Bo Ryan calmly witnesses a murder (source)
As everyone predicted, Wisconsin ran roughshod through the Big Ten – only tripping up against newcomers Maryland and Rutgers (SERIOUSLY. RUTGERS. HOW.) on the road – winning the league by two games and posting a conference efficiency margin that was 12.5 points / 100 possessions better than the next-best team, Iowa. All hail our Badger overlords. The real validation will have to come in the NCAA Tournament, as Wisconsin will (probably) finally face elite competition there for the first time since early December.
Maryland finished second at 14-4: I’ll address the Terrapins later because there’s a huge dichotomy between their results and their statistical profile. Iowa, Michigan State, and Purdue each tied for third at 12-6 – fitting second-tier parity, also expected due to Wisconsin’s dominance. Ohio State rounds out the group of probable tournament teams with an 11-7 conference record and in sixth place.
The middle tier of the Big Ten effectively cannibalized itself throughout the season; according to the Bracket Matrix as of Monday afternoon, the Big Ten could find three of its best four teams (in my opinion and the opinion of several metrics) in unappealing 7- (Iowa) or 8-seeds (Michigan State, Ohio State). Indiana’s hilarious implosion down the stretch put them squarely on the bubble along with Purdue and Illinois; the Big Ten could theoretically get just five of its 14 teams into the tournament, which would be quite disappointing.
In reality, it’s been a disappointing year in the conference. Michigan and Nebraska were colossal disappointments; the Wolverines were having a nightmare year before brutal injuries effectively put the season out of its misery and the Huskers had everybody back from a tournament team last year and were… inexplicably terrible. Wisconsin is the league’s only top-15 team in Pomeroy’s algorithm and the league’s second-place team, Maryland, finished just 32nd.
After four years as Pomeroy’s top conference, the Big Ten backslid to fourth behind the Big XII, the old Big East, and the ACC. And honestly, we can’t even blame Rutgers for that.
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I guess I’ll get this next part out of the way early -- as our Dear Leader often says, the strictures and conventions of sportswriting compel me to do this:
These things are really subjective and my vote literally doesn’t count for anything. If you have any complaints or disagreements, please meet me on the Diag at 3:00 A.M. tonight to let me know those concerns so I may better my arbitrary award judgment in the future.
(I did have to put Aubrey Dawkins on there because he’s fire from range and BOFA’d Nnanna Egwu that one time, even if he has a Stauskasesque indifference towards defense.)
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Since I’m an advanced stats guy, I think conference-wide efficiency margin tells the story as well as anything else. Big surprise: Wisconsin’s way out ahead of everyone else.
Maryland (UMD) is sixth! Why is UMD sixth? HOT TAKE ALERT: Maryland isn’t that great. Even though their defense was best in the league by a slight margin over Purdue, their offense finished tenth and their efficiency margin was dragged down by it. Sure, they swept Michigan State and handed Wisconsin one of its only two losses, but the Terps notably struggled in some gimmie games – without losing: they were tied with Rutgers with three minutes left at home; they needed an improbably comeback and difficult buzzer-beater to beat Northwestern at home; Penn State was within one possession of Maryland in College Park with 2 minutes left; they swept Nebraska, but by a combined seven points.
While it’s important to note that Maryland did win all those games, it does reflect a sort of weakness. Very good teams don’t routinely struggle at home against bad ones, and even though the Terps avoided big upsets, those results imply that a) Maryland isn’t as good as its record and b) they’re especially vulnerable, at least relative to their perception. They’re currently ranked 8th and are in line for a 3-seed; they’re 25th in Sagarin and 32nd in Kenpom. Kenpom also has a “Luck” stat – which essentially highlights the difference between a team’s actual and expected results – and Maryland is first out of 351 teams nationally. Don’t be surprised if there’s a seemingly harsh regression to the mean next year.
Over the season, I created the “Game Score” metric, which essentially normalizes a team’s performance based on their opponent’s average on both the offensive and defensive ends. For example, an offensive game score of zero would be an efficiency mark that’s equal to an opponent’s average defensive efficiency and a defensive game score of one would be holding that opponent to one standard deviation below their normal offensive output. The total game score would be one. It’s an intuitive metric, and it spits out these results:
Click on images to enlarge; the scatterplot’s x-axis (offense) is – 1 > x > 1, the y-axis (defense) is –5 > y > 5. The question mark pattern in the scatterplot is indicative of the mystery of the Big Ten’s bloated middle, or something.
