BET 3/12/15 Georgetown - Creighton Discussion

[hoyainspirit]

Mar 9, 2015 15:47:06 GMT -5 FLHoya said:

If it's gonna keep coming up, I might as well post this stat:

The last ten times that Georgetown has played a BET game against a team that we went W-W or L-L against in the regular season (this goes back to the 90s), the third result was....

....the same 5 times
....different 5 times.

So, were we 10-0?

[hoyasaxa2003]

I don't think there is inherently any reason why beating a team three times should be any harder. But, I understand why.

Let's say two teams are 50/50 against one another in quality. 50% of the time Team A wins, 50% of the time Team B wins. Under that scenario, the odds of winning two games in a row are about 25%. The odds of winning three games in a row is 12.5%.

The fact is, the more games you play against someone, the more likely you are going to have one loss, assuming all else stays equal. All that being said, in basketball (and coin flips), the previous result doesn't impact the future results directly. Sure, you can make adjustments, etc. but if one team is better than another, they will still win most of the time.

Since there is so much parity in college basketball, it is hard to win three games against a similarly skilled team simply because each time you play the odds of winning are pretty close. All that said, the past doesn't affect the future aside from scouting, being mental, and improvements on the teams.

[beenaround]

Ike has to break out of this mini slump and be a major factor. In addition we really need one other freshman to contribute for this team to play at a high level. While, good shooting, good defense etc are always nice for any team, it seems that the Hoyas really need to reduce unforced turnovers. This makes the O so much more efficient and obviously allows the defense to set up.

[FLHoya]

Mar 9, 2015 16:11:48 GMT -5 sleepy said:

Mar 9, 2015 15:47:06 GMT -5 FLHoya said:

If it's gonna keep coming up, I might as well post this stat:

The last ten times that Georgetown has played a BET game against a team that we went W-W or L-L against in the regular season (this goes back to the 90s), the third result was....

....the same 5 times
....different 5 times.

But doesn't that just support the sentiment that it's difficult to beat a team 3 times in one season? A team that was clearly better or worse than you in the regular season turns into a coin flip outcome the third time on a nuteral court.

I don't really have a position on the whole thing, other than I'd be really disappointed if we lost to either DePaul or Creighton.

I posted that stat because people bring up that particular platitude Every. Single. Time. we play a team for the third time in the BET. I figured I might as well look up the numbers, and ten seemed like a good round number (I also got tired after looking back about twenty-ish years.)

[sleepy]

Mar 9, 2015 19:13:17 GMT -5 hoyasaxa2003 said:

I don't think there is inherently any reason why beating a team three times should be any harder. But, I understand why.

Let's say two teams are 50/50 against one another in quality. 50% of the time Team A wins, 50% of the time Team B wins. Under that scenario, the odds of winning two games in a row are about 25%. The odds of winning three games in a row is 12.5%.

The fact is, the more games you play against someone, the more likely you are going to have one loss, assuming all else stays equal. All that being said, in basketball (and coin flips), the previous result doesn't impact the future results directly. Sure, you can make adjustments, etc. but if one team is better than another, they will still win most of the time.

Since there is so much parity in college basketball, it is hard to win three games against a similarly skilled team simply because each time you play the odds of winning are pretty close. All that said, the past doesn't affect the future aside from scouting, being mental, and improvements on the teams.

I think you're underplaying how important scouting, the mental aspect, familiarity, and improvments have on the game of basketball. And I think the more you play a team the more those aspects change and develop, making the third or forth or fifth game more diffiicult. The "Platitude" or "old wise tale" that it's hard to beat a team 3 times in one season is true, IMO, simply because it's rare that your team is that much better than another team that they wouldn't be able to make the right adjustments on the third try and none of the other aspects would negatively affect you. I don't, and will never, understand why it's always so thoroughly debated on here.

For me personally the "theory", if you will, makes me want to avoid Butler and maybe Seton Hall, but certainly doesn't make me want to face Xavier again.

