No Baylor vs Kansas thread?
- Thread starter JimboBBN
- Start date
And again I will tell you auburn has beat 10 teams that are all better than a team duke lost to.
So a half season of stats which indicate that Duke may be the most balanced team equates to being in their own tier?
What else do we have to go by? Trusted messageboard posters?
Duke and Baylor look to be the two best teams, with the best resumes as well
So, after you just demanded a direct answer from another poster, you’re sidestepping this question?
Duke owns two of the top 10-15 wins in the country this year, and has 4 true road wins. There isn’t much better out there at this point save Baylor. Gonzaga is certainly right behind
Sidestepping what question? That Duke is in a tier of its own per KenPom? It’s not me saying it. I can’t take credit for Ken’s work.
Damn.....I was hoping nobody watched that game----I pretended I didn't see it.
Think we will see Baylor in Atlanta barring injury
Good luck beating them. Good lord
Good luck beating them. Good lord
The eye test, advanced stats and record do all point to the idea that Duke is the team to beat in college basketball this year just like UNC was in 2009, Duke in 2010, UK in 2012, UK in 2015, Villanova in 2018, etc. etc.
Your only counterpoint will be SFA and that's fine, but that's one game 2 months ago.
Other than Michigan St, they've played no one since then. And that game was a week later. Did they transform in a few days or was Mich St playing like garbage?
Funny that all Duke fans believe that the "eye test" tells us that Duke is the dominant team in college basketball. Who'da thunk? Everyone else says it's wide open.
And comparing this team to the others in that list is hilarious. Any of them would brutalize this team.
Efficiency and margin of victory matter. Beating who this would impress you out of curiosity? Duke has neutral site wins over KU and Georgetown plus road victories over MSU and VT.
I'm not sure last year's Duke team would beat this Duke team. We play much better team basketball and have a stud playing center and PG. Tre is a lot better than he was last year.
Margin of victory matters to a certain extent. KU was a good win. @ MSU was a good win. The rest of the ACC is dog shit this year. FSU is solid and UL is ok. Don't play either team on the road.
Not sure what last years team has to do with anything anyway. You comparing this Duke team to some of the best teams of the last decade is laughable. But you always go full homer until the team blows it in the tournament. Your meltdown last year was fun.
Beating Michigan St handily on the road is a good win, but they weren’t exactly playing well. And the KU win didn’t impress me that much. 14 more possessions to score two more points? And that’s the team that you’re comparing to 09 Carolina and other recent elite teams? Can you imagine the score if you gave 09 UNC 14 more possessions? Last year’s Duke would roll this team.
Now they’ve had their butts kicked by a bad Clemson team. Can we put this tier of their own thing to rest yet?
I think KU’s offensive ineptitude that day made them appear a little better than they are, but they definitely have an argument for #1. Definitely the most deserving based on resume.
Btw, anyone disrespecting Dayton clearly hasn’t seen them play much. They look like an NBA team compared to most out there this year.
its because scott drew is their coach and the way they’ve played in the past-athletic but inconsistent and bad defensively.
this Baylor team is different especially in this years environment. They have a very legit shot. Playing man and getting out of that zone this year is a good move
That may be true KU played a bad game but resume is all you can go by when seeding teams plus Baylor is rated #3 by KenPom
Duke did not pass the eye test tonight, teams on baylor tier atm dont lose to Clemson's of the CBB landscape...
If you diminish the good wins a team and just point out the losses, there’s literally no way a team can impress you.
KenPom’s preseason data is still baked into his efficiency ratings so we’re still gathering data on who the good or great teams are vs the field. The field is watered down enough where any win over a top 100 KenPom team to me is solid right now and a top 50 win is good.
I don’t think college basketball is that wide open. Duke, KU or MSU will be favorites to cut down the bets while Baylor, the Zags, Dayton and a few others are viable contenders.
Lol what? Duke’s adjusted efficiency is like 4 points higher than Baylor and we still have a better SOS. They’ve played a few more marquee teams which has floated their SOS but the rest of their schedule has been crap.
Name 1 1st round pick on Baylor’s roster? They’re not as talented or well coached as Duke. Vegas would favor us on a neutral court.
