So you're telling me there's a chance
I have a delusional friend who is still holding out hope that we win the Big Ten this year. I told him he is delusional and he hit me with the Dumb and Dumber gif.
So, I decided to quantify his delusion. I went to Massey and calculated the odds that we win the Big Ten based on win probabilities. Edit: I didn't feel like calculating for multiple scenarios; I picked the one with the highest probability of happening based on current projections. (So the actual number may be slightly higher. But when you see the final tally you wi--nevermind, don't want to ruin the fun...)
MSU:
- Lose to Northwestern (41%)
- Beat PSU (16%)
- Lose to OSU (82%)
- Lose at least 1/2 to Maryland and Rutgers (9%, and 12%, respectively)
- Finishes with at least 3 Big Ten losses. Head-to-Head doesn't matter.
PSU:
- Lose to OSU (44%)
- Lose to MSU
- Lose at least 1/3 to Rutgers, Nebraska, and Maryland, (1%, 3%, and 4%, respectively)
- Finishes with at least 3 Big Ten losses. Head-to-Head doesn't matter.
OSU:
- Beat PSU
- Lose at least1/2 to Iowa and Illinois (20% and 0%--lol)
- Beat MSU
- Lose to Michigan (32%)
- Finishes with at least 2 Big Ten losses and loses any potential Head-to-Head with us.
UM:
- Beat Rutgers (95%)
- Beat Minnesota (87%)
- Beat Maryland (84%)
- Beat Wisconsin (35%)
- Beat OSU (W)
- Finishes with 2 Big Ten losses and wins possible Head-to-Head against OSU.
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So, let's multiply all that mess together.
The rough odds for Michigan to win the Big Ten:
0.00062%
His response:
October 30th, 2017 at 1:45 PM ^
Thanks for the improvement on my vocabulary choices. My only excuse is that I'm not a statistician, I'm an engineer and was too lazy to double check the terms I was using for accuracy. My word choice was poor, but I do not think my criticisms were inaccurate.
I think it's possible that you never saw the original version of his post, which is what I was complaining about. You are correct that now he is only missing cases which were an order of magnitude less likely, but his original post came up with a number that was 3-4 times less than the number he is now posting, so he *was* originally off by a not insignificant amount in his analysis.
I also don't agree that creating a simulation is such a horrible choice for this type of analysis (you are, of course, correct that calling it an uncertainty analysis was poor word choice. I use these types of simulations to analyze uncertainties in the experiments that I run, so that is why that descriptor was on my mind). My code that I wrote for PSU's end of season took 5 minutes to write, and 1 minute to run (MATLAB is sloooow). Writing in win probabilities for all the other 6 remaining Big Ten East teams would probably take another 10 minutes or so. (Note: this is more time than I was willing to spend, which is why I simulated PSU's season only. It is not, however, likely to be more time than the OP spent with pencil and paper trying to cover all possible scenarios.)
The only thing that would be difficult about simulating the remnants of the B1G football season would be sorting out the various tiebreakers after the results come in, but even that can be coded in without too much difficulty. Maybe add another 15 minutes to write in those rules, and at that point I would guess that I have spent a similar amount of time to the OP as he worked on the straight-up math problem.
October 27th, 2017 at 2:22 PM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 5:03 PM ^
On the other hand, the percentages bake in expectations / results of how good the teams are based on season performance so far. Those expectations might change as the season goes on. For example, if PSU gets blown out by OSU and loses convincingly to MSU, that could just be bad luck - or more likely it would mean we've overrated PSU and their chances of losing to one of Rutgers, Nebraska, Maryland are higher.
October 27th, 2017 at 5:39 PM ^
October 27th, 2017 at 8:41 PM ^
The time you spent cogitating about this ridiculously unlikely scenario is time you'll never get back.
Harbaugh will retire after the '22 season to farm arugula in California.
October 30th, 2017 at 11:42 AM ^
The only game OSU has a chance of losing is Michigan. OSU wins tiebreaker due to better in conference record. PSU is NOT losing again. MSU will lose 2 or 3 of next 4.
Had Michigan not lost to MSU the chances would be much better only having one conference loss.
This is a crazy young team. Lets hope Peters starts to ascend from the Rutgers game. If that happens, the defense is good enough to win out. That would be the most realistic scenario. Michigan wins out, but there is almost no chance of a B1G championship.
November 4th, 2017 at 8:43 PM ^
How would they have the tiebreaker if we hypothetically beat them. We would have the tiebreaker based on head to head.
edit- nevermind. your post is kind of old.
November 4th, 2017 at 7:14 PM ^
November 4th, 2017 at 8:39 PM ^
Things are looking a little up. Key word: little. We need Psu to lose 1 more, Msu to lose 2 more, win out which would give o$u their 2nd conference loss and give us the tiebreaker. Possible? Yes. Likely? No.