Ken Pomeroy, KenPom.com College Basketball Analyst

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Call 562-314-4603 for details. Ken, thank you for taking the time to hop on. Hey, JR. Thanks for having me on. No doubt about it.

It's always great to chat with you this time of year. For anyone who's not familiar with Ken Palm, and is going to be looking at it a whole hell of a lot more over the next several weeks, fill us in. What is it?

Why did you get started with it years ago? What does it do? Well, at its core, it's basically a power rating for all the teams in college basketball. And it uses offensive and defensive efficiency, so looking at the points that the team scores and allows for 100 possessions.

It's all adjusted for strength of schedule, and when the games were played, and quality of opponent. And how I got into it, I mean, it was, you know, probably about 20 years ago now, analytics were kind of taken off in baseball. There wasn't a lot of work going on in baseball. There wasn't a lot of work going on in my favorite sport, which is basketball.

And so, I just kind of jumped in and started a website, and things really kind of took off from there. Ken Pomeroy is joining us here from KenPalm.com. We know about some of the teams that did not get in to this year's tournament. You have Rick Pitino, who's yelling about the NCAA's rating system when it comes down to net. How do you view what you do versus what they might do internally when it comes to numbers, and stats, and strength, efficiency, and what have you? Yeah, my work's a little different than what the selection committee's trying to do. You know, the selection committee's really trying to evaluate the quality of the team's wins and losses, and compare that to all the other teams that are in contention for a bid.

I'm more concerned about predicting the future. So, you know, once a team gets in, what are they going to do? And that's not always aligned with, like, what a team's record is, you know. You can look at past history, and basically, you know, scoring margin is actually a pretty important predictor in terms of how well a team's going to do going forward, especially if it's scoring a margin against quality opponents. So, there are going to be differences, and that's why you see a team like Auburn, who's fourth in my ratings, but a four seed, and probably deserve a four seed. They didn't have a lot of high-quality wins, but overall, when you look at how they played possession five, possession during the season, they were one of the best teams in the country.

They just didn't quite get it down against the best teams on their schedule. Well, Ken, you talk about having a team like Auburn as fourth on your current ratings, and we know who the number one seeds are. You can look at UConn, Purdue, North Carolina, and then also Houston. What are some other discrepancies or teams that you think are on the rise that don't necessarily fit in with what they look like on a bracket? Well, I think at the top of that list, you have New Mexico, who pretty surprisingly, to a lot of people, ended up with an 11 seed.

They're 23rd in my ratings. They played in the Mountain West. A lot of good teams at the top of that league. There was a time early in the conference season where they were leading that league. They had a little trouble in the middle of the season, and ended up getting a sixth seed in the conference tournament. Of course, won the conference tournament, but, yeah, oddly, 23rd in my ratings. 11th on the seed list, and actually favored in the first round against the sixth seed Clemson.

Ken Pomeroy is here with us from KenPom.com, the JR Sport Reshow on CBS Sports Radio. We know that the Big East, well, they got three teams that did not get in, and they're not happy about it, whether it's Seton Hall, St. Johns, and then also Providence. What are your thoughts on their omissions?

Well, yeah, they're a curious case. You look at the conference ratings on my site, and I had the Big East as the second best league in the country. They had two very poor teams in the league in terms of DePaul and Georgetown, but the other eight were extremely competitive, and at very different times during the season were in projected brackets. They were all very good teams.

Obviously, led by those top three teams. Now, they get a one seed, a two seed, and a three seed in terms of UConn, Marquette, and Creighton. Those teams were very good, and then you had the bubble teams. I was surprised that, I guess, none of those teams got in.

It seems like St. Johns had done enough to get there. They were 25th in my ratings. They had some quality wins. I think the bottom line is, you just get to those bubble teams.

The way the process works right now, they're so hard to distinguish. You compare resumes side by side between a St. Johns, an Indiana State, and an Oklahoma, and teams like that. It's really hard to come up with definitive views on which team has a better resume. Ultimately, those teams left things up to a committee of 10 to decide their fate.

