MSU Hoop Odds Update for Jan. 17: Lonely at the Top

On Wednesday night in East Lansing, the Michigan State Spartans beat the Penn State Nittany Lions by the score of 90-85. The Spartans appeared to struggle on the defensive side of the ball, especially in the second half, and failed to put Penn State away in the final minutes. Both fans and Coach Izzo were a bit annoyed by the lackluster performance.

Then again, Michigan State never trailed against Penn State on Wednesday night. The margin only got below two possessions once in the final 15 minutes of the game for a period of 18 seconds. While the Spartans had to fight through some amount of game pressure, the threat of an upset was minimal. The situation was simply a departure from the recent trend of beating conference teams at Breslin by over 30 points.

The Spartans weren't the only Big Ten contender that struggled over the past week. Purdue is traveling to the Pacific Northwest this week and found themselves down by 10 points late in the second half at Washington on Wednesday. The Boilermakers rallied in the second half to win by 11 points, but the early upset alert was audible all the way back in the Midwest.

The Michigan Wolverines were 9.5-point favorites on the road at last-place Minnesota on Thursday night but returned home with a three-point loss in overtime. While the near-half court heave that sealed the fate of the Wolverines was miraculous, the Golden Gophers controlled the action for the final four minutes of regulation and in overtime.

By the time the dust had settled on Thursday evening, the Spartans found themselves alone in first place as the sole undefeated team in conference action. Table 1 below gives the updated enhanced Big Ten standings.

Table 1: Enhanced Big Ten standings as of Jan. 17, 2025.

As of Saturday morning, Michigan State holds a half game lead over Purdue, a full game lead over Michigan, and a one-and-a-half game lead over Illinois.

Those four current contenders are all currently ranked between No. 8 and No. 14 in Kenpom. All four teams have three road wins, but Illinois also lost one game at home and is thus one game back in the "plus/minus" metric.

Table 1 also shows that Purdue has a slightly easier strength of schedule than the other three contenders by about 0.30 games.

The updated Big Ten win matrix is shown below in Table 2. These expected win totals are based on the results of a 1,000,000-cycle Monte Carlo simulation of the remainder of the Big Ten regular season.

Table 2: Updated Big Ten expected wins and win distribution matrix as of Jan. 17, 2025.

Despite the fact that Michigan State is alone in first place, the Purdue Boilermakers were able to surge just ahead of the Spartans in conference expected wins by the slimmest of margins: 14.62 to 14.57. This narrow lead is due to Purdue's slightly better Kenpom ranking as well as the slightly easier remaining schedule.

Michigan (14.11) and Illinois (14.01) are now both about a half of a game behind the two leaders while Oregon (12.75) and Wisconsin (12.39) about roughly two games of expected wins off the lead.

Table 3 below gives the current odds for the top 10 teams to win at least a share of the Big Ten regular season title based on the same simulation.

Table 3: Odds to win or share the Big Ten regular season title and the win distributions for those winning teams as of Jan. 18, 2025.

As expected, Michigan State now has the best overall odds to at least share in the Big Ten regular season title at 35.7%.  Despite Purdue's slightly better expected win total, the Boilermakers' odds about one percentage point lower than the Spartans' odds at 34.6%.

Michigan (27.1%) and Illinois (23.2%) are in the next grouping and are just off the lead lap, while Oregon (7.6%) and Wisconsin (5.9%) are longshots. No other Big Ten team has odds over one percent.

If the Spartans hope to stay in first place, a win over Illinois on Sunday is critical. Sunday's game is the first of five games that Michigan State plays against the other three contenders in the final 14 games of the regular season. A win in three of those five games would have the Spartans in very solid position. 

In this scenario, Michigan State could likely afford to lose one or two additional games (for example at UCLA or at Maryland) and still gave a great shot at a title. As Figure 1 below shows, the results of latest simulation suggest that a 17-3 record will almost certainly (96%) ensure another banner at Breslin Center and even a record of 16-4 (76%) makes a at least share of the title likely.

Figure 1: Odds for Michigan State to at least share the Big Ten title based on the Spartans' final conference win total as of Jan. 18, 2025.

As for the Big Ten Tournament, the current list of projected top four seeds is consistent with the top four contenders listed in the tables above. Purdue has a slight edge in average seed, but Michigan State has the best odds to claim the No. 1 seed.

Interestingly, if the projected favorites win all remaining conference games, the Spartans and Wolverines would tie for the title with 17-3 records. Michigan would get the No. 1 seed in this scenario due to a win in Ann Arbor over No. 3 seed Illinois (16-4). Purdue is projected to finish at 15-5 and with the No. 4 seed in this scenario thanks to projected close losses at Michigan, Michigan State, Oregon, and Illinois.

Kenpom Update

Figure 2 below shows the updated Kenpom efficiency scatter plot. More information on how to read this figure can be found in my data and stats tracker.

Figure 2: Kenpom efficiency scatter plot as of Jan. 17, 2025.

About a week ago, Michigan State entered a new region of offensive and defensive efficiency. The Spartans are officially on the edge of the darker blue zone that represents the current mostly likely set of eight teams to win the National Title. An additional five teams reside in the lighter blue zone of long-shot national contenders.

Illinois is the only other Big Ten team with both the offensive and defensive profiles of a potential National Champion. Purdue and Michigan both need to improve defensively in order to enter the contender zone.

The current efficiency profile of the Spartans most closely resembles that of the 2018 Michigan State team that lost in the second round to Syracuse, the 2014 team which lost to eventual National Champions UConn in the regional final, and the 2005 Final Four team.

Michigan State's current profile is almost identical the the 2022 Kansas team and 2023 UConn teams which both won National Titles.

Four Factors Update

Finally, Figures 3 and 4 below give a quick summary of Michigan State's performance in the Four Factors in the two most recent Big Ten games, starting with the Jan. 12 win at Northwestern.

Figure 3: Summary of the Four Factors in Michigan State's 78-68 win at Northwestern on Jan. 12, 2025.

Why did Michigan State win?

The Spartans were shaky-to-bad in three of the four defensive categories, but they made up for it by excelling in all four offensive categories. Michigan State also held an opponent to under 40% in effective field goal percentage for the third time in just five conference games.

This game came down to shooting from the field. Northwestern got up more shots from the field (59 to 54), but the Spartans hit more shots (27 to 21). Interestingly, the Wildcats beat the Spartan in second-chance points (14 to seven) and at the free throw line (21 to 20) but overall shooting won the day.

Figure 14 below gives a summary of the four factors in Michigan State's 90-85 win versus Penn State on Jan. 16, 2025.

Figure 4: Summary of the Four Factors in Michigan State's 90-85 win versus Penn State on Jan. 16, 2025

Why did Michigan State win?

Despite a significant and concerning deficit is shooting, Michigan State generated 15 more shots from the field due to a major advantage in both turnovers and rebounding.

This is one of the stranger four factors figures that I have seen. Figure 14 looks like it should have been a loss for the Green and White. The Spartans were outshot by over 10 percentage points and were whistled for far too many fouls. A gap like this is usually impossible to overcome.

But Michigan State grabbed 15 offensive rebounds and outscored the Nittany Lions 23-to-6 in second chance points. The Spartans then won the turnover battle by four (14-to-10) and doubled up Penn State on points off turnovers (27-to-13). Those advantages were just enough to get the home win.