So talked about this on a few threads, but it probably deserves it's own. As everyone knows, the NCAA ditched the RPI for the NET a few years ago. It has its own flaws, but this was a major step forward.
Last year the NCAA added a new metric, the NET WAB. (good article from CBS on it) The WAB (wins above bubble) isn't new, it's been used by analytics guys previously, but the NCAA didn't officially have it on the team sheets. Now not only is it on the team sheets, but the NCAA has it's own WAB metric.
And, somehow, against all odds. I think this thing is great. I'm not completely convinced they shouldn't just use it to seed the tournament. The first I glanced at it last year I thought "holy ****, did they just finally nail it?"
How does WAB work?
The WAB is a formula to determine how many wins an average bubble team would have against your schedule. For example, an average bubble team would have been expected to beat Oklahoma about 50% of the time. We won the game, and so indeed, our NET WAB went up by about .5 and we jumped up four spots overnight. Our next game is against Arkansas where an average bubble team would only be expected to win ~19% of the time. So if we lose we'll lose .19, but a win would gain us .81.
Why is it better than just the NET?
The NET is a predictive metric like KenPom or Torvik's TRank. It is meant to show you how good a team actually is, right now. If team A played team B tonight on a neutral floor, who's most likely to win? But that's not really what people want to select the NCAA Tournament. It's not just about efficiency, it's about real-world results. So the NET WAB is exactly that. It doesn't matter if you won the game by 100 or by 1, you won the game.
So what does it actually matter?
Last year no metric more closely resembled the final seed list than the NET WAB. This is last year's true seed list against the NET WEB (with a couple of the auto bids removed near the bubble to make it easier to understand.) And I suspect that some of the bigger variations here were mostly done for bracketing purposes.
Okay so what's the deal right now?
The team's from about 26 all the way to 44 are all bunched up very tightly this year. #25 Wisconsin is .61 wins clear of #26 Utah State, but take away .61 from Utah State and they fall the way to #34. And the gap between a team solidly in the field right now, say SMU at 2.15 and being the last team in the field, someone like Ohio State, is just 1.2
This matters for us because we have three pretty big swing WAB games left. WAB Watch doesn't use the exact formulation, so the numbers are slightly off, but it still gives a pretty good estimate of what a game is going to be worth.
Current WAB: 1.58
at Arkansas: .81
Texas: .37
Kentucky: .39
at LSU: .54
This is also why when people want a simple answer to "do we get in with 10 wins?" it's not that easy. I saw a post that someone was mad about moving the goalposts on wins, but that's exactly the case here. The target is always moving, and it's not the same year to year. Last year's bubble cut off ended up being around .8. Where North Carolina sat just ahead of West Virginia.
This weekend was good for us, with all kinds of teams around us taking losses, some of them to teams that aren't very good, like Clemson's home loss to Florida State sent them tumbling from 27 down to 37.
TL,DR; For people that want a pretty easy way to follow whether we're going to make it to the NCAA Tournament, follow the NET WAB. Last year everyone in the top 42 made the tournament, and everyone that made it as an at-large ranked in the 40's. We currently sit at #40.
Last year the NCAA added a new metric, the NET WAB. (good article from CBS on it) The WAB (wins above bubble) isn't new, it's been used by analytics guys previously, but the NCAA didn't officially have it on the team sheets. Now not only is it on the team sheets, but the NCAA has it's own WAB metric.
And, somehow, against all odds. I think this thing is great. I'm not completely convinced they shouldn't just use it to seed the tournament. The first I glanced at it last year I thought "holy ****, did they just finally nail it?"
How does WAB work?
The WAB is a formula to determine how many wins an average bubble team would have against your schedule. For example, an average bubble team would have been expected to beat Oklahoma about 50% of the time. We won the game, and so indeed, our NET WAB went up by about .5 and we jumped up four spots overnight. Our next game is against Arkansas where an average bubble team would only be expected to win ~19% of the time. So if we lose we'll lose .19, but a win would gain us .81.
Why is it better than just the NET?
The NET is a predictive metric like KenPom or Torvik's TRank. It is meant to show you how good a team actually is, right now. If team A played team B tonight on a neutral floor, who's most likely to win? But that's not really what people want to select the NCAA Tournament. It's not just about efficiency, it's about real-world results. So the NET WAB is exactly that. It doesn't matter if you won the game by 100 or by 1, you won the game.
So what does it actually matter?
Last year no metric more closely resembled the final seed list than the NET WAB. This is last year's true seed list against the NET WEB (with a couple of the auto bids removed near the bubble to make it easier to understand.) And I suspect that some of the bigger variations here were mostly done for bracketing purposes.
Okay so what's the deal right now?
The team's from about 26 all the way to 44 are all bunched up very tightly this year. #25 Wisconsin is .61 wins clear of #26 Utah State, but take away .61 from Utah State and they fall the way to #34. And the gap between a team solidly in the field right now, say SMU at 2.15 and being the last team in the field, someone like Ohio State, is just 1.2
This matters for us because we have three pretty big swing WAB games left. WAB Watch doesn't use the exact formulation, so the numbers are slightly off, but it still gives a pretty good estimate of what a game is going to be worth.
Current WAB: 1.58
at Arkansas: .81
Texas: .37
Kentucky: .39
at LSU: .54
This is also why when people want a simple answer to "do we get in with 10 wins?" it's not that easy. I saw a post that someone was mad about moving the goalposts on wins, but that's exactly the case here. The target is always moving, and it's not the same year to year. Last year's bubble cut off ended up being around .8. Where North Carolina sat just ahead of West Virginia.
This weekend was good for us, with all kinds of teams around us taking losses, some of them to teams that aren't very good, like Clemson's home loss to Florida State sent them tumbling from 27 down to 37.
TL,DR; For people that want a pretty easy way to follow whether we're going to make it to the NCAA Tournament, follow the NET WAB. Last year everyone in the top 42 made the tournament, and everyone that made it as an at-large ranked in the 40's. We currently sit at #40.
