michigan state

About last niiiiiiiight. Lights out for MSU:

Thanks to Michigan State for this fantastic content pic.twitter.com/56R2yAQqfX

— Alejandro Zúñiga (@ByAZuniga) January 29, 2021

The Spartans lost 67-37 to Rutgers last night, putting up their worst points per possession in the Kenpom era. Notable statistics:

• With more TOs than buckets, Michigan State suffered a basketball rutger against Rutgers!
• MSU turned the ball over on 32% of their possessions!
• Rutgers rebounded 43% of their misses!
• Rocket Watts is shooting 29/24 in Big Ten play!
• Rutgers had more blocked shots than FTAs allowed!
• It was Rutgers's best defensive performance in a conference game since 1982! Their opponent in that game was St Bonaventure!
• MSU is dead last in conference play in: 2P%, steals allowed, TO%, and offensive efficiency!
• There are 12 Big Ten teams in the top 100 of the NET rankings. MSU is not one!
• MSU has lost games in which their opponents shot 26%, 24%, and 13% from 3!

2021 bringing heat.

[After THE JUMP: Jeb! the AD]

The locations. Five Fifth Factor Plots, Michigan's shot locations against the Badgers:

Now delete five of those midrange shots (one of them was the long Zeb Jackson make) because they came from the Kenpom Kids. Hot damn. UW entered this game forcing midrange shots at a top-20 rate and allowing just 52% at the rim. Michigan hit 70% at the rim and got to the rim 23 times.

As I've said before, the really exciting thing about this team is the sustainability of the things they're good at. They get to the rim against everyone and convert there; they force a ton of horrible shots. They are currently 8th at forcing long twos and eighth at defending them. Wisconsin: 6/12 at the rim, 5/25(!) on farther twos.

That's how you can have the best 2PT in the country and a top five FTA/FGA rate.

[After THE JUMP: charts of less auspicious character]

The terrifying world of Torvik without preseason projections. You can drop the preseason projections out of Torvik by advancing the start date of your sample one day.

You should not do this, the stat persons say. Kenpom once asserted that his projections were more accurate if you left a little bit of preseason expectation in indefinitely, but people were very cross about this and the benefit was small so he didn't bother. We're not even to January, so the expectations carry an appropriately large amount of weight, especially because teams have played far fewer games than they usually do.

But let's do it anyway, because my face hasn't melted in at least a couple days. The Big Ten in this universe:

• #5 Wisconsin
• #8 Illinois
• #9 Iowa

Okay we're fine

• #15 Northwestern
• #21 Rutgers

tentacles emerge from the floor

• #25 Michigan
• #26 Indiana
• #27 Penn State

tentacles grow flowers

• #37 Purdue
• #46 Minnesota
• #50 Ohio State
• #51 Maryland

pink elephants emerge from the flowers

• #86 Michigan State
• #91 Nebraska

pink elephants explode, covering room in viscera, viscera sings "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay."

It's not like the ranking systems are particularly enamored with MSU even when you leave expectations in. They're still second-to last on Torvik, but much closer to Maryland at #51 than Nebraska. Northwestern also gets penalized about the same amount—~30 spots—but they drop from fourth to 11th in the league as a result.

I sort of buy the projections' skepticism about Northwestern because they've experienced a lot of luck defending three-pointers. They give up a fair amount of them (181st) and opponents are hitting 27%. There are teams that can maintain opposition three-point shooing at low levels but they're usually dedicated zones or teams with incredible rim protection. Northwestern is neither.

As Ace detailed yesterday with an assist from Hoop Vision, there are reasons to believe that Northwestern's offensive turnaround is sustainable. They've mitigated much of their playmaking deficiency by using Pete Nance as a point-center in a five-out offense, a role that Nance is well-suited to. There is likely a reality check coming once teams scout the NW offense better, but Nance has proven to be a handful on the perimeter and should continue being one.

MSU… well, Ace just talked about them too but that was before last night's debacle.

[After the JUMP: a brief history of disaster factories]