[Big Dog]

Mar 9, 2015 23:18:00 GMT -5 sleepy said:

Mar 9, 2015 19:13:17 GMT -5 hoyasaxa2003 said:

I don't think there is inherently any reason why beating a team three times should be any harder. But, I understand why.

Let's say two teams are 50/50 against one another in quality. 50% of the time Team A wins, 50% of the time Team B wins. Under that scenario, the odds of winning two games in a row are about 25%. The odds of winning three games in a row is 12.5%.

The fact is, the more games you play against someone, the more likely you are going to have one loss, assuming all else stays equal. All that being said, in basketball (and coin flips), the previous result doesn't impact the future results directly. Sure, you can make adjustments, etc. but if one team is better than another, they will still win most of the time.

Since there is so much parity in college basketball, it is hard to win three games against a similarly skilled team simply because each time you play the odds of winning are pretty close. All that said, the past doesn't affect the future aside from scouting, being mental, and improvements on the teams.

I think you're underplaying how important scouting, the mental aspect, familiarity, and improvments have on the game of basketball. And I think the more you play a team the more those aspects change and develop, making the third or forth or fifth game more diffiicult. The "Platitude" or "old wise tale" that it's hard to beat a team 3 times in one season is true, IMO, simply because it's rare that your team is that much better than another team that they wouldn't be able to make the right adjustments on the third try and none of the other aspects would negatively affect you. I don't, and will never, understand why it's always so thoroughly debated on here.

For me personally the "theory", if you will, makes me want to avoid Butler and maybe Seton Hall, but certainly doesn't make me want to face Xavier again.

But both teams make adjustments.

You still aren't basing this on anything other than your own gut feelings. Some of us want actual empirical proof.

[Cambridge]

Just walked through two very large packs of Creighton fans outside MSG. This tells me two things: 1) Creighton fans definitely travel well for the BET and 2) Creighton fans' closets might only contain Creighton gear. Looked like roving packs of midwestern smurfs.

[Buckets]

Mar 10, 2015 8:43:04 GMT -5 Big Dog said:

Mar 9, 2015 23:18:00 GMT -5 sleepy said:

I think you're underplaying how important scouting, the mental aspect, familiarity, and improvments have on the game of basketball. And I think the more you play a team the more those aspects change and develop, making the third or forth or fifth game more diffiicult. The "Platitude" or "old wise tale" that it's hard to beat a team 3 times in one season is true, IMO, simply because it's rare that your team is that much better than another team that they wouldn't be able to make the right adjustments on the third try and none of the other aspects would negatively affect you. I don't, and will never, understand why it's always so thoroughly debated on here.

For me personally the "theory", if you will, makes me want to avoid Butler and maybe Seton Hall, but certainly doesn't make me want to face Xavier again.

But both teams make adjustments.

You still aren't basing this on anything other than your own gut feelings. Some of us want actual empirical proof.

You are not going to get empirical proof because "tough" is subjective. I suspect this saying came up because in days of yore, you'd be relying on your own experience and maybe an assistant's scouting report of another game or two, rather than more game tape publicly than anyone could possibly watch and computers crunching the results of the 5,000 or so DI college basketball games played this year. The first crowd would think that because "we beat 'em twice, we're clearly better!" and a loss is because they played us tougher than they did last time. The second crowd would look at the abundance of statistical evidence that Butler is pretty much exactly as good as we are (http://www.masseyratings.com/cb/compare.htm) and conclude a game against Butler is going to be tough because that is what happens when you play a game against a foe of comparable skill on a neutral court.

[rockhoya]

Mar 10, 2015 9:16:15 GMT -5 Buckets said:

Mar 10, 2015 8:43:04 GMT -5 Big Dog said:

But both teams make adjustments.

You still aren't basing this on anything other than your own gut feelings. Some of us want actual empirical proof.