[Much more on B1G Hoops after the JUMP]
“ALEX WHY DO YOU HATE US?” (source)
A few more thoughts on efficiency margin / average game scores:
- Wisconsin’s good because of its murderous (and admittedly beautiful) offense and not because of its stingy and frustrating defense! The Badgers are first nationally in Pomeroy’s Adj. Offense and 25th in Adj. Defense, just two years after finishing 108th and 1st respectively. Bo Ryan is still a comic book villain, but Wisconsin’s not as bad to watch anymore.
- Iowa, Michigan State, and Ohio State are all pretty much the same, which makes sense. In Pomeroy’s national rankings, they’re 18th, 22nd, and 19th respectively, and they’ve each shown flashes of very good basketball coupled with puzzling bouts of mediocrity: Iowa swept Ohio State, but lost to Northwestern (and got obliterated by Wisconsin); Michigan State won its games against Iowa and OSU, but lost to Nebraska; Ohio State destroyed Maryland, but lost to Michigan and were thoroughly routed at home by Wisconsin. Such is life in the 2015 Big Ten.
- Indiana’s second-best offense and league-worst defense combined to be painfully average, and after losing eight of twelve down the stretch, fans are livid with Tom Crean and the Hoosiers are on the bubble after seeming to be a lock not even a month ago. They haven’t notched a good win since January and they definitely can’t afford to lose to Minnesota in the 7 / 10 game in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament.
- Michigan’s offense is better than its defense, but both are below average. Makes sense if you’ve watched the Wolverines this season. Better luck next year.
- LOL Rutgers. Thanks Delany.
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The Game Score metric has more interesting uses, like these line charts of team performance. I’ve added Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan State, Ohio State, Purdue, and Maryland below. If you want any more, please ask in the comments. Remember, a Game Score of zero is the average performance against that opponent – Michigan scores 1.035 PPP and allows 1.065 PPP, so for a hypothetical Game Score against Michigan would be 1.065 PPP for, 1.035 PPP against.
Rebuilding Year
Had to shift the margins for these guys and it still didn’t fit everything
Improved the most over conference play, or stopped playing Wisconsin?
Sparty was a little up-and-down
Pretty consistent, though their worst two results happened in the last five games
Wow, that’s ridiculously average
The nadir: Indiana (L, 89-70), Northwestern (W, 68-67), Ohio State (L, 80-56), Penn State (W, 64-58)… not great, Bob. They’re improving though.
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Another benefit of the Game Score metric: it easily sorts out which performances were the best on a league-wide basis. The top ten games this season:
- #10 (Game Score: 1.97) – Northwestern (60 Points, 0.93 PPP) @ Illinois(86, 1.33)
- #9 (2.00) – Wisconsin (53, 0.96 @ Maryland (59, 1.07)
- #8 (2.03) – Maryland (70, 1.09) @ Indiana (89, 1.39)
- #7 (2.04) – Indiana (50, 0.82) @ Michigan State (70, 1.14)
- #6 (2.17) – Iowa (74, 1.21) @ Nebraska (46, 0.75)
- #5 (2.19) – Michigan State (68, 1.25) @ Northwestern (44, 0.81)
- #4 (2.20) – Michigan State (59, 0.97) @ Maryland (75, 1.23)
- #3 (2.46) – Maryland (56, 0.86) @ Ohio State (80, 1.22)
- #2 (3.02) – Wisconsin (72, 1.21) @ Ohio State (48,0.81)
- #1 (4.24) – Iowa (50, 0.93) @ Wisconsin (82, 1.52)
Needless to say, the Wisconsin – Iowa game in Madison (aka the infamous Adam Woodbury eye-poke extravaganza) was a pretty huge outlier:
I posted a spreadsheet of all the Game Score data for those interested.
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Complete Big Ten Schedule Matrix?
Complete Big Ten Schedule Matrix.
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Unlike, say, college football, the regular season isn’t the be-all end-all in college basketball. Over half the league will participate in postseason play of some sort in addition to the Big Ten Tournament, which will be previewed tomorrow. Additionally, the players – Michigan’s players and other notables from around the league – will be reviewed at a later time, once the season’s finished.
For now though, we can all tip our caps to Wisconsin and hope they lose to the Wolverines on Friday afternoon.