Thoughts on Kenpom's Head-to-Head numbers

Head-to-head results matter when it comes to rankings in college hoops.

You probably already knew that. But if you didn't, just go back and read any Poll Attacks! column from Gary Parrish. Its a guarantee that somewhere in that column, Parrish mentions that Team X beat Team Y, which makes Pollster Z an idiot for ranking Team Y above Team X.

On Friday, everyone's favorite number cruncher set out to debunk the myth of the head-to-head matchup. He went through every game from last season and found 1,049 instances of a rematch. The team that won the first game went on to when the second game 61.1% of the time. And that is the least interesting of the data results that Kenpom produced:

Because we’re only looking at conference regular-season games in this sample, location is very important. For instance if the victor of the initial game was the road team, it won the rematch 80.2% of the time. This shouldn’t be surprising because it’s more difficult to win on the road and the rematch would be an easier game for the winner since it would occur at home.

The flip side is more instructive. When the home team was the winner of the first game, they were a collective 309-326 in the rematch. That’s right, a home winner is more likely to lose a rematch than win it. It gets better, though. A home team winning the first game by single-digits went a collective 96-195, winning 33.0% of the time. Considering that overall, road teams win conference games about 38% of the time, close home winners are really not proving their superiority at all.

Wait, there’s more. Home teams that won by one or two points were 16-52 in the rematches, winning just 23.5% of the time. Most fans like to think the results of a close game as just because teams that emerge victorious show grittiness, heart, and toughness. But those teams were almost certain losers when they faced the same team on the road. What happened to the grittiness then? To me, there’s no greater statement to the influence of luck in the outcome of a close game than the struggles of close home winners in a road game against the same team.

Its certainly interesting information.

But did Kenpom actually prove anything here?

Well, no.

The NCAA Tournament is the reason that college basketball has such mainstream appeal. If there wasn't this three week, 68 team event every March, college basketball would probably be closer to college baseball in terms of popularity and television exposure. What makes the NCAA Tournament so popular is that it truly is a tournament -- win or go home.

Upsets happen. Not because the upsetter is a better team than the upsettee, but because they are better for those particular 40 minutes.

You don't have to be the better team to win basketball games. You do, however, have to be a better basketball team on that day or night to win a game.

This isn't new information. Just like it isn't new information that its easier to win at home than it is on the road, especially during conference play.

For the most part, I think (hope) that the college basketball world understands that winning a game doesn't make you a better team. Does anyone really think Florida is better than Jacksonville? What head-to-head results give us is a tiebreaker. When all else is relatively equal, we can point to Team X's win over Team Y as the reason Team X should be ranked above Team Y.

This is sport. We can talk about efficiency ratings, eFG's, or rebounding percentages as much as we want, but the bottom line is that the only stat that matters is wins and losses.

One game is too small of a sample size to determine which team is better. But a win is a win, and the result has to have some value at the end of the day.