Let me try something here. I sent out a tweet with all of the updated data:

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I am not sure if everyone can read this, but here is the bottom line(s)

-MSU's expected win total in down to 12.7 with a 13% chance of 15 wins (or more) and a 32% chance of 14 or more. Regular season title odds are now at 20%.
-MSU now has about 66% chance to earn a double bye and projects as the No. 3 or No. 4 seed. Odds to win the BTT are now 12%.
-MSU projects to be favored in 8 of the remaining 11 games, but "expected" to win only 6.7. *If* MSU can win 9 and finish at 15-4, the odds to win the Big Ten are about 82%.
-With the Wisconsin and Illinois games both finished, MSU's remaining schedule strength is now in the middle of the conference (7th hardest).

I will wait until Friday for the full update.

If anyone really wants to see the figures, let me know, and I can drop them in.

I am not going to do my full, formal update, but I did run the numbers after the events of the weekend and here is what they show, starting with the expanded Big Ten standings



and the win distribution matrix



MSU now has an expected win total at 12.85, which translates to:

-60% odds of finishing with a record of 13-6 or better
-36% odds of finishing with a record of 14-5 or better
-17% odds of finishing with a record of 15-4 or better
-6% odds of finishing with a record of 16-3 or better

Here are the updated odds to win or share the Big Ten Title



MSU currently checks in with the 3rd best odds (25%) just behind Purdue (31%) and Illinois (26%). It also looks like a record of 15-5 or 15-4 is most likely needed to win a title. If I squint at the data above, I think that it also tells me that if:

-MSU finishes at 16-3 or better, the odds to win or share the title approach 100%
-MSU finishes at 15-4, the odds to win or share the title are 84%
-MSU finishes at 14-5, the odds to win or share the title are 41%
-MSU finishes at 13-4, the odds to win or share the title are 6%

The BTT seeding now looks like this:



Finally, I also ran a few shorter, "what if" simulations. Here is what will roughly happen to the odds with an MSU win or an MSU lose at Illinois on Tuesday night:



Note that this does not take into account the changes in efficiency (and thus future point spreads) that would also come along with a win or loss. If MSU wins, the title odds would very likely top 40% in my next update. A loss could push the odds under 17% if MSU fails to cover the +5 or so spread. I will provide my normal, more in-depth update sometime later in the week, after the Illinois game and before the Michigan game next Saturday, assuming that the Wolverines are feeling OK.

Where do you park on campus for games?

I have two tickets to each game this weekend (1/21 & 1/22) that I can't use. Great seats. Free. Reply with name and email address or DM me and I can transfer them to you

Who painfully sat thru that last night?

5 losses in a row. Games coming up vs Minnesota, UM and ND next after tonight’s osu game. This should end well.

#nothappy

I wasn't able to get on the news story earlier on Wednesday, but I added some analysis to the story. Thanks for waiting.

Gavin Best coming from NAHL's Minnesota Magicians.

Will be 21 next year.

6-foot-2, 180 pounds, Forward, Shoots left.

Has 14 goals and 24 assists through 35 games.

Make no mistake. Michigan State head basketball coach Tom Izzo saw the loss to the Northwestern Wildcats coming on Saturday.

Coach Izzo essentially said as much in his postgame press conference. Those watching closely were also not surprised. The Spartans have seemed a bit sluggish and unfocused since Christmas, and it seemed like only a matter of time before it caught up with the tea, in the form of a loss.

Had the Spartans managed to eke out a win against the Wildcats, Michigan State would be alone in first place at the top of the Big Ten conference. But, the problems with turnovers, rebounding and defense would likely have persisted. Now, Izzo will likely have the full attention of his roster and almost a week to tighten some screws before the Spartans hit the road to Madison to play Wisconsin on Friday.

That said, the loss to Northwestern may well end up being very costly. Prior to the loss, the Spartans were projected to have about a 20 percent chance to win or share the regular season title. After the loss? Let’s rerun the numbers and assess the damage.

Enhanced Big Ten Standings and Updated Odds​

Table 1 gives the updated enhanced Big Ten standings as of Jan. 18.

Table 1: Enhanced Big Ten standings as of Jan. 18, 2022


With 32 percent of the Big Ten season now complete, the good news for Michigan State is that the Spartans are still in a first place tie in the loss column with Illinois and Wisconsin. For better or worse, those also happen to be the next two opponents on MSU’s schedule, with both games being on the road.

The other key point from Table 1 is that despite the Spartans’ disappointing loss this past weekend, Michigan State is still overachieving slightly relative to its current expected win value of 4.52. In other words, MSU currently has about a half of a win more than expected, which is highlighted by the “luck” (otherwise known as “grit”) metric in the table above.

The updated Big Ten win distribution matrix is shown below. I will note that I am currently assuming that the postponed games due to the COVID protocols at Michigan will not be made up. Thus, the expected win comparisons are no longer an apples-to-apples comparison, as several teams are no longer scheduled to play a full 20-game conference schedule. The changes in parenthesis are relative to the previous update on Jan. 7, which was before the Michigan State win over Minnesota.

