With the start of conference play, it's time to project the conference standings. I had hoped to get this in before any games were played, but the holidays (and not realizing that some conference games were to be played earlier this week) got in the way. Given the wildly varying levels of competition faced to date, it's hard to say how much value any ratings will have, but here are the projections, such as they are. First, team rankings:
| Pom Rank | Pom WPct | BT Rank | BT WPct | MABT Rank | MABT WPct | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ohio St | 1 | 0.9896 | 6 | 0.9816 | 1 | 0.9931 |
| Wisconsin | 12 | 0.9529 | 17 | 0.9450 | 14 | 0.9599 |
| Purdue | 7 | 0.9662 | 19 | 0.9402 | 11 | 0.9646 |
| Minnesota | 57 | 0.8584 | 31 | 0.9160 | 39 | 0.9032 |
| Illinois | 27 | 0.9304 | 40 | 0.8911 | 28 | 0.9338 |
| Northwestern | 48 | 0.8834 | 41 | 0.8893 | 31 | 0.9285 |
| Michigan St | 21 | 0.9381 | 44 | 0.8824 | 48 | 0.8853 |
| Michigan | 71 | 0.8272 | 52 | 0.8544 | 47 | 0.8881 |
| Penn St | 80 | 0.7802 | 87 | 0.7597 | 82 | 0.7678 |
| Indiana | 76 | 0.8085 | 120 | 0.6242 | 98 | 0.7230 |
| Iowa | 72 | 0.8191 | 137 | 0.5661 | 111 | 0.6880 |
Pomeroy's rankings still have some preseason projection in them, which accounts for part of the discrepancy. Based just on this year, there's a pretty solid middle tier of five teams below the OSU-Wisconsin-Purdue trio and ahead of PSU-Indiana-Iowa.
Basic Bradley-Terry (W-L only)
As always, home court is ignored. In the offseason I plan to look at a way to factor it in (my instinct is to adjust your opponents' ratings for the strength of schedule calculation, multiplying by some factor if it was a road game and dividing if it was home), but for now it has no effect.
| Team | WPct | Current | Average wins | Win all | 14 or more | 12 or more | 9 or more | 6 or fewer | 4 or fewer | Lose all | Outright title | Share of title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ohio St | 0.9816 | 0-0 | 15.78 | 8.74% | 94.38% | 99.71% | 99.9995% | 1 in 42.4M | 1 in 30.6B | 1 in 2.48e18 | 79.29% | 89.90% |
| Wisconsin | 0.9450 | 1-0 | 12.57 | 0.05% | 30.43% | 73.78% | 98.85% | 0.04% | 1 in 253k | 1 in 9.14B (1-17) | 4.88% | 11.16% |
| Purdue | 0.9402 | 1-0 | 12.24 | 0.03% | 23.81% | 67.22% | 98.27% | 0.06% | 1 in 154k | 1 in 5.90B (1-17) | 3.70% | 8.46% |
| Minnesota | 0.9160 | 0-1 | 10.44 | 1 in 20,400 (17-1) | 3.83% | 27.99% | 86.15% | 1.47% | 0.05% | 1 in 263M | 0.40% | 1.30% |
| Northwestern | 0.8893 | 0-0 | 9.95 | 1 in 216k | 2.92% | 20.91% | 77.63% | 3.53% | 0.20% | 1 in 23.4M | 0.19% | 0.90% |
| Illinois | 0.8911 | 1-0 | 9.63 | 1 in 864k | 1.63% | 15.38% | 73.00% | 4.32% | 0.21% | 1 in 1.64M (1-17) | 0.18% | 0.73% |
| Michigan St |
0.8824 | 0-0 | 9.17 | 1 in 1.02M | 1.15% | 11.33% | 63.44% | 8.28% | 0.68% | 1 in 2.99M | 0.08% | 0.36% |
| Michigan | 0.8544 | 0-1 | 8.04 | 1 in 5.22M (17-1) | 0.11% | 2.79% | 39.92% | 19.83% | 2.38% | 1 in 434k | <0.01% | <0.01% |
| Penn St | 0.7597 | 1-0 | 5.33 | 1 in 198B | 1 in 216k | 0.04% | 3.58% | 76.20% | 32.47% | 0.43% (1-17) | <0.01% | <0.01% |
| Indiana | 0.6242 | 0-1 | 3.11 | 1 in 383T (17-1) | 1 in 977M | 1 in 2.04M | 0.05% | 98.41% | 83.06% | 2.20% | <0.01% | <0.01% |
| Iowa | 0.5661 | 0-1 | 2.73 | 1 in 3.37e15 (17-1) | 1 in 5.13B | 1 in 7.91M | 0.02% | 99.19% | 88.83% | 4.15% | <0.01% | <0.01% |
This follows the rankings themselves pretty closely, with only minor exceptions (NW moves up thanks to getting OSU and Purdue once each). Based just on record, you have to like Northwestern's chances of breaking their 0-for-NCAA streak (10-8 in a ridiculously stacked Big Ten would carry a lot of weight). With Ohio State unbeaten, the projections strongly favor them to win the title.
