ISU @ UE

[Ace Dad]

Teams do not collapse. Team are beaten by other teams.Sorry but I think that's an oversimplification. Sometimes teams with superior talent beat themselves and lose to teams with lesser talent. When they do that over and over that's a collapse.

Or, they were over-rated in the first place and fans typically are the poorest judge of their own team's talent. Just read the posts on this message board from September through November.

Collapse, IMHO, is fanspeak.

[Black]

Teams do not collapse. Team are beaten by other teams.

Sorry but I think that's an oversimplification. Sometimes teams with superior talent beat themselves and lose to teams with lesser talent. When they do that over and over that's a collapse.

Totally agreed. Anybody who does not believe in teams "collapsing" doesn't exist in reality.

This isn't a philosophy message board.

[Ace Dad]

Teams do not collapse. Team are beaten by other teams.

Sorry but I think that's an oversimplification. Sometimes teams with superior talent beat themselves and lose to teams with lesser talent. When they do that over and over that's a collapse.

Totally agreed. Anybody who does not believe in teams "collapsing" doesn't exist in reality.

This isn't a philosophy message board.

Black, can you operationalize "collapse?" Can you measure it? How many games must be lost before you use the word "collapse? Can you qualify or quantify "collapse." Or is "collapse" simply fanspeak used by novices who watch basketball and the media who sells airtime? Teams do not collapse. They are worn down by the season, or they play better teams, or they have significant injuries, or their opponents play extremely well, or fill in the blank. Even the journalist who used the term last year provide reasons for why teams win early and lose late.

Consider the following from last year:

"Conference play has just begun in college basketball. Most teams are still coming off a fairly light non-conference schedule in which they feasted on under-matched opponents in order to improve their ranking.

Because of that, many teams have records that don’t quite measure up to their skill level. But now, as the competition gets tougher, teams will begin to show their true colors.

Many young teams will soon discover whether their players have matured enough to endure the grind of conference play, while others will learn just how well their veterans can step up and lead a team.

For some teams, the end of the season will be too hard to handle. Teams that are currently in line for NCAA tournament berths are in for a rude awakening.

Here are the top candidates for a late-season collapse."

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketb ... ll-history

[rlh04d]

Teams do not collapse. Team are beaten by other teams.Sorry but I think that's an oversimplification. Sometimes teams with superior talent beat themselves and lose to teams with lesser talent. When they do that over and over that's a collapse.

Or, they were over-rated in the first place and fans typically are the poorest judge of their own team's talent. Just read the posts on this message board from September through November.

Collapse, IMHO, is fanspeak.

Sorry, there is no other term for a team that played very well up to a point and then finished on a big losing streak. To mainly teams they had already beaten.

Indiana State didn't become less talented. They were healthy. But once they started losing, it snow balled. Whether it was mental or it was conditioning, I'm sure there is a logical answer for it, but they weren't the less talented team in the majority of their conference losses last year. Overrated doesn't fit, and, IMO, that's a lazy explanation.

Considering neither glm or myself are Indiana State fans, I'm not sure what you're even talking about regarding being a poor judge of your own team. We are independent observers of a team we have no vested interest in, who suddenly started playing very poorly for a ten or so game stretch to end a season they had been, to that point, doing very well in, against good competition. Pretending that they somehow weren't good enough to beat teams they had already beaten is weak.

[Snaggletooth]

Or, they were over-rated in the first place and fans typically are the poorest judge of their own team's talent. Just read the posts on this message board from September through November.

Collapse, IMHO, is fanspeak.

Yip, exactly.

There is thing called "Pythagorean Theorem" that you can look at teams and evaluate who lucky or unlucky they have been. If you look at ISUB first 13 games where they were 9-4, by this theorem they should have had a winning pct of 53%, therefore they were +2 (their record should have been 7-6). In the end the odds finally caught up with them and they ended up actually +1 for the regular season.

ISUB had 7 games with in 1 possession (+/-3) and 10 games decided by 2 possession. They were 4-3 in the 1 possession games and 5-5 in the two possession games. It wasn't a collapse, they were a little lucky early and luck eventually evens out.

Fan get caught up in that is a binary world or win or losses, but when you are only beating to teams by one or two possession - there really isn't much difference between the teams that you are beating.

[Wufan]

Indiana State lost their last 5 MVC games last year to finish the conference season at 9-9 after a 9-4 start. You can call it whatever, but a good Indiana State team, that swept UNI, won vs. Illinois State, vs. Creighton, and @ WSU quit winning. They had an opportunity to win/finish second in the conference with a strong close of the season. The last five gams were @ MSU (Thursday night team), @ BU (Thursday night team), versus WSU, versus Drake (Thursday night team), and @ Evansville. A three and two finish puts Indiana State in second place, tied with WSU, and at 21-11, The Sycamore's are probably on the wrong side of the bubble for an NCAA bid. A 4-1 finish means they win the conference and are probably an 11 or 12 seed in the dance.

Not a lot of teams had the opportunity to seize the MVC the way ISUb did last year, and they failed. Call it voodoo magic or Karma. A team that had demonstrated to be the better team to that point in the season, no longer was a good team.

[rlh04d]

Or, they were over-rated in the first place and fans typically are the poorest judge of their own team's talent. Just read the posts on this message board from September through November.

Collapse, IMHO, is fanspeak.

Yip, exactly.

There is thing called "Pythagorean Theorem" that you can look at teams and evaluate who lucky or unlucky they have been.

I'm fairly certain geometric formulas used for right triangles will not help you evaluate that.

Pythagorean Expectation.

[pafan]

I'm fairly certain geometric formulas used for right triangles will not help you evaluate that.

But not completely irrelevant.

[Ricardo del Rio]

I'm fairly certain geometric formulas used for right triangles will not help you evaluate that.

But not completely irrelevant.

Are you saying SI squared + NI squared = WSU ?

Just wondering.

[pafan]

That was the idea, and it actually works out pretty close if you plug in the RPIs