Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

I have been tinkering a bit with some numbers related to the Big Ten basketball race.  As you folks likely know, I enjoy playing in the realm of probabilities.  I have my own computer ranking system for football, but the scale of the college basketball season is more than what I would like to take on.  Furthermore, I don't think that there is anyway that I could do anything better than Ken Pomeroy, so I usually just use his numbers.  (I suppose I could say the same thing about Bill Connelly for football, but I already had my system set up by the time I discovered his, and I just frankly like tinkering with my system). Anyway, Kenpom's system allows him to project a point spread and victory probability for each and every game in the college basketball season.  He usually just reports the "expected value" of wins (essentially a sum of the odds of victory for every game) for each team.  However, if you set the math up correctly, you can also calculate the...

For the last several season prior to MSU's bowl game, I have found it to be a useful exercise to take a detailed look at the hard numbers that each team has generated over season. In particular, I like to analyze the rush and pass offense and defense numbers for each team on a per attempt basis. In addition, I like to take a closer look at the schedule of each team to gain a better understanding of the level of competition that each team has faced. I will leave it to others to analyze the actual "x's and o's" and "Jimmys and Joes." That type of analysis is obviously very important, but it is not one of my personal strengths. But, I think a statistical analysis ("zeros and ones?") is a part of the puzzle. That all said, in the analysis below, when I make comparisons between teams, it is always from the view point of statistical similarities , i.e. similar yards per play, and not in any way similarities in players, schemes, etc. Make sense? OK, ...

I can't remember if they still do it or not, but ESPN used to run an ad during bowl season claiming it to "the Most Wonderful Time of the Year."  While I cannot agree 100% with that conclusion from a sports point-of-view (as March Madness is clearly the "most wonderful time" on the sports calendar) but in general, I agree with the sentiment.  Bonus football, even in mid-December, is a good time. Not all talking heads or sports fans agree, of course, as just like clock-work we have heard the calls to expand the playoffs or that there are "too many bowls."  As for the playoffs, I personally have a pretty hard time getting too fired up about it one way or the other.  Is the current system fair? Probably not.  Do I care? Sort of, but the problem is that it is essentially impossible to create a "fair" system.  I personally like the current New Years Six system just fine.  I could be persuaded to accept a 6 or 8 team playoff, but I am not losing...

OK, a couple of quick thoughts on today's picks 1) I swear to goodness that the Outback Bowl simply exists to make me look bad.  Two years in a row now, I have picked MSU to go to Tampa, just to see MSU fall to a lower bowl for dubious reasons. This irritates most for two reasons: 1) I hate being wrong. 2) If you apply logic and reason to a situation and the opposite result actually happens, it to me just makes the world look like a chaotic, unfair mess, which is unsettling. Grrrrrrr. 2) This still seems like a really stupid decision for the Outback Bowl, from a business point of view. It will be interesting to see if more comes out about how this went down. It seems to me that if the current bowl contracts are actually contracts, the Outbowl very well could be up crap creek next year, and frankly, they deserve to be. If teams like MSU, Ohio State, Penn State, and Nebraska are not available to them next year, well good luck with a 6-6 Indiana or Minnesota team. If the Big Ten someh...

At the end of a very entertaining day of college football, actually essentially nothing surprising actually happened. In the Power 5 Championship games, all five favorites won, and the Final Four seems just about settled. As for the rest of the NY6, based on some of the combined knowledge reliable internet sources, I think it is pretty clear what is  most likely  to happen, and that is: Cotton Bowl:  #1 Alabama vs. #4 Oklahoma Orange Bowl:  #2 Clemson vs. #3 Notre Dame Rose Bowl:  Washington vs. Ohio State Sugar Bowl:  Texas vs. Georgia Peach Bowl:  Michigan vs. Florida Fiesta Bowl:  UCF vs. LSU If it were up to me, I would instead match-up Michigan vs. LSU in the Fiesta Bowl and UCF vs. Florida in the Peach, but word on the street in Atlanta is that this is not likely. So, the above my final pick. However, there are a couple of lower probability scenarios that I would like to throw out there. First,  if for some reason the Committee decides ...