167: Location, location, location
A look at WAB values based on where the games are played.
A property’s location is a critical way to define its value.
If you’re willing to take the leap with me, the same can be said about determining the value of wins in college basketball.
Where a game is played is often overlooked in defining its value. If we use Wins-Above-Bubble as a way to place a number on a win or loss, you can see how important the location of a game is to its value.
WAB puts a value from -1 to 1 on any win or loss. A win is positive WAB and a loss is negative WAB.
These values show how many more or fewer wins a team has against its schedule compared to what a bubble team would be expected to have against the same schedule.
Through January 6 games, there are 71 total wins that are worth 0.60 WAB or more this season. Out of those 71 wins:
35 are on the road
28 are at neutral sites
8 are at home
Take a look at the chart below showing the values:
There are 45 wins worth more WAB than the highest value WAB win at home (Nebraska over Michigan State, worth around +0.66 WAB).
Two teams, Vanderbilt and Duke, have collected 2+ WAB on the road this season. The Commodores1 have generated 2.40 WAB with wins at UCF (+0.65), at Wake Forest (+0.60), at Memphis (+0.56), and at South Carolina (+0.54). The Blue Devils are also 4-0 on the road this season with wins at Michigan State (+0.87), at Louisville (+0.86), at Florida State (+0.42), and at Army (+0.08).
If you only took the WAB from the road wins of Duke and Vanderbilt, both teams would rank in the top-20 in the country in WAB. But when you add in that Vanderbilt is undefeated and Duke has lost only one game, you find both teams in the top-10 in WAB and trending towards a top-seed in the NCAA Tournament in March.
An important caveat is that WAB is fluid. It doesn’t change as wildly overnight as the NET rankings that are absent of priors, but of course, the numbers change as more and more games are played.
WAB is also not a power rating. It’s not aware that Kansas rallied last night to beat TCU 104-100 in overtime at home (+0.37 WAB) or that Michigan beat Penn State by two points on the road (+0.37 WAB).
WAB tells you a lot about what a team did against the schedule it played. Not so much how it played, but the sum of wins and losses.
We’re now in the thick of the regular season and conference play. That means that teams are playing at home and going on the road.
Consider there were 355 games played at neutral sites between two Division-I teams before January 1st. After January 1st, only four2 neutral site games remain this regular season.
And if a team wants a higher WAB, a fast way to do it is to find a way to win games on the road. As of today, 74 D-I teams have yet to win a game on the road and 30 teams have already won four or more games3 on the road.
If you’re looking to track WAB over the next couple months of the season, follow along at - wabwatch.com - data is updated daily.
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading this far, and for all the times you’ve read before too.
Last week, we took a look at the rise in free throw rates. The ending of the Cal-Notre Dame last week with the outburst from Irish head coach Micah Shrewsberry was a good example how the continuous motion rule is contributing to more trips to the line.
And for a recommendation this week, check out Ray Carpenter’s web app to track college football transfers: thespade.shinyapps.io/transfer-portal/
Ray makes excellent data viz, and writes a newsletter called The Spade. The web app is a fun way to try and track the wacky world that is college football.
🤟 Hope your 2026 is off to a lovely start 🤟
Nate Oats is right that Vanderbilt hasn’t played the schedule that Alabama has played. A factual statement. It’s also true that he Commodores have played three more true road games than the Tide this season.
Alabama visits Vanderbilt tonight in what should be a fun game (+0.91 WAB up for grabs for Alabama and +0.68 WAB for Vandy).
Three of the remaining four regular season neutral site games feature ACC teams:
Feb. 13: North Carolina A&T-Hampton in Inglewood, CA
Feb 14: Virginia-Ohio State in Nashville, TN
Feb. 14: Louisville-Baylor in Forth Worth, TX
Feb. 21: Duke-Michigan in Washington D.C.
Miami Ohio has six road wins. The Redhawks are 16-0 overall with 1.7 WAB that ranks in the top-30 in the country at the moment.