They’re a 1 seed based on resume right now, we”ll see if it lasts through B12 play.
Again, it’s all about context. You’re trying to put this team in the company of greats, when it clearly hasn’t even separated from a relatively weak field this year. How you can continue to push this tier of their own crap after last night is beyond me.
I mean...I know what’s going on here. You had a team that was supposed to win in dominant fashion last year, and you’re hoping this team will compensate for it. But it simply isn’t a dominant team. You could just as easily argue that they’re not top 5 right now.
As for Kenpom, the fact that preseason data is still factored means that teams like Baylor are at a disadvantage. Regardless, a half season of Kenpom is fairly worthless.
I don’t think it’s wide open as in 20 possible winners, but it is wide open among at least 5-6 teams.
I absolutely am not trying to do that; I was stating before the Clemson loss that the difference in the efficiency rankings between this Duke team and KU were as large as some of the other top teams in past years and the other contenders. That changed last night obviously but Duke was without 2 key wing contributors and we played an outlier of a bad game (50% on FTs, missed layups, Clemson unsustainably hot).
That team was not invincible after we lost Zion and it had shown chinks in its armor even before with losing to Cuse and launching a miraculous comeback vs Louisville. It was a media hyped creation after we finger blasted UK in the opening game.
Please point out where I thought that team would roll to a national title. We were living on the edge most of the tournament before we lost. I did think we were the favorites coming in to the NCAAT but not overwhelmingly so.
I don't really know what your definition of a dominant team is; to me its a simple as being one of the top 2-3 teams. Do you only consider UK 2012 or 2015 teams that only lost one game or were unbeaten heading into the NCAAT to be dominant? That seems like a ridiculously high bar.
Also, if KenPom is meaningless, what basis do we have to even say whether any team is good or bad. We're just all talking out of our ass at that point.
Yet you hang your hats on an opening day win over KU without their top shooter (who hit 6 threes last night). He could have made a huge difference in that game.
You also hang your hat on a win over a team that just got 30-balled by Purdue. And got slapped around by VT.
Time to admit that Duke may just not be as elite as you hoped.
You keep randomly making excuses for that Champions Classic Duke-KU game I could care less about. That was an ugly game and I'm glad we won because it looks good on our resume but that's about my only takeaway. It's clearly weighing heavily on you for some reason, let it go man. Both Duke and KU are better and different teams than when we first played.
Duke is elite relative to the landscape of the rest of college basketball this year. All the numbers/record/eye test support the idea that they're a top 3-5 team if not the outright best-which by any definition, no matter how stringent, is elite in any sport.
You keep diminishing the good wins we have by showing that those teams also have bad losses-who cares? You can literally spin that argument about every team.
Baylor lost to Washington who lost to bad Tennessee, Stanford, UCLA and Houston teams. See what I did right there?
Someone has to cut down the nets this year and Duke is a prime candidate to do it along with KU, MSU and Baylor-no different than any other year where some teams stand out at the top.
There's nothing random about that comment. You were just making excuses for Clemson.
Michigan St has done absolutely nothing to be put in that conversation. The only reason they're still in Kenpom's top 10 is that they were preseason #1.
And if you're throwing out the Duke-KU game, I really don't know why you're so wowed by Duke. That leaves you with a win over an underwhelming MSU team, two bad losses, and a bunch of wins over bad teams.
I'm not making excuses for Clemson; its a bad road loss (though still Q1) and Duke just played bad but that and SFA have been the outlier so far.
We're destroying those so called "bad teams" who are still top 100 in KenPom by 25-35 points while other great teams are only beating their opposition by 10 points which is why we're #1 in KenPom.
You've been watching enough college basketball by now I hope to know that preseason predictions are more accurate than mid season rankings besides some outliers like Baylor and Butler that come out of nowhere, especially when it comes to the top teams.
Teams like MSU, UK, Duke and KU are going to go through their rough patches but then they"ll be contenders assuming health in March because they've had the requisite talent, roster construction and coaching all along.
Do you not think Duke is a top 5 team?
I’d have them in the top 5 but definitely not in their own tier. You’ll never admit it, but that was a pretty absurd statement.
