Coming into Sunday's game with the Fighting Illini, there was some criticism that while the Michigan State Spartans were alone in first place in the Big Ten, they had faced a relatively weak Big Ten schedule.
Mathematically, I can confirm that statement is true. As of Sunday morning, the Spartans had played the easiest schedule of all Big Ten teams. But after beating an Illinois team that Tom Izzo stated he believes is "the best team in the league right now," Michigan State remains as the only unbeaten team in league play.
Easy schedule or not, Michigan State is still perfect, and that is no easy task. Afterall, Illinois could not get a win at Northwestern and took a bad loss to USC at home. Michigan came back from Minnesota with a loss and needed overtime to survive a home game with Northwestern. Purdue lost on the road at Penn State and on Tuesday night lost a home game against Ohio State.
Those three teams are the Spartans' biggest competition in the Big Ten race and combined they have taken five losses against lower tier Big Ten teams in winnable games. Michigan State is perfect in similar games and now is the only contender with a win over another contender.
The current 7-0 start is tied with the third best start of the Tom Izzo era of Spartan basketball with the 2014 team that made the regional final in the NCAA Tournament. Only the 2010 and 2019 Final Four teams (which both also won the Big Ten regular season title) had better starts at 9-0. With two very winnable games next up on the schedule (at Rutgers and versus Minnesota), this year's Michigan State team will have a great opportunity to match that record start by the end of the month.
But those aren't the only milestones that the Spartans are targeting for the remainder of season. With the win over Illinois, Tom Izzo has 350 career Big Ten wins. This is just shy of legendary Indiana Coach Bobby Knight, who accumulated 353.
If the Spartans keep winning, they will have a chance to tie the record with a win over USC on Feb. 1 and a chance to break in it in the house that John Wooden built at UCLA on Feb. 4. Furthermore, if the Spartans are able to claim a Big Ten regular season title, Tom Izzo would tie Knight and former Purdue coach Ward Lambert with the most titles in conference history at 11.
The 2024-25 season has the potential to be special in more ways than one.
Four Factors Review
Returning to the topic of the win over Illinois, what did the Spartans do to earn that hard-fought victory? Figure 1 below provides an analysis of Michigan State's 80-78 win versus Illinois on Jan. 19, 2025 based on the Four Factors.
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| Figure 1: Summary of the Four Factors in Michigan State's 80-78 win versus Illinois on Jan. 19, 2025.
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Why did Michigan State win?
Overall, it was a very evenly matched game. Illinois shot the ball just slightly better than Michigan State (46.2% to 45.4% in effective field goal percentage) and Illinois had a slightly higher offensive rebounding rate. However, the Spartans did a slightly better job taking care of the ball and getting to the free throw line.
When we look at the raw values, the numbers are actually even closer. Illinois had exactly one more rebound than Michigan State (41-40), but committed two more turnovers (10 to eight). Illinois had one additional shot from the field (66 to 65), but both teams hit exactly 28 shots. Both teams also shot exactly 27 free throws.
Of the Fighting Illini's 28 makes, two more of them were three-point shots, but the difference in the game was that Michigan State simply made more free throws. The Spartans hit 21 free throws compared to just 17 for Illinois, which more than compensated the advantage that Illinois had from deep.
Big Ten Race Update
Michigan State has had sole possession of first place in the Big Ten since Michigan took an upset loss at Minnesota on Jan. 16. Beating Illinois on Jan. 19 had the combined positive impact of keeping the Spartans by themselves at the top of the standings and handing the Fighting Illini their third conference loss.
But even after the win on Sunday and despite the standings, Purdue still had a slight lead in Big Ten odds. However, that all changed when Purdue lost to Ohio State at home on Tuesday night. Table 1 below shows the updated enhanced Big Ten standings.
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| Table 1: Enhanced Big Ten standings as of Jan. 22, 2025 |
The Spartans have a one-game lead over Michigan, a two-game lead in the loss column over Purdue, and a three-game lead in the loss column over Indiana, Oregon, Wisconsin, and Illinois.
