MSU Hoops Odds Update: New Year, Old Problems

Happy New Year Spartans fans!

The last time I provided a math-based update on the prospects of the Michigan State Spartans' Men Basketball team, the Spartans had just defeated the Baylor Bears in Detroit. Michigan State was able to ride the wave of momentum following that win into a five-game winning streak, including an impressive win over a tough Indiana State club and the first conference win of the season over Penn State.

But that win streak came to an abrupt end on Sunday night in Evanston, as Michigan State dropped a road game to the Northwestern Wildcats. Some of the same problems that haunted the Spartans earlier in the season (most notably perimeter defense) reared their ugly head.

Michigan State is just four games into the conference slate, but with a record of just 1-3, the Spartans have already dug a sizable hole. How bad are things? Let's check the math and find out.

Updated Big Ten Standing, Wins, and Odds

Table 1 below shows the updated enhanced Big Ten standings with 19% of the regular season now complete.

Table 1: Enhanced Big Ten standings as of Jan. 9, 2024.

The raw standings show that Michigan State is currently in a four-way tie for 10th place in the conference. However, Table 1 also shows that the Spartans' current Kenpom ranking of No. 19 is good enough for fourth best in the conference. This is a much better predictor of where the Spartans are likely to finish.

The other value of note in Table 1 is the "luck" metric, which essentially measures the ability of a team to win toss-up games. The Spartans have just one Big Ten win, yet the expected value of wins for the already played game is 2.61. Essentially, Michigan State should be 3-1 or 2-2 based on the point spreads of the first four Big Ten games. This translates to -1.6 games of "luck."

This negative luck rating is by far the worst in the Big Ten. Based on Kenpom's calculations, the Spartans rank No. 352 out of 362 Division 1 basketball programs in luck for the full season. The good news is that luck usually will even out by the end of the season.

Table 2 below shows the updated Big Ten win matrix. 

Table 2: Updated Big Ten expected wins and win distribution matrix as of Jan. 9, 2024.

As expected, the fact that Michigan State still has a high Kenpom efficiency ranking translates into a fairly strong performance in my simulation of the full Big Ten regular season. The Spartans now have an expected win total of 11.2, which is good for fourth place.

Purdue (16.5 win) still has a healthy lead of almost two full games in expected value, with Illinois (14.7) and Wisconsin (14.5) currently in second and third place.

The Spartans are a distance fourth, but are now a half game in expected value ahead of Ohio State (10.7). The middle of the standings are now showing signs of separation with Northwestern (10.2), Nebraska (9.8), Minnesota (9.3), Iowa (8.6), and Indiana (8.4) all separated from each other by roughly half a game.

The basement of the conference is composed of Maryland (7.2), Penn State (6.5), Michigan (6.5), and Rutgers (8.5).

Michigan State has a 27% chance to finish the regular season with a conference record of 13-7 or better. The odds are 54% that the Spartans finish with between 10 and 12 wins. There is also a 19% chance that Michigan State finishes the regular season below .500 in conference play.

Table 3 below shows the updated Big Ten Champions odds matrix.

Table 3: Updated odds to win or share the Big Ten title and the win distributions for those winning teams as of Jan. 9, 2024.

The results of my simulation show that just four games in, it is essentially only a three-team race for the regular season title. Purdue (70%) still owns a commanding lead in the odds with Illinois (25%) and Wisconsin (24%) still in the race.

Michigan State does have the fourth best odds to at least grab a share of the title, but those odds are now at just 1%.

The biggest hurdle to a possible miracle title run for the Spartans is that my simulation continues to project that a 17-3 record will be needed to hang a banner. So, Michigan State would essentially need to win out or maybe just drop one more game (out of 16) to claim a share of the title.

Strength of Schedule Update

One of the other headwinds facing the Spartans in the Big Ten race has to do with strength of schedule. For reference, Figure 1 shows the updated overall conference strength of schedule for each team.

Figure 1: Updated Big Ten overall strengths of schedule (expected wins) calculated assuming an average high-major team were to play each Big Ten conference schedule

At the beginning of the season, Michigan State had the second easiest conference slate behind only Ohio State. Now that we are into conference play and know more about the quality of each team, these value has shifted subtly. The change is small, but Michigan State has slipped to third place and the schedule is grading out to be 0.14 games harder than expected in November.

