Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

Happy New Year Everyone!  I have a little down time tonight and never much cared for New Year's so how about a quick update on the odds of each team to win the Men's Big Ten basketball title?  Once again, I use Kenpom efficiency data to project win probabilities for all remaining Big Ten games and then run a Monte Carlo simulation on the season to project the expected number of conference wins and the odds to finish at least tied for 1st place. Almost all of the non-conference games are in the books and all Big Ten teams have played 2 games.  Here is the current win matrix: Based on this current data, MSU and Ohio State are in an effective dead heat with an expected win total that is within a hundredth of a win of each other.  The second tier of teams currently contains Maryland, Iowa, Purdue, Michigan, and Penn State, who are all projected to win between 11 and 12 games.  Then, there is a cluster of five additional teams (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana,...

Happy Holidays everyone!  While some of are waiting patiently for Santa to arrive, shot-gunning eggnog, and pounding Christmas cookies, the MSU football team is making final preparations for the final game of the 2019 season.  On Friday, December 27th, the Spartans will be taking on the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in New York City at Yankee Stadium. As I mentioned previously,  MSU opened up as a 3.5-point favorite in Vegas and that translates to a 60% chance that MSU wins straight-up.  The computers models generally agree. The FPI, in fact, agrees within a tenth of a point (-3.55) while my algorithm likes MSU by just slightly more: -4.7. The over-under for the game is sitting right at 50 points. If I take all this data together, my computer likes MSU to win roughly 28-24, beating the spread and hitting the over. But, the indicators are not strong and I must also say that MSU is only 3-9 against the spread this year and 5-7 on the “over.” So, take it all with a grain ...

Welcome to Bowl Season y'all!  While some of us are still scrambling to finish up Christmas shopping, a handful of programs out there are putting the final touches on their preparations for one last game of football this coming weekend Some people like to complain about the glut of bowl games.  I am not one of those people.  I have said it before and I will say it again: don't wish for less college football.  As a sports fan, that is tantamount to madness. In the depths of July, watching Arkansas State vs. Florida International in the Camellia Bowl is going to sound pretty compelling. Embrace it! Light up the fireplace, grab a beverage, and enjoy! As for MSU's bowl opponent and location, the Spartans will be traveling to New York City to face the Wake Forest Demon Deacons.  MSU opened up as a 3.5-point favorite in Vegas and that line seems to be holding pretty steady. That translates to a 60% chance that MSU ends the season on a high note, with a winning re...

With last night's totally not at all surprising results, the projection of the NY6 seems pretty clear at this point.  The main question is whether OSU or LSU is #1.  Honestly, I don't actually care about this question that much, but I will go with LSU.  That would make the pairing likely to be: Peach Bowl: #1 LSU vs. #4 Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl: #2 Ohio State vs. #3 Clemson The Fiesta Bowl pairing is a rematch of the Fiesta Bowl from 3 years ago, which is reason enough for me to NOT place them like this, but I guess we we see.  Either way, it seems 99% sure that this is the Top 4, however the committee decides to pair them or where they send them.  As for the rest of the NY6, it seems pretty obvious: Rose Bowl: Oregon vs. Penn State Orange Bowl: Virginia vs. Florida Sugar Bowl: Georgia vs. Baylor Cotton Bowl: Wisconsin vs. Memphis As for the rest of the Big Ten Bowls, it is likely as follows: Citrus Bowl: Michigan (vs. Alabama or Auburn)...

With football season starting to wrap up, it is time to start to turn my mathematical focus to the hardwood.  While I have developed my own methods for predicting the point spreads of football games, I believe that the efficiency-based methods used and refined by Ken Pomeroy are the current gold standard in basketball analytics.  Over the past few years, I have developed my own methodology using Kenpom data to try to answer interesting questions regarding college basketball. As this weekend marks the beginning of Big Ten basketball, it seems like a good time to take a closer look at what the current Kenpom data can tell about which team(s) might be hoisting a Big Ten championship banner at the close of the regular season. I use the following method.  The current Kenpom efficiency margins can be used to project point spreads for all future Big Ten games.  These point spreads can be used to generate the probability that either team will win any given future contest...

The regular season may be over for MSU, but there certainly is a lot of football left to be played.   Everyone has an opinion of the current 4-team playoff system.   Should it be expanded? Was the BCS system actually better? We could discuss this for days and there is likely no correct answer.   I personally find the current 4-team playoff and New Year’s Six format to be a lot of fun.   Slotting the teams into the bowls to create good end-of-year match-ups is a fascinating puzzle to try to solve.   For me, it is like bracketology in December.   Now that we are down to the final set of championship games and that the penultimate Playoff Rankings have been released, the number of potential scenarios is   bounded, and this allows us to take a precise look at how things may play out.   Although MSU is clearly not in the conservation for a NY6 Bowl, the final selection of teams is going to impact where MSU will be spending the holidays.   My...

The T.S. Elliott poem “The Hollow Men,” the final refrain is an ominous one.   It goes, “This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.” On Saturday in Spartan Stadium, the 2019 regular season also came to an end, and unfortunately there was more whimper than bang. Now, MSU still did come away with the win, so all is not lost. The World, in fact is not coming to an end.   However, the win did have a certain Hollow feel to it.   Maryland is not a good football team, yet MSU once again found themselves leaving points on the field and letting said bad team hang around.   When you let a bad team hang around, you leave yourself open to one or two bad plays or bounces that can suddenly put you in a bad position. In all honesty, the Rutgers game was no different.   MSU dominated most of that game as well but found themselves up only 10-0 just before halftime.   It is just that Rutgers is a REALLY bad football team and not just a bad...