You are not going to get empirical proof because "tough" is subjective. I suspect this saying came up because in days of yore, you'd be relying on your own experience and maybe an assistant's scouting report of another game or two, rather than more game tape publicly than anyone could possibly watch and computers crunching the results of the 5,000 or so DI college basketball games played this year. The first crowd would think that because "we beat 'em twice, we're clearly better!" and a loss is because they played us tougher than they did last time. The second crowd would look at the abundance of statistical evidence that Butler is pretty much exactly as good as we are (http://www.masseyratings.com/cb/compare.htm) and conclude a game against Butler is going to be tough because that is what happens when you play a game against a foe of comparable skill on a neutral court.

True, but I think the fact that it's just statistically more likely that you lose the more games you play supervenes over all those other factors you listed, especially when in reference to conference opponents who already know your game pretty well.

[bmartin]

Mar 9, 2015 16:58:50 GMT -5 professorhoya said:

Mar 9, 2015 13:42:10 GMT -5 bmartin said:

Pomeroy lists Xavier as one of the unluckiest teams in the country, which is another way of saying that their stats are much better than their record. They had a few impressive wins but were 3-7 in games decided by less than 5 points or in overtime.

Providence on the other hand is one of the lucky teams with a better record than their stats would predict. They are 6-1 in close/OT games but had 3 ugly 9 or 10 point losses to Brown, BC, and Marquette.

Georgetown had a lot to do with the luck ratings of both teams - minus 30 in two games against Xavier make their stats say they should have more wins; and two blown games to Providence made their record better than they really are.

But is it "luck" if they win close/OT games or is it having clutch players and coaches. Does Pomeroy account for that? And conversely if you lose a bunch of close games/OT then it might be an indication of players choking.

I think the general consensus of advanced metrics people is that, yes, it is luck that evens out over a larger sample. If the team truly is better composed or clutch or whatever then it would not lose three games to bad teams by 9 or 10 points.

I mean if you look at the Georgetown-Providence games and at both teams games against Butler and other closely-matched teams, there were fluky extremes that helped decide the outcome - such as Hopkins going 0-6 from the foul line there and Bentil and Desrosiers combining for 12 of 13 here.

[sleepy]

Mar 10, 2015 8:43:04 GMT -5 Big Dog said:

Mar 9, 2015 23:18:00 GMT -5 sleepy said:

I think you're underplaying how important scouting, the mental aspect, familiarity, and improvments have on the game of basketball. And I think the more you play a team the more those aspects change and develop, making the third or forth or fifth game more diffiicult. The "Platitude" or "old wise tale" that it's hard to beat a team 3 times in one season is true, IMO, simply because it's rare that your team is that much better than another team that they wouldn't be able to make the right adjustments on the third try and none of the other aspects would negatively affect you. I don't, and will never, understand why it's always so thoroughly debated on here.

For me personally the "theory", if you will, makes me want to avoid Butler and maybe Seton Hall, but certainly doesn't make me want to face Xavier again.

But both teams make adjustments.

You still aren't basing this on anything other than your own gut feelings. Some of us want actual empirical proof.

Well thats exactly why it's more difficult, the team that won two games usually isn't going to be making major adjustments or strategy changes, they are going to stick to what is working until it isn't working anymore. It's rare that a team is going to beat another team with three separate game plans, though not impossible. Quite frankly I think it just goes back to the old adage that you learn more from failures than successes, which isn't always true, but it is true enough. That, with the psychological aspect that generally favors(though not always) the losing team, and I think that's what makes it more difficult that you would expect.

You may want empirical proof, and that is fair, though I do not know how one would measure the difficulty of a third game against the same team compared to the first game or the second game. You have to ignore the experiences of players and coaches that agree with the sentiment to completely disregard it.

I respect your opinion Big Dog, but to me this is just common sense. Do you really disagree that it rare that you are significantly better than another team that you beat them three times in one season? It's going to be difficult to beat any team consecutively that is about the same level as you the more times you play them, it's tough to beat a team twice in one season, three is even tougher. It's not like games are like flipping a coin, where the previous result has no effect on the outcome of the next result.

I don't think we will ever see eye to eye on this, but it's an interesting discussion.

[TBird41]

Mar 10, 2015 10:47:36 GMT -5 sleepy said:

Mar 10, 2015 8:43:04 GMT -5 Big Dog said:

But both teams make adjustments.

