127: Diffs and riffs on road wins
What if we made a wall of WAB?
“I don’t understand why there isn’t a chip in the ball,” a Fox Sports Radio host shared on Monday. This same radio host is the head coach of a Division-I basketball team.
Over the weekend, the head coach didn’t like the height of the rims prior to his team’s game at Cleveland State. The height was 9'11 and it was raised to 10 feet per the head coach’s request, and then his team lost to Cleveland State by 15 points.
Doug Gottlieb might as well be coaching Green Bay with his shorts on backwards1. The Phoenix are 2-20 overall and 0-11 in the Horizon League with a -170 point differential. Rodger Sherman explains the Gottlieb experiment, it’s worth a read.
The -170 point differential in conference play is the worst among all teams in a D-I conference. You can find more conference standings data here.
Here are the five best and worst teams in point differential by game in conference play through January 27:
Two seasons removed from a Final Four, it’s remarkable to see Miami on this list. The Hurricanes did take Cal to overtime this past weekend, however, the squad has yet to win an ACC game this season. No bueno.
It’s hard to win any game
Archie Miller2, the head coach at Rhode Island, shared how the SEC is 54-54 since January 4th. A sentence so confusing to type, you simply have to watch the video below:
Miller misses the point that almost all teams are now in the thick of their conference schedule. SEC teams are simply beating other SEC teams.
His other point is somewhat accurate though. It’s hard to win any game, especially on the road. Ask Iowa State how that went last night at Arizona.
There are only five teams that have yet to lose a road game this season, but there 32 teams that have yet to win a road game this season. And 14 of those 32 teams play in a conference that is expected to receive multiple bids to the NCAA Tournament.
Here are the five teams that are undefeated on the road and the 14 teams in a major conference3 that have yet to win a road game. This also shows the current NET ranking as of today (January 27).
It’s obvious winning on the road is a good thing, especially for a NET ranking, as all five teams that are undefeated have a current NET ranking of 25 or better. It makes what Houston did over the weekend at Kansas even more impressive.
While losing on the road won’t exclude you from the NCAA Tournament, the highest NET ranking among teams that have yet to win a road game is Northwestern at 49. And the Wildcats are squarely on the bubble.
Wall of WAB
Road wins are also valuable from a résumé perspective. The average WAB or wins-above-baseline gained from a road win is ~0.23 compared to the average WAB of winning a home game at ~0.09.
Take Saint Mary’s as an example. The Gaels are 17-3 overall and rank in the top-25 of both kenpom and the NET. Saint Mary’s has yet to even play a game in the top quadrant4.
The Gaels have yet to lose a game on the road though. Those five road wins are worth about 1.45 WAB in total or about ~85 percent of their total WAB or résumé.
I’m surfacing a new breakdown of WAB by different categories, calling it the Wall of WAB. Check it out here.
The idea is to show the WAB value based on different types of games. For example, non-conference, conference, home, away, and neutral.
As a reminder, WAB doesn’t care about margin of victory. It doesn’t account for the fact that North Carolina only beat Boston College by six in overtime or that BYU beat Cincinnati by 28 points. It only factors in the result.
This can give you an idea of how a team might build its résumé. For example, take a look at the ACC.
Louisville has built a large portion of its résumé in conference play and by winning on the road. The Cardinals have just one road loss this season and remain undefeated in league play on the road. Yes, the ACC is bad, but that doesn’t matter if you win games.
In contrast, North Carolina5 has failed to build its résumé at home. The Heels are 7-2 at home, but the losses are more costly than the wins. The loss to Stanford nearly erases the value of its seven home wins (-0.72 WAB compared to +0.88 WAB).
If you have other ideas of what to surface around WAB, please drop a note in the comments or let me know.
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All-timer of a press conference by Roy Williams. The brutal honesty, the bless your heart tone, just perfect. Miss that kind of candidness. Also, it’s eerie how that report ended up being true about five years later.
The “I don’t even know if that is accurate,” part of the quote is tremendous.
Taking some liberties here, basically showing teams that are winless on the road and that play in a league that is expected to receive multiple bids to the NCAA Tournament.
$5 fine for using the “Q” word.
In the spirit of whole numbers and arbitrary cutoffs, North Carolina is now 91-39 through 130 games under head coach Hubert Davis (70%). Under Roy Williams, UNC was 82-48 (63.1%) over his last 130 games as head coach and 101-29 (77.7%) over his first 130 games as head coach.
May be more work than its worth, but could do clutch games and blowouts as columns on the Wall of WAB.