Sagarin/Dolphin predictions for Milwaukee game
There’s something fishy with the Sagarin ratings that was revealed by
the usual research for today’s game with Wisconsin Milwaukee. The
Panthers’ schedule includes a game against South Dakota State.
Massey’s listing, albeit for last season, shows South Dakota State to
be a Division II school, though Sagarin includes the Jackrabbits in
his ratings, and his ratings only include Division I schools. Could
it be that South Dakota State is a provisional member of Division I
this year? But that’s not the fishy part. Sagarin gives South Dakota
State the 6th most difficult schedule, yet who have they played? Well,
#37 Butler, #54 Wisconsin Milwaukee, #56 Marquette, #97 Denver,
#98 Illinois Chicago and on down. Kansas has played a tougher schedule
than that, so why does Sagarin call it the #115 schedule? Methinks
Sagarin has a bug in his software.
Anyway, the latest Sagarin Pure Points ratings give Kansas a 16.5 point
edge in today’s game and a 90 percent chance of winning. Kansas is
playing 5.0 points better than its Pure Points rating, while Milwaukee
is playing 4.0 points better, which boosts the edge to 17.5 points.
The narrow win over South Carolina has resulted in a negative trend for
Kansas, but it is not statistically significant. Milwaukee started with
lopsided victories over Prairie View and Parkside, then a win over a
decent Air Force team, then another lopsided win over South Dakota State
plus a solid win over Illinois Chicago, which led to a rather lofting
rating for them. Against Saint Louis they played as expected, but lost
to a weak Valparaiso team and then got trounced by Wisconsin, leading to
a steep negative trend of very high significance. But expect them to
bring their A game against Kansas, with a little extra confidence
arising from the fact that they won’t have to go up against Simien. I
wouldn’t expect their negative trend to continue. Both teams are less
consistent than the national average, but Milwaukee by 4 more points
than Kansas.
Still no ratings from Massey; his rankings aren’t very informative.
Jerry Palm doesn’t include South Dakota State in his RPI list, nor does
he include North Dakota State, while Sagarin includes both. That may
explain why Sagarin lists 332 schools while Palm lists only 330, but
I’ve seen it mentioned elsewhere that there are 331 Division I schools
this season. Anybody know who is right? Interesting to see Palm’s RPI
show Boston College as #1 and Kansas at #2, whereas Dolphin has them
reversed. They can’t both be right. It has been noted that the RPI
calculation this season is supposed to give more weight to road wins,
but has the NCAA come right out and stated what their formula is? If
they have, then all accurate implementations of that formula ought to
yield the same results. So either the implementations are not accurate,
or they’re guessing at what the NCAA’s formula is.
Dolphin is predicting a score of 78 to 63 in favor of Kansas with a 90
percent chance of Kansas winning. Those outcomes are assuming Kemper
Arena represents a home game for Kansas. That probability is consistent
with Sagarin’s prediction.
The numbers show the Lafayette game to be the best of the season for
Kansas, yet Self called it the worst. South Carolina was the worst
game of the season for Kansas.
======================== Sagarin =======================
Rate SoS Elo PP Perf Inc. Trend
==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==============
Kansas # 4 #115 # 14 # 4 +5.0 12.8 -0.37 +/- 2.64
Milwaukee # 59 #209 # 82 # 54 +4.0 16.9 -6.68 +/- 1.81
============ Massey ============ === RPI === ====
Rate SoS Pow Off Def Rate SOS Rec.
==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ====
Kansas # 5 # 59 # # 14 # 52 # 2 # 13 7-0
Milwaukee # 66 #119 # # 86 # 99 #112 #231 6-2
======================= Dolphin ======================
Std. Med. Pre. IRPI RPI Pair Poll Sched
==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== ==== =====
Kansas # 6 # 6 # 5 # 4 # 1 # 5 # 12 0.499
Milwaukee # 53 # 54 # 47 # 72 #184 #129 # 25 0.407
Here is Kansas’ season:
SITE OPPONENT SCORE PREDIC ERROR PROB.
==== ============================= ======= ====== ===== =====
HOME # 28 Vermont 68 61 +13.46 -6.46
HOME #174 Saint Joseph’s 91 51 +24.96 +15.04
HOME # 69 Nevada 85 52 +18.56 +14.44
HOME # 29 Pacific 81 70 +13.63 -2.63
HOME # 42 TCU 93 74 +15.62 +3.38
HOME #124 Louisiana-Lafayette 96 51 +21.96 +23.04
HOME # 41 South Carolina 64 60 +15.52 -11.52
HOME # 54 Wis.-Milwaukee +16.50 0.902
HOME # 6 Georgia Tech +7.37 0.718
HOME # 50 Texas A&M +16.27 0.898
AWAY # 11 Kentucky +1.78 0.555
AWAY #109 Iowa State +13.16 0.848
AWAY #110 Colorado +13.19 0.849
HOME #106 Nebraska +20.83 0.948
AWAY # 81 Villanova +11.43 0.814
AWAY #326 Baylor +32.43 0.994
HOME # 9 Texas +8.88 0.756
HOME #144 Missouri +23.14 0.965
AWAY #106 Nebraska +12.87 0.843
AWAY #107 Kansas State +12.96 0.845
HOME #110 Colorado +21.15 0.951
AWAY # 8 Texas Tech +0.77 0.524
HOME #109 Iowa State +21.12 0.951
AWAY # 15 Oklahoma +3.49 0.608
HOME # 2 Oklahoma State +2.43 0.575
HOME #107 Kansas State +20.92 0.949
AWAY #144 Missouri +15.18 0.882
We’re back to a season record projection of 23-4, which looks more
likely with Simien out, yet all games are now projected wins, thanks
to Texas Tech’s drubbing by Iowa.
Here is Wisconsin Milwaukee’s season to date:
SITE OPPONENT SCORE PREDIC ERROR PROB.
==== ============================= ======= ====== ===== =====
HOME #329 Prairie View A&M 117 55 +33.27 +28.73
Div2 Wisconsin Parkside 87 50
HOME # 59 Air Force 50 45 +4.61 +0.39
HOME #217 South Dakota State 89 54 +15.37 +19.63
AWAY # 98 Illinois-Chicago 75 67 +0.06 +7.94
AWAY #257 Saint Louis 57 47 +10.06 -0.06
AWAY #189 Valparaiso 71 72 +5.76 -6.76
AWAY # 30 Wisconsin 37 66 -6.75 -22.25
AWAY # 4 Kansas -16.50 0.164