You still aren't basing this on anything other than your own gut feelings. Some of us want actual empirical proof.

Well thats exactly why it's more difficult, the team that won two games usually isn't going to be making major adjustments or strategy changes, they are going to stick to what is working until it isn't working anymore. It's rare that a team is going to beat another team with three separate game plans, though not impossible. Quite frankly I think it just goes back to the old adage that you learn more from failures than successes, which isn't always true, but it is true enough. That, with the psychological aspect that generally favors(though not always) the losing team, and I think that's what makes it more difficult that you would expect.

You may want empirical proof, and that is fair, though I do not know how one would measure the difficulty of a third game against the same team compared to the first game or the second game. You have to ignore the experiences of players and coaches that agree with the sentiment to completely disregard it.

I respect your opinion Big Dog, but to me this is just common sense. Do you really disagree that it rare that you are significantly better than another team that you beat them three times in one season? It's going to be difficult to beat any team consecutively that is about the same level as you the more times you play them, it's tough to beat a team twice in one season, three is even tougher. It's not like games are like flipping a coin, where the previous result has no effect on the outcome of the next result.

I don't think we will ever see eye to eye on this, but it's an interesting discussion.

You'd measure it by comparing the expected outcome based on win expectancy (like KenPom does when he makes predictions) and the actual results to see if there was a meaningful difference for all the games in a large enough sample where one team had already beaten the other twice that season. So, if the 2-0 team was expected to win 63% of the games but had only won 48% (these numbers are made up solely to illustrate my point), you'd have something. If the 2-0 team was expected to win 63% but had won 60%, it would probably show that there really wasn't anything to the "hard to beat a team 3 times thing"

Additionally, you don't want to rely too much on what coaches and players think about a larger picture theory, since the human mind is subject to all kind of biases, many of which could be influencing their opinions (small sample sizes, recency bias, confirmation bias, etc).

[TBird41]

Here's an article that, while it may not be exactly what I was describing, still has information on what happens when a team plays another team a third time after its beaten it twice that season:

"According to STATS LLC., there have been 981 similar matchups across Division I college basketball over the past 10 seasons. The teams entering the third game 2-0 are a combined 710-271 (.724 winning percentage) in the third meeting."

jamesmadison.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1479805

[sleepy]

Mar 10, 2015 11:46:40 GMT -5 TBird41 said:

Here's an article that, while it may not be exactly what I was describing, still has information on what happens when a team plays another team a third time after its beaten it twice that season:

"According to STATS LLC., there have been 981 similar matchups across Division I college basketball over the past 10 seasons. The teams entering the third game 2-0 are a combined 710-271 (.724 winning percentage) in the third meeting."

jamesmadison.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1479805

Interesting and definitely useful and valid statistics.

[Buckets]

Mar 10, 2015 11:46:40 GMT -5 TBird41 said:

Here's an article that, while it may not be exactly what I was describing, still has information on what happens when a team plays another team a third time after its beaten it twice that season:

"According to STATS LLC., there have been 981 similar matchups across Division I college basketball over the past 10 seasons. The teams entering the third game 2-0 are a combined 710-271 (.724 winning percentage) in the third meeting."

jamesmadison.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1479805

Well yeah, .724 is nice, but what was their record in the previous games? 1962-0. QED.

[guru]

Not sure where to put this but as it's BET related, will put here:

It appears that thousands of tickets are still available to the Big East finals. Just clicked on the Ticketmaster map, and maybe 75% of the 200 section seats appear to still be for sale.

www.ticketmaster.com/big-east-mens-basketball-tournament-championship-new-york-new-york-03-14-2015/event/1D004E2777581378?artistid=852551&majorcatid=10004&minorcatid=7&tm_link=artist_msg-0_1D004E2777581378

I mean, with the right match up walk up sales could be solid, but if one of our midwestern brethren makes a run, that won't add much.

All those empty seats would not be a good look at the Garden on a Saturday night. Fingers crossed.

