2018-2019 B1G Basketball Thread

[MrNubbz]

The Bug Eaters have a squad of cagers - who knew?

[FearlessF]

bought a couple rejects from Georgetown and Miami

also got lucky to pull a point guard from Chicago, Nebraska's first four-star and Rivals Top 150 signee in program history. 

[medinabuckeye1]

So I created a spreadsheet to track game predictions based on the Sagarin rating system. It's a pretty simple rating system for predictions. Take the home team's rating, subtract the visiting team's rating, add the home court advantage adjustment [he currently uses 3.10], and the result is basically his prediction of the home team's point spread.

Just wanted to be able to compare that quickly and easily with our own system.

Attached is what I've got. Basically if the number is negative [and highlighted yellow], the AWAY team wins. Which is a little confusing, because when you read your "home" record, yellow is negative, while when you read your "away" record, yellow is positive. But it is what it is.

It shows Purdue (in a double-round robin) with a 17-9 record, with home losses to MSU and Michigan, and away losses to IU, MD, M, MSU, UNL, OSU, and UW.

The new tier systems shows Purdue with a 19-7 record, with home losses to MSU and M, and away losses to M, MSU, MD, UNL, UW, IU, Iowa.

Essentially the only places it disagrees are Iowa and Ohio State. And it's close. It has Iowa as a 0.65 point dog over Purdue at Iowa. It has Ohio State as a 0.54 point favorite over Purdue at home. Given that Iowa is the weakest Tier 3 team we show, and Ohio State is the strongest [well, only] Tier 4 team we show, that looks pretty close to what we'd think.

It does have MSU as a 25-1 record. It actually only has MSU as a 0.11 point dog on the road at Michigan. Which for two teams both in Tier 1, seems like a decent gap.

It has Michigan at 24-2, though, also losing on the road at Nebraska, and VERY close against Purdue, with Michigan only a 0.25 point favorite in West Laf.

Just thought I'd pass this along. I've got the spreadsheet set up so that all I need to do is upload 14 numbers from the Sagarin rankings and the rest will automatically update.

If anyone believes 3.10 points is not a sufficient HCA in the B1G, though, let me know. I can change that number as well, and it'll probably make some significant changes to the outcome.

I like it.  At least in theory, this is a better way to do it because it offers much more flexibility than the tiers.  Here is the list of games not played if you want to subrtact them from your list to get new projections:
   

Team	noAway	noAway	noAway	noHome	noHome	noHome
M	UNL	tOSU	PU	IL	IA	RU
MSU	UMD	MN	NU	IL	PSU	UW
Purdue	IL	IA	RU	M	NU	UW
UMD	IL	IU	NU	IA	MSU	RU
UNL	NU	tOSU	UW	IU	M	RU
IU	UNL	tOSU	UW	UMD	MN	PSU
Iowa	IL	UMD	M	MN	PSU	PU
UW	MSU	PU	RU	IU	UNL	tOSU
tOSU	MN	PSU	UW	IU	M	UNL
Minny	IU	IA	PSU	MSU	NU	tOSU
NU	MN	PSU	PU	UMD	MSU	UNL
PSU	IU	IA	MSU	MN	NU	tOSU
ILL	M	MSU	RU	IA	UMD	PU
RU	UMD	M	UNL	IL	PU	UW

Setting it all up isn't all that bad, the hard part is keeping track of upsets especially when the tiers (or Sagrin rankings) change because you have to go back and recheck for past upsets that are no longer upsets and/or past expected results that are now upsets.  
When I do updates I do one of two things, either:

• I only move one team at a time.  This limits the number of things I need to look for.  Ie, if we suddenly decided to move say Nebraska up to the currently blank tier-2 I wouldn't have to change much.  That changes Nebraska's home games against the tier-1 teams (M&MSU) which become Nebraska wins (in this case the Cornhuskers don't host Michigan so that one just changes the projected records in games not played for UNL and M.  It also changes Nebraska's record in road games against tier-3 teams (IU, IA, UW).  In that case one of them (@UW) is a game not played, one Nebraska already played and won (@IU), and the other one Nebraska already played and lost (@IA).  or
• I just basically start over with the upsets and projected records in games not played.  

Which method I use is dependent on how early in the season it is and how many teams are moving.  The earlier in the season and more teams that are moving the more appropriate #2 is.  Later in the season and moving just one or two teams, I use #1.  

[betarhoalphadelta]

Hmm... 

I can think of a few things that would make this easy...

• Make a change to the formatting of the no-plays. I.e. make them Bold text at the beginning of each year so that I can easily pick them out visibly.
• For games that have already occurred, simply add or subtract the margin of victory to the calculation. That way, it normalizes the point spread such that my simple conditional formatting of going yellow on positive/negative will still work, and if the calculation changes per Sagarin, it will automatically update. 

Let me see what that looks like. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Hmm... Never mind on that last one. I'll have to figure that out. 

[bayareabadger]

This Michigan game is preemptively annoying me.

UW is a small underdog, matching what the computers think. This gives me hope, probably too much.

If UW loses, it functionally doesn't have an impact on the season. A win is found money. But a loss will send many UW fans into more of a tizzy. If they lose close, "why can't they beat good teams in crunch time?" If they're blown out, why can't they compete? And that'll scramble the numbers. 

UW is mostly chasing win volume now. Losing to Mich doesn't make anything notably worse, but it'll be treated as such. 

[mcwterps1]

Tier 2.

LOL!

[HailHailMSP]

Terps are legit.  Fairly young team continuing to trend upward too, which is scary.

[mcwterps1]

Terps are legit.  Fairly young team continuing to trend upward too, which is scary.

Yeah.  Not how I thought it would go tonight, after seeing all of the offensive rebounds.
Part of me can't help but think this is set up for Izzo.

[Anonymous Coward]

This Michigan game is preemptively annoying me.

UW is a small underdog, matching what the computers think. This gives me hope, probably too much.

If UW loses, it functionally doesn't have an impact on the season. A win is found money. But a loss will send many UW fans into more of a tizzy. If they lose close, "why can't they beat good teams in crunch time?" If they're blown out, why can't they compete? And that'll scramble the numbers.

UW is mostly chasing win volume now. Losing to Mich doesn't make anything notably worse, but it'll be treated as such.

Kenpom has it as a M -1 margin. I think that makes sense, given the location. Teske has been a great defender, but that's been against the PNR. His performance against post-up guys is at a lower level, and none of those were Happ. [At least that's what I'm reading.]

[bayareabadger]

UW rolling out some shots. Can’t do that today.

[847badgerfan]

Well, they're hanging in there. Nice to see in half one. If they can do their typical half two, they could pull this off.

[bayareabadger]

 These Wolverines always have an answer. Up for with a couple minutes to go, UW needs some good offense. They give up at three-point play as part of a 6-0 run

[847badgerfan]

These Wolverines always have an answer. Up for with a couple minutes to go, UW needs some good offense. They give up at three-point play as part of a 6-0 run

They are super-good. Very efficient in what they do, on both sides.