Consensus Basketball Ranking: Computers vs AP

Shawn Siegel — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:25:35 -0800

Nothing will rile up a fan more than thinking their team is under-rated, under-respected, and under-ranked in the national polls. As the voice behind CollegeHoops.net's Top 50 Ranking, I'm well aware of how mad fans get when they feel slighted. No doubt, I occasionally slip up, and no doubt the dozens of voters in the AP poll slip up even more often.

With the advent of computer rankings and metrics, we have many tools that attempt to overcome historical biases to rank teams fairly. Taking a consensus average of these rankings, we can get a good sense of the lay of the land, and we can also see where the human voters differ with the computers. More importantly, we can see whether there is a pattern to the human biases and whether certain teams are consistently mis-valued compared to their peers.

- The following 66 teams are comprised of a) any team with AP votes, b) any team in the RPI Top 50, and c) any team in CHN Top 50. The teams are ranked by an average of their RPI, Sagarin, and KenPom ratings. At the right of the chart is the team's AP ranking for comparison.

- Below the ranking, you'll find a list of the most overrated and underrated teams as well as some notes on key trends.

Rank	Conference	RPI	Sagarin	KenPom	Avg	AP
1	Syracuse	1	1	5	2.3	1
2	Kentucky	8	2	3	4.3	2
3	Ohio St	11	3	1	5.0	5
4	Michigan St	5	5	7	5.7	6
5	Indiana	6	4	8	6.0	7
6	Duke	2	7	10	6.3	8
7	Baylor	4	9	11	8.0	4
8	UNC	16	8	6	10.0	3
9	Kansas	22	6	4	10.7	10
10	Georgetown	9	11	13	11.0	11
11	UNLV	14	12	17	14.3	12
12	Alabama	15	14	14	14.3	27
13	Missouri	27	10	9	15.3	9
14	Gonzaga	10	19	18	15.7	21
15	Kansas St	18	13	16	15.7	18
16	Marquette	21	17	23	20.3	25
17	Seton Hall	3	25	33	20.3	24
18	West Virginia	13	21	28	20.7	29
19	Murray St	20	15	32	22.3	15
20	St. Mary's	31	16	22	23.0	31
21	Louisville	28	22	25	25.0	14
22	California	36	23	19	26.0
23	Wichita St	35	24	20	26.3
24	Michigan	26	27	27	26.7	13
25	UCONN	7	40	34	27.0	17
26	Wisconsin	63	18	2	27.7	26
27	Creighton	30	20	35	28.3	23
28	BYU	42	28	21	30.3
29	Memphis	34	29	30	31.0
30	Virginia	39	26	31	32.0	16
31	Purdue	38	30	29	32.3
32	Saint Louis	55	32	12	33.0	36
33	Long Beach St	23	36	40	33.0
34	Florida	48	38	15	33.7	19
35	Illinois	17	35	50	34.0	33
36	Dayton	19	42	47	36.0	37
37	Iona	33	37	41	37.0
38	Southern Miss	12	33	70	38.3
39	Northern Iowa	24	45	46	38.3
40	New Mexico	64	31	24	39.7	30
41	Virginia Tech	40	41	38	39.7
42	Vanderbilt	37	46	37	40.0	28
43	Temple	25	49	49	41.0
44	San Diego St	44	34	51	43.0	22
45	Harvard	43	48	44	45.0	32
46	Texas	73	44	26	47.7
47	Northwestern	32	50	67	49.7
48	Oral Roberts	50	47	52	49.7
49	Stanford	75	39	39	51.0	36
50	Iowa St	46	56	53	51.7	38
51	Arizona	58	60	42	53.3
52	Mississippi St	56	51	56	54.3	20
53	Marshall	53	53	58	54.7
54	St. Joseph's	49	59	59	55.7
55	Davidson	41	61	72	58.0
56	Denver	45	54	84	61.0
57	MTSU	84	43	57	61.3
58	Xavier	51	70	63	61.3
59	Colorado St	29	68	97	64.7
60	Ohio	67	57	77	67.0
61	Wagner	71	82	64	72.3	39
62	Cleveland St	66	69	89	74.7
63	Arkansas	76	85	76	79.0	34
64	Cincinnati	134	74	48	85.3
65	Ole Miss	47	95	130	90.7
66	UCF	71	101	112	94.7

Teams the human AP voters overrate versus the computer ranking:

Wagner +37*

Arkansas +35

Mississippi St +32

San Diego St + 22

Florida +15

Vanderbilt +14

Virginia +14

Harvard +13

Stanford +13

Iowa St +12*

Michigan +11

New Mexico +10

UCONN +8

Louisville +7

Teams the human AP voters underrate versus the computer ranking:

Ranked Teams

Alabama -15

Saint Mary's -11

West Virginia -11

Marquette -9

Gonzaga -7

Seton Hall -7

Unranked Teams

California

Wichita St

BYU

Memphis

Purdue

Long Beach St

Iona

Southern Miss

Notes

- Looking at the human-overrated teams, it becomes clear the voters are in love with SEC teams for reasons that the computers can't figure out. Perhaps its a holdover from football season, or historical performance, but the computers completely disagree with all four teams.

- On the flip-side, the voters are dogging the WCC. BYU, Gonzaga, and SMC all fall in the computer's top 28 teams, but only Gonzaga actually made the AP Top 25. BYU did not even garner a single vote.

- While the voters dog the WCC, they are showing a lot of respect to San Diego St and New Mexico of the MWC.

- While Wagner is the biggest miss, we can throw this pick out as one rogue voter's miscue. Similarly, Iowa St only received one vote, but they're trending upwards in the computer rankings.

- It seems there is a lot of uncertainty over how to rank the Big East teams, as teams fall on both sides. It is not surprising that UCONN (coming off a title) and Louisville (a historically good program) are getting human respect, while a lesser program like Seton Hall is slow to pick up voter respect.

- Of the 14 teams that human voters least respect, 8 are from non-BCS conferences. Of the 14 teams that human voters over-respect, only 3 are non-BCS schools.

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sagarin ratings

Consensus Basketball Ranking: Computers vs AP