021: Apples, oranges, chicken, and egg
ACC conference schedule strength ahead of NCAA Selection Sunday.
WAB. NET. KPI. BPI. Quads.
There is more than one kind of comparison we can make when trying to assess college basketball teams.
Because value is determined by the comparison of one thing to another, it’s possible that we may value something more highly when making one comparison than when making a different comparison.
Duke, Virginia, and Miami will make the 2023 NCAA Tournament.
NC State, Clemson, North Carolina, and Pittsburgh are working for the bubble. Given all these teams competed in the ACC, do you imagine it would be easy to compare them?
Apples to oranges
"Some people claim the schedule is unfair," he said. "You're always going to hear that because it can't be equal anymore. We're so used to equality with a double round-robin that this is a whole new ballgame. It's never going to be equal again."
In 2005, ACC associate commissioner Fred Barakat explained how the league’s scheduling would never be equal again.
He was right.
Conference teams play 20 league games in 2023. And with only 14 possible league opponents, schedules are not equal.
This is a naive attempt at measuring conference strength of schedule or comparing apples to oranges:
using the latest Ken Pomeroy ratings as today (March 11, not at time of game)
find the conference opponent ranking for each team’s league games
compute the average rating of those opponents
If you play a team multiple times, the opponent’s ranking is used again. For example, Duke played Virginia three times, so it has three values of 31 in its average opponent ranking.
Below is the league strength of schedule (SOS) with wins and losses, and it includes any ACC Tournament games.
Louisville played the “toughest” league schedule by virtue of not being able to play itself. The Cardinals put up a lousy 4-28 record this season and rank in the bottom ~8 percent of all Division-I teams in kenpom.
How many teams would voluntarily schedule Louisville? And do it twice?
Clemson, Pittsburgh, and Virginia played the “weakest” conference slates.
Clemson played NC State three times. The Tigers played these teams twice: Georgia Tech, Florida State, and Louisville.
Pittsburgh got Georgia Tech three times, Florida State and Louisville twice.
Virginia played Duke and North Carolina each three times. The Wahoos also played Louisville, Florida State, and Boston College twice.
When there are more chances to get a “bad” result than a “good” result, the unbalanced schedule might matter.
Chicken and egg
"To have a true champion, to have a conference where the standings reflect things with as much equity as possible, everybody plays the same schedule," N.C. State coach Herb Sendek said. "But there's no use continuing down that road, because we're not."
In the same 2005 article, Herb Sendek points out how hard it can be to compare college basketball teams.
Every team, not only ACC teams, play a different schedule. This includes non-conference games.
In the 2004-05 season, North Carolina played 29 regular season games. The schedule included 16 league games and 13 non-league games.
This season, the Heels played 31 regular season games with 20 league games and 11 non-league games.
"There will always be inequity; it's just a question of degrees of inequity," Wake Forest coach Skip Prosser said. "It's sort of a collateral damage of expansion. It's never, ever, ever, ever going to be what it used to be. From a basketball purist's perspective, it is indeed a shame. It's just reality, so everybody has to move on."
Skip Prosser foreshadows the shenanigans that are conference expansion.
Using the latest NET ratings, four ACC teams have a non-conference strength of schedule that ranks in the 300s of 363 teams:
311, Notre Dame
313, Syracuse
321, Boston College
334, Clemson
Only three teams - North Carolina (17), Virginia (39), and Duke (69) - are in the top 100 of non-conference strength of schedule.
This chart compares the non-conference strength of schedule from latest NET ratings to the conference strength of schedule we derived using kenpom rankings:
As the ACC expanded, it brings the chicken and egg problem.
Teams player fewer non-conference games and an unequal league schedule.
If your league strength is based off a smaller sample of non-conference opponents, should all league teams schedule a tougher non-conference slate?
Or an easier non-conference slate, so you’re able to stack wins ahead of an unequal league schedule?
Should the ACC schedule fewer league games?
Or more league games with a 28-game round robin schedule?
"It is an unbalanced schedule and, whether we like it or not, it's here," North Carolina coach Roy Williams said. "Is there a better alternative? We haven't been able to find one yet."
There are lots of reasons why the ACC is having a down year in basketball. After re-reading this 2005 article, some of those reasons start to make a bit of sense.
Check out the code to wrangle the data and pull the charts. Find the Daily Press article published on January 21, 2005 by Dave Johnson.
And Happy Selection Sunday. If you’re looking for ways to compare teams, try this infographic to learn more about WAB.