Table 2: Updated Big Ten expected wins and win distribution matrix as of Jan. 18.


The Spartans have dropped to No. 6 in the conference based on total expected wins and are now projected to finish with a most likely final record of 12-7 in Big Ten play. The odds of finishing at 13-6 or better are 36 percent and the odds of finishing at 14-5 or better are 19 percent.

Table 3 below gives the updated odds at least share the Big Ten regular season title.

Table 3: Updated odds to win or share the Big Ten title and the win distributions for those winning teams.


How costly was the loss to Northwestern in terms of the Spartans’ Big Ten title hopes? Michigan State’s odds have been cut by about one-third from a value of over 20 percent to the current value of 7.5 percent. The Spartans’ now have the fifth-best odds behind Illinois, Purdue, Wisconsin and Ohio State.

The data also suggests that the eventual Big Ten regular season champions will likely finish with 16 wins. Based on the now imbalanced schedule, this means that Michigan State might need a record of 16-3 in order to hang a banner in the Breslin Center this year.

Big Ten Tournament and Strengths of Schedule​

If the season ended today, that would be weird, because there are still 94 Big Ten games left on the schedule. Fortunately, we can use projected point spreads and simulations to get a sneak peek on how the Big Ten Tournament might play out. Table 4 below summarizes the odds for each team to earn each seed.

Table 4: Big Ten Tournament seeding odds as of Jan. 18, 2022. The numbers in parentheses are the changes since the previous update.


The loss to Northwestern (for now) has knocked the Spartans out of the projected top-four teams in the conference. The odds now suggest that Michigan State is most likely to earn the No. 5 seed or the No. 6 seed. However, the math suggests that MSU still has a 43 percent chance to sneak back into the top-four and earn a coveted double bye in the Big Ten Tournament.

Table 5 below gives the odds for each Big Ten team to advance in the Big Ten tournament.

Table 5: Odds for each Big Ten team to advance past each round of the Big Ten Tournament, as of Jan. 18.


As usual, these odds track closely with the overall Kenpom efficiency margins. Purdue still has the best odds to win the Big Ten Tournament at 35 percent with Illinois in second place at 21 percent. Based on the current Kenpom efficiency data, Iowa, Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Michigan State all have very similar odds in the range of 7.5 to 8.5 percent.

Figure 1 below provides an update on the Big Ten strength of schedule data.


Figure 1: Updated Big Ten strengths of schedule both overall (left) and of the remaining conference games (right) as of Jan. 18.

The left panel shows the overall strength of each team’s schedule, which has been consistent as the season has progressed. The right panel, however, shows the strength of each teams’ remaining schedule, which is more critical.

Overall, Michigan State still has the second easiest schedule in the conference. However, the bad news is that all of the benefits of this easy schedule are already past. As the right-hand side of Figure 1 shows, the Spartans currently have the most difficult remaining schedule in the conference. None of the Spartans’ Big Ten opponents so far are projected to finish conference play with a winning record.

As for the other Big Ten contenders, it is notable that Illinois is in a similar position as Michigan State with a very challenging remaining schedule. Purdue’s remaining schedule is now average, while Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio State all have relatively soft remaining slates.

Michigan State’s Kenpom Trajectory and Remaining Schedule​

Figure 2 below provides an update to the Kenpom efficiency scatter plot, the format of which has been explained previously.


Figure 2: Kenpom efficiency scatter plot as of Jan. 18, 2022.

Figure 2 provides some insight into what is currently “going wrong” with Michigan State’s season. The trajectory of the Spartans’ season shows a steady improvement in offensive efficiency. However, the Spartans’ defensive efficiency has been sliding since early December, and this value dropped sharply in the past two games.

Michigan State’s current position is still technically inside of the blue “championship zone” in the figure, however, no team in the past 20 years has won the national title with an overall efficiency margin less than +19.0. Currently, only 14 total teams nationally have efficiency values that would qualify them as current championship contenders. Among Big Ten teams, only Illinois is currently solidly in this zone, as Purdue’s defensive profile is currently not up to par.

The Spartans’ current efficiency profile now most closely matches that of the 2010 team that advanced to the Final Four. That’s the good news. The bad news is that if the Spartans do not reverse the current trend, they will quickly start to resemble teams that did not survive the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, including the teams in 2002, 2011 and 2017.

Finally, Figure 3 below gives an overview of Michigan State’s remaining Big Ten schedule, including projected point spreads and win probabilities.


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

Overall, the Spartans currently project to be favored in eight of their remaining 13 scheduled Big Ten games. The first major test of the Big Ten season starts on Friday with a pair of road games at Wisconsin and Illinois. Currently, there is a 46 percent chance that Michigan State will find a way to steal at least one of those games. If MSU can do so, the loss to Northwestern will be somewhat mitigated.

Following the game at Illinois on Tuesday, Jan. 25, the schedule gets more manageable for a set of six games where the Spartans are projected to be narrow favorites (from the home game against Michigan to the road game at Penn State). The expected win total in that six game stretch is just under four games. So, don’t be shocked if MSU were to drop one or two of those games. Running the table in that stretch has odds of only about six percent.

