Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

The 2024-25 college basketball season ended just over a month ago, but fans are already looking ahead to next year. Currently, most of the focus is on the transfer portal as teams at all levels and in all parts of the country attempt to (re)build their rosters. But there was another recent announcement that will have an impact of the 2025-26 Big Ten season. The conference provided the first look at the conference schedule for each team. This includes the seven opponents that Michigan State will face only at home, the seven opponents the Spartans will only face on the road, and the three opponents Michigan State will face twice. The 2025-26 season will mark just the second year of the 18-team, 20-game Big Ten conference schedule. Based on my research, this is the eighth different scheduling pattern used by Big Ten basketball since 1950. Over the years, one of my fascinations in the realm of sports is study of strength of schedule. I strive to understand the impact that the schedule has ...

There is a harsh truth about that NCAA Tournament and the post season of virtually all organized sports. Of the 68 teams that celebrated their presence in the bracket on Selection Sunday, 67 of those team are going to lose before the tournament reaches its end.  That mean that there will be 67 frustrated fan bases, 67 disappointed coaching staffs, and 67 tear-filled locker rooms. ”Somebody's gonna go home sad,” said Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo on Sunday night. “Today, it's the Spartans. Next Saturday it'll be two more teams. Next Monday, it will be one more team.” The 2024-25 Spartan season began with lower than normal expectations in East Lansing. Michigan State was unranked in November, and was picked to finish fifth in the Big Ten. In the first month of the season, the Spartans took a loss to Memphis in Maui and a loss to Kansas, ironically in the the same bullring in Atlanta where the season ultimately came to an end. On Sunday night, Izzo admitted that after the...

This is not Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo's first rodeo. It is in fact, his 27th rodeo in his 30th season at the helm in East Lansing. He has been in this position before, and it takes a little more than just a win in the Sweet 16, his 11th, to get him excited. "Elite Eights are great, but we don't put up any banners for Great Eights," Izzo said when asked about the magnitude of Michigan State's 73-70 win over Mississippi in Friday night's NCAA Tournament contest in the South Region Semifinals. "We put up banners for championships, and Final Fours, and national championships." In other words, Izzo is not done yet this year. On some level, he is just getting started. As a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, Michigan State was basically expected the reach the Regional Final. That mission has been accomplished. When it comes to performance against seed expectation, Izzo is the best of all time.  But Izzo and the Spartans want more, and it's the ...

Michigan State senior Jaden Akins likely thought that his final year in Green and White would progress a little differently than it did. After grinding quietly for two years in the shadow of former Spartans guards Tyson Walker and A.J. Hoggard, the 2024-25 season was Akins chance to step into the leading roll in East Lansing. But the first month of the season got off to a bit of rocky start. Akins only managed two points on 1-for-8 shooting in the Spartans' marquee early season game, a loss to Kansas in the Champions Classic. Despite shooting a red-hot 38% from deep over his first three seasons on campus, Akins was just 7-36 (19%) in the month of November.  Akins nominally led the Spartans in scoring, but in the early weeks of the season Michigan State basketball observes started to question whether the Spartans had a "go-to guy" that they could rely on at crunch time. The often unspoken subtext was "that guy" was supposed to be Akins. As the season marched alon...

For my money, we are all of the cusp of the best three weeks of the entire year. We just wrapped up two weeks of conference tournaments, but those were just an appetizer to the main course that is yet to come.  The powers that be gave us the menu on Sunday evening for the feast that is to come. Now it is time to enjoy a brief break and palette cleaner before we all make our selections. But what shall we choose? Which tasty little upset looks the best in the first round? Which teams are most likely to be sweet in the second weekend? Which quartet will comprise the final course? Over the years I have developed a set of analytics and computational tools to gain a better understanding of the mathematical underpinning of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. My methodology has a solid track record of correctly identifying upsets and sometimes doing more than that. In 2023, I used data to correctly predict that No. 4 seed UConn win the National Title. There is no foolproof way to dominate your...