Chances of winning the B1G, per KenPom

Submitted by J. on

(Apologies if this belongs elsewhere, but I haven't seen this analysis done yet).

At 11-3, with a half-game lead on Staee and four games remaining, Michigan is obviously in the driver's seat for the B1G basketball title.  Using the game predictions from KenPom's site, I've done a quick probability analysis to see what the odds are that there's a banner to be hung.

First, Michigan's expected record, along with a percent chance:

 

15-3 36%
14-4 43%
13-5 18%
12-6 3.1%
11-7 0.18%

(I used two significant figures, since there were two in the KenPom data; obviously, they won't add to exactly 100%).

Here's Staee's expected record:

14-4 16%
13-5 49%
12-6 32%
11-7 3.7%

Iowa:

13-5 15%
12-6 40%
11-7 33%
10-8 or worse 12%

Wisky:

13-5 37%
12-6 44%
11-7 17%
10-8 or worse 2.4%

Ohio:

12-6 33%
11-7 44%
10-8 or worse 23%

Nebraska:

12-6 5.7%
11-7 26%
10-8 or worse 68%

Put it all together, and you get the following possibilities (all chances here are conditional -- e.g., each line should add up to 100% within the limits of rounding and significant figures):

Record Outright Title Shared Title No Title
15-3 100%    
14-4 84% 16%  
13-5 19% 65% 16%
12-6 0.20% 19% 81%
11-7 < 0.01% 0.20% > 99%

When you factor in the chances that Michigan achieves each of these records (from the first table), and add it all up, and there is a 75% chance of an outright title, a 19% chance of a shared title, and a 6% chance of being bannerless.  (Coincidentally, I coded up a simulation using the same KenPom percentages, ran it 100 times, and got at least a share of the title exactly 94 times).

Long story short, even with a single loss, the odds are still in our favor to win the title outright, since KenPom doesn't think Staee is likely to run the table, and 2-2 down the stretch is likely to be enough to secure a share of the title.  Like many of you, I never would have predicted this in December.

Go Blue!

Comments

Boom Goes the …

February 24th, 2014 at 6:16 AM ^

scares me for some reason.  I think they are probably the worst team left we play, but that game looks like trouble to me.  Minnie and senior day vs IU Im honestly not worried about.  Winning at Purdue moves to about 95% locks in my opinion

Space Coyote

February 24th, 2014 at 9:34 AM ^

Regardless of team, road games are never fun. Purdue has shown they can occassionally play well at home. Illinois just beat Minnesota on the road and can show up (they were decent in the non-con). Minnesota is Jekyll and Hyde and can be very good or terrible, and Indiana at least has some recipe for success against Michigan.

B1G is dangerous because you really can't take a night off, and while this Michigan team has proven to be good, they've also proven that they aren't good enough to take a night off and come away with a victory (or stay with teams) this year as well.

I, personally, won't feel comfortable until if or when it happens.

CompleteLunacy

February 24th, 2014 at 10:46 AM ^

Let's do a joint probability of Michigan and MSU's final record.

Michigan has a 36% chance to win outright on their own, regardless of what MSU does (so 0.36 * 1.0). They have a 0.46*(1 - 0.16) = 38.6% chance to lose one game and still win the conference outright (based on MSU's 16% odds for winning out). I wont go further than one loss because things get murky after that,.

That translates to about 75% odds of winning the conference outright. And again, that doesn't even consider situations where Michigan loses two or more but still wins outright. So...wow, I like those odds.

Looking at the chances for at least splitting the title, the probability becomes

0.36 + 0.43 + 0.18 * (1 - 0.16) + 0.031 * (1 - 0.32 - 0.037) *(1 - 0.15) * (1 - 0.37) 

= 0.36 + 0.43 + 0.15 +  0.01 

= 0.95

Which...wow, holy crap. Assuming those odds are trustworthy and at all indicative of the true odds (good luck proving that one way or the other), MIchigan now has a roughly  95% chance of at least sharing the title. I had to double-check my math a few times. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. This, of course, also assumes  that each team's record is an independent outcome (which is obviously not true since MSU still has to play OSU and Iowa). But still...it's an almost sure bet now.

EDIT: Or, ignore this post and go to the link that BISB posted just above this one, which does a more thorough analysis of the situations. Their numbers are very close to what I got though, so it was a nice sanity-check at least.

J.

February 24th, 2014 at 11:24 AM ^

When I wrote this originally, I tried to see if there was any way to eliminate the possibility of sharing the title based upon the upcoming schedule (e.g., Statee and Iowa can't both win out because they play each other).  It turned out that I could only get it to matter if I was trying to calculate B1G tournament seeding -- at this point, the affects the possibility of a multiway tie, but it doesn't affect the possibility of sharing the title in the first place.  Since I've never really cared for the B1G tournament, I didn't bother with that analysis. :-) Suffice it to say that Michigan's chances of getting the #1 seed are excellent, and they can lock up a top-4 seed with one more win (the only way they fall to #5 is to lose out, have Ohio or Nebraska win out, and have all of the teams in between win most of their games).

Obviously, the biggest (unanswerable) question is how accurate the per-game predictions are.  Considering the calculated outcomes, I hope they're accurate indeed. :-)

Go Blue!

FreddieMercuryHayes

February 24th, 2014 at 11:16 AM ^

False.  As a fan, my looking ahead to a future game directly affects the performance of the team, in an inverse relationship (i.e., the more fans focus on future games, the worse the team performs).  It's science.  They've done studies.

WolverineHistorian

February 24th, 2014 at 1:33 PM ^

Despite Purdue's record, the game really, REALLY scares me. Despite their struggles, they have played us annoyingly close the last 3 years. At Crisler against them, we shot lights out but ended up only winning by 9 because we decided to play no defense in the paint. That game is going to be a struggle.

At Illinois SHOULD be a win but they consider us a rival so they'll be up and probably overachieve against us.

The schedule may not look it but it's going to be a stressful last 4 games.

ClearEyesFullHart

February 24th, 2014 at 3:31 PM ^

.gif of Izzo screaming at Russell Byrd please
Secondary
.gif of Izzo screaming at nameless tech drawing ast coach please

champswest

February 24th, 2014 at 7:26 PM ^

it is right there in front of them. They control their own destiny. Four games to get it done.
They had a chance last year with one game to go, one possession to go and didn't get it done. Hopefully, that memory alone will be enough to keep them focused.