, the projection first relies on recent team performance. Projected offense is largely determined by the quality of a team's offense over the previous three seasons and its defense from last season. Projected defense uses similar variables.
Returning personnel is considered as well. Generally, the more players returning, the better. However, the quality of the player is also a factor. Losing a high-usage/high-efficiency player hurts a team's offense a lot more than losing a role player. In fact, a low-usage inefficient role player that returns can actually hurt a team's rating. So while chasing off a player is not the most ethical practice, it is apparently a good sign for the program when a struggling player seeks a new school."