In this case, it ended up not going their way. Ken Pomeroy is here with us. You talk about teams on the bubble. What are your thoughts on the potential expansion of the tournament? We know we sit at 64 plus four.

We might be moving into the 70s. What are your thoughts on potential expansion? I'd be in favor of some small expansion. You look at when the tournament originally went to 64 teams. I believe there were almost 21 percent of teams in the tournament.

Obviously, that number has gone down over time. We have a lot more teams in Division I than we had 38 years ago when this started. Just by the nature of the expansion of Division I, I think some expansion of the tournament is warranted. Certainly, you'd have teams that people wouldn't necessarily love to see get in, like a Pitt or an Oklahoma. You'd also have a team like Indiana State that would be in this situation.

To me, that trade is worth it. I wouldn't expand the tournament beyond 80 teams at this point. People are talking about 96, something like that. That'd be kind of a mess. If we get to 96 teams, can I just start my own team and run them out there? What are we doing? You could start your own team. You could go 13 and 18 and you'd probably get a bit. It might be worth a shot.

Ken Palm, he's here with us from KenPalm.com. When you think about the teams that are in, we know Connecticut is trying to go back to back. Who are some of the sleeper teams that have been on some big runs lately that might give some squads a run for their money? Yeah, UConn in particular is the best team in the country, but they really got put in a pretty difficult bracket. The most difficult bracket when it comes right down to it.

They'll have to get through. Probably Auburn, the team we just mentioned, is a 4 seed, but a very, very strong 4 seed. A team like Iowa State, who is a 2 seed, but obviously coming off a championship in the Big 12 tournament, really proving themselves, has the top ranked defense in the country according to my rating. They're obviously very formidable. Maybe a team a lot of people aren't familiar with.

Not a great offense, but extremely good defense. And then even Illinois in that bracket as a 3 seed is another team that is really well rounded, experienced, great score, and Terrence Shannon on the roster. They're a team that can give UConn some trouble as well. I don't know if any of those teams are necessarily sleepers. This is a year where we really have a top heavy tournament field.

UConn and Houston and Purdue, but I am kind of curious to see what happens in that East bracket because UConn is definitely going to have some challenges trying to get back to the Final Four. Well, Ken, when you talk about just the volatility of college basketball now, year after year, there's no continuity, the players are shifting all over the place. How have your ratings and rankings changed year over year knowing that the rosters get kind of blown up in a lot of cases? Have you seen anything different year to year in how the ratings go forward?

Yeah, certainly. I mean, from year to year, I think there's volatility. I mean, we've seen that to some extent. I mean, last year with North Carolina starting preseason number one, failing to make the tournament. This year, you had a UCLA team. They turned over their roster quite a bit, but you just kind of figured that based on what McCrone has done there, they'd be a solid team. They really struggled in the Pac-12, struggled just to have a.500 record.

Arkansas is another example. Eric Musselman, pretty notable for being able to turn over his roster and get things done. But this year, it didn't work out at all for him.

They were pretty bad in SEC play. So I think that's a testament to player turnover, freedom to transfer. In addition, the COVID year has made everybody older. There's really more talent in the system than there's ever been. So guys looking for playing time are more able to find it. And there's just more talent out there. So that allows there to be a lot more parity, but it also makes the coach's job more difficult because if they can't identify the transfer that will fit into their system, the results could be disastrous.

Yeah, we've seen a lot of coaches kind of start to bail with these new rules and new changes. Well, Ken, thank you for taking the time to hop on. Where can people keep up with you, find your ratings, and keep things moving being enough? Absolutely. I mean, you can go to kenpom.com and check out the ratings and do a little bit of commentary on my sub stack as well.

So you can head over there for some longer form writing about what's going on in college basketball. Hey, Ken, thank you so much for taking the time to hop on. Appreciate you.

All right. Thanks, JR. And enjoy wherever you go with the peace of mind that comes with America's best warranty and three years or 36,000 miles of complimentary maintenance. But hurry in. These deals won't last. Add more joy to your journey at the Hyundai getaway sales event. Now get 0% APR or up to 1500 bonus cash on the Hyundai Tucson. Now during the Hyundai getaway sales event. Offers end soon.

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