With a little more than a month left in the regular season, Michigan Basketball appears to be a lock for the NCAA Tournament. But how does KenPom see the rest of the Big Ten season playing out? Let’s find out:
We are a little more than a month away from Selection Sunday, an annual holiday in my household. The Michigan Wolverines have nine games remaining in the regular season and are in a prime position to contend for the Big Ten title.
But there is fierce competition in Purdue, Michigan State and a couple other teams in the conference, and KenPom sees it very similarly. Here are the projected win probabilities for each of Michigan’s remaining games per KenPom:
- 2/8 at Indiana: 62%
- 2/11 vs. Purdue: 53%
- 2/16 at Ohio State: 42%
- 2/21 vs. Michigan State: 60%
- 2/24 at Nebraska: 54%
- 2/27 vs. Rutgers: 84%
- 3/2 vs. Illinois: 60%
- 3/5 vs. Maryland: 60%
- 3/9 at Michigan State: 37%
Michigan’s remaining schedule is brutal, as six of the nine games remaining are against KenPom top-25 teams. The positive is that most of the key games are at home. As seen above, nearly all these games could be classified as toss-ups, with the exception of Rutgers.
I certainly don’t expect the Wolverines to run the table, but with the resume they already have, even finishing the final stretch around .500 would get the job done to make the NCAA Tournament. If Dusty May and company win every game KenPom projects them to, that would put the Wolverines at 7-2 down the stretch, 16-4 in the conference and 24-7 overall.
However, KenPom’s projections are more antiquated than that. Those projected records are based on cumulative probabilities, rather than the sum of each individual game projection. In other words, even though Michigan has a greater than 50 percent chance of winning seven of those nine games, KenPom is projecting a 5-4 finish due to the high likelihood Michigan won’t win every game it is favored in. All that said, KenPom is predicting the Wolverines to finish 14-6 in the Big Ten and 22-9 overall.
How does that stack up against the rest of the conference?
KenPom has the Boilermakers narrowly edging out the Michigan schools for the Big Ten regular season crown:
- Purdue: 15-5 projected conference record (10-2 in conference as of now)
- Michigan: 14-6 (9-2)
- Michigan State: 14-6 (9-2)
- Wisconsin: 13-7 (8-4)
- UCLA: 13-7 (8-4)
- Maryland: 13-7 (7-4)
- Illinois: 11-9 (7-6)
- Ohio State: 11-9 (5-6)
- USC: 9-11 (5-6)
- Oregon: 9-11 (5-7)
- Nebraska: 9-11 (5-7)
- Indiana: 8-12 (5-7)
- Rutgers: 8-12 (5-7)
- Iowa: 7-13 (4-7)
- Northwestern: 7-13 (4-8)
- Minnesota: 6-14 (4-8)
- Penn State: 6-14 (3-9)
- Washington: 5-15 (2-9)
A few things stand out to me in the list above. KenPom sees a pretty clear drop off after the top-six. Illinois and Ohio State also seem to have their own tier in the hierarchy as well. KenPom sees Maryland and Ohio State as late risers, while Indiana and Iowa seem to have gloomy outlooks. In general, KenPom doesn’t foresee a large shakeup in the standings as they are today.
With regard to Big Ten Player of the Year, KenPom sees it as a Purdue vs Purdue battle between Braden Smith and Trey Kaufman-Renn. Additionally, Wisconsin’s John Tonje, Michigan’s Danny Wolf and Maryland’s Derik Queen round out the top-five, respectively.
How do you envision the rest of the season going? Do you agree with a lot that KenPom is currently projecting? Let us know down in the comments.