Then, the Spartans have a tough final stretch of four games against many of the likely conference contenders, starting with a home game against Illinois and ending with a road game at Ohio State. This is the stretch where Michigan State’s Big Ten fate will be decided. The math suggests that MSU should win 1.6 games, so just going .500 in this stretch would be a “win.”

Ultimately, this schedule actually sets up very well for the Spartans. While the loss to Northwestern is disappointing and frustrating, elite programs are not defined by whether or not they drop a few games that they should have won. That attitude is reserved for programs that worry more about recruiting rankings and overall win percentages padded by games played 100 years ago.

No, Michigan State is an elite program because Tom Izzo is a wizard at preparing his team to win games against high-level opponents in late February and March. That is what is required to hang banners, and that is why the Spartans’ trophy case has overflown in the past 30 years. The Spartans will absolutely have that chance in mid to late February, and usually this is where Coach Izzo led teams start to peak.

Part of this process, however, often involves some growing pains earlier in the season. We have all seen this movie before and over 35 percent of the time since 1999 it has ended in a Final Four. That said, there is no guarantee that the 2022 season will end on any high note. The Spartans have a lot of nice pieces this year, but also a lot of problems that need to be addressed.

At the end of the day, most Spartan teams get what they deserve. If the 2022 team addresses the current issues (turnovers, rebounding and defense), MSU has a great chance to potentially have a special season. If the Spartans do not...they won’t. It is no more simple or complicated than that. Izzo knows it and he will likely be spending this week trying to convince his team of the same.

That is all for now. Until next time, enjoy, and Go Green.

Curious how those teams that have guys leave will be impacted. Its not like leaving for world juniors those guys usually just miss a holiday tournament and maybe 1-2 more games.

UM i think will have Power and Berniers leave. I have to assume they are gone over a month.

Just some questions for discussion purposes

Since Lewandowski has comeback, the hockey team is 5-1 with their lone loss this past weekend in Happy Valley. The team currently is 9-6-1 overall and sits in 20th place in the Pairwise & 4th place in the Big Ten.

Buy or sell - MSU will finish in the top half of the Big Ten?
Buy or sell - MSU is a legit contender to get back into the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2012?

The Detroit Red Wings are 25 games into their season and currently hold the last wildcard spot in the NHL - while this is a little misleading as Boston and Columbus could pass Detroit with their games on hand, the Red Wings have been on a roll winning 5 straight.

Buy or sell - the Detroit Red Wings are a contender to make the playoffs this year?

The Big Ten race is heating up - Michigan currently leads the conference with 20 points and Minnesota is right behind with 19. Both of those teams have played 10 games though - as Ohio State & Notre Dame could both pass Michigan & Minnesota this weekend and MSU could pull to within 2 points as well. Michigan & Minnesota are only 6-4 in the conference (with extra points coming in OT).

Buy or sell - the Big Ten champ could only be a couple games above .500 in the conference at the end of the year?



My thoughts:

I guess I'm going to buy the first one - I really feel MSU has turned a corner a little bit over the last couple weeks. The scoring seem to be getting more developed and the goaltending has been solid for a good portion of the season. If our d-men continue to improve - MSU might actually be primed to hang around in the Big 10 for a little bit.

On the second one, I'm going to sell - only because I see a lot of splits coming up in the Big 10 season, and it won't be enough to get into the NCAAs as an at-large. Though, they do have Michigan Tech (#12) and Western Michigan (#1) coming up at the end of the month in a fake GLI. It's one last chance to make a splash, and if they do - then I may be selling too early.

I'm going to sell that the Big 10 champ will only be a couple games above .500 in the conference at the end of the year, only because I still expect Michigan & Minnesota to almost run away & hide with this. Though admittedly, both teams need to find more consistency is league play - the youth of the Wolverines has adjusted well outside the conference, but that has yet to translate to the physical play of the Big 10.

I'm going to buy on the Red Wings right now & maybe it's false hope. I think when you are approaching the 30 game mark, if you are in a playoff position - you are legit a contender to at least get into the playoffs. I realize a couple times may pass them as the games on hand get played, but the Wings have shown they can hang around right now. The area that has been the most improved is their divisional play. They are .500 right now in the Atlantic - and those games mean a lot come playoff spot time. They are also 3-2 so far against the Metro, a division they went 0-20-1 last year against. They are at 4-4-2 against the Atlantic so far, and they haven't won more than 9 games in the division since 2015-2016 season, which was the last time the Red Wings made the playoffs.

As VP of hockey operations....

Not to play....

Though he still might be the best d-man on the team.

To reschedule or not to reschedule? That is the question on the minds of many Big Ten fans, and specifically Michigan State University basketball fans, this week. On Saturday, the Spartans were planning to face the Michigan Wolverines in Ann Arbor in the first of two scheduled games this season. However, the game was officially postponed just hours before tip-off due to COVID-19 protocols within the Michigan program.

In an ideal world, there would be enough time and flexibility in the Big Ten conference schedule to allow for the game to be rescheduled at some point later this year. Unfortunately, the current 20-game conference slate will make it difficult to find a date where one or both teams are not forced to play three or four games in an eight-or-nine-day span, similar to what Michigan State went through at the end of the 2020-2021 season.

