After a tough loss, whats an angry finance major to do? Use statistics and Excel to justify baseless hope!
Given Maryland's inexperience and lack of depth, most would agree that 16 wins qualifies this year as a success. But how much we've overachieved gives credence to the coaching job Turgeon has done this year. The future looks bright. Consider..
Assumption=Greater team experience (measured as a weighted avg. of minutes played by class year, all freshman-1, all seniors-4) leads to greater success (measured by RPI)
Alpha=Improvement (or in Texas A&M's case, decline) in success versus what would be expected of a team given its experience
So in theory, the youngest, least experienced team is expected to be the worst team in the country. Any improvement would be reflected in Alpha. Exceptions (MCD AA starting 5s like Kentucky, UVA where 2 seniors have greater than 2/5 impact on the team) aside, Alpha can be attributed to midseason player improvement, maturation, chemistry and most of all, coaching.
Rank |
Team |
Alpha |
Experience Factor |
1 |
Kentucky |
337 |
1.79 |
2 |
Connecticut |
304 |
1.8 |
3 |
Alabama |
299 |
1.94 |
4 |
Ohio State |
283 |
2.24 |
5 |
Texas |
269 |
1.99 |
6 |
St. Joseph's (PA) |
265 |
2.03 |
7 |
Memphis |
255 |
2.3 |
8 |
Georgetown |
246 |
2.39 |
9 |
Washington |
240 |
2.2 |
10 |
North Carolina |
239 |
2.42 |
12 |
Duke |
223 |
2.49 |
15 |
St. John's |
209 |
1.45 |
19 |
Michigan |
202 |
2.53 |
27 |
Maryland |
190 |
2.25 |
74 |
Virginia |
111 |
2.7 |
133 |
NC State |
47 |
2.87 |
169 |
Florida State |
2 |
3.25 |
218 |
Clemson |
-45 |
2.9 |
236 |
Texas A&M |
-65 |
2.86 |
Very few coaches, none in the ACC, have done more with less team experience and MCD AA's than Turge. At this rate, we should be hitting our peak just as teams like UVA and FSU decline. Remember, the factor doesn't take into account the fact that guys like Mike Scott and Bernard James are old enough to attend Parents Weekend at many universities, so their team's fates will likely decline precipitously once they leave. Anyway, hope this serves to take some of the sting out of the UVA loss and allows us to justify some arrogance in the face of our NIT bubbledom.
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