Computer simulations predict doom for Penn M. Hoops

The Ivy League preseason media poll has been released, and the pundits predict a second-place finish for Penn men's basketball. Cause for celebration (or at least optimism), right?

Perhaps not.

Using the just-released preseason rankings of advanced statistics maven Ken Pomeroy, college hoops blog Big Apple Buckets simulated this year's Ancient Eight campaign 10,000 times.

Well, they don't look too pretty for Penn.

Pomeroy has the Red and Blue ranked 240th in the country in his rankings (Harvard leads the way at 51st), and the Quakers perform like a 240th-ranked team in the simulations.

Penn's results in the simulation average out to a 6th place finish in the Ivy League, with the Quakers taking sole possession of the crown just .3% of the time.

Of course, no advanced metric is perfect. But it's always fun to see how advanced statistics predict the season will turn out.

And in this case, the gap between the pundits and the computers is staggering.