Based on head coach Tom Izzo’s comments on Monday, Michigan State seems unlikely to support this option.

“I’m not in the mood to do what we did last year where we played four games in eight days against top-five teams,” Izzo said. “I’m not sure that’s fair, either.”

Also on Monday, columnist Graham Couch of the Lansing State Journal made a compelling argument that MSU should not reschedule the game in Ann Arbor.

“The Spartans don’t need this game,” Couch wrote. “It’s not their home game against Michigan. MSU’s resume thus far is plenty strong, with plenty of opportunities ahead to prove their mettle before the brackets. If they do well against Illinois and Purdue and such and wind up on top of the Big Ten standings, the title will have been well earned, even if they haven’t played the full 20 games.”

For me, this situation begs a slightly different question. Can we actually quantify the impact of rescheduling the game or not? Fortunately, we have mathematical tools to do just that.

Throughout this season, I have been calculating the odds for each Big Ten team to win or share the regular season conference title. I use efficiency margin data from Ken Pomeroy to project future point spreads and win probabilities. I most recently ran these number on Monday based on the Big Ten results over the weekend. For these calculations, I assumed that the Michigan/Michigan State game, as well as the now postponed Michigan/Purdue game, would eventually be rescheduled.

On Tuesday, I re-ran the simulation with the exact same input parameters, but with both the Michigan/Michigan State game and the Michigan/Purdue game removed from the schedule (i.e. assuming that they will NOT be rescheduled). The results of this simulation are shown below in Table 1.

Table 1: Updated odds for each Big Ten team to at least share the regular season title as of Jan. 11. The change in parenthesis is the change relative to the full schedule assuming the postponed games are rescheduled.


The results are rather surprising. Based on Table 1, it appears that the odds for all Big Ten teams decrease slightly if these two games are not rescheduled. For Michigan State, the odds drop by about four percentage points, from 24 percent down to 20 percent. Interestingly, Illinois’ odds drop by almost the same amount: four percentage points.

As for the other current contenders, Purdue is the team that seems to suffer the most, but the Boilermakers’ odds drop by only six percentage points. Meanwhile, the odds for Ohio State and Wisconsin drop by just around two percentage points.

As for the other Big Ten teams, their odds also drop, but by less than a percentage point. But, considering these teams generally have very long odds anyway, this is somewhat significant. As for the Wolverines, their odds would drop to below one percent if those games are not rescheduled.

The reason that these odds all drop is that when the schedule becomes unbalanced and certain teams are playing a different number of games, the chances of a tie decreases. If MSU only plays 19 games and Illinois, Ohio State and Wisconsin all play 20 games, there is no way for the Spartans to tie any of those three teams for a regular season title.

For example, if Illinois finishes the season at 15-5 (0.750), Michigan State could win the regular season title with a 15-4 (0.789) record due to a higher winning percentage. In this case, not playing Michigan does not benefit Michigan State, but it could hurt the Illini.

Conversely, however, if the Spartan were to finish with a 14-5 (0.737) record, not having the 20th game on the schedule could cost MSU the title. In both scenarios, at least one team’s odds are decreased due to the unbalanced schedule.

As for the relative impact to each team, I believe that can be explained primarily due to the strength of each teams remaining schedule, which is shown below in Figure 1.


Figure 1: Updated strength of each Big Ten team's remaining schedules assuming the postponed games are not rescheduled.

Michigan State and Illinois both have the same number of losses and each team’s remaining strength of schedule is similar. Therefore, both teams will suffer a similar impact if those two games are not rescheduled.

As for Wisconsin and Ohio Sate, Figure 1 shows that the Badgers and Buckeyes have two of the easiest remaining schedules in the conference. Therefore, they each have more of a cushion. As for Purdue, the Boilermakers are already two games back and thus they need all the wins that they can get to climb back into contention.

Based on this analysis, the bottom line is that an unbalanced schedule is essentially bad for the entire conference. However, the quantitative impact is just a few percentage points.

From Michigan State’s point of view, failing to reschedule the game at Michigan does decrease the Spartans’ chances to win a regular season Big Ten title. There are scenarios that could happen where an additional win over Michigan would be needed to hang another banner in the rafters at the Breslin Center. If MSU were to lose the rescheduled game, the end result would still be the same. From this point of view, rescheduling the game is low risk and high reward.

However, this analysis does not take into account the additional strain that Michigan State would need to endure in order make this game happen. Based on last year’s experience, Coach Izzo does not seem think that it is worth it. I would tend to defer to his judgment.

I suppose the question then is whether ‘tis nobler of mind to suffer the slings and arrows of playing that extra game for perchance the dream of another Big Ten championship? Or, is this simply taking arms against a sea of troubles. Aye, there’s the rub.

In any event, Michigan State is still undefeated in conference play and fully in charge of its own destiny in the Big Ten race. Yes, there are scenarios where failing to reschedule the game at Michigan could cost the Spartans, but those odds are relatively small. The future, as always, remains the undiscovered country.

