Mark Pope is looking to fill a new position with Kentucky men's basketball, and it sounds a lot like the continuation of the Moneyball tactics Pope brought from BYU.
Ahead of the SEC Tournament, Pope revealed he is hiring a full-time “back-office” specialist whose job will be to run salary cap models, win-share analytics, and constant roster simulations for the transfer portal.
In other words, Kentucky is about to have someone wargaming the roster 24 hours a day.
That might be smart. But Pope better make sure there’s still a little Clint Eastwood in the room too.
"it's really important to have somebody literally 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is going to be wargaming and modeling over and over and over again. We're excited about filling that position. It's going to really help us as staff um collect information."
As any sports movie buff can tell you, sometimes Moneyball needs a little Trouble with the Curve. If Pope starts trusting the Win-Share Model more than his own gut, he might learn the hard way that while Moneyball gets you to the dance, it rarely helps you win it all.
If you have never seen either of those, first finish reading this article and then go watch both, but here's a little brief synopsis for you. Moneyball is the story of Billy Beane when he took over the Oakland A's front office. He used data analysts over scouts, and he valued value over top-end production. You get to see how that all launched up.
In Trouble with the Curve Clint Eastwood plays a grizzled MLB scout for the Atlanta Braves. He is sent out on an assignment for a key pick to watch a player that a new and younger member of the organization wants to draft. He sees an issues with his eyes that the stats miss and it sets up to see which side wins, either analytics or in-person scouting.
I am going to sound like a data hater right now, but there are times when stats look really good, and a computer will just see the numbers. A computer can’t hear the "sound" of the ball off the bat, or in this case, the heart in a player, or his willingness to play as part of a team.
Wargaming the portal
Pope is looking for an elite data analyst to "get as deep into the details of managing this spring's roster construction as we can." He wants someone modeling potential portal additions 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
"I’d like to have it in place today," Pope said, emphasizing the urgency of the April portal window. "It’s going to be massively important for us to make the best educated guesses that we can."
That type of thinking leans right into one of the biggest problems with analytics only.
The Billy Beane trap
There is no denying that data-driven analysis is the future of the sport, but there’s a reason Billy Beane’s Oakland A’s never hoisted a trophy. Moneyball works over a 162-game season where averages eventually even out. It doesn't always work in a "one-and-done" tournament where a spreadsheet can't account for a rolled ankle or a player not fitting into the offensive flow because his personality clashes with someone else.
Yes, it may be good "value" but it may not be good fit.
The "Trouble with the Curve" reality
Pope mentions that this hire will help the staff "collect information" and "model win-shares," but numbers can lie. You can have the most efficient offensive player in the country, but that data doesn't tell you how he’ll react when SEC defenders start getting up in his grill and taking away his space.
"Everybody goes through the process of moving up the priorities on a scouting report," Pope admitted. "It changes everything about your experience."
See how stats can be misleading?
Real scouting still matters a lot
In Trouble with the Curve, Clint Eastwood’s character proved that human eyes and ears see things a computer simply misses. Pope needs this new hire to manage the "Salary Cap," but he needs his own eyes, and the eyes of his staff, to judge all the little things that data can't track.
If this new hire helps Kentucky avoid "round peg, square hole" roster builds, it’s a win. But if Pope starts trusting the "Win-Share Model" more than his own gut, he might find out the hard way that while Moneyball gets you to the dance, it rarely helps you win it all.