College basketball