I have two tickets to each game this weekend (1/7 & 1/8) that I can't use. Great seats. Reply with email or DM and I can transfer them to you

Note: I clearly wrote this piece prior to the ducking postponement of the game by the Wolverines due to fear of getting blown out COVID protocols within their sorry excuse for a program. Clearly the appearance of competitiveness and pride health and wellness of the student athletes takes precedent. We are all looking forward to the forfeiture postponement of this contest in the very near future.

The last time we checked our telescopes, the Michigan State University basketball team was entering 2021 with a nice 11-2 record overall, including a perfect 2-0 mark in Big Ten play. While things were certainly going better than expected in East Lansing, the Spartans were generally still projected to finish on the periphery of the upper echelon of the conference.

A lot has changed in the last week. MSU won two tough games at Northwestern and at home versus a suddenly scrappy Nebraska squad in the Breslin Center. In addition, teams like Purdue and Ohio State both absorbed losses. Don’t look now, but the Spartans have shot up to the top of the Big Ten standings like a comet from somewhere in the Oort Cloud.

But, is the team wearing Green and White now on a collision course for yet another Big Ten title, or will those dreams break up somewhere in the upper atmosphere? In cases like these, I think that it is best to ask, “What would Leonardo Dicaprio and Jennifer Lawrence do?” Most likely, they would ask a Michigan State graduate to do some #math. So, let’s check the numbers.

Enhanced Big Ten Standings and Updated Odds​

Table 1 gives the updated enhanced Big Ten standings as of Jan. 7.

Table 1: Enhanced Big Ten standings as of Jan. 7, 2022.


With 18 percent of the Big Ten season now complete, the Spartans are currently tied with Illinois for first place in the conference with perfect 4-0 records. Furthermore, only three other teams have just one loss: Ohio State, Wisconsin and Rutgers.

Table 2 below shows the updated Big Ten win distribution matrix, based on a series of Monte Carlo simulations using Kenpom efficiency data as the key input.

Table 2: Updated Big Ten expected wins and win distribution matrix as of Jan. 7.


Michigan State has risen up to second place in expected wins with a value of just over 13.5 conference wins, up half of a win since the last update. Basically, the numbers say that MSU has a 50-50 chance to win 14 games or more. The odds to go 15-5 or better are now at 33 percent and the odds of a 16-4 record or better are at 18 percent.

Illinois made an even bigger move in these standings this week. The Illini now have a full-game lead in expected wins over the Spartans and the rest of the conference. Other big movers this week include Wisconsin (+2.17), Penn State (+1.95) and Rutgers (+1.23). On the flip side, Northwestern (-1.81), Purdue (-1.43), and Michigan (-1.32) are in retrograde.

Table 3 below gives the updated odds to at least share the Big Ten regular season title.

Table 3: Updated odds to win or share the Big Ten title and the win distributions for those winning teams.


As expected, the Illini also now have the best odds to win the Big Ten Championship, currently at 47 percent, up 23 percent in the last week. The Spartans currently check in with the second-best odds at just below 27 percent, which is a 10 percentage-point improvement since Jan. 1.

A final conference record of 16-4 is still the most likely performance needed to secure a share of the regular season title. More generally, there is roughly an 80 percent chance that the champion(s) will end up with between 15 and 17 conference wins.

As for our colleagues at the school down the road, it appears that the Michigan Wolverines were a bit over-confident with their calculations in the preseason. A lot was published about Michigan’s recruiting class and other new additions, but it looks now like those reports would not have survived true peer review. The Wolverines are now afraid to look up at the standings.

But, the biggest disaster might be yet to come. With Michigan’s expected win total now under 10 wins, a losing conference record is now more likely than not. If this trend holds, last year’s regional finalists will not be making a return trip to the Big Dance. Don’t worry, though, Wolverine fans, it isn’t the end of the world.

Big Ten Tournament and Strengths of Schedule​

If the world season ended today, that would be weird, because there are still 115 Big Ten games left on the schedule. Fortunately, though, we can use projected point spreads and simulations to get a sneak peak on how the Big Ten Tournament might play out. Table 4 below summarizes the odds for each team to earn each seed.

Table 4: Big Ten Tournament seeding odds as of Jan. 7, 2022. The numbers in parentheses are the changes since the previous update.


The four teams projected to receive double byes have not changed (Illinois, Michigan State, Purdue and Ohio State), but they all now project as different seeds than they did just a week ago. Illinois now projects as the No. 1 seed based both on simulation and on the scenario where the favorites win all remaining Big Ten games.

Michigan State now has the second-best expected seed. That said, if the favored teams all win, MSU will fall slightly to the No. 4 seed. The odds that MSU secures a double bye in the Big Ten Tournament are currently 68 percent.

Table 5 below gives the odds for each Big Ten team to advance in the Big Ten tournament.

Table 5: Odds for each Big Ten team to advance past each round of the Big Ten Tournament, as of Jan. 7.


As usual, these odds track closely with the overall Kenpom efficiency margins. As such, Purdue still has the best odds to win the Big Ten Tournament at 27 percent. Illinois is in second place at 21 percent, while the Spartans’ odds are at about 13 percent.

