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Big Ten Basketball Projections for 02/25

I will tell you what: it is a great day to be a Spartan fan in SE Michigan. Yesterday's win over the Wolverines was perhaps the most satisfying win in the last several years. Last year's two losses and early tournament exit, coupled with yet another luck-fueled Final Four run for the Wolverines, coupled with essentially a lost season of football due to injuries had left most of us with more than just a bad taste in our mouths. But that all went away around 6 PM last night. It was if the skies parted, the sun came out, and the world suddenly became a kinder and more beautiful place. Enjoy this one.

Perhaps more importantly, yesterday's win helped to give the Big Ten college basketball world a nice strong dose of reality. (At least for now) we no longer need to hear the stupid rhetoric about how Beilein owns Izzo or how the Michigan program has somehow passed MSU. 

Please.

The reality of the situation is that Michigan is simply no longer a joke of a program. Actually, in their current form, they remind me a lot of the early Bo Ryan teams. Do you remember all the "Bo owns Izzo" talk? Yeah... Back then, Wisconsin would beat MSU fairly frequently, and on rare occasions, they even made it farther than MSU in March. Would anyone now say that Bo is a better coach or that Wisconsin is a better program that MSU? No, they would not, and the same is true of the Wolverines.

The other analogy that I think is a bit over-played is the one that proposes that UofM basketball is sort of the equivalent of MSU football. On some level, I think that this analogy is reasonable, as I think that both teams are well coached and generally do a good job with with player development. However, the problem is that argument is that is subtly puts up a false comparison between MSU basketball and UofM football. The fact is that MSU basketball has been far more successful than UofM football over the past 25 years. I would also argue than MSU football has been far more successful than UofM basketball over the past 10 years. But, this is what the Wolverines need to mumble to themselves such that they can sleep at night. I suppose I should not try to rob them of that.

But, I digress. If you clicked on this thread, you probably want to know how MSU's win last night affected the overall Big Ten race. Without further ado, here is the updated win matrix

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For now, MSU has reclaimed the top spot and currently leads Purdue by 0.3 expected wins, based on an extrapolation of Kenpom efficiency data. Meanwhile, Michigan is now almost 2 games back, with only 4 games to go. Good luck with that. As for the visual trends, those are shown here:

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As for the odds to win or share the Big Ten title, those odds are shown here:

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MSU now has a 78% chance to at least share the title, with Purdue's odds also strong at 58%. Meanwhile, the poor Wolverines are now under 10%. Actually, there are very much in danger of falling below Wisconsin and Maryland in the standings and needing to play on Thursday of the Big Ten tournament. 

As for the other odds:

MSU solo title: 40%
MSU/Purdue tie: 37%
Purdue solo: 19%
MSU/UofM tie: 6%
UofM solo: <1%
Odds that UofM finishes ahead of MSU: 3.2%

The odds for Purdue may seem a bit low, but they have 4 games left to MSU's 3 games, and the Kenpom math actually says that Purdue's game at Minnesota is a more likely loss than MSU's home game with Michigan. MSU has over a 50% chance to run the table, while Purdue's odds are only around 35%.

But, once again, we have to consider the fact that without Nick Ward, these metrics made be a bit inflated. MSU looked great yesterday, but can they sustain at that level? Probably not. But, can they still gut out a few 4-5 point wins that would have been 10-15 point wins with Ward? Let's hope so.

For completeness, I again have the trend plots for the rest of the conference:

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Enjoy the week (off) and Go Green.

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