Beilein at Michigan: KenPom/Sagarin analysis
Because I was bored during lunch, I wanted to see how John Beilein's teams had improved over his tenure at Michigan by looking at the final KenPom and Sagarin numbers. I made 2 quick and dirty graphs that show the teams yearly final rank and rating. I thought the team rank would probably be the best way to compare across years because it is more standardized as the formula for the rating may have slight tweaks that impact the final value of the rating between years.
Amazingly, Michigan's teams under Beilein showed a progressive improvement each year with the outlier of one year, 2009 or 2010. You could make a case that Michigan overachieved ahead of schedule in 2009 or underachieved in 2010. I also thought it was pretty interesting that Michigan has played one of the toughest schedules in the nation under Beilein. Some of this has to do with the Big Ten Conference, but even within the Big Ten, Michigan's SOS are some of the best. Michigan has pretty much had a top 15 SOS every year under Beilein.
EDIT: Can't figure out how to successfully cut and paste the graphs.
The raw numbers:
| Year | KenPom Rank | KenPom Rating | Sagarin Syn Rank | Sagarin Syn Rating | Sagarin Predict Rank | KenPom SOS | Sagarin SOS |
| 2008 | 143 | 0.5418 | 148 | 0.7356 | 128 | 12 | 7 |
| 2009 | 43 | 0.8211 | 34 | 0.8412 | 49 | 12 | 6 |
| 2010 | 66 | 0.7616 | 87 | 0.7842 | 71 | 15 | 29 |
| 2011 | 26 | 0.8614 | 32 | 0.8486 | 22 | 7 | 8 |
| 2012 | 23 | 0.8588 | 25 | 0.8499 | 32 | 4 | 1 |
| 2013 | 4 | 0.9427 | 2 | 0.926 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| 2014 | 8 | 0.9366 | 5 | 0.9111 | 8 | 8 | 3 |
January 27th, 2014 at 1:12 PM ^
...is to make them pictures, put them on imgur, flickr or some other site that allows you to post those sorts of files, then reference to the resulting URL using the Image button.
January 27th, 2014 at 1:13 PM ^
Bored, but not that bored.
January 27th, 2014 at 1:19 PM ^
If you pasted it directly out of Excel, you can tinker with the font size or column widths there to see if you can narrow it to the 450-500 pixel range (that's the approximate size of the graphic that would fit normally in a thread header like this). You can also right-click on the table in the Edit screen and resize it, although this might do things to the table that you may not like.
January 27th, 2014 at 1:15 PM ^
My only issue with Beilein is that it took him so long to make it to Michigan. If he had gotten here at a younger age, we might have had a Coach K-esque dynasty (maybe not that level, but you get the idea). Instead, we are hoping, praying, sacrificing-small-mammals that LaVall Jordan sticks around and learns the Beilein system enough to keep the good times rolling.
And yes, I know this is a preposterous complaint. Doesn't mean I can't wish that Beilein was a decade (or two) younger.
January 27th, 2014 at 1:27 PM ^
At least he brought the program back. When he retires it will be much easier to hire a really good coach.
January 27th, 2014 at 3:15 PM ^
for the moment? Beilein has a handful of years left and a nice coaching tree under him right now. Enjoy this team.
January 27th, 2014 at 4:44 PM ^
When Beilein was hired, I was just hoping he could return the program respectability and stable footing. He has surpassed all expectations I had for him and just going to enjoy the ride the rest of the way until he decides to hang it up.
January 27th, 2014 at 6:16 PM ^
Eh, he's fully 6 years younger than Coach K and 9 years younger than Boeheim, and those dudes show no signs of slowing.
Truthfully, there's a lot of pretty old basketball coaches still rolling along. It's all dependent on him, but I think another 5 years is a pretty reasonable expectation.
January 27th, 2014 at 5:11 PM ^
It might be more enlightening to look at how each year's team has trended over their season, to show the improvement each has made.
January 27th, 2014 at 5:42 PM ^
I think charting how a team improves over a season can't be quantified by KenPom ranking. So much is dependent on other variables like how your schedule lines up. Did Michigan improve that much over the course of a week just because their KenPom ranking went from mid-20s to #8? Probably not. And you can have good and bad stretches of games over a season.
I was trying to get a picture of how much better Beilein's teams have gotten over his Michigan career, and I think the final KenPom/Sagarin ratings best quantify how good each team was for a given year. The final ranking kind of captures what each team accomplished over a season.
January 27th, 2014 at 8:18 PM ^
because i cant post threads and because i'm pretty excited about the ol' ball squad this year, i figured i'd name my all beilein michigan basketball teams (1st, 2nd, and 3rd).
im valueing peak performance but also overall contribution. so mcgary is an odd case because he's by far the best big man coach b has had but his great play is about 6 or so games.
1st team:
pg: trey burke
wing: tim hardaway jr
wing: manny harris
pf: deshawn simms
c: jordan morgan
2nd team:
pg: darius morris
wing: nik stauskus
wing: glenn robinson III
pf: zak novak
c: mitch mcgary
3rd team:
pg: lavall lucas-perry
pg:: spike albrecht
wing: stu douglas
wing: caris lavert
c: jon horford
congratulations to all!!