Big Ten Tourney madness

I think Chorlton is on a cruise in the Caribbean—oh, to be childless—so it looks like he'll lose this year's Big Ten Tourney Challenge by default. Nonetheless, I'm about to spend my requisite 20 seconds thinking about this and make my picks

Before we start, here are the current T-Rank odds, first assuming no home-court advantage for Maryland:

Now, if we give Maryland a one-half home-court advantage:

Play-in games:

Ohio State over Rutgers
Nebraska over Penn State

Second round:
Nebraska over Michigan St.
Northwestern over Ohio State
Iowa over Indiana
Michigan over Illinois

I'll be rooting for either Nebraska or Penn St. to beat Michigan St. so they have to sweat things out a little on Selection Sunday. Although MSU will probably win this game, I don't have a good feeling that they have a run in them, so I'm taking them out early for funsies.

I'd like to root against Northwestern as well, mainly so their fans go through the ultimate Selection Sunday Experience (one way or the other) but when I search my soul I find that I just do not have it in me.

Quarters
Michigan over Purdue
Wisconsin over Iowa
Maryland over Northwestern
Minnesota over Nebraska

My earlier upset is robbing us of a third Minnesota / MSU game, which would be interesting if it happens. Michigan vs. Purdue is probably the game I most want to happen, since we just saw Michigan's spread-offense attack pick Purdue apart—will Purdue be able to adjust? Or will Michigan just not hit shots this time? In any event, Michigan seems like a bad match up for Purdue, and it's a tough draw for the 1-seed in its opening round game (Michigan is actually the third best Big Ten team in terms of adjusted efficiency, and was second-best in conference play).

Badgers would love to get Iowa again, I think, and it's not a team I see them losing to twice in short succession.

Semis
Michigan over Minnesota
Wisconsin over Maryland

Champs
Michigan over Wisconsin

My pick of Wisconsin to the final is pure homer, but I would love to see another Wisconsin-Michigan game. They've played two really tight, interesting games this year, and the Wagner - Happ battles have been great.

There you have it, that's how it's going down. Chorlton, if you're able to rouse yourself from your quarters and shake off the piña colada haze, put your picks in the comments.

Big Ten Season Predictions

Big Ten conference play starts tomorrow, including a couple of surprisingly important games (Northwestern at Penn State, Michigan State at Minnesota). Time to get our picks in for the record.

Before I do that, an aside. Before the season I had two bold predictions: (1) Michigan State would be a bubble team, and (2) Wisconsin would win the Big Ten by at least three games. I feel pretty good about one of those. A guy can dream for the other.

Now let's take a look at what T-Rank is saying:

Rk	Team	Rec
10	Purdue	14-4
12	Wisconsin	13-5
17	Indiana	12-6
29	Michigan	11-7
32	Minnesota	11-7
40	Northwestern	10-8
43	Ohio St.	9-9
55	Illinois	8-10
68	Maryland	8-10
67	Michigan St.	7-11
83	Iowa	7-11
86	Penn St.	6-12
93	Nebraska	6-12
95	Rutgers	6-12

If that came to pass, we have the top six Big Ten teams in the tournament, with Ohio State, Illinois, and Maryland on the bubble, and Michigan St. on the outside looking in. You can also see the (relative) strength of the bottom of the conference this year, with even Rutgers projected to win 6 games.

Here are the T-Rank title odds:

And here is the T-Rank WinMatrix™

Finally, my subjective predictions:

Wisconsin	14–4
Purdue	13–5
Indiana	12–6
Michigan St.	11–7
Michigan	10–8
Northwestern	10–8
Ohio St.	10–8
Minnesota	9–9
Maryland	9–9
Illinois	8–10
Iowa	7–11
Penn St.	5–13
Nebraska	4–14
Rutgers	4–14

The Case Against Maryland

The case for Maryland as Big Ten favorites is straightforward and compelling. They are coming off a surprising 27-8 (14-4) season; they return stars Melo Trimble and Jake Layman; and they add center Diamond Stone, a very highly touted recruit, and Robert Carter, an impact transfer at forward. They were good last year, and they should be significantly better this year.

This is good analysis, and in my opinion Maryland has to be considered at least a contender in the Big Ten for these reasons, maybe even the frontrunner.

But there’s some overhyping going on with this team. The early previews are comparing this year’s Terrapins to last year’s Wisconsin team, which was more or less unanimously anointed the team to beat before last year began, and which carried the burden of Final Four buzz from the very start.

The comparison of this year’s Maryland team to last year’s Wisconsin team has no basis in fact.

Last year’s Badgers were coming off a 30-win season and a trip to the Final Four. They returned four starters, and 7 of their 8 rotation players. They finished 6th in the 2014 Kenpom ratings after taking Kentucky to the final seconds in the national semifinal.

This year’s Terrapins are coming off a 27-win season that ended in the second round of the NCAA tournament. They lose Dez Wells, an extremely high-usage player whom they counted on to create offense. They also lose two other seniors, Richaud Pack and Evan Smotrycz, who contributed significantly. They also finished just 32nd in the Kenpom ratings last year.

It’s this last fact – Maryland’s per-possession profile – that makes me most skeptical about them. Put simply, they overachieved last year. That doesn’t take anything away from what they achieved: all 27 of their wins counted. But it should make us a little skeptical about extrapolating last year’s success into this year.

Finally, Mark Turgeon has been coaching for a lot of years now and his record just isn’t that great. In 17 years as a head coach, he’s won just one conference title (2006, at Wichita St.). In his eight seasons as a major conference coach, his teams have averaged a 5th place finish. He’s never had a particularly good offensive team (last year’s Terps finished 58th in adjusted offensive efficiency) which makes me doubt he’ll deftly adjust to this coming season’s rule changes.

All told, if you give me an even-money bet on Maryland versus the field for the Big Ten title, I'm reaching for my wallet and betting on the field.

Where have the champions gone?

Much has been made of the Big Ten's lack of NCAA tourney champions over the past 20 years. In watching Iowa tonight I was thinking that the Big Ten sure seems to do well in the NIT. Turns out that is right. Since 1997 the Big Ten has won 5 NIT titles (97 and 98 titles by MI and MN were vacated later), and Iowa has a chance at number 6 if they win 2 games in New York. No other conference has won more than 2.

Who says the Big Ten can't win the big one?

An All-Big-Ten Final Four?

Eamonn Brennon writes that all four Big Ten teams making the Final Four is not out of the question:

Yes, those four remaining Big Ten teams aren't just the league's four best, they also happened to be conveniently spaced into each of the tournament's four regions, meaning it is entirely conceivable all four could find themselves on the way to the Georgia Dome by this time next week.

How conceivable? On the Official Eamonn Likelihood Scale of 1 to 10 -- with 1 being "Eamonn uses a treadmill in the next two weeks" and 10 being "The PR people in the Big Ten league office have spent all week doing the 'Florida Gulf Coast Manager Dance'" -- I'd put it at about a two.

That might be generous: The Las Vegas odds on an "all-Big Ten Final Four" have moved from a pre-tournament 250-to-1 to their current 62-to-1, which, for everyone reading this column not named Aaron Craft, is significantly less than my arbitrary scale above. Then again, those are the kind of odds Lloyd Christmas would have killed for.

He then goes on to make the case for each team. And he's right that each team has a legitimate chance to make the Final Four. The problem is that when you multiply their chances together, it's a very small number. That 62-to-1 bet Vegas is offering is—like all Vegas offerings—a sucker's bet.

Here's why. Earlier this week I reran my bracket simulator with the latest Kenpom data. This is just like Pomeroy's Log5 method, just somewhat less accurate and a little bit more fun. My results say that the four B1G teams have these odds of making the Final Four:

Indiana: 48.9%
OSU: 47.9%
MSU: 14.9%
Michigan: 16.4%.

To get the chances of all four making it, you just multiply those percentages together. The result: 0.5% chance. That's 5 out of 1000.

The problem here is that both MSU and Michigan will probably have to win two very tough games to make the Final Four. MSU will face Duke, then probably Louisville. Michigan will face Kansas, then almost certainly Florida. The chances of both teams winning both those games are pretty small. It could happen, but it probably won't. And, even if it does, IU and OSU are each more likely to lose a game than they are to win two.

In fact, it's actually significantly more likely that none of the Big Ten teams will even make the Elite 8! The chance that each Big Ten team has of losing in the Sweet 16 is:

Indiana: 34.4%
OSU: 35.4%
MSU: 52.7%
Michigan: 47.4%

So, the chances of all of them losing in the Sweet Sixteen is the product of those percentages: just about 3%. More than five times more likely than all of them making the Final Four.

In most of my simulations, two or three Big Ten teams make the Elite Eight, and one or two of them make the Final Four. Crazy things could happen, of course. But if I was betting on something crazy, I'd be betting against the Big Ten, not for it.