MSU Hoops Stats Update: Darkness and Light

Hello Spartan fans. It goes without saying that it has been a difficult week for the Michigan State community. Spartans everywhere were impacted by the tragic events of Monday evening. 

Like many of you, Michigan State University is a special place for me. It is a place where many happy memories and friendships were forged and it is a place that will always be close to my heart. Due to cowardly and evil acts of a single individual, a darkness has now descended onto that place that I love.

Grief is a complicated emotion and coping is a complicated process. Everyone deals with pain and loss in different ways and on different timelines. That's OK. That's normal. When you are ready to do so, it is important to look towards the light, because I believe that the light is always stronger than the darkness.

For me, I find the light in my friends and in my loved ones. I find the light in community, and I find the light in the things that I love to do. For me, Michigan State is a community of people where I find light. Two of the things that I love are math and college basketball. Writing about those subjects is an activity that brings light and joy to my life. So that is what I will continue to do, starting now.

It seems like a lifetime ago, but it finally happened. On Sunday afternoon in Columbus, the Michigan State Spartans posted two wins in a row for the first time in over a month. Perhaps even more important was the fact that the Spartans finished strong and won convincingly on the road.

Granted, the Ohio State Buckeyes are a team that now appears in the midst of a complete meltdown. The Buckeyes have lost 11 of their previous 12 games. But the Spartans have not beaten a team by more than 20 points since Buffalo paid a visit to East Lansing on Dec. 30.

The Spartans certainly did not play a perfect game, but it is clear that progress was made. How much progress? Let's dive into the numbers.

Updated Kenpom Efficiency

Figure 1 below is the updated Kenpom efficiency scatter plot with data through Feb. 16. For those who may be unfamiliar with this plot, I broke down what all the data means in a previous article.

Figure 1: Kenpom efficiency scatter plot as of Feb. 16, 2023.

For the first time in months, Michigan State's adjusted efficiency saw a significant improvement. The Spartans have been hovering around +15.0 and No. 40 in the nation since early December. The decisive road win over the Buckeyes pushed the Spartans efficiency up over +17.0, which is now good enough for No. 31 in the country.

The green oval in Figure 1 still falls completely outside of the blue championship zone. Furthermore, most of the past Spartans teams with similar profiles did not advance very far in the NCAA Tournament. 

That said, the 2010 Final Four team's profile is not far off of where the 2023 team is now positioned. If the Spartans can tune up their offensive efficiency in the final month of the season, they may start to resemble (statistically) the team from Draymond Green's senior year. Considering the overall lack of teams nationally with championship resumes, as only 10 teams fall within the championship zone, a deep run in March does not seem out of reach.

Quick Odds Update

The overall Big Ten race has also experienced some twists and turns over the last week. Rutgers has now lost three games in a row. Purdue and Illinois have lost two of the past three games, and Indiana dropped a road game at Northwestern on Wednesday night. 

Purdue will still almost certainly claim a solo regular season confer4ence title, but second place is now completely up for grabs. Table 1 gives a quick update on the expected wins totals for the Big Ten.

Table 1: Updated Big Ten expected wins and win distribution matrix as of Feb. 16, 2023

The Northwestern Wildcats currently have the second highest expected win total at 12.08. That said, six other teams have expected win totals of greater than 11.0. Michigan State has risen to fourth place in expected wins at 11.74.

Based on this analysis, I now estimate that the Spartans have about a 40% chance to finish in the top four of the Big Ten, which would secure a double bye in the upcoming Big Ten tournament. If Michigan State can finish with 13 or 14 conference wins, a double bye is almost guaranteed. A final record of 12-8 results in a double bye in about 40% of my simulations.

However, the values are based on the scenario where Michigan State completes the full 20-game Big Ten schedule. The postponed home game this week against Minnesota may or may not be rescheduled, and it is not even clear if the Spartans will make the trip to Ann Arbor to face the Wolverines on Saturday night.

As I look at the schedule, I think that the only possible way to reschedule the Minnesota game is to play it on Tuesday, Feb. 28. However, Michigan State is already scheduled to play at Nebraska on that date. That contest could be moved to Thursday night of that week (March 2), if Nebraska is willing to make that change.

In all honestly, I am not sure that it is worth it to fit the Minnesota game into that week. In this scenario, Michigan State would have to play four games in eight days to end the regular season. Playing Minnesota does increase Michigan State's odds of getting a double bye (and an extra day of rest) in the Big Ten Tournament by about ten percentage points. But, the impact on NCAA Tournament seeding is likely minimal. I don't think that this is a good tradeoff for the Spartans.

Updated Four Factors Data

Finally, let's take a look at Michigan State's performance relative to the four factors in the past two games, starting with the win over Maryland.

Figure 3: Summary of Michigan State's performance in the four factors (on both offense and defense) in the 63-58 win over Maryland on Feb. 7, 2023.

In regards to scoring attempts, Michigan State limited turnovers and did a good job clearing the defensive glass. However, Maryland actually did a better job in both categories. As a result, the Terrapins had two fewer turnovers and three more offensive rebounds than the Spartans, which equates to five more scoring attempts.

There were also a lot of fouls called in this game on both teams, and Maryland came out on top in this area of the game as well. The Terrapins outscored Michigan State 15-to-10 from the free throw line on five more attempts.

Fortunately for the Green and White, the Spartans held a decisive edge from the field. Michigan State has a 10-percentage point edge in effective field goal percentage and that was the difference in the game. Maryland actually outshot Michigan State from inside the arc, but the Spartans hit 9-of-20 three points shots to just 3-for-22 for Maryland.

Figure 4 below shows the four factors data for Michigan State win at Ohio State.

Figure 4: Summary of Michigan State's performance in the four factors (on both offense and defense) in the 62-41 win over Maryland on Feb. 7, 2023

In many ways, the statistics from the Maryland game and Ohio State game are completely opposite. In this case, Michigan State committed an above average number of turnovers, but also created more turnovers than usual. Both teams got some work down on the offensive glass, and there was only a total of three free throws attempted in the entire game by both teams combined.

A lot of these factors cancelled out and Ohio State ended up with one more shot attempt from the field, 60-to-59. 

Fortunately for Michigan State, the one common factor in the last two games was once again shooting from the field, where the Spartans held an even larger advantage over Ohio State than they did against Maryland. Michigan State shot the ball very well from both two and from three while holding the Buckeyes to an effective field goal percentage of just 33.3%.

For reference, Figure 5 below gives the updated four factors box plot for the Spartans and Table 2 gives the updated four factors data for the Big Ten.

Figure 1: Box plot showing Michigan State's historical performance (from 1997 to 2022) in each of the four factors on both offense and defense. These data are compared to the Spartans' current performance, and the national median.

Table 2: Summary of the "four factors" on both offense and defense for the Big Ten as of Feb. 16.

The only comment that I will make here is that Michigan State has risen to sixth place in the conference in overall Kenpom efficiency margin. This is due almost exclusively to an improvement in defensive efficiency. The Spartans currently rank second in defense (behind only Rutgers) thanks to strong defensive rebounding and effective field goal defense.