Onebearofpower said:
BearlyCareAnymore said:
vaderbear95 said:
We were definitely close. The whole bubble is filled w/ teams that are flawed. And our resume matched up pretty well. Obviously we didn't get in so that's that. But it's not being a loser to point out that we were just as deserving as some of the other teams that made it - especially with as much objective data that has been pointed to regarding the resumes of all of these bubble teams. True we could have won less games (they all could) and we could have won more (they all could), but we definitely had legitimate arguments that stand up against the resumes of several teams that made it.
I didn't say anyone was a loser for pointing out (incorrectly) that we were just as deserving as other teams that made it in. I said it was being a loser to cry about not getting the breaks, and oh they made half court shot and we got bad calls and the refs hate us.
On the "luck" point, it only seems like we have bad luck because we aren't very good. If Duke has bad luck, they get a three seed. We'd need to be the luckiest team in the history of sports to get a three seed. Cal lost three games by 5 points or fewer. Oh, how unlucky. If we win those three games we get selected. Except that we won 4 games by 5 points or fewer. We lose those 4 and we aren't in the NIT. We weren't particularly lucky or unlucky. Our record is in line with our NET ranking and our KenPom. We are what our record says we are.
Wins are wins losses are losses. Bad Luck is when things happen that you can't control. Things like heaves going in or a coach lobbying AP voters to vote for their team. I'm not claiming we are unlucky in the sense that we miss shots or whatever I don't consider that luck. I think we are unlucky in the sense that things never seem to go our way in terms of in big moments in the sport or not in the sport. You can deny that refs play a role in this but there are rules in place like targeting which are supposed to be objective and reviewed and they still make the wrong call and the whole nation watched it and agreed(non Cal fans).
In terms of this year in basketball I don't think we were unlucky in the sense that teams made lucky shots. I think we were unlucky in the sense of how basketball is very variance based and we would be lucky if any of the teams near the end of the season shot the ball very poorly regardless of the quality of defense. That did not occur and in fact the opposite occurred. If you watch the full replay of the Wake game and Pitt game and don't see bad officiating then you are choosing to be blind. That doesn't excuse the players it doesn't mean we played well or that we deserved to win but it does mean that we were unlucky because things out of our control didn't go our way.
I'm not mad about the SMU shot it's a great shot, but if you are VT you got unlucky and you can't deny that. There is nothing they can do there because contesting the shot more is not worth a risk of a foul and they just have to live with it.
People always wanna deny luck because they don't wanna admit how big a role it plays in games but it plays a big role when you are on the bubble of anything and you need small margins.
You want to talk about those 4 games won by 5 points or fewer? We beat Notre Dame because they tried to intentionally foul Dai Dai up 3 and fouled him on a shot. I already addressed this. We beat Miami by 1. Nothing lucky about this they missed the game winning shot that we altered just like Pippen missed the game winning 3 vs FSU and we missed a tying 3 vs VT. I don't think either is lucky or unlucky it is just shooting. We beat GT by 5 sort of. I am 95 percent sure Akai Fleming hit a contested three over John Camden right at the end when the game was an 8 point deficit with like a second remaining so I don't see how we were lucky that game. Both teams made and missed shots we are the more talented team the game appeared closer than it was. We beat SMU by 4. We were fortunate that they missed so many free throws. If you were there you know why. I don't think it was all luck but there is some luck when Boopie Miller misses multiple free throws.
The luck is not exactly just in the games. In the last 15 years the school's athletics(mostly football as basketball hasn't even been a talking point or played in any big games or moments so since 2013 for BBALL) as a whole or outside factors have not come through in a single game or moment where we needed it to either make a big time bowl or win a super monumental game for the program. That is not catching a break as a fan and as a program. Most of it is the program's fault but do you not agree that Cal was screwed out of the Rose Bowl in 2004? If you do not agree then I guess you just blame the team for everything.
Lastly to address the claim that our record is in line with our KenPom. It completely discredits that argument because it shows your clear lack of understanding once again of what they measure. Saying our record is in line with our KenPom makes no sense because the record has no impact on the KenPom and this whole entire time you're saying we are worse than our record and KenPom shows it.
If you actually understood KenPom your argument should be that our record appears better than our KenPom suggests it should be and that KenPom reflects our actual quality. But instead you are saying our record is reflected in our KenPom when KenPom would have had us going 17-15 which is not our record obviously. It is purely predictive your record has nothing to do with your Adj Efficiency rating. But KenPom isn't an all knowing god so our resume and record are not in line with KenPom because many wins and losses did not go according to the model.
What a load of whining.