Table 2 below shows the updated Big Ten win distribution.
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| Table 2: Updated Big Ten expected wins and win distribution matrix as of Jan. 22, 2025. All changes (shown in parathesis) are relative to Jan. 13, 2025. |
The events of the past few days have allowed the Spartans (15.02) to open up a 0.69 game lead in expected wins over Purdue (14.33) with Michigan (14.20) just a fraction behind the Boilermakers.
Illinois (13.59) is solidly in fourth place in expected wins followed by Wisconsin (12.56) and Oregon (12.16).
Table 3 below gives the updated odds and win distribution for the top nine teams in the conference to at least share in the Big Ten regular season title.
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Table 3: Odds to win or share the Big Ten regular season title and the win distributions for those winning teams as of Jan. 22, 2025. All changes (shown in parathesis) are relative to Jan. 13, 2025.
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The Spartans have opened up a significant lead in Big Ten odds, which are now just slightly worse than a coin flip (48.7%). Michigan (30.5%) and Purdue (29%) are still in the race with Illinois' chances (16.2%) hanging on by a thread.
Wisconsin (6%) and Oregon (3.5%) are still longshots with Maryland (0.7%) and UCLA (0.6%) rounding out the top eight, but with odds worse than 1-in-100.
It is notable that despite Indiana's current 5-3 record, my simulation give the Hoosiers just a 0.1% chance to earn a Big Ten title. This is due to a poor overall Kenpom ranking (No. 59) as well as a very challenging remaining conference schedule.
What is also notable is that for the first time in a while, the odds that the eventual Big Ten champion(s) finishes with a record of 16-4 (38.8%) is higher than the odds that a record of 17-3 or better will be required (37.2%).
This helps to explain why the Spartans' odds are so close to 50-50. As shown above, Michigan State's current expected win total is now slightly over 15 wins. The Spartans only need to overachieve by one more game in order to get to that final record of 16-4. If the Spartans finish at 16-4, they will at least share the title in almost 85% of my simulations. A final record of 17-3 or better essentially guarantees that the Spartans will hang a banner.
It is also worth mentioning that the previous disadvantage the Michigan State had in regards to the remaining Big Ten schedule has now almost disappeared. Figure 4 below visualizes the strength of schedule for the remainder of the Big Ten season.
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| Figure 4: Updated Big Ten strengths of schedule for the remaining conference games as of Jan. 22, 2025. |
The Spartans still own one of the toughest remaining schedules (No. 3), but contender Michigan now has a more difficult remaining slate. Purdue has the No. 6 most difficult remaining schedule, which on a percentage basis is comparable to the Spartans' schedule. Illinois has the No. 8 most difficult remaining schedule, but the Fighting Illini also have the most ground to make up of the top four contenders.
The bottom line is that if Michigan State can continue to play at the same level as the last few weeks and if they can avoid the type of silly loss that have plagued the other Big Ten contenders, they are in great position to win Tom Izzo's record-tying 11th regular season title.
Finally, regarding the Big Ten Tournament, as expected the Spartans now have the best overall odds to earn the No. 1 seed (38%) and currently have an 85% to earn a top four seed and double bye in the event.
However, in the current single most likely scenario where the projected favorites win all remaining Big Ten games, Michigan State (17-3) winds up in a tie for first place tie with Michigan (17-3). Farther down the standings, Purdue and Illinois tie for third place at 15-5.
This pushes the first-place tiebreaker down to each of the Michigan-based schools performance against seventh place Maryland, who the Wolverines are projected to beat at home and who the Spartans currently project to lose to on the road. This results in the Spartans falling to the No. 2 seed.
As always, check out the updated data and stats tracker to view all of the data discussed above and much, much more.
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Michigan State's win over Illinois, combined with a loss by Purdue at home to Ohio State makes the Spartans the new Big Ten favorites. How big is the lead and is it likely to last? Dr. Green and White (@paulfanson) ran the latest numbers.
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