In Reply to: How the Bruins stand in the polls against other teams in the BIG posted by traprh on December 02, 2024 at 15:07:31
I'm positive none of the coaches have. Those rankings have to be taken with a generous heap of salt.
That's the big advantage of algorthmic systems. They don't miss a single game. They get the stats from all of them. Of course, early in the season, they're still using stats from last year, so they've got their own bias built in. I'm certainly not saying they're perfect.
I agree it's better to actually see a team play. That's why I always try to go to at least one Bruins game in Pauley every year.
But no matter what you do, it's impossible to see every team, so computer rankings are a big help in that respect. Ken Pomeroy helped me win a lot of NCAA tournament pools just by giving me more information about less well known teams than the other players had.
The good thing for UCLA, and all of the other teams, is none of them have to impress the voters. Just win games. Win their conference tournaments and they're automatically in the big dance.
By this time next week, we'll have a pretty good idea of how good the Bruins can be this year. By the end of the month, we'll have an excellent idea.