SI Big East preview

[Cooby Snacks]

I agree.....they say in the first paragraph of the piece they are using a statistical projection model.

What I don't get is what sort of model would predict Heldt playing virtually the same % of available minutes as Luke?

I wonder how good it was last season?

For Luke's minutes, my guess is that they looked at total% of minutes played last year without considering he missed a chunk of games at the start of the season.

With freshmen they're probably looking at recruit rankings and Heldt was pretty highly regarded by a couple of the services. Same goes for their Cheatham projection.

[Phantom Warrior]

Sorry. I'll stick with lazy. This is Sports Illustrated. If they are going to do an article on the Big East, which has a whopping 10 teams, do the damn homework. The writer is getting paid to write these articles. He is supposedly a professional.

I assume this is this writer's primary job, writing for SI. I don't care if he has to produce one article per day five days a week. Do it right. This is just plain shoddy journalism.

As for the model, like I said, Luke is going to score two points per game less this year now that he's had shoulder surgery and is 100%? Traci, who will almost certainly start at point, is not going to be among our top seven scorers? Please.

Scrap the damn model and write something of value.

[TheSultan]

Seriously, are you really getting this pissed off over modeled point projections that weren't even put together by the author you have labelled "lazy?" The author was likely told to write a summary of the conference, and one for each team. He had nothing to do with the statistical projections that were included.

[Nukem2]

Seriously, are you really getting this pissed off over modeled point projections that weren't even put together by the author you have labelled "lazy?" The author was likely told to write a summary of the conference, and one for each team. He had nothing to do with the statistical projections that were included.

That is true. Beginning of article says the statistical model was developed by economist Dan Hanner and SI reporter Luke Winn.

[TheSultan]

Furthermore, *they are projections.* I'm not sure why anyone would think it is "lazy" to suggest Luke might score less. There are more options on the team, so that projection seems reasonable. I think it will turn out to be wrong for the reasons that Phantom stated however.

[Phantom Warrior]

O.K. Maybe the writer simply did what he was told - post the projections based on some model. Then the problem is with SI.

Does anyone on this board really believe that Luke will average around 23 mpg and Matt will average around 19 mpg this season (barring injuries, of course)?

Does anyone on this board really believe that Traci will not be among the top seven in terms of mpg or ppg?

We are two thirds of the way through October; our first game is a little over three weeks away. This is not May or June or even July. If SI wants to publish an article on the Big East, then do it right.

As for the model, if this is what it comes up with, wow!

[TheSultan]

Phantom, read this interview with Hanner, the guy who came up with the model.

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/?p=14701

"One of the key things that I’ve tried to do here is move us from a “returning minutes” situation – where you have one linear regression where you’ve got some outputs on one side and you’ve got a bunch of variables – to really doing what all the other sports do. Project for individual players how they will perform and adding that up to get a team projection."

He acknowledges that college sports are much harder to fit into a model as well.

[Phantom Warrior]

He lost me at "one linear regression."

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

I think that the wrong crew left and the troublemakers (especially Whitehead) are still there rotting the program.

Agreed completely. Driving Gibbs away feels like a huge mistake. That kid played with passion and energy for SHU. Whitehead and Delgado might have talent, but they seem to be the wrong types to build a team around. My guess is that Willard will finally be fired after this year.

[Phantom Warrior]

Not so sure I would lump Delgado in with Whitehead. From a couple of articles I read last year, it seemed that Whitehead and his posse were the big issue off the court, while Whitehead was the major negative issue on the court (forcing shots, not passing, sulking, etc.) I think Delgado is just a hard working kid who gives it his all every minute on the court. Could be wrong, though.