Today I noticed that St. Mary's had passed Gonzaga on Kenpom.com, and I wondered—could that be true? Could St. Mary's be a better team than Gonzaga right now?
As of Saturday afternoon St. Mary's is #10 in Pomeroy and Gonzaga #14. This is after Gonzaga struggled past Santa Clara 81-76 and St. Mary's destroyed Portland 85-43.
The latter was more of a catalyst, as the Bulldogs were #14 before their win and the Gaels were #15. It was their big win that moved them up to #10.
That made me wonder how much Kenpom's recency bias had to do with the rating. The big margin itself certainly helped, but Pomeroy diminishes the impact of games that are expected to be blowouts. On the other hand, recent games are counted more heavily, so even if you diminish a big blowout, the fact that the big blowout occurred recently sort of adds it back in—for the time being. Once that game is more in the past it doesn't matter as much, but if you count recent games more heavily, that big blowout is still front and center right now.
So I compared his rankings to the current (as of Saturday, January 7th's games) for the Strength power rating, which doesn't count recent results more heavily:
# Team record rating 8. Ohio St. 10-4 21.00 9. Rutgers 11-4 20.69 10. Saint Mary's 14-4 20.51 11. Texas 13-2 20.21 12. Gonzaga 14-3 19.94
So in Strength, St. Mary's has passed Gonzaga as of Saturday.
That made me wonder—has St. Mary's ever been better than Gonzaga? In the Modern Gonzaga era, I mean—the era that started with the 'Zags 1999 Elite Eight run.
The answer is yes, but not very often. Here's a list:
- In 2010, St. Mary's finished #29 in Pomeroy with Gonzaga #44
and that's it. In the last 24 seasons, it's happened once by the end of the year.
And it doesn't mean that St. Mary's will hold their slim lead over Gonzaga this year either. The teams have to play at least twice this season, plus probably a third time in the WCC tournament, so it's still up in the air who ends up the best.
But it's interesting because Gonzaga was clearly favored to be better again this year after being a top, dominant team last year. We had them #1 pre-season with St. Mary's just #71. Pomeroy started St. Mary's at #47 and Gonzaga #3.
In the end it's an interesting development that's worth watching unfold. It's been a while since we don't know which team is the best team in the West Coast Conference.
Another note: St. Mary's played another game this week prior to the Portland beatdown, beating Academy of Art 84-64. We have no idea how good Academy of Art is, since they are Division II but they don't seem to be a very good D-II team really, and beating them by 20 points is arguably St. Mary's worst performance of the year. But since they haven't played any other D-II teams, this game gets lost in the shuffle and doesn't affect their rating. Pomeroy doesn't count it either.
It's probably just as well to throw that game out, since it's hard to believe St. Mary's took the game seriously, and beating a team by 20 is usually the same as winning by 40. But the fact that they beat Portland—clearly a better team than Academy of Art—by 42, and that game gets counted, suggest that the Gaels sort of get a cherry-picked boost from the game where they really got fired up, while a game where they went through the motions doesn't get counted. Average the two performances together and I don't think St. Mary's makes the jump in the ratings that they made.
It's also worth pointing out that from a résumé standpoint, Gonzaga is far superior. Both teams have a handful of losses, but Gonzaga lost to top teams Texas, Purdue, and Baylor. St. Mary's did lose to Houston, and nearly-undefeated New Mexico, but also fell to Washington and Colorado State. Their best wins are over San Diego State, Oral Roberts, and North Texas, while the Zags have wins over Alabama, Xavier, Kentucky, and Michigan State. We put Gonzaga #4 in Success with St. Mary's just #56, and ESPN's BPI lists the teams' Strength of Record as #9 and #62 respectively.
Gonzaga and St. Mary's don't play each other until February 4 at St. Mary's, and the return is on February 25th just before the WCC tournament starts.
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