Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

The 2025-26 college basketball season is underway all Big Ten teams have completed play for the Christmas holiday break. In early December each team completed one home and one road game in conference play. Throughout the Michigan State football season, I provided bi-weekly updates on the odds of various season outcomes. I utilized my own power rankings and a set of simulation and other analytical tools to generate these odds. My process for college basketball is similar. The major difference is that I prefer to use efficiency metrics, specifically those tabulated by Ken Pomeroy ("Kenpom") to estimate point spreads and odds. These data correlate well to point spreads and point spreads correlate to actual game results. There is no reason for me to recreate the wheel. I have recently performed my first set of simulation of the 2025-26 Big Ten season using the updated Kenpom efficiency data through December 24. The results of the simulation and other calculations can tell us a lo...

Football season may be over in East Lansing, but for hard-core college football fans, the next few weeks truly are the most wonderful time of the year. Between Dec. 13 and Jan. 19, a total of 46 games will be played, including 35 traditional, non-playoff bowl games. That means that there is still data to analyze and potentially dubious bets to be placed. In my previous Against All Odds piece, I went into some detail about how my computer expects the playoffs to shake out. In today's piece, I will primarily focus on the other 35 bowl games, with a few comments about the four first round playoff games. Bowl Overview Table 1 below shows a matrix that summarizes the number of games each conference plays against all the other conferences during bowl season. Table 1:  Matrix showing total traditional bowl games and 1st round playoff games each conference plays against each of the other conferences. Cells highlight in green feature two Power Four teams. Cells highlighted in blue feature t...

I have spent a lot of time over the last 15 weeks of college football trying to predict how each conference will shake out and how that will ultimately result in the field for the second ever 12-team college football playoff. After 879 regular season games, nine conference championship games, and one controversial bracket reveal, we now have an answer to all of these questions. Champions were crowned, bowl spots have been filled, and the bracket is now set. Did the committee get it right? Who will win it all? Did my computer provide any good advice last week? Let's explore all of those questions, starting with the last one. Championship Weekend Bad Betting Results Let's start by taking a look at the overview summary shown below in Figure 1 which compares the actual result each all nine games in Championship Week with the opening Vegas spread. Figure 1:  Results of  Championship Week showing. the actual point differentials relative to the opening spread. The figure shows that t...

The Michigan State Spartans' football team is done for 2025. But there is still a lot of action to analyze and discuss as college football moves into the postseason. This weekend is there are nine game on the schedule, each of which will crown a new conference champion. Based on the results of those nine games, the College Football Playoff Committee will release the final set of rankings and the resulting bracket for the 12-team college football playoff. Let's discuss both topics. Championship Weekend Bad Betting Advice With the limited number of games this weekend, I will simply present my summary table of the nine games which includes my projected scores, the opening point spread, and the computers' projected point differentials.  Note that the computers are not officially recommending a pick against the spread in any of the nine games, but there are four upset picks on the table. In addition, my analysis has just one point-total bet for the weekend: North Texas and Tulan...

In 1912, British philosopher and mathematician  Bertrand Russell introduced the world to a story about a turkey.  The turkey in question was fed and cared for every day. Each day, he would stick his head through a hole and on the other side he would received a veritable feast, at least from the perspective of a bird. Summer turned slowly into fall and the turkey grew steadily larger and stronger. It was a good life for the turkey and he saw no end in sight to his good fortune. But one day in late November, something different happened. When our plucky protagonist stuck his head through the hole, instead of a hearty mean he instead met his fate by the means of a very sharp knife. A little while later, he was the guest of honor at the farmer's Thanksgiving feast. This classic allegory is meant to illustrate the dangers of inductive reasoning. In other words, just because a certain trend has happened in the past does not mean that it will continue indefinitely. One has to di...