2024-2025 B1G Basketball Thread

[847badgerfan]

MSU had good success under Heathcote. Izzo elevated it. I'd say it's a program thing.

[ELA]

Per CBS, the top 5 teams, in alphabetical order, in terms of NIL spent on transfers are Arkansas, Indiana, KSU, Kentucky, and Michigan.

The first three are perhaps the three most disappointing teams in the country, and the other two might be the most pleasant surprises.   Arkansas hited a new coach, but the other two disappointments chose to buy a team.  Kentucky and Michigan hired new coaches who were forced to buy a team, but did so intelligently.  Id be surprised if either Michigan or Kentucky are on that list going forward

[ELA]

Robbie Hummel making fun of Gus Johnson with a dig that only a few people would get, is amazing 

[boilerbanger]

Robbie Hummel making fun of Gus Johnson with a dig that only a few people would get, is amazing

I missed it was only 1/2 paying attention to the game while waiting for Purdue / Washington

[SuperMario]

Michigan is above Purdue, MSU and Oregon in KenPom, which is predictive.  Here is where I drew the lines

• 9. Illinois
• 11. Michigan
• 12. Purdue
• 14. Michigan State

Since you referenced the value of KenPom a couple weeks ago and ultimately how it's predictive more than backward looking, i've really dug into it. I can see why you reference it often and honestly, why it's a pretty valuable set of data. And while I trust your breakdown and knowledge of college bball far more than my own, I'm sticking to my inner Honestbuckeye for a while and being pessimistic about my own rooting interest in Michigan bball so hopefully i'll be pleasantly surprised. 

[medinabuckeye1]

Probably time to do tiers?

What say you @medinabuckeye1 ?

It is.  

I thought he already did them?  Looking at KenPom, it kind of looks like...

• 1 - Illinois, Michigan, Purdue, MSU
• 2 - Wisconsin, Maryland, Oregon
• 3 - OSU, UCLA, Nebraska
• 4 - Iowa, PSU
• 5 - Northwestern, Indiana, USC
• 6 - Rutgers, Washington
• 7 - Minnesota

I threw out a suggestion a while back but it didn't generate much discussion and I never followed through and set up the predictive spreadsheet.  

Right now my sports attention is devoted to a rather big football game to be played in Atlanta on Monday night.  I'll get back to BB after that.  

In the meantime if everyone could discuss and come to general consensus on what the tiers should be then I'll just go with what everyone agrees on.  

I was thinking that Ohio State should be a tier lower and I saw that @SuperMario already wanted his team lower as well so basically it is the usual sandbagging.  

[boilerbanger]

I agree with ELA .. but here is dumb question, how could we do tiers for home/away .. ie Nebraska is an absolute beast at home, but not so much on the road?  Or this year do we say home team should beat someone 2 tiers higher or certain teams that are absolute beasts at home should get a 2 tier win probability?Teams that are home beasts:  Nebraska, Mich St, Purdue, Northwestern(?)
• 1 - Illinois, Michigan, Purdue, MSU
• 2 - Wisconsin, Maryland, Oregon
• 3 - OSU, UCLA, Nebraska
• 4 - Iowa, PSU
• 5 - Northwestern, Indiana, USC
• 6 - Rutgers, Washington
• 7 - Minnesota

[medinabuckeye1]

I agree with ELA .. but here is dumb question, how could we do tiers for home/away .. ie Nebraska is an absolute beast at home, but not so much on the road?  Or this year do we say home team should beat someone 2 tiers higher or certain teams that are absolute beasts at home should get a 2 tier win probability?Teams that are home beasts:  Nebraska, Mich St, Purdue, Northwestern(?)

• • 1 - Illinois, Michigan, Purdue, MSU
  • 2 - Wisconsin, Maryland, Oregon
  • 3 - OSU, UCLA, Nebraska
  • 4 - Iowa, PSU
  • 5 - Northwestern, Indiana, USC
  • 6 - Rutgers, Washington
  • 7 - Minnesota

I think we should just go with our traditional set-up.  For review that is:

• A team should win all home games except those against teams at least 2 tiers better.  
• A team should lose all road games except those against teams at least 2 tiers worse.  

Using tier-3 as the example:

UNL, UCLA, and tOSU should:

• Lose both H&A to the tier-1 teams:  IL, M, PU, and MSU
• Split a series H&A with the tier-2, tier-3, and tier-4 teams:  UW, UMD, OR, each other, IA, PSU
• Win both H&A vs the tier-5, tier-6, and tier-7 teams:  NU, IU, USC, RU, UDUB, MN

Thus, in a full, 34 game double-round-robin they would each project to go 19-15.  

Then I'll subtract the 14 games not played (7 home and 7 road) to come up with a projection.  


We should keep an eye on the "upsets" to make sure our model is working.  If there are a bunch of instances of home teams beating teams two tiers better then maybe we need to adjust and say that you should win all home games except those against teams at least 3 tiers better.  

One thing I want to point out early just to get it on everyone's radar is that just like in football, the larger conference means that there WILL be bigger variations between schedules.  In the past the schedule usually only altered the projection by a game or two but now it could be MUCH more.  If Ohio State misses home games against a bunch of the tier-1 teams, that will improve tOSU's projected record because they would have lost those.  Conversely, if UCLA misses road games against a bunch of bottom feeders that will diminish UCLA's projected record because they would have won those.  

All three tier-3 teams would project to go 19-15 on a 34 game double-round-robin but we are only playing 20 games:

• 7 teams home only
• 7 teams away only
• 3 teams H&A

When I back out those 14 games not played it will be more than 40% of the full potential schedule.  As a practical matter it will not actually be THIS bad but theoretically you could have a humongous variance between the tier-3 teams where:

• One misses 4 projected wins and 10 projected losses and their season projection is 15-5*
• One misses 8 projected wins and 6 projected losses and their season projection is 11-9^.  

*Since you play all teams at least once, you can't miss both losses against the tier-1 teams so the maximum number of projected losses that you could miss would be 10 leaving four losses to the tier-1 teams.  

^Since you play all teams at least once, you can't miss both wins against the tier 5-7 teams so the maximum number of projected wins that you could miss would be 8 leaving leaving six wins over the tier tier-5 through tier-7 teams.  

[boilerbanger]

@medinabuckeye1 thought you were focused on football until Monday .. 

[boilerbanger]

Wow .... Minnesota 

[ELA]

No tier system would have had that one

[SuperMario]

Michigan showing exactly why I wasn’t fully bought in

[Benthere2]

Wow .... Minnesota

like i said earlier in the season
shame on Michigan for allowing the Gophers to win
the Gophers did play well but still they should be a zero win team in the big ten
dont ask me about he game because i had paint to watch dry for the whole game until the last 20 seconds in regular game time

[ELA]

Big night overall for home dogs.

Minnesota over Michigan; Northwestern over Maryland; Temple over Memphis; Oregon State over Gonzaga

And the one team we said was a totally different team at home, Nebraska, loses at home to Rutgers, who might be starting to figure something out