The challenge is even more clear if we looked at the difficult of each teams' remaining schedule, as shown below in Figure 2.

Figure 1: Updated Big Ten strengths of schedule (SoS) for the remaining conference games as of Jan. 9, 2024. SoS is calculated as the expected win percentage an average high-major team would have if they were to play each team's remaining schedule.

Three weeks ago, the Spartans had the easiest remaining conference schedule. Now, Michigan State owns the fifth easiest remaining schedule, behind Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern, and Nebraska. All four of those teams will compete with the Spartans for spots in the upper half of the conference. 

This shift in relative schedule difficulty is partially due to a shuffling of the quality of each opponent (for example Minnesota currently looking better than expected) and the fact that one of the Spartans' completed games (Penn State) was one of the easiest on the schedule.

Michigan State Schedule and Outlook

Figure 3 below summarizes the projected point spread and win probabilities of all of Michigan State's remaining conference games.

Figure 3: Odds for MSU to win the remaining Big Ten games, based on Kenpom efficiency margins.

The good news is that Michigan State is still expected to be favored in all but three of the final 16 conference games, although the home game against Illinois in mid-February is essentially a toss-up. 

That said, two of the three games toughest remaining conference games will happen in the next five games, starting with Thursday's contest at Illinois. 

Earlier in the season, I commented that Michigan State ideally should go at least 4-2 in the six-game stretch that started with the road game at Northwestern. The Spartans are already 0-1 in that stretch and the expected number of wins over the next five games (based on the projected spreads) is 2.9. 

The Spartans will need to win the three "winnable" games in this stretch (Rutgers, Minnesota, and at Maryland) just to stay above expectation. Ideally, the Michigan State needs to score a road upset over either Illinois or Wisconsin to make up for the three mulligans already on the record.

The final 11 games on the schedule, starting with the home game against Michigan on Jan. 30 appear much more manageable. The Spartans will likely be favored in the next eight games and the expected number of wins is 5.7. In other words Michigan State needs to (and should) go at least 6-2 in this span.

In this scenario, the Spartans should be sitting at no worse than 10-7 with three games left. The game in West Lafayette on March 2 is still very likely a loss, but Michigan State closes with two very winnable games against Northwestern and at Indiana.

While March is still a very long way away, it is reasonable to start to think about how the Spartans' resume will look on Selection Sunday. If Michigan State simply "meets expectation" over the next two months and finishes the season with a 11-9 conference record, the overall record would be 19-12. This would likely not make Spartan fans terribly happy, but it should result is a fairly stress-free Selection Sunday. 

However, the data shown above in Table 2 above suggests that there is a 35% chance that the Spartans finish at 10-10 (18-13) in conference play or worse. This would place Michigan State in a position where winning at least one game in the Big Ten Tournament might be needed to feel safe on Selection Sunday.

Big Ten Tournament Odds

If the season ended today, that would be weird, because there are still 114 Big Ten conference games left. That said, we can accurately project the odds that each team will earn each possible seed in the Big Ten Tournament using simulation.

Table 4 below provides these odds.

Table 4: Big Ten Tournament seeding odds as of Jan. 9, 2024. The numbers in parentheses are the changes since the previous update.

At this point in the year, the Big Ten Tournament seeding odds will closely mirror the expected win totals. As such, Michigan State is projected to earn the No. 4 seed in the Big Ten Tournament.

Naturally, there is a significant spread in the odds for each seed. Table 5 below gives the odds for each team to start the Big Ten Tournament on either Wednesday (no bye), Thursday (a single bye) or Friday (a double bye).

Table 5: Odds for each Big Ten team to start the Big Ten Tournament with a double-bye, a single-bye, or no bye.

While the Spartans have the best current odds to claim the final double-bye (34%), the odds of a single bye (61%) are almost twice as high.

Finally, Table 6 below gives the odds for each team to advance in the Big Ten Tournament. As a general rule, these odds will track with Kenpom efficiency margins.  

Table 6: Odds for each Big Ten team to advance past each round of the Big Ten Tournament, as of Jan 9, 2024.

Purdue remains the heavy favorite to win the Big Ten Tournament with odds of 48%. Michigan State's odds (7%) are fourth best and are significantly better than the current regular season title odds. Winning the Big Ten Tournament is the most likely way for the Spartans to hang another banner in Breslin this year.

That is all the data that I have to share today. Enjoy.