Jump to content
View in the app

A better way to browse. Learn more.

Surly Horns

A full-screen app on your home screen with push notifications, badges and more.

To install this app on iOS and iPadOS
  1. Tap the Share icon in Safari
  2. Scroll the menu and tap Add to Home Screen.
  3. Tap Add in the top-right corner.
To install this app on Android
  1. Tap the 3-dot menu (⋮) in the top-right corner of the browser.
  2. Tap Add to Home screen or Install app.
  3. Confirm by tapping Install.

Featured Replies

Voting for the H.U.M.A.N poll concluded Sunday night. Thanks to all who participated. In total, we received 29,522 votes from 632 voters. As is custom, we took all of these votes and ran a Bradley-Terry algorithm on it to produce a 1 to 365 ranking by humans, for humans.

This year we changed two things about our approach in an attempt to improve poll output:

  1. The introduction of super-voters. If you finished in the top 50 of either of the previous two iterations of the poll, you earned double power in the voting.¹ There were 55 voters who took advantage of this. 

  2. The best teams were more often matched up against the best teams. For instance, Houston was matched up against teams outside the H.U.M.A.N. poll top 30 just twice this season. Last year they had 35 matchups outside the top 30 (with fewer total votes). That should give us better data on the top teams. Like, very few people think Houston is outside the top ten this season. So there’s no reason to make people prove that. Actually, few people think they’re outside the top 1, except possibly a bunch of AP poll voters.

That’s my way of saying that Houston was the clear choice for #1 by the humans, joining Kansas (2024) and UConn (2025) as previous #1’s. The Coogs will need to do better than those teams or we will officially have a H.U.M.A.N. poll curse to consider.

The final results are here and the top ten is below. It’s a pretty sensible top ten!

  https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama  

As you can see from the graphic, we provide two ratings for whatever it’s worth. The BT (Bradley-Terry) rating is the raw rating from the algorithm. You can use it to get an idea of how likely it is that one of our voters would pick one team over another. 

Using Houston's and Duke's ratings, we find that Houston would have a 70% chance of being picked over Duke by our electorate². You can click on a team to see all of their votes:

  https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama  

Houston was picked 76.7% of the time against Duke in reality. The computer has to balance out all of the matchups, though. If future voters behaved like past voters, we’d expect them to be slightly less bullish on Houston in this matchup, based on all of their other votes.

The other rating is the Ln rating, which transforms the BT rating to a linear scale so you can compare teams on the same scale. For instance the biggest gap in the ratings were between #364 and #365, and then #1 and #2. The next biggest gap was between #18 Illinois and #19 Auburn. If you think the humans are too low on Illinois and their band of Balkan-born ballers, the Illini are actually as close #9 as they are to #19. You won’t get that kind of information from the AP poll! (Neither the BT rating nor the Ln rating actually mean anything relative to my own ratings, however.)

I’d say the poll’s results seem pretty reasonable at the top. Y’all seem to hate UCLA for whatever reason, and you love St. John’s. It does seem like humans really love Rick Pitino. And to be fair, UCLA was the team most valued by super-voters relative to regular voters.

The team the voters disagreed on the most was Louisville, who finished a sensible 15th, but the details are wild. They received a win in a matchup against #1 Houston and a win from a super-voter against #2 Purdue, while also taking two losses to #48 Georgia, three losses to #49 SMU, and a loss to #64 Northwestern. 

Finally, we can infer conference ratings from your picks and - spoiler - the top 12 leagues are in the same order they’ll be in my preseason ratings. So we are in agreement on that.

  https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.ama  

If you participated, you can find your ballot here. (We’ll eventually get past results on our brand new account page.) As the season progresses, we’ll update the ballot to show your correct picks, ultimately crowning the Champion Ball-Knower of the Year after the national championship game. Good luck!

1

Should there be a fourth iteration of the H.U.M.A.N. poll, we plan to keep the super-voter concept going. However, you will lose super-voter status if you finish in the bottom 50 of the final standings.

2

We take Houston’s BT rating of 2276 and Duke’s rating of 969.6 and plug it into a simple formula like so: 2276 / (2276+969.6) = .701

 

 

IMG_3402.jpeg

IMG_3403.jpeg

The Big XII bottom teams must be catastrophically terrible.  The Top 6 are in the National Top 17, with Baylor also  at 25.

Edited by Iceman

On 10/7/2025 at 5:39 AM, Iceman said:

The Big XII bottom teams must be catastrophically terrible.  The Top 6 are in the National Top 17, with Baylor also  at 25.

Have you met Bobby Hurley? He has held his job for ELEVEN SEASONS at ASU. I mean it defies any rational logic that he is still the head basketball coach. I think he gets fired this year, but I mean a dozen wasted seasons for Bobby Hurley? 

  • Author

IMG_4029.jpeg

IMG_4030.jpeg

IMG_4031.jpeg

projected record: 17-12 (8–10)

  • Author

sean miller 3-6 vs preseason expectations since his run to the e8 in 2015:

 

IMG_4034.jpeg

15 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

That seems, uh, rather arbitrary.

I don’t know how they come up with their adj o & d metrics preseason, but they do base it off those “metrics”.

  • Author

i’m guessing that every champion of the past ‘x’ years has been above 112 in AdjO (now Ortg) and below 94 in AdjD (Drtg).

