The final weekend of the Big Ten race is finally here, and it is shaping up to be the wildest finish in recent memory. As of Friday, March 3, the expanding Big Ten standings are shown below in Table 1.
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| Table 1: Enhanced Big Ten standings as of March 3, 2023. |
All 14 Big Ten teams have just one game remaining and remarkably exactly half of the conference has exactly eight losses with Rutgers sitting below the pack with nine losses. Due to this unprecedented parity in the middle of the league, there are still a large number of Big Ten Tournament scenarios in play. As I have been doing all season, I use math to break it all down.
Big Ten Tournament Odds
The updated Big Ten Tournament seeding odds are shown below in Table 2.
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| Table 2: Big Ten Tournament seeding odds as of March 3, 2023. The numbers in parentheses are the changes since the previous update last week. |
A very small number of things have been clarified. Purdue was able to beat Wisconsin on the road Thursday evening to claim the undisputed Big Ten regular season title and the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten regular season crown. Ohio State will be the No. 13 seed and Minnesota will be the No. 14 seed.
In addition, Penn State, Wisconsin, and Nebraska are locked into the No. 10, No. 11, and No. 12 seeds with the Cornhuskers most likely earning the No. 12 seed. Everything else is still very much in the air.
Michigan State Seeding Possibilities
Just a few days ago, the Spartans' odds for the No. 3 seed were about 1-in-2,000 and the odds for the No. 4 seed were less than 2%. But a rash of upsets has pushed the Spartans' seed odds up across the board. As Table 2 shows, the odds for the No. 3 seed are now 3% and the odds for the No. 4 seed are up to 20%.
Figure 1 below breaks down Michigan State's seeding odds depending on whether or not the Spartans beat Ohio State on Saturday.
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| Figure 1: Michigan State Big Ten Tournament seeding odds depending on the result of Saturday's game against Ohio State. |
If the Spartans lose, Michigan State is now locked into either the No. 8 or No. 9 seed. In this scenario, the Spartans would most likely face Northwestern (41%), Rutgers (36%), or Illinois (18%) on Thursday afternoon to open tournament play.
If the Spartans beat the Buckeyes, Michigan State will land anywhere from the No. 3 seed to the No. 7 seed, with the No. 5 seed currently the most likely. Right now there is a one-in-three chance that Michigan State gets a top four seed and a double bye with a win over Ohio State.
What About Minnesota?
Many Spartans fans and even Coach Tom Izzo himself remains frustrated by the Big Ten for not working harder to reschedule the home game against Minnesota. I am still not convinced that playing the extra game would be a net benefit for Michigan State, as it add virtually nothing to the Spartans' NCAA Tournament resume.
Furthermore, the odds just a few days ago were telling me that not rescheduling the Minnesota game would have a limited impact on the Spartans' Big Ten Tournament seed. That has now all changed. Figure 2 shows the same calculations as Figure 1, but assuming that Michigan State were to have played, and beaten, Minnesota.
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| Figure 2: Michigan State Big Ten Tournament seeding odds depending on the result of Saturday's game against Ohio State and assuming that Michigan State had played 20 games with a win over Minnesota. |
If Michigan State were to have beaten Minnesota and beats Ohio State on Saturday, there is an 81% chance that the Spartans would have finished the regular season in one of the top four spots.
Once again, this is all water under the bridge. Playing one extra game could have increased the odds of a bad loss to either Ohio State or to even the Golden Gophers. That said, having the double bye does increase the odds of actually winning the Big Ten Tournament. From that respect, is does seem like the Spartans got a raw deal from the conference.
Detailed Seeding Scenarios
With only seven games remaining, there are still 128 ways in which the regular season could play out. Remarkably, my calculations suggest that there are still 110 unique Big Ten Tournament brackets that could occur. I have run the numbers on all 128 scenarios.
Fortunately, the results of Sunday evening's Minnesota/Wisconsin game do not impact seeding for the top nine teams. This reduces the number of scenario down to 64. Table 3 below shows the top 18 most likely scenarios. These scenarios all have odds over 2% and together there is a 71% chance that one of these 18 scenarios actually comes to pass.
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| Table 3: Most likely Big Ten Tournement Seeding Scenarios |
Table 3 gives the total odds for each scenario as well as Michigan State's odds to win the Big Ten Tournament.
The seeds highlighted in yellow are the scenarios where the Spartans would have earned a double with a win over Minnesota but will not in the actual bracket. Overall, these scenarios have odds of 35% and that number goes up to 48% if Michigan State beats the Buckeyes.
These value are lower than the numbers given in the section above because there is still a 23% chance that Michigan State gets a double bye anyway.
A few things to note about Table 3 are that in many of the more likely scenarios, Michigan State is positioned to face either Michigan or Indiana is potential No. 4 versus No. 5 or No. 3 match-up No. 6 match-up. Overall, however, the odds are actually slightly better than Michigan State will face either Northwestern or Maryland in the Big Ten quarterfinals, assuming those teams all make it that far in the tournament.
Table 4 below gives the seeding scenarios sorted based on Michigan State's best seed. This gives fans a guide of who to root for in each game on Sunday to maximize the Spartans' Big Ten Tournament seed, assume that the Spartan win on Saturday.
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| Table 4: The best Big Ten Tournement Seeding Scenarios from a Michigan State perspective. |
- Nebraska (+9) to upset Iowa
- Purdue (-8) to beat Illinois
- Penn State (+1) to beat Maryland
- Rutgers (-4) to beat Northwestern.
If all four outcomes come to pass, Michigan State gets the No. 3 seed. If three of the four happen, Michigan State gest the No. 4 seed. If two of the four outcomes occur, the Spartans get the No. 5 seed. If only one comes to pass, the Spartans get the No. 6 seed, and if none of them happen, Michigan State is the No. 7 seed.
Note that the Indiana/Michigan game does not impact Michigan State's seed, but it does impact who the Spartans would likely play.
Other Loose Ends
Here are the up-to-date odds for each team to win the Big Ten Tournament.
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Michigan State's odds have been slowly improving over the past few weeks and now sit at 7.6%. The Spartans also project to have a 34% chance to play in the semifinals on Saturday and a 15% chance to reach the finals on Sunday.
Finally, here are the seeding scenarios for the bottom five teams in the Big Ten.
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| Table 5: Big Ten Tournament seeding scenarios for seeds No. 10 to No.14 |
If you are a complete diehard, here is the full seeding scenario table for the team nine teams in the conference
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| Table 6: Full Big Ten Tournament seeding scenarios for seeds No. 1 to No.9 |
Enjoy!
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