The issue is not that there is no such thing as "luck". The issue is that "luck" is just "chance" and chance (and therefore "luck") evens out in the universe as you get a larger data set. No one is "lucky" or "unlucky", yes, you can point to making a half court shot in one game at the buzzer and say that team was lucky in that game. You get into trouble when you start detailing every play over the course of a game and deciding you were unlucky and not taking into account your own bias in selectively choosing unlucky plays and not seeing lucky plays that your opponent's fans would have seen with their bias, not to mention classifying plays as unlucky that weren't unlucky in the first place because of your bias read of the play. You get into a lot more trouble when you start applying this over a season. You get into a hell of a lot of trouble when you start applying this to a lifetime.
Cal has not had 60 years of bad luck. They have had 60 years of sucking where there were some cases of good luck and some cases of bad luck that mostly evened out. Cal was unlucky in 2004. Cal was very lucky in 1982. Cal was very lucky when we stripped an Oregon player as he crossed the goal line and the ball happened to go out through the endzone. If the ball goes out short of the pylon, we almost certainly lose. The reason why 2004 is such a big deal is that in 66 years we only had one real shot at it. We only had one shot at it because we are rarely good. There is no way that the gods are screwing Cal for 60 years. The refs are not screwing us over and over. They have no motivation to do that. You see every time you think things by chance didn't go our way, every call you think screwed us and you don't see any of the things that went our way. Every fan of every team on the opposite side of every game would make a bunch of arguments of a bunch of other plays that in their biased view went against them. Yes, there are games where you get lucky and games when you get unlucky. Certainly decry 2004 as one instance where the universe did not smile on us. But I'm sorry the only ones that start making arguments that over a long period you are massively unlucky are losers.
The not catching a break in big moments point is not the universe hating us. We have had precious few such moments. We have almost always been the underdog in those moments. And it ignores the fact that to get those moments, we had luck in getting there. And it ignores the fact that usually we had those opportunities we lost because "we didn't come up big".
The "oh we are so unlucky" thing is a losers game.
Regarding the KenPom thing. First of all, I have been very clear that it is not the end all and be all. It is a tool. It is a good tool. It isn't perfect. I think that bracketologists that had Stanford ahead of us were incorrect and lazy. Yes, all the algorithms had then ahead of us, but barely. Most of the other factors were pretty equal. But head to head, we beat them twice. I think we proved on the court what was otherwise true - we were a little better than they are. I think if we were the last two in consideration the "Stanford was 6 points higher in NET" was not going to beat "Cal beat them twice".
But when you think that there is any argument that Cal is better than Santa Clara when they are 27 points difference in NET and 38 points difference in KenPom, I'm sorry. The algorithms aren't that far off. You are just wrong.
Your point that record doesn't impact KenPom is a fallacy. It is like saying that a pitcher's ERA doesn't impact his win/loss record. ERA is not part of the statistic, but it has a huge impact on the result. If you tell me a team has a 10-25 record, I will tell you their KenPom rating sucks and I will be correct 100% of the time.
I said KenPom was "in line" with our record. Not that it was a perfect predictor. I believe that KenPom would have had us at 18-14, but there are multiple ways to use KenPom as a predictor, so I don't think it matters that much between that and 17-15. That wasn't my point. When you look at our games one by one, there were essentially two games that we won that we clearly should have lost, (according to KenPom) and two games that we clearly should have won that we lost. However, in the games that anyone would have called toss ups, we did very well. We didn't lose any games that we were barely predicted to win. We won 3 (or by your analysis 4) games that we were barely predicted to lose. IMO, that is not surprising. It is born out by KenPom's luck rating which had us as somewhat lucky (not to be confused with the discussion above - it just means we did a little better than we were supposed to). But, I think that KenPom and NET do slightly underrate us. And I think that is entirely our fault. The algorithms just can't handle the variability in outcomes that occur when you schedule teams that our 200-275 places below you in the ranking. NET really can't handle it. Even though KenPom is based on score, the variability of whether you beat down a substandard opponent by 30 or 10 just can't be accounted for. I still think we get in if we don't schedule so poorly.(again, not by scheduling difficult games but scheduling cupcakes that were rated 250 instead of 300) I can't say for sure. The math is too complicated to figure out. We also could have lost a game. But I most certainly would have liked to have put that in the hands of the players and let them play for it rather than take the opportunity away from them. Their results all year were very consistent, so chances are extremely high they would have won any cupcake game put in front of them even if they were slightly harder cupcakes.
But my point on record is that if you look at real upsets and toss ups instead of calibrating KenPom to say a 1 point win in a game you should have lost by one is an upset, our results were in line with KenPom and every other algorithm. It slightly undersold us. I think if we had played a somewhat more difficult schedule we could have proven we were better but we didn't, so we didn't prove we were better. When you choose to not challenge yourself through non-conference, you don't get to argue that yeah, but I coulda beat better teams.
