A look at the matchup between the Wisconsin Badgers and the Michigan State Spartans
The Wisconsin Badgers travel to Michigan State on Thursday, looking for their eighth straight victory (8 p.m. – ESPN). Standing in their way is a formidable Spartan team, which is ranked 9th in the country by the voters, 6th by ESPN’s Basketball Power Index (BPI), 3rd by Ken Pomeroy, and 16th in the RPI.
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One of these things is not like the others and speaks to the weakness of RPI as a measure. Excluding RPI, we are looking at a top-10 team that may be close to top-5.
The Badgers, on the other hand, get no love from the voters, but are fourth in the AP and 2nd in the Coaches Poll in votes given to unranked teams, making them something like 29th or 27th ranked by the voters.
The algorithms are less kind: BPI – 37, Pomeroy – 33, RPI – 44. Once again, if we exclude RPI, the Badgers appear to be a top-40 team that may be as high as a top-30 squad.
No matter how you slice it, Michigan State has been the better team this season, and that is borne out in the game predictions. Pomeroy shows a 72-62 victory for Sparty with a 16% chance of a Badgers win, while I came up with either a 75-66 or 75-65 Michigan State win.
If we just look at the last game between these two teams at the Kohl Center, which the Badgers won 77-76 and adjust for home court advantage (10.7 points for the Badgers and 3.4 points for Michigan State), we come up with a 13-point Spartan win.
I have less faith in this measure, but it does a couple things: 1. It is in the same ball park as the other estimates, which helps to validate the other measures, and 2. It provides evidence that that home court advantage numbers aren’t too far off, which means that the Badgers’ home court edge is pretty big.
Looking at the predictions, the Badgers should lose by 3 points inside the arc, 6 points beyond it, and 1 point from the line. However, this assumes that Wisconsin shoots 34% from the 3-point line. The Badgers, in their last three games, have gone bonkers from the line, hitting over 45% in each.
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This has brought their 5-week moving average up to 40%, which matches the best-fit line. If we assume that Bucky hits 40% from 3, the edge from beyond the arc drops to 3.
Further, if we assume that the Badger take four extra shots from beyond the arc at the cost of 2-pointers, the Badgers would shave another point off the margin. Assuming this scenario, which I would consider possible, given Greg Gard’s changes, but not likely, the Badgers would still lose by 5-6 points.
Looking at the ancillary stats, Michigan State is predicted to dominate with assists, showing how poor the Badgers ball movement has been this season.
With that said, in the last three games, the Badgers have assisted on about 56% of their possessions, which is still well below what I am predicting for Michigan State (66.5%), but which would be 90th in the country rather than the 289th that is sits at for the season. Hopefully, the Badgers can keep up the good ball movement.
The Badgers are predicted to lead by quite a bit in steals, mostly thanks to Ethan Happ, who is 47th in the country with his 3.6% Steal Percentage and 1st in the conference at 5.3%.
It looks as though Happ is getting more confident in the passing lanes as the season wears on. In fact, his Steal Percentage in conference is as much beyond #2 Max Bielfeldt (3.4%) as Bielfeldt is above #49, Rasheed Sulaimon.
This is true dominance, and not the type that we would normally expect of a 6′ 9″ redshirt Freshman. It will be interesting to see if he keeps is up.
Finally, I’m adding a new chart to my pre-game predictions, which shows the pace-adjusted predictions for the game. This gives the percentage chances of each activity occurring, along with the Offensive Efficiency (points/100 possessions) and Average Possession Length (seconds).
This shows that Michigan State is predicted to shoot better than the Badgers in every facet and dominate all stats, other than blocks.
Next: Are the Badgers a Bubble Team with Title Hopes?
As always, let me know in the comments if there is a question that you’d like me to answer.