How much better are the fighting Rick's this year?

[codeDawg]

On the record, I like Rick as a floor coach, but I haven't seen much from him on the front that I think is most important for college basketball success, recruiting. He has some guys committed that are really exciting, but they aren't here yet.

That aside, how much better is this year's Rick Ray squad? Well let's take a look at the Ken Pom ratings. Ken Pomeroy runs a site with the output of an algorithm of offensive and defensive efficiency versus the relative competition that is highly respected in the analytics field.

While I don't have the relative rankings of this time this year versus last year (premium content), the strength of schedule component makes it relatively irrelevant in this comparison.

The Ken Pom Ratings:

14-15: 91
13-14: 208
12-13: 250
11-12: 87
10-11: 117
09-10: 49
08-09: 67
07-08: 37
06-07: 22

So, as you can see, we are in considerably better position this season than we have been through Ray's career at MSU. I would argue that we are overachieving given the talent we have on the team. I'm excited to see what Ray can do if he can close on they guys he has committed and the ones we are waiting on.

[engie]

Nice thread.

We'll know more in the next couple of weeks about where we are overall. Need to stay in the top 100 though...

[mparkerfd20]

Not enough.

[sleepy dawg]

I suppose we would be about a 6 point favorite over last years team.... so that much.

[engie]

You seem better at this math thing than Pomeroy**

Putting a point total on what we've seen so far is pretty premature. Especially off our worst performance of the season...

[Coach34]

Once Sword gets full speed- we'll see how good this team can be this year...We need a W tomorrow

[sleepy dawg]

I've changed my opinion after just about every game.

That said, tomorrows game is huge (just like every game). Oregon State is 5-2 like us. Both of us have a bad loss and a decent loss. We're pretty evenly matched so far and the game is at their place. If we can pull out a win tomorrow, I think we have shot at being a border line NIT team.

Like you said, it's all premature at this point in the season, but every game matters and I continue to form and modify my opinion of the team after every game.