I have always disagreed, and always WILL diagree, with these new rating systems

Feb 20, 2025, 1:13 PM

that do revisionist history. Changing the value of a game played and won or lost early in the season, based on what is happening NOW, is just wrong. Players develop, players get hurt, in other words, circumstances change over time. A win over a team that was ranked whatever at the time, should remain just that.

The movies call this The Butterfly Effect. You never know what the outcome of a game early on meant to a team going forward. But, whatever it was, it does not change what that team was, AT THAT TIME. Which is exactly what the KENPOM and NET ratings appear to want to do. That is a wrong way to evaluate.

The SEC in football does the opposite. They want to claim every team has a huge number of wins against ranked teams every year, due to most of their teams starting out with artificially inflated rankings from the preseason. If they operated per the same system as basketball, those early season wins would be severely downgraded, and mean NADA. But hey, they are the SEC, so they get to have their candy and eat it too.

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Preseason rankings should go away

GT beat #10 FSU to start last year. While at the time it seemed like a big upset win, in the end they weren't that good of a team. There should be some looking back at early season games, especially to take significant injuries into account, but not be a major deciding factor.

I would like to see first set of rankings come out after week 6, for football, when you would have your first set of bowl eligible teams. Pollsters might actually have to do some research to see what teams have actually done vs beating up overrated teams from preseason polls based on pure conjecture.

Maybe bball rankings wait to come out after December when the early tournaments are over and most teams are done beating up on the Sisters of the Poor.

Re: Preseason rankings should go away

I have always disagreed, and always WILL diagree, with these new rating systems

Preseason rankings should go away

Re: Preseason rankings should go away

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