Margin-Aware Bradley-Terry
| Team | WPct | Current | Average wins | Win all | 14 or more | 12 or more | 9 or more | 6 or fewer | 4 or fewer | Lose all | Outright title | Share of title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ohio St | 0.9931 | 0-0 | 16.75 | 26.58% | 99.47% | 99.99% | 99.999998% | 1 in 50.7B | 1 in 142T | 1 in 1.57e23 | 91.60% | 96.88% |
| Purdue | 0.9646 | 1-0 | 12.89 | 0.04% | 36.35% | 80.71% | 99.50% | 0.01% | 1 in 1.48M | 1 in 108B (1-17) | 1.79% | 4.96% |
| Wisconsin | 0.9599 | 1-0 | 12.27 | 0.01% | 23.64% | 68.30% | 98.47% | 0.05% | 1 in 184k | 1 in 6.38B (1-17) | 1.06% | 3.12% |
| Northwestern | 0.9285 | 0-0 | 10.70 | 1 in 79,800 | 6.33% | 33.85% | 87.93% | 1.32% | 0.05% | 1 in 166M | 0.15% | 0.49% |
| Illinois | 0.9338 | 1-0 | 10.35 | 1 in 445k | 3.51% | 26.11% | 85.13% | 1.54% | 0.05% | 1 in 14.3M (1-17) | 0.04% | 0.18% |
| Minnesota | 0.9032 | 0-1 | 8.70 | 1 in 3.13M (17-1) | 0.26% | 5.68% | 54.68% | 11.02% | 0.94% | 1 in 1.94M | <0.01% | <0.01% |
| Michigan | 0.8881 | 0-1 | 8.14 | 1 in 12.1M (17-1) | 0.10% | 2.98% | 42.12% | 18.25% | 2.12% | 1 in 450k | <0.01% | <0.01% |
| Michigan St | 0.8853 | 0-0 | 8.03 | 1 in 35.4M | 0.18% | 3.38% | 39.94% | 21.14% | 2.92% | 1 in 214k | 0.01% | 0.01% |
| Penn St | 0.7678 | 1-0 | 4.60 | 1 in 24.2T | 1 in 3.51M | 1 in 21,800 | 1.09% | 88.13% | 49.55% | 1.30% (1-17) | <0.01% | <0.01% |
| Indiana | 0.7230 | 0-1 | 3.32 | 1 in 288T (17-1) | 1 in 468M | 1 in 968k | 0.10% | 97.61% | 78.81% | 1.75% | <0.01% | <0.01% |
| Iowa | 0.6880 | 0-1 | 3.27 | 1 in 456T (17-1) | 1 in 568M | 1 in 1.08M | 0.09% | 97.73% | 79.61% | 2.05% | <0.01% | <0.01% |
Biggest differences are in Minnesota's rating dropping behind the two Illinois schools, Michigan jumping up, and the dregs (Indiana and Iowa) being less awful. If you are already panicking about MSU, I'm afraid this chart gives you more reason to. I suspect MSU's chances of a title being better than Minnesota or Michigan's is an artifact of simulation; the title chances were computed by 10,000 simulated seasons and one happened to come out with an outright MSU title. I suspect all three are probably similar.