[hoyaboya]

Mar 10, 2015 12:35:01 GMT -5 guru said:

Not sure where to put this but as it's BET related, will put here:

It appears that thousands of tickets are still available to the Big East finals. Just clicked on the Ticketmaster map, and maybe 75% of the 200 section seats appear to still be for sale.

www.ticketmaster.com/big-east-mens-basketball-tournament-championship-new-york-new-york-03-14-2015/event/1D004E2777581378?artistid=852551&majorcatid=10004&minorcatid=7&tm_link=artist_msg-0_1D004E2777581378

I mean, with the right match up walk up sales could be solid, but if one of our midwestern brethren makes a run, that won't add much.

All those empty seats would not be a good look at the Garden on a Saturday night. Fingers crossed.

Very interesting info for those among us that like to make a wager or two.

[DFW HOYA]

Mar 10, 2015 13:12:39 GMT -5 hoyaboya said:

I mean, with the right match up walk up sales could be solid, but if one of our midwestern brethren makes a run, that won't add much.

All those empty seats would not be a good look at the Garden on a Saturday night. Fingers crossed.

2014 had Creighton playing the smallest school in the conference, and the place still nearly sold out.

If Villanova or especially St. John's makes it past Friday, those seats will sell. Unfortunately for Georgetown, whose fan base doesn't buy walk-up tickets like it used to, any run to Saturday is likely to be among an unfriendly crowd.

Pre-2013, the strength of schools for walk-up attendance was roughly as follows:

Tier I (can get 7K or more walk-up fans in the door): Syracuse, UConn
Tier II: (3K or more fans) Pitt, WVU, Louisville,
Tier III (less than 2K): Villanova, Notre Dame, Cincinnati
Tier IV (less than 500): Georgetown, Seton Hall, Marquette, PC
Tier V: (less than 100): St. John's, Rutgers, South Florida
Tier VI: (less than 20): DePaul

Last year, it was

Tier I: No one
Tier II: Creighton
Tier III: Villanova, PC, Seton Hall
Tier IV: Georgetown, Marquette, Xavier
Tier V: DePaul, St. John's

[Jack]

Very pleased to hear the Creighton folks have returned this year despite Dougie's departure - they were great last year. I know they bang out the place in Omaha, but they could be excused for choosing to take the year off from MSG (and no doubt their numbers will be down anyway). That said, I find it hard to believe that they would be bringing an extra 3K fans beyond the packages already sold even with an improbable run to Saturday night - in order to have walk-ups, they need to be "walking" distance, and it's hard to imagine there is a sufficient east coast fan base to flood NYC on the day of the game. Along those lines, how can we know what the relative walk-up "strength" would have been last year for the teams that went out on Wednesday night (including GU) or Thursday afternoon (Villanova/St. John's)? The only thing we can say with certainty is that DePaul ain't selling any tickets.

[DFW HOYA]

Mar 10, 2015 13:59:03 GMT -5 Jack said:

Very pleased to hear the Creighton folks have returned this year despite Dougie's departure - they were great last year. I know they bang out the place in Omaha, but they could be excused for choosing to take the year off from MSG (and no doubt their numbers will be down anyway). That said, I find it hard to believe that they would be bringing an extra 3K fans beyond the packages already sold even with an improbable run to Saturday night - in order to have walk-ups, they need to be "walking" distance, and it's hard to imagine there is a sufficient east coast fan base to flood NYC on the day of the game. Along those lines, how can we know what the relative walk-up "strength" would have been last year for the teams that went out on Wednesday night (including GU) or Thursday afternoon (Villanova/St. John's)? The only thing we can say with certainty is that DePaul ain't selling any tickets.

If each school got roughly 1200 tickets, there were easily 4X that from Creighton last year--so while that may be be the literal definition of walk-up, but certainly not all of those tickets were coming from the Creighton allotment.

Georgetown's ticket elasticity is for another topic. This board is an obvious exception, but our fan base generally doesn't care to show up in big numbers for any sporting events outside DC as it once did.

DePaul is an interesting case. In past years, a few of us would try to count the number of people we saw that week with any DePaul regalia whatsoever. Some years it never got beyond ten.