Well-tested

Young team returns in 2018-2019 with tons of promise. Can they get back to the NCAA Tournament?
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Lehigh65
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Well-tested

Post by Lehigh65 » Sun Dec 15, 2019 1:00 pm

With only Auburn (9-0), presently ranked 19th in the nation by KenPom, and Princeton remaining on our OOC Calendar, it's safe to say Lehigh - -presently sitting in the 51st spot among all the 353 D-1 teams when ranked in order of OOC Degree of Difficulty - has been well-tested in the weeks leading up to the start of PL play. Tested far better than our PL brethren. Check out the numbers below.

KenPom's OOC Strength of Schedule Ranking

LU 51
Bucky 96
HC 178
BU 188
CU 142
AU 266
NAVY 297
LC 316
AWP 317
LOM 318

By no means does this mean we'll romp through League play. Not a chance! But, it does imply we've seen, on the whole, far tougher competition to date that what lies ahead and what other League members have seen thus far. If you're a KenPom believer, be buoyed by the numbers and, as they say, have faith. KenPom seems to agree. He foresees Lehigh getting off to a 2 and 3 start in League play with margins of victory of five points or less in each contest. It should be fun.

See you all at the home opener vs LOM on Jan.5.


Bison_137
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Re: Well-tested

Post by Bison_137 » Sun Dec 15, 2019 1:05 pm

LU has definitely played some good OOC teams. However Pomeroy does not include the Misericordia and Cairn games in his SOS. If he did, the LU schedule would be much worse than #100. Likely worse than 150.
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jimk72
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Re: Well-tested

Post by jimk72 » Sun Dec 15, 2019 7:59 pm

One of the few post by our hairy friend from Lewisburg that is logically incorrect.

#1: Nobody paying attention thinks Lehigh is anything but 1-7. The D3 games are defacto scrimmages.
#2: Pomeroy does not give any weighting of any kind to defensive or offensive stats in D3 games. To Pomeroy they simply don't exist in his data base.
#3: Because of #1 & #2, his assessment of Lehigh's strength of OOC schedule is valid, though based on a smaller sample size than those who have played more that 8 D1 games.

We may go 0-18 in league, but at least this and some very competitive games against quality opposition gives us some hope for a very young developing team.

If I'm in Lewisburg I'd more focused on:
Yale 81 @ Bucky 61.....Bucky 46 @ Syracuse 97......Penn 75 @ Lafayette (7-2) 86....Colgate (8-4) 67 @ Cincinnati 66
Bison_137
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Re: Well-tested

Post by Bison_137 » Sun Dec 15, 2019 9:45 pm

jimk72 wrote: Sun Dec 15, 2019 7:59 pm One of the few post by our hairy friend from Lewisburg that is logically incorrect.

#1: Nobody paying attention thinks Lehigh is anything but 1-7. The D3 games are defacto scrimmages.
#2: Pomeroy does not give any weighting of any kind to defensive or offensive stats in D3 games. To Pomeroy they simply don't exist in his data base.
#3: Because of #1 & #2, his assessment of Lehigh's strength of OOC schedule is valid, though based on a smaller sample size than those who have played more that 8 D1 games.

I completely disagree. You validate my point by pointing out that Pomeroy ignores games with D2/D3 teams. But they are part of every team's body of work. Pomeroy actually should refer to his SOS as "SOS ignoring games vs D2 and D3 schools". If he did count that part of a team's body of work, and we assume that Misericordia and Cairn are equal to the worst D1 team offensively and defensively, then the LU OOC schedule ranking would fall to approximately #221 by my calculation. Is there a reason why LU's SOS should be over 150 spots higher just because the bad teams on their schedule are D3 as opposed to D1? If, instead of those two, they had played teams such as Marist and Wagner (both much better than Cairn and Misericordia), their SOS would be MUCH worse than shown by Pomeroy.

BTW, to further make my point, Massey's rankings include D2 and D3 schools. Massey ranks the LU SOS as #225 nationally: https://www.masseyratings.com/cb2020/ncaa-d1/ratings
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jimk72
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Re: Well-tested

Post by jimk72 » Mon Dec 16, 2019 9:22 am

We continue to disagree. They were scrimmages. Testing lots of combinations. Had Lehigh been able to schedule additional D1 games their strength of schedule might have been higher or lower, according to Pomeroy's methods.

BTW: Massey is entitled to his opinion.

Vive La Difference!!
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