Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

As we look at the calendar, it tells us clearly that March is just around the corner.   When it comes to the Big Ten regular season race, the end is near.   Time is running out, and the final picture for this phase of the season is coming into focus.   For MSU, they got a desperately needed win over Iowa on Tuesday night.   Moreover, they proved that they actually could come from behind and execute winning plays against a good team in winning time.   We knew that they had it in them (as many of the same guys did it last year, several times) and the stats were telling us that they could do it, but it is quite another thing to actually do it.  They finally did it. This team still has a way to go and not a lot of time left to get there.   But, Tuesday night was progress.   Beating Iowa was huge, both from a confidence standpoint, but also from a Quad 1 win and Big Ten Tournament tiebreaker standpoint.   It also means that MSU is still in the hunt for a Big Ten title. While t

(Note: I meant to post this Monday afternoon, but I was a bit delayed in getting it out.  As a result, Illinois completely expected win over Nebraska on Monday night is not reflected in the data below.  But, it doesn't change the overall story.) Did everyone has a nice weekend? I did. As much as I love college basketball and MSU basketball in particular, sometimes it is nice to have a little break. It was nice not to have to worry about what time the game was on, whether or not I was going to be able to rearrange family activities to catch it live, or if I would just catch it on "tape delay."  If nothing else, I didn't have to worry about what a potential loss might do to MSU's record or NCAA Tournament seed.  It was nice. As it turns out, sometimes the best thing that you can do is sit on the couch and watch.  Because, as MSU was chilling out at home, both Penn State and Maryland posted "Ls" and MSU's faint hope for a Big Ten title get a little

For MSU basketball, the odds of a Big Ten regular season title are now vanishingly small (about 7%), but that doesn't mean the season is over.  While the last few weeks have certainly been disappointing, MSU still has the potential to make this a season to remember.  What happens in February stays in February.  But, college basketball legends are made in March, and March is just around the corner. So, the question now is what can we realistically expect out of the Spartans in March?  While no one has a crystal ball to predict the future, it is possible to look back at historical data to see what attributes are necessary to build a championship team.  While the number of variables that we could analyze are virtually endless, there are certain key stats that seem to be more important than other. I am personally a huge proponent of efficiency values.  For my money, Kenpom adjusted efficiency values (offensive, defensive, and margins) are the golden standard when it comes to predic

As February starts to draw to a close, the race for the Big Ten title is starting to come into full focus.  MSU had a fairly easy test this week in Lincoln, and fortunately they passed.  While there certainly were some encouraging signs (rebounding! Gabe Brown! Henry! Arhens!) there were also still some concerns (turn-overs? Bingham? and... Cassius still doesn't quite seem to be himself.)  At the end of the day, it was a pretty big win for MSU against a very bad team.  All I can say is that big wins are better than close wins, and close wins are better than loses.  I will take it. As for the Big Ten race, here is the updated win matrix for all 14 teams, once again derived from Kenpom efficiency data As expected, Maryland appears to be pulling away in the final lap.  Following Penn State's surprising loss at home to Illinois this week, the Terps now have almost a 2-game lead in expected wins over the Nittany Lions.  After that, the battle for 3rd place is really

Full disclosure: I did not actually watch the game on Saturday night. I had family obligations and was recording the game for potential viewing at a later time in the evening.  I did manage to catch the score a little before half time and that was enough for me to know that this was one of those games where it would be best just to check the score once the game was finished to see if it was going to be worth watching or not. Once I got home, I checked the final score.  Then I checked the box score and final play-by-play details.  At that point I was truly grateful that I did not watch the game, and especially the final four minutes, as my living room does contain few heavy objects, and I don't particularly feel like buying a new television. As I said on Friday, this was a game that MSU needed to win.  They didn't.  So now, it is time to re-evaluate goals and expectations.  From a numerical point of view, here is where MSU stands following yet another very costly loss:

What a difference a few hours can make. In my last update, I mentioned that the previous 48-hr period endured by MSU fans was perhaps the darkest on-court/field 48-hr period that I could remember as an MSU fan. The loss at Michigan followed by the apparent sudden reversal of Luke Fickell was a face jab / gut punch combo of epic proportions.  The football coaching search appeared to be in shambles. Moreover, the basketball team was on a 3-game losing streak with the potential of it quickly turning into a 5-game streak.  Things looked grim. In the first half of game at Illinois, things looked great.  Early in the 2nd half, MSU built a 20-point lead.  But then, things started to slide.  The lead was quickly cut back to 13... and then 7... and then with 5 minutes left, Illinois actually took the lead. Here we go again. Instead of the feel-good dominating road performance that we have been waiting for all year, it looked like it is just another chapter in MSU's latest horror show.

I have been following MSU sports in various capacities since as far back as I can remember.  For me, that goes back to the mid-1980s and at least the Scott Skiles era, if not farther.  While much of that time was before our current 24/7-instant-information-from-the-Twitterverse era, I think that the following statement still rings true: From a purely sports point-of-view, I cannot think of a 48 hour period of MSU sports in my lifetime that has been more soul-crushing that than this past weekend into Monday morning. As for football, it really did seem like MSU just might have formulated and executed a plan to bring in their #1 choice to replace Coach Dantonio. It was almost like there was a legitimate succession plan in place that might have actually been in place for a short while. Was it possible that MSU actually had its crap together? No, of course not.  Because the hard truth of it is that being an MSU fan is sometime like volunteering to get kicked in the groin repeatedly.