Using the Memphis Tigers To Critique the Pomeroy Ratings

I want to preface my article by stating what my intended goals are for this article. I am critiquing a statistical system that gauges the strength of college basketball teams using tempo free statistics. I'm going to attempt to prove that an adjusted strength of schedule for an opposition's offensive and defensive efficiencies doesn't go far enough in Ken Pomeroy's efficiency models.

Pomeroy statistics have been very accurate in the past. Trends show teams generally must be in the top 25 in defensive efficiency if they want to be a legitimate contender to reach the Final Four. Typically teams that make the final weekend in college basketball are rated very highly overall by Pomeroy.

When checking out the current version of Pomeroy's ratings, you can find Memphis ranked first, West Virginia sixth, UCLA ninth, and BYU 14th. In reality, it's hard to justify by the results on the court the rankings of those teams. Those rankings provided the inspiration for this critique.

In my personal subjective view, I acknowledge Memphis has been a much better team since Coach John Calipari moved freshman Tyreke Evans to the point guard position. The Tigers have quickly become a top 15 team (again in my own personal opinion).

I have become skeptical this season that Memphis deserves to be ranked in the top five after beating up on a conference ranked eighth overall. I thought the Tigers' rise through the rankings was due mainly to major conference teams beating each other up.

I've been tying to find a way for about two weeks to objectively prove my subjective opinion. This is where my critique of Pomeroy's system comes in.

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