Figure 1 below provides an update on the Big Ten strength of schedule data.


Figure 1: Updated Big Ten strengths of schedule both overall (left) and of the remaining conference games (right) as of Jan. 7.

The left panel shows the overall strength of each team’s schedule, which is not going to change much as the season progresses. The right panel, however, shows the strength of each team’s remaining schedule, which is much more important.

As Figure 1 shows, Michigan continues to have the most difficult remaining schedule, which is a big part of why the Wolverines seem likely to be smashed by a planet killer. That said, Michigan State, Illinois and Purdue all have the three next most difficult schedules. In contrast, the three schools with the easiest remaining schedules (Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio State) are all still in the mix to challenge for the conference crown.

In other words, the Big Ten race is just getting started.

Michigan State’s Kenpom Trajectory and Remaining Schedule​

Figure 2 below provides an update to the Kenpom efficiency scatter plot that I introduced in the last odds update.


Figure 2: Kenpom efficiency scatter plot as of Jan. 7, 2022.

The Spartans have continued to move farther into the blue “championship zone,” which suggests that Tom Izzo’s squad currently has both an offensive and defensive profile that is on par with the set of previous NCAA Champions.

As the season has progressed, Michigan State has improved its offensive efficiency, while the calculated defensive efficiency seems to be slipping. That said, the Spartans’ current position is almost identical to the 2007 team (that lost to No. 1 seed North Carolina in the second round of the NCAA Tournament) and the 2010 Final Four team.

The green oval in Figure 2 suggests that it would be reasonable for Michigan State to continue to improve to a profile that resembles the 1998 Sweet 16 team, the 2009 team that reached the championship game and the 2020 team that looked like a contender prior to the cancelation of March Madness due to COVID-19.

Finally, Figure 3 below gives an overview of MSU’s remaining Big Ten schedule, including projected point spreads and win probabilities.


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

If these projected point spreads are correct, Michigan State will be an underdog in only five of its remaining games, including Saturday’s contest in Ann Arbor. The Spartans also project to be the underdog at Wisconsin, at Illinois, at Iowa and at Ohio State. The home game at Purdue now projects as a toss-up. I should note that Wisconsin’s strong performance over the last week has now shifted that game into the underdog category for the Green and White.

As for that game in Ann Arbor, the Spartans are likely to face a very desperate Michigan squad that may or may not be at full strength. While Michigan State clearly seems to be the superior team so far this year, road games against rivals are always extremely dangerous, especially when their backs are against the wall.

That said, this feels like a game that Michigan State can and should win, possibly by double-digits. If MSU does win, the schedule sets up nicely for a possible 7-0 conference record heading into a bye week that leads up to two tough road tests at Wisconsin and then at Illinois. By then, the Spartans would likely be alone atop the standings and the clear favorite to win the conference.

But, that is a discussion for next week. For now, the mission is clear: Go State, beat the Wolverines!

If things go as I expect, Saturday will be a good day for Michigan State fans. As for the scoreboard in the Crisler Center, my advice to Wolverines fans is simple: don’t look up.

Gather 'round.

For discussion sake, who is the greatest MSU hockey player that played in the NHL? I would argue Duncan Keith... 3-time NHL champion, 2 Norris Trophies, won the Conn Smythe, two Olympic golds. Who has done better than that?

Happy New Year, Michigan State fans! First off, I just wanted to congratulate Coach Mel Tucker and the Michigan State University Football team on the exciting, come-from-behind win over Pittsburgh in the Peach Bowl.

Now that the football season is in the books, it is time to shift focus to basketball. A month ago, I provided an initial analysis of the Big Ten basketball season based on a simulation that used Kenpom efficiency data as the primary input. I am able to use this data to perform a full simulation of the Big Ten season, as well as the Big Ten Tournament.

As conference play is set to resume, it is time to check back on the data to see what has changed and where MSU and the rest of the conference now stands.

Enhanced Big Ten Standings and Updated Odds​

Figure 1 below visualizes the current Kenpom adjusted efficiency margins for the 14 teams in the Big Ten. As a very brief reminder, efficiency margins represent the point differential that each team would be expected to have against an average Division 1 team if a game were 100 possessions long. These numbers can be used to project point spreads and victory probabilities for any potential basketball matchup.


Figure 1: Kenpon adjusted efficiency margins for the Big Ten as of Jan. 1, 2022.

The Kenpom data still suggests that Purdue is the best team in the conference, but the Big Ten also contains seven other teams ranked in the current top-30 of adjusted efficiency margin: Illinois, Ohio State, Michigan State, Michigan, Iowa and Indiana.

In addition, in Table 1 below, I present the current enhanced Big Ten standings as of Jan 1. The table contains the current Kenpom efficiency margins and rank for each team as well as the current win and loss total, the “plus/minus,” the number of expected wins to date and each team’s “luck.”

Table 1: Enhanced Big Ten standings as of Jan. 1, 2022.


