FanPost

State of the Conference, 10 days later edition

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Ten days ago I posted efficiency margins for all Big Ten teams for conference games only. Now that 10 days have passed, I thought it might be worth another look. So, without further ado, here are your conference-only offensive efficiency, defensive efficiency, and efficiency margin for all Big 10 teams.

Team   OffEff DefEff Efficiency Margin
Michigan State 105.7 90.2 15.5
Wisconsin 103.1 91.8 11.3
Purdue 106.0 100.2 5.8
Ohio State 101.6 98.0 3.6
Michigan 101.6 98.4 3.2
Illinois 100.2 98.3 1.9
Minnesota 103.2 103.6 -0.4
Northwestern 104.4 112.8 -8.4
Iowa 92.0 102.4 -10.4
Penn State 96.6 107.8 -11.2
Indiana 90.5 102.4 -11.9

Things still look great from our perspective. We still lead the conference in efficiency margin, and still have the best defense in the conference by about a point-and-a-half. Purdue edges us for the best offense by 0.3. Wisconsin is really hanging in there without Leuer, and at least as far as efficiency margin goes the Big 10 looks like a two team race. I'm pretty impressed with them right now, as much as it pains me to admit it. Their efficiency margin has narrowed somewhat but is still pretty impressive. Ours has narrowed a bit as well. Ohio State has improved greatly - they had a negative 3.9 efficiency margin last time around, and now are positive, with a 3.6 efficiency margin. They can most likely thank the return of Evan Turner for that.

The most shocking thing from my standpoint is that Purdue and Minnesota are both allowing over a point per possession in Big Ten play. These were two of the best defensive teams in the country in non-conference play, but since the Big Ten schedule began both have been pretty mediocre defensively, at least from a points-per-possession perspective. Hopefully that means that our defensive efficiency improvements since conference play began are for real. And hopefully Purdue's defensive woes will continue until after we've played them.

Illinois' efficiency margin has fallen off a cliff - probably due to the fact that they started their Big 10 slate against the worst teams in the conference and are now facing more difficult opponents. Northwestern would be a good team if they ever learned to play some defense, as they are scoring efficiently. Unfortunately, opponents are scoring even more efficiently against them, and it's hard to win if you're getting outscored. Iowa is suddenly the third worst team in the conference, ahead of Indiana and Penn State.  

This is a FanPost, written by a member of the TOC community. It does not represent the official positions of The Only Colors, Inc.--largely because we have no official positions.