MSU Hoops Stats Update for Jan 10: The Four Factors

On Thursday night, the Michigan State Spartans sailed to another double-digit win over Big Ten newcomers the Washington Huskies to improve their record to 13-2 overall and 4-0 in the conference. As a result, the Spartans have rejoined the Michigan Wolverines in a tie on the top of the conference.

In other Big Ten action, it was a very good week for Illinois, Oregon, Wisconsin and especially Michigan. All four teams picked up big wins including a 39-point win by Illinois over Penn State, an 19-point win by Michigan at UCLA, a 31-point win by Wisconsin over Iowa, and a two-point victory by Oregon at Ohio State

On the other hand, UCLA picked up back-to-back loses to at Nebraska and versus Michigan. As a result, the updated Big Ten leaderboard is shown below in Table 1.

Table 1: Odds to win or share the Big Ten regular season title and the win distributions for those winning teams as of Jan. 10, 2025.

Michigan now has the best odds to win the conference at 45% with the Fighting Illini checking in at 34% and in second place. Michigan State is holding steady with the third best odds at 24%. The only other team with conference odds over 10% is Purdue in fourth place at 15%.

Oregon (4%), Wisconsin (4%), UCLA (2.5%), and maybe Maryland (1%) are potential longshot title contenders. The remaining 10 conference teams all have less than a 1% chance to win or share the Big Ten title.

With two teams still undefeated in conference play, the odds are now 54% that a record of 17-3 or better will be needed to claim a regular season Big Ten title.

The Spartans are currently expected to win 13.95 games. This is the third best value behind Michigan (15.18) and Illinois (14.73) but ahead of Purdue (13.51), Oregon (12.23) and Wisconsin (11.86).

If all of the currently projected favorites were to win all 140 remaining Big Ten games, Michigan (18-2) would win the conference and earn the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten Tournament. Illinois (17-3) would get the No. 2 seed, Michigan State (16-4) would earn the No. 3 seed and Purdue (15-5) would win get the No. 4 seed.

The Four Factors

So far this season, I have provided a few quick updates on the prospects for the Michigan State men's basketball team using predictive metrics and simulation to estimate how the full Big Ten season is likely to play out.

Today, I would like to reintroduce a concept that will help us to understand more about the 2024-25 Michigan State Spartans. That concept is referred to as the "four factors" of basketball success.

https://michiganstate.rivals.com/news/michigan-state-hoops-analysis-the-four-factors

The Four Factors have been discussed in great detail elsewhere, including on this site. Briefly the four factors on both offense and defense are:

1. Effective field goal percentage (eFGPct)

2. Turnover percentage (TOPct)

3. Offensive rebounding percentage (ORPct)

4. Free-throw rate (FTRate)

Basically, the four factors account for how well a team shoots or defends shots (eFGPct), the ability of a team to create (or lose) shots opportunities (TOPct and ORPct), and the ability of a team to score or avoid points from the free throw line (FTRate).

Big Ten Breakdown

Let's first compare the 18 Big Ten teams based on the four factors. The Table 1 below give the adjusted Kenpom offensive efficiency and performance in the four factors on offence for each team.

Table 2: Comparison of Big Ten teams based on adjusted offensive efficiency and the four factors on offense as of Jan. 10, 2025.

The teams are list in order of overall Kenpom efficiency margin, which is typically an accurate estimation of points spreads on a neutral court. Michigan State is currently the third highest ranked Big Ten team in this system.

Offensively, the Spartans are in the middle of pack and are ranked No. 8 in total offensive efficiency. Interestingly, Michigan State rank towards the bottom in both shooting (No. 13) and in turnovers (No. 17), but are excelling in offensive rebounding (No. 2) and in free throw rate (No. 4). 

Note that the Spartans' poor shooting numbers from the field are due almost exclusively to terrible three-point shooting (No. 339 nationally). As a team, Michigan State is ranked No. 27 in two-point shooting, which is good for third place in the conference behind Michigan (No. 1) and Iowa (No. 11).

Table 1 gives snapshot of the various offensive profiles for teams in the Big Ten. Currently, Purdue has statistically the best offense in league due to strong shooting and a high free throw rate, but the Boilermakers are below average in turnovers and in offensive rebounding.

Wisconsin's second-ranked offense seems predicated on not turning the ball over coupled with mediocre shooting. Michigan is shooting the lights out from the field and is rebounding well offensively, but the Wolverines are struggling with turnovers and with getting to the free throw line.

Illinois is just slightly above average in shooting, rebounding, and drawing fouls but are the best offensive rebounding team in the conference. The Iowa Hawkeyes avoid turnovers and are shooting really well, but they are dead last in both rebounding and drawing fouls.

Table 2 below provides the same analysis, but on the defensive side of the ball.

Table 3: Comparison of Big Ten teams based on adjusted defensive efficiency and the Four Factors on defense as of Jan. 10, 2025.

So far this year, the Spartans are a bit better on defense than on offense (ranked No. 3 in the Big Ten).

Michigan State is currently the second-best defensive rebounding team (behind only Illinois) and the fourth-best team in effective field goal percentage defense. The Spartans are now slightly below average in avoiding fouls and in creating turnovers (No. 11 in both).