The “plus/minus” metric gives each team a point for a road win and subtracts a point for a home loss. This metric is useful to compare teams during the season when the schedules are imbalanced. “Luck” is defined as the difference between actual wins and expected wins, where the expected wins are the sum of the victory probabilities for all the games that have already been played.

It is still early in the season to read too much into this data, but it is notable that only three teams were able to win two of the December conference games: Illinois, Ohio State and Michigan State.

Table 2 below gives the updated win distribution matrix based on a 100,000-cycle Monte Carlo simulation using Kenpom efficiency margins as the input. Table 2 also shows the changes in the Kenpom ranking and expected wins since the beginning of Big Ten play in early December.

Table 2: Updated Big Ten expected wins and win distribution matrix.


Purdue’s expected win total took a hit following the Boilermakers’ upset loss to the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers, but Purdue still has almost a full game-lead on the rest of the pack. This pack is led by a group of three teams (Ohio State, Illinois and Michigan State) that have expected conference win totals between 13 and 14. All three teams’ expected win totals moved up by between one and two games in the month of December.

Michigan State is now projected to finish conference play with 13 Big Ten wins. That said, there is still a 27 percent chance that the Spartans can get to at least 15-5 and a 15 percent chance that the final record will be 16-4 or better.

As for other teams that saw a significant change in the number of expected wins over the last month, Minnesota (+2.01) appears to be on the rise, as does Northwestern (+0.91). Teams that lost ground in December include Nebraska (-2.11), Maryland (-1.18), Iowa (-1.00), Michigan (-0.95) and Wisconsin (-0.82).

As for the odds to win or share the Big Ten title, Table 2 shows that summary.

Table 3: Updated odds to win or share the Big Ten title and the win distributions for those winning teams.


While the Boilermakers took a clear hit in expected wins, Purdue still has the best odds to hang a regular season banner at just over 40 percent (down 16 percent from early December). The next most likely challengers include Ohio State (28 percent), Illinois (24 percent) and Michigan State (18 percent, which is up eight percent).

The next five teams (Michigan, Iowa, Indiana, Northwestern and Wisconsin) all project to have odds between two and favors to win the Big Ten regular season title. The odds for the remaining five Big Ten teams are currently less than 0.3 percent.

The win distribution in Table 3 suggests that the eventual Big Ten champion will most likely have a record of 16-4 (31 percent), but a final record of 17-3 (26 percent) or 15-5 (20 percent) are still both plausible.

Big Ten Tournament and Strengths of Schedule​

Table 4 below summarizes the projected seeds for the eventual Big Ten Tournament.

Table 4: Big Ten Tournament seeding odds as of Jan. 1, 2022. The numbers in parentheses are the changes since early December.


Here, I calculate the projected seeds for each team based on the weighted probabilities of all 100,000 simulation results as well as the seeds in the situation where the projected favorite wins all remaining Big Ten games.

In both cases, the top-four seeds and the coveted double byes would go to Purdue, Ohio State, Illinois and Michigan State. The current numbers give the Spartans about a 57 percent chance to secure a top-four seed.

As for the eventual winner of the Big Ten Tournament, those odds are shown below in Table 5.

Table 5: Odds for each Big Ten team to advance past each round of the Big Ten Tournament.


As a general rule, these odds will track with the overall Kenpom adjusted efficiency margins. Purdue still has the best overall odds (32 percent). Michigan State’s current odds to hang a tournament title banner are 11 percent.

Figure 2 below gives the updated Big Ten strength of schedule data. The left panel of Figure 2 gives the updated calculation for each team’s entire schedule. The right panel summarizes the strength of each team’s remaining conference schedule. In both cases the numbers represent the winning percentage that an average Power Five team (such as Iowa) would be expected to have with each team’s schedule.


Figure 2: Updated Big Ten strengths of schedule both overall (left) and of the remaining conference games (right).

At the close of the non-conference season, Michigan State still grades out with the third-easiest full Big Ten schedule behind only Ohio State and Indiana (see the left panel of Figure 2). That said, the Spartans also opened with two fairly light conference opponents in December. As a result, MSU’s remaining conference schedule is actually the sixth-hardest (right panel).

Here, I would also like to make a brief comment about the Michigan Wolverines. Despite the fact that Michigan opened the season with a lofty top-five ranking, the Maize and Blue have struggled and are off to a 7-5 record with no Kenpom top-40 wins. As Table 2 above shows, Michigan is only expected to win a total of 11 conference games, which brings its projected overall record to just 17-13.

This record would place the Wolverines squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble and very likely on the wrong side of it, considering the lack of quality wins. Furthermore, the numbers in Table 3 suggest that there is a 43 percent chance that Michigan posts only a 10-10 conference record, or worse. This would almost certainly spell doom for the Wolverines’ March Madness dreams.

Figure 2 helps to explain why things look so bleak. Michigan has the most difficult remaining conference schedule. But, that’s not all. Michigan’s current Kenpom adjusted efficiency still appears to be influenced by its inflated preseason ranking in the Kenpom system. That biasing will disappear soon. In other words, the real situation for the Wolverines is likely even worse than the numbers above suggest.

Michigan State’s Kenpom Trajectory and Remaining Schedule​

For the first time in the 2021-2022 season, I would like to introduce another visual that I find useful. Figure 3 below is a plot of Kenpom adjusted defensive efficiency (points allowed per 100 possessions) on the y-axis versus the Kenpom adjusted offensive efficiency (points scored per 100 possessions) on the x-axis. The adjusted efficiency margins form diagonal lines on the plot, as this is defined as the difference between the offensive and defensive efficiencies.


Figure 3: Kenpom efficiency scatter plot as of Jan. 1, 2022.

Figure 3 contains efficiency data for four separate sets of teams, both past and present. The small blue diamonds show the pre-tournament data for the last 19 teams to win the national title. The position of these 19 teams defines an area of the plot shaded in light blue, which I call the “championship zone.” As a general rule, history tells us that in order to be a serious contender to cut down the nets in March, a team’s efficiency profile must fall within this blue area of the figure.

The red triangles denote the teams in 2022 that currently have efficiency numbers that fall into the championship zone. There are currently 17 teams that fall into this category, including Purdue, Illinois, Ohio State, Michigan State and Michigan.

The large green circles represent the profiles of past MSU teams, while the smaller green circles and lines represent the efficiency evolution of the current Spartan team over time since the beginning of the season, according to Kenpom data.

The error bars and light green oval represent the historical uncertainty (i.e. one standard deviation) of the Kenpom efficiency at this point in the season. This oval is currently rather large, but it will shrink as selection Sunday approaches.

At the beginning of the season, the Spartans graded out as a team that had a good enough defense to enter the championship zone, but the offense was a bit lacking. However, over the past few weeks, the 2022 MSU team has improved in Kenpom adjusted offensive efficiency such that the team now resides on the edge of the championship zone.

Right now, the 2022 Michigan State team statistically most resembles Tom Izzo’s 2007 team that advanced to the Round of 32. That said, several teams that fared much better than the 2007 team, including the 2009 and 2010 Final Four teams, both fall into the green oval. If the Spartans can hold serve on defense and continue to improve on offense, they will continue to look more and more like a legitimate contender for at least the Final Four.

Finally, Figure 4 below summarizes the remainder of Michigan State’s schedule, including the projected point spreads and victory probabilities that are derived from Kenpom efficiencies.


Figure 4: Odds for MSU to win the remaining Big Ten games, based on Kenpom efficiency margins.

As of Jan. 1, the Spartans are projected to be favored in 13 of the remaining 18 conference games. Three of the games where Michigan State projects to be an underdog occur in the final week-and-a-half of the season when MSU plays at Iowa, versus Purdue and at Ohio State. Prior to that, the Spartans project to be underdogs at Michigan and at Illinois. That said, MSU is also only a slight favorite in multiple games this year.

As I mentioned a month ago, the front end of the Spartans’ schedule is lighter. The next five games, including the road game to Ann Arbor, all seem very winnable. If Michigan State can get to 16-2 (7-0) before the bye week in late January and prior to the road trip to Madison against Wisconsin, the Spartans will very much be in the mix to challenge for at least a share of the Big Ten title.

But, that all starts with Sunday afternoon’s contest at Northwestern. So with that, I will simply say Go State, beat the Wildcats!

Nice win by MSU over #18 Michigan Tech.

If WMU can field a team ranked this high, we MUST be able to fairly soon.

I have 2 tickets to tonight (Wednesday) and tomorrow (Thursday) that I can't use. Great seats. Free. Let me know if you want them

For all Spartan Magger's in ATL for the Peach Bowl,

Well, with all the events scheduled around the bowl game, it's hard to find a day / time that works for all for a Spartan Mag get together.

So, let's plan to have a MSU Basketball game watch for our game on Wednesday, 12/29 against High Point at 3:00 pm.

The venue will be STATS Brew Pub. STATS which is the official MSU "Spartan Bar Takeover" location for the 29th and 30th. It's a great spot in Downtown ATL and is walkable (.75 mile) or a quick Uber from the Marriott Marquis.

STATS is in a great area with many popular restaurants and bars, and close to many of the major entertainment attractions.


The MSU Alumni Association and the MSU ATL Club will also be promoting the STATS Bar Takeover, so I would expect plenty of Green and White.

I can't reserve a private room for the Spartan Mag group at this time, but the MSU Alumni lead and the STATS Team will get us settled in a comfortable location as we get closer to the date.

If you think you can make the MSU Basketball game watch at STATS - leave a like or message me, as I'm trying to get a count to plan for space.

Here is a link to Spartan Central that provides an overview of all Spartan events scheduled for the 29th and 30th.


The Official MSU Pregame Tailgate will be at the College Football HOF on game day from 2:00 - 6:00 pm. Great Venue !

On Wednesday, 12/29 there are several events (Details are available at Spartan Central) :
- An Evening with "Through the Banks of the Red Cedar" at STATS
- Fan Night at the Georgia Aquarium
- MSU Black Alumni, Atlanta Chapter Welcome Event at STATS

All Magger's, friends and families are invited to the Spartan Game Watch on the 29th