If you are reading this blog, you have probably related a bit too much with his A-tier Tweet at some point.
In the moment, Marquette’s result affect my mood, my appetite and pretty much the rest of my day. It’s probably unhealthy, but it’s the truth.
And yet as time progresses, I find that the general ups and downs of a given season are usually replaced by the foggy memories we hold on to, whether good or bad. Which is weird right. I can spend a whole week riding high after a big win, and 3 years later all I’ll remember was the bad result at the end of the season.
So in order to best capture the vibes of any given week, I figured I’d start a running log using the least emotional measurement everyone uses. KenPom. I’ve taken the Adjusted Efficiency Margin he basis his ratings on from every Monday back through 2017 in order to give us some context.
This Year
And this is an awkward place to start, as the results in KP were positive for the week as a whole, despite a loss to Maryland on Saturday that seems to have broken peeps. But it is a good place to illustrate that advanced metrics don’t always jive with public sentiment. It’s all about the baselines.
MU was expected to beat Little Rock by 17 and won by 40 (+23 net). MU was expected to beat Maryland by 5 and lost by 7 (-12 net) so it finished the week a bit higher than where it started.
Still MU is down almost 2 full points from its initial preseason projection. That Indiana drubbing will require a few mroe outlier wins to erase.
NCAA Tournament Odds
If we want to take a future facing look at the vibes, I like using Bart Torvik’s NCAA Tournament probability tracker. His model runs 10,000 simulations of the season based on that day’s metrics, and gives you the results of those runs. As of Monday the 17th, Marquette had a 12.9% chance to dance. This chart definitely matches the fan vibes.
Shaka’s Tenure
Of course, even though this is meant to highlight a given week’s ups and downs, I still want to throw some context in there. Here’s a look at how Marquette has graded out in KenPom each week of Shaka’s tenure.
(The horizontal “Top XX” lines are set not at any given year, but at what the averages for the 10th, 30th and 50th ranked teams are.)
Marquette is currently at the lowest point since the 2023 season.
Program History
And going back a bit further than that…
(The horizontal “Top XX” lines are set not at any given year, but at what the averages for the 10th, 30th and 50th ranked teams are.)
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