UCLA has the best defense in the conference on paper, and this is in largely due to the Bruins' ability to create turnovers (No. 1). UCLA is a decent defensive rebounding team (No. 7), have OK field goal defense (No. 10) and tend to foul a lot (No. 17).

Illinois owns the second best defense and are currently tops in the Big Ten in both field goal defense and rebounding. The Fighting Illinois are above average in committing fouls but poor in creating turnovers.

Nebraska has a well-rounded defense that ranks in the top six of the Big Ten in field goal defense, turnovers, and defensive rebounding. However, the Huskers tend to foul a bit more than average (No. 11).

Michigan currently owns the fifth best defense in the conference thanks largely to being ranked No. 2 in field goal defense. The Wolverines are average to slightly below average in the other four factors.

Comparisons to Past MSU Teams

Tables 2 and 3 above show how Michigan State currently matches up with other Big Ten teams. A second and interesting analysis is to compare the statistical profile of the 2024-25 Michigan State team to past Michigan State rosters. Figure 1 below provides this comparison in the form of a box plot.

Figure 1: Box plot comparison of the current Michigan State team to all MSU teams since 1997 for the four factors on both offense and defense as of Jan. 10, 2025.

The diamonds represent the metrics for the current Michigan State team. This is the same information given above in Table 1 and 2. The additional comparisons in Figure 1 are the set of vertical lines (the current national median for each statistic) and the boxes and whiskers, which represent the full range of values for each statistic over the past 28 Michigan State seasons.

A more detailed explanation of this figure can be found here, but briefly each box and whisker represents a quartile of the data set with the median value in the center of each rectangle where the colors meet.

The current version of the Spartans is surprisingly mediocre when it comes to shooting, both on the offensive and defensive end. Both diamonds in Figure 1 land right in the center of the boxes, but both values are now slightly above the historical average for the Tom Izzo era.

In the other three offensive categories, the current iteration of the Michigan State Spartans is performing above the historical average.

The current turnover rate of 17.6% is average relative to all division one teams, but compared to past Tom Izzo teams, this performance ranks in the top quartile. The story for free throw rate is even better. The current value of 38.5 free throw attempts per field goal attempt is the highest on record since 2009 and is the fifth highest value in Izzo era.

The Spartans' current offensive rebounding rate (36.8%) is also above average in the Izzo era. The Spartans posted better numbers that this 11 times between 1997 and 2010, but recently this staple of the program has wanned. This year's team is on pace to post the best offensive rebounding numbers since 2018.

On the defensive end, in addition to the average field goal percentage defense (by Tom Izzo standards), the Spartans are slightly below average in creating turnovers. However, the Green and White are excelling in the other two areas. In fact, Michigan State is approaching historically strong performing in defensive rebounding and avoiding opponent free throws.

The Spartans are currently allowing opponents to rebound just 24.5% of their missed shots. This is less than half a percentage point away from the Izzo-era best of 24.3% which was achieved by both the 2016 and 2009 teams. 

Michigan State's current free throw rate on defense is just 29.4. If they can continue at this pace, it would be the fifth best Spartan performance under Izzo, behind the 2019, 2020, 2022, and 2023 teams.

Four Factors Analysis of Last Two Games

The four factors can also be a helpful tool to better understand what went right and what went wrong in the games that have already been played this year. For example, Figure 2 below gives a summary of the four factors in Michigan State's win at Ohio State on Jan. 3.

Figure 2: Summary of the Four Factors in Michigan State's 69-62 win at Ohio State on Jan. 3.

Why did the Spartans' win? Despite the fact that the Spartans turned the ball over too much, failed to rebound at the defensive end, and were just OK at shooting, they performed well everywhere else.

The turnover and rebounding numbers effectively cancelled out. Michigan State then dominated at the free throw line and locked down the previously hot-shooting Buckeyes. That was enough to get the seven-point road win.

Figure 3 below gives a summary of the four factors in Michigan State's win versus Washington on Jan. 9.

Figure 2: Summary of the Four Factors in Michigan State's 88-54 win versus Washington on Jan. 10, 2025.

Why did the Spartans win? Michigan State shot the ball extremely well, especially from two (25-for-40 or 62.5%) while simultaneously holding Washington to just 35.5% in effective shooting percentage. Shooting is the most important of the four factors, so when a team dominates that area, they almost always win and usually win big.

Michigan State also won the turnover battle and did a decent job on the boards, especially on the defensive end. The only unusual factor was that the Spartans did not get to the free throw line as often as Washington did. That said, Michigan State still scored more points from the charity stripe thanks to a blistering 17-18 (94%) shooing percentage there.

Data and Stats Tracker

As I have demonstrated over the past few weeks, there is a plethora of data related to the Big Ten basketball conference race and to the Michigan State season. Big Ten teams will be playing almost every day until Selection Sunday, which makes it difficult to provide real-time analysis of the chase for the Big Ten crown.

In order to help keep Spartans fans as up-to-date as possible, today I am also launching the Michigan State and Big Ten Basketball Data and Stats Tracker. It contains all of the data described above as well as several other tables and figures that I introduced in my Big Ten preview series. I will update this article every day or two such that it can remain a resource for the entire season. 

Check it out today and throughout the season. Enjoy!