College basketball conference to use KenPom stats to seed tournament

The WCC will use KenPom analytics to seed its upcoming conference basketball tournament, the league announced Sunday. Teams will be ranked according to the advanced stats website’s Conference Adjusted Winning Percentage rather than actual winning percentage.

This is the second consecutive year the WCC has used KenPom for seeding purposes in its conference tournament. The move comes amidst disparity among the amount of total conference games played at each school because of cancellations due to COVID-19. Teams typically compete in 16 league contests in the regular season, but only three of the WCC’s 10 teams reached that number this year. In total, six women’s basketball games and five men’s basketball games were declared non-contests by the conference during the 2021-22 regular season.

This led the WCC to partner with Ken Pomeroy to create an algorithm that takes into account games completed to come up with an adjusted winning percentage for each team. The algorithm accounts for both the strength of the opponent and the location where the game was played, according to the conference.

Ken Pomeroy began publishing his predictive rankings online in 2003 and would soon become one of college basketball’s most renowned experts. The website, which began as a hobby, grew to include a premium subscription that offered more analysis and allowed Pomeroy to quit his job as a meteorologist to pursue the venture full-time. It even enabled him opportunities to work with the NBA’s Houston Rockets and ESPN. Nearly 20 years later, we are seeing how his analysis is still impacting the game.

Using the Ken Pomeroy Conference Adjusted Winning Percentage, Gonzaga captured the WCC men’s basketball regular season title and BYU captured the WCC women’s basketball regular season crown. Both conference tournaments are set to begin Thursday at the Orleans Arena in Paradise, Nevada. The women will open up the action with a pair of games beginning at noon PT before the men tip off at 6 p.m. PT with two games of their own. The tournament will conclude March 8 when both championships are scheduled to be played.

Below are the KenPom Adjusted Conference Winning Percentage rankings for both men and women’s teams ahead of the WCC tournament.

KenPom WCC Adjusted Conference Winning Percentage rankings

Men’s

1. Gonzaga (.921)

2. Saint Mary’s (.816)

3. Santa Clara (.673)

4. San Francisco (.655)

5. BYU (.595)

6. Portland (.429)

7. San Diego (.411)

8. LMU (.222)

9. Pacific (.183)

10. Pepperdine (.095)

Women’s

1. BYU (.921)

2. Gonzaga (.870)

3. San Francisco (.555)

4. Portland (.530)

5. Saint Mary’s (.501)

6. San Diego (.493)

7. Santa Clara (.448)

8. Pepperdine (.257)

9. LMU (.241)

10. Pacific (.184)