  • Author

last five:

2025 florida- 128.2 & 91.8

2024 uconn- 127.5 & 91.1

2023 uconn- 120.8 & 90.9

2022 kansas- 119.2 & 91.7

2021 baylor- 125.0 & 91.1

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • Author

IMG_6021.thumb.jpeg.246762b85e7692826c1969ef74aa31e1.jpeg

current projected record is 16-13.

On 11/5/2025 at 12:22 PM, Derka said:

IMG_6021.thumb.jpeg.246762b85e7692826c1969ef74aa31e1.jpeg

current projected record is 16-13.

What is kenpoms current prediction for conference W-L? 

  • Author
10 minutes ago, Blotto said:

What is kenpoms current prediction for conference W-L? 

 

IMG_6455.jpeg

  • Author

IMG_7075.jpeg

IMG_7076.jpeg

IMG_7077.jpeg

IMG_7078.jpeg

UT projected record: 17-12 (8-10)

  • Author

our 3p and ft issues are concerning to say the least.

9 minutes ago, Derka said:

IMG_7075.jpeg

IMG_7076.jpeg

IMG_7077.jpeg

IMG_7078.jpeg

UT projected record: 17-12 (8-10)

8-10 or 7-11? 

  • Author
13 minutes ago, Gut Wagon said:

8-10 or 7-11? 

so it shows 7 projected wins on the conference slate, but kenpom’s actual projected conference w/l is 8-12 because he’s got some stuff added into his equations to take into account that his predicted outcomes won’t always hit. so you see the vandy and ou losses at 45% chance to win and the a&m loss as a 49% chance to win, and between those three projected losses is probably where you get that 8th projected win.

  • Author

IMG_7337.thumb.jpeg.15abbf0eadd3e21807467f89856d6927.jpeg

projected record: 21-9 (11-7)

 

IMG_7338.thumb.jpeg.61a8e313d307909ac1d3650873778ac1.jpeg

18-12 (9-9)

 

IMG_7339.thumb.jpeg.a0379f12d4842e756efca826fe29b6f1.jpeg

17-12 (9-9)

 

IMG_7340.thumb.jpeg.97249d6fab35c6e70a08419a4f35b610.jpeg

15-16 (9-11)

  • Author

possibly the most telling statistic: A/FGM.

70% of tennessee’s made fg are assisted, meaning they’re taking great shots. ole miss is assisting on 60.7% of their shots. then you’ve got marquette at 56.5%, and Texas at 47.9% (🤮). guard play is the name of the game in cbb, especially in the tourney. i’d really like to see wilcher take over for pope and see if we can’t get that number up.

  • Author

our offensive outburst in maui has seen our metrics and projections improve slightly. i like seeing all of that green on the page. the obvious bad part is that the categories in the red (turnovers and ft’s) are pretty damn important.

 

IMG_7881.thumb.jpeg.04021607217596e305ce07252030c47c.jpeg

IMG_7882.thumb.jpeg.269771d0efc9b2958a2963709868fd02.jpeg

  • Author

michigan net rating: 35.01

Texas net rating: 17.50

damn.

  • Author

IMG_7924.thumb.jpeg.e42357cc8055f32ad0de0e92d1d1b5b1.jpeg

22-9 (12-6)

IMG_7923.thumb.jpeg.17aec00db4b02b67a1e292605eed9a13.jpeg

18-13 (9-9)

IMG_7922.thumb.jpeg.f36eb84e71e84ae25e618a75ef7620d3.jpeg

17-14 (8-10)

IMG_7921.thumb.jpeg.6f563b1864628fecbecb48dd895506d2.jpeg

14-17 (8-12)

Edited by Derka

@Derka in your experience and estimation, how far into the season before these values settle into generally where they will end, and how accurate is that?

  • Author
1 hour ago, Pato del Muerto said:

@Derka in your experience and estimation, how far into the season before these values settle into generally where they will end, and how accurate is that?

i start taking the rankings seriously around february 1st. 

I haven't watched much this year, are our low turnovers forced and low opponents A/FGM numbers related? Are we a sagging defense that doesn't force passes and invites iso by our opponents? Or am I reading those wrong? 

Edited by Huckleberry

On 10/7/2025 at 10:39 AM, Iceman said:

The Big XII bottom teams must be catastrophically terrible.  The Top 6 are in the National Top 17, with Baylor also  at 25.

Truly amazes me how little credit the conference gets among voters which makes it tough to build your rankings over the season.

Frogs have the really bad opening loss to UNO, lose to Michigan at home, and then beat Florida and Wisconsin yet I doubt they draw many top 25 votes. 

SMU up to 39, aggy to 51 after today. 

Tech (19) kicked the shit out of LSU (40).

SEC isn't shaping up to be quite as salty as last season so far. Probably helps the Horns. 

  • Author

definitely not as good as last year,  it still very good.

 

IMG_8576.jpeg

IMG_8577.jpeg

Right at this moment having a hard time seeing 10 SEC wins for Big Blue. 

  • Author

juggernaut status:

 

IMG_9509.jpeg

IMG_9511.jpeg

On 12/19/2025 at 10:10 PM, Derka said:

juggernaut status:

 

IMG_9509.jpeg

IMG_9511.jpeg

Some of those scores are fucking heinous. 

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

Configure browser push notifications

Chrome (Android)
  1. Tap the lock icon next to the address bar.
  2. Tap Permissions → Notifications.
  3. Adjust your preference.
Chrome (Desktop)
  1. Click the padlock icon in the address bar.
  2. Select Site settings.
  3. Find Notifications and adjust your preference.