Friday Facts

I took a crude look at how the loss of Traevon might affect the Badgers.

The Friday Facts.

Conference only stats

I've got a Friday Facts post up over at Bucky's Fifth Quarter, this time with conference-only stats for the Big Ten.

I've also gone ahead and set up a page here that has the conference-only stats for every conference. It's over there, on the right. So if you want to cheat and get the Friday Facts on Thursday, you can. But you have to live with yourself.

Big Ten predictions

My Big Ten preview post is up over at Bucky's Fifth Quarter.

Friday Facts

Posted.

I've also posted my B1G awards and all-conference teams. Here's the all-conference teams:

First Team: Stauskas, Harris, Petteway, Kaminsky, Marble

Second Team: White, Dekker, LeVert, Craft, Ferrell

Third Team: Brust, Gasser, Ross, Valentine, Shields

Friday Facts 2.21

More here.

Friday Facts

Posted over at Bucky's 5th Quarter because Chorlton refuses to pay me.

Friday Facts

Here are the facts, folks:

The big news this week is that Northwestern is out of the cellar, ahead of Illinois. It doesn't look good for Illinois going forward, either. The last two columns show each team's remaining strength of schedule (big red numbers are bad) and rank. Illinois has by far the toughest remaining schedule.

Nebraska and Ohio State have the easiest remaining schedules. Ohio State's easy schedule is bad news for Wisconsin's hopes of getting the 4-seed in the Big Ten tournament. At this point, I think there's a better chance of passing Iowa, considering that Ohio State will have the tiebreaker over Wisconsin. Wisconsin will have a chance to take matters into its own hands: if it can win at Iowa, that would be huge. (This is unlikely, but a guy can dream.)

Overall, the gap between number 1 and number 12 in adjusted efficiency this year is remarkably small. I've done these calculations now for 2012 and 2013, and the final spreads were much larger:

This is a reflection of how much more balanced the league is this year. This year's Illinois, in last place at 2-8, still has a much better adjusted EM than any of the bottom three teams last year—and they aren't far behind 8th place Purdue. This year's Illinois has also performed better so far than the bottom three teams from 2012.

So the bottom of the league is much better than it has been recently. But the top of the league also isn't as good. In last year's final Kenpom ratings, the Big Ten had four teams in the top nine: Indiana (3), Michigan (4), Ohio State (7), and Michigan State (9), and Wisconsin wasn't far behind at 13th. This year, the Big Ten's big five (same teams, except replace Indiana with Iowa) are all currently rated between 11th and 17th—solid, for sure, but no one spectacular.

No dominant teams plus no cupcakes equals craziness. That's Big Ten basketball this year.

Edit: It occurs to me that comparing the final numbers from 2012 & 2013 to this year's mid-season numbers might not be a good idea. Although these numbers are "per possession" they are also "per possession compared to average" so it's safe to assume they'll widen as the season goes on. I did a quick check on the 2013 numbers, and after 59 games that year the gap between 1 and 12 was .40 (the final gap was .58). Still, that's significantly larger than the .26 gap this year.

Friday Facts: Where's the home cookin'?

Time for another installment of Friday Facts, my weekly look at the Big Ten's per-possession stats, adjusted for opponent and venue. This week I break it down by home (HEM) and road (VEM), as well:

Not a whole lot different than last week. MSU, Iowa, and Michigan are clearly a cut above the rest of the league, and this shows in their records, their raw efficiency margins, and their adjusted efficiency margins. Wisconsin, OSU, and Minnesota are fighting for the coveted fourth seed. Everyone else is not so good, but good enough to pull some upsets (apparently). Northwestern is creeping up on Illinois, but is still dogged by those blowout home losses to Iowa and Wisconsin. 

I posted the other day about how Michigan State has been just an average Big Ten team at home, noting that they'd played the same teams at home as Nebraska had, except for Indiana, who came to visit Lincoln last night. Since MSU beat Indiana by five at home, I went ahead and predicted a five-point victory for Nebraska. BOOM!

Speaking of Nebraska, you might be surprised to see Nebraska actually dropped from -.04 to -.05 this week, despite beating both Minnesota and Indiana at home. The reason for this is that an average Big Ten team would have been expected to win those games by slightly larger margins. That said, Nebraska appears to be the team that the Friday Facts thought they were.

Anyhow, Michigan State is not alone in its home woes. Nearly every team—all but Minnesota—has performed better (compared to average) on the road. This shows up in a number of surprising home losses: Indiana and Wisconsin to Northwestern; Michigan State to Michigan; Ohio State to Iowa, etc. Simply put, home-court advantage hasn't been as big a deal this year in the Big Ten as it usually is. But maybe things will even out... 

Friday Facts

John Gasaway has come out with this season's first full-fledged "Tuesday Truths"—his indispensable weekly breakdown of the conference-only efficiency margins for every team in every conference worth caring about.

But the Tuesday Truths can be deceptive. The efficiency margin is calculated like so: points scored minus points allowed, divided by number of possessions. There is no accounting for strength of opponent. By the end of the season, this matters little, as we can expect things to more or less even out. But early in the season, differing schedules can make a big difference.

So I took a stab at producing an adjusted efficiency margin for the Big Ten. For each game, I calculate the difference between a team's actual efficiency margin and the expected efficiency margin of an "average" Big Ten team against that particular opponent at that particular venue. That difference is adjusted efficiency margin. Add up each game for each team, and you get their total adjusted efficiency margin.

To illustrate, let's look at Iowa versus Wisconsin, at Wisconsin. The average Big Ten team—that is, a team with adjusted offensive and defensive efficiencies at the average of all Big Ten teams—would be expected to lose to Wisconsin at Wisconsin by 17 points per 100 possessions. In fact, Iowa lost by four points in a 70 possession game, which comes out to 6 points per 100 possessions. Thus, Iowa's adjusted efficiency margin for that game was +11 per 100 possessions, or 0.11 per possession.

On the flip side, the average Big Ten team playing Iowa at home would be expected to lose by 1.3 points per 100 possessions, and Wisconsin won by 6 per 100. So Wisconsin was above average too—+0.07 per possession.

When you add up each team's performances from all their games you get their total adjusted efficiency margins:

There's no real surprise at the top or very bottom of this chart. Michigan State, Michigan, and Iowa have clearly performed the best in conference play so far, and that shows up in the raw efficiency margins. But the adjusted margins give Iowa credit for its close losses at Wisconsin and at Michigan, and so Iowa just barely trails Michigan in the adjusted ranking.

Minnesota also gets credit for its tougher schedule and better wins. Although its raw efficiency margin is negative overall—placing it behind Purdue—the adjusted margin gets Minnesota ahead of Purdue and into the conference's upper division, where it clearly belongs based on its play so far.

The other notable outlier is Nebraska, which jumps ahead of three teams (Indiana, Illinois, and Penn State) at the bottom of the standings. Nebraska's raw efficiency margin gets killed by its big blowout loss to Ohio State, and doesn't reflect any credit for its respectably close losses to Michigan and at Iowa, or for the impressiveness of its win over Ohio State. These results are why Nebraska has actually moved ahead of Illinois in the Kenpom ratings, and the Adjusted EM accounts for them.