Last night's Big Ten action did not move the needle much in the grand scheme of things, but both games where somewhat impactful.
Maryland beat Wisconsin at home which dropped the Badgers to 6-4 in conference play and to just 4% odds for a Big Ten Title. I thought that the Badgers might be trending as a potential dark horse, but I think that they are now practically out of the race. On the flip side, Maryland improved their Big Ten title odds... but just from 3% to 5%.
There are current only three teams with fewer than four conference losses, and at this point I think only Michigan State and Purdue are realistic contenders unless Michigan took some super-solider serum this week during their pseudo bye.
In other news, Rutgers got a big win at Northwestern, which is nice for them. The Scarlet Knights are now trending towards making the Big Ten Tournament (82% odds). Right now, Washington (88% to miss the BTT) is in major trouble and despite the enthusiasm from the commentators in this week's game, Minnesota (63% odds to miss the BTT) is also likely to miss the post-season. The teams currently fighting for the other spot which gets to stay at home are Northwestern (25%), Iowa (26%), and Nebraska (43%).
Today, I tinkered with two other sets up numbers that I thought were interesting. First, I just looked at the performance of each Big Ten team against the spread (ATS) in conference play. Here is what I found:
MSU is 7-2 and only didn't cover against Penn State and Illinois (barely). Purdue is 8-2. Wisconsin is 7-3. Indiana and Northwestern are also both at 60%, which is a mild surprise.
Notable here is Michigan, UCLA, and Oregon all under 40%. Yikes! Those are all teams that I though were overrated, and this data tends to support that. Nebraska and Iowa are also both headed in the wrong direction.
The second tidbit that I was curious about is the impact of "jetlag" on Big Ten results. In other words, are road teams suffering when a west coast team travels east and vice versa?
The results say that so far the home teams are 13-10 both straight up and ATS. The performance against the line is a little suspicious, but it isn't that far from .500. I more informative measure, I believe, is to drill into the point spread data a bit more and calculate the expected number of wins for the home teams. When I do that, the home team expected record is 13.2-9.8, which is dead-on.
Based on this analysis, I see no evidence for jetlag impacting outcomes. This does surprise me a little, but it also makes me feel a little better as MSU prepares to fly to L.A.
Maryland beat Wisconsin at home which dropped the Badgers to 6-4 in conference play and to just 4% odds for a Big Ten Title. I thought that the Badgers might be trending as a potential dark horse, but I think that they are now practically out of the race. On the flip side, Maryland improved their Big Ten title odds... but just from 3% to 5%.
There are current only three teams with fewer than four conference losses, and at this point I think only Michigan State and Purdue are realistic contenders unless Michigan took some super-solider serum this week during their pseudo bye.
In other news, Rutgers got a big win at Northwestern, which is nice for them. The Scarlet Knights are now trending towards making the Big Ten Tournament (82% odds). Right now, Washington (88% to miss the BTT) is in major trouble and despite the enthusiasm from the commentators in this week's game, Minnesota (63% odds to miss the BTT) is also likely to miss the post-season. The teams currently fighting for the other spot which gets to stay at home are Northwestern (25%), Iowa (26%), and Nebraska (43%).
Today, I tinkered with two other sets up numbers that I thought were interesting. First, I just looked at the performance of each Big Ten team against the spread (ATS) in conference play. Here is what I found:
MSU is 7-2 and only didn't cover against Penn State and Illinois (barely). Purdue is 8-2. Wisconsin is 7-3. Indiana and Northwestern are also both at 60%, which is a mild surprise.
Notable here is Michigan, UCLA, and Oregon all under 40%. Yikes! Those are all teams that I though were overrated, and this data tends to support that. Nebraska and Iowa are also both headed in the wrong direction.
The second tidbit that I was curious about is the impact of "jetlag" on Big Ten results. In other words, are road teams suffering when a west coast team travels east and vice versa?
The results say that so far the home teams are 13-10 both straight up and ATS. The performance against the line is a little suspicious, but it isn't that far from .500. I more informative measure, I believe, is to drill into the point spread data a bit more and calculate the expected number of wins for the home teams. When I do that, the home team expected record is 13.2-9.8, which is dead-on.
Based on this analysis, I see no evidence for jetlag impacting outcomes. This does surprise me a little, but it also makes me feel a little better as MSU prepares to fly to L.A.
