Projecting the Big Ten Basketball Race: At the Quarter Pole

by SpartanDan on Jan 14, 2012 6:02 AM CST in Michigan State Spartans Basketball

With 1/4 of conference play gone by, it's time to take an early look at the Big Ten basketball race using the Bradley-Terry and margin-aware Bradley-Terry ratings. Rather than listing every possibility (which would require a table twice as wide as that for football), I'll include graphs for the win distributions of various teams and a table of probabilities for winning the title (outright or shared) and finishing in the top 4 (thus earning a bye in the Big Ten tournament). The table is based on 100,000 simulations; in case of a tie for the final bye, tiebreaker rules are not used and each team involved in the tie is given a fraction of the credit for it (for instance, a three-way tie for 3rd gives 2/3 of a top-4 finish to each of the teams in the tie, as two of them will get a bye and one will not).

Basic (W-L only) Method

	Avg Wins	Outright title	Share of title	Bye
Michigan St	13.26	41.97%	61.14%	93.51%
Illinois	12.05	14.16%	28.00%	80.94%
Indiana	11.64	8.59%	19.69%	74.57%
Michigan	10.88	5.05%	12.02%	56.48%
Ohio St	10.68	3.58%	9.50%	52.13%
Purdue	8.90	0.30%	1.17%	14.52%
Wisconsin	8.81	0.22%	0.98%	13.82%
Northwestern	8.38	0.14%	0.65%	10.29%
Minnesota	7.25	0.02%	0.12%	2.96%
Iowa	6.31	*	0.01%	0.64%
Nebraska	5.01	*	*	0.09%
Penn St	4.82	*	*	0.04%

* indicates less than 0.01% (10 out of 100,000 simulations)

Of note is that nobody is expected to put up an especially gaudy (or especially miserable) record; despite being the top-ranked team (at #8) we're underdogs in four of our remaining games (road games at Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio State). Illinois has the advantage of not having to play at the Breslin Center (as does Northwestern). Indiana, with three games against the top five (@MSU, OSU, Michigan) already out of the way, has an easier remaining schedule than Michigan and thus vaults them despite the extra loss.

Now, a chart showing the win distribution (click for bigger):

Michigan State has a clear advantage, with Illinois slightly ahead of Indiana; Michigan and Ohio State are nearly indistinguishable, as are Wisconsin and Purdue and (at the far end) Nebraska and Penn State.

After the jump: the margin-aware method.

Margin-Aware Method

	Avg Wins	Outright title	Share of title	Bye
Michigan St	14.03	57.14%	75.05%	97.20%
Ohio St	12.30	11.97%	24.81%	84.13%
Indiana	11.66	4.67%	12.99%	73.21%
Michigan	10.74	2.47%	6.92%	49.52%
Illinois	10.52	1.34%	4.53%	43.75%
Wisconsin	10.16	0.58%	2.43%	34.61%
Purdue	8.73	0.06%	0.31%	9.23%
Northwestern	8.30	0.04%	0.27%	7.40%
Minnesota	6.47	*	0.01%	0.71%
Iowa	5.89	*	*	0.23%
Penn St	4.72	*	*	0.01%
Nebraska	4.50	*	*	0.01%

Again, MSU has the big lead (we're only underdogs twice according to this set of ratings, at Ohio State and Indiana; at Michigan is a virtual toss-up), but Ohio State and Illinois swap places in the order and Wisconsin is closer to the dark-horse contenders (and the race for the fourth bye) than to Purdue and Northwestern.

Win distribution chart (click for bigger):

Ohio State's lead on Indiana is somewhat larger than Illinois's in the basic system. Michigan and Illinois are nearly indistinguishable, with Wisconsin close on their heels. Northwestern, Michigan, and Minnesota have relatively wide distributions; this suggests they have a lot of near-tossup games ahead.

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Comments

Backloaded worrying

I like that we’ve got a lead like this right now, but by the end of the season we’ll flatten out a bit. What will be more interesting to me is how it impacts NCAA seeding if we lose, say, 4 out of 7, at the end of the season. It could also shake the confidence of a young team.

Here’s our closing schedule …. not trying to crap in anyone’s kitchen.

Sat, Feb 11 at (5) Ohio St.
Thu, Feb 16 Wisconsin
Sun, Feb 19 at Purdue
Wed, Feb 22 at Minnesota
Sat, Feb 25 Nebraska
Tue, Feb 28 at (7) Indiana
Sun, Mar 4 (5) Ohio St.

Don’t wanna be rude, but Nebraska will be the easiest game (I know I know, no easy games in the B1G, but every conference says that)

by msuduster on Jan 14, 2012 11:05 AM CST reply actions

I've wondered the same thing...

Selection committee ALWAYS seems to value the end of the schedule way too much (especially the big east tournament.. for some reason you could be the worst team in D1 – but if you have a good run in the big east tournament you’re guaranteed a top3 seed). One would HOPE that the committee would look at MSU’s schedule and see that it’s really tough competition at the end and that’s why they lost a bunch (if they do) – but you’d think the media would be smart enough to see that sort of thing too and they never do.

by MooTheKow on Jan 14, 2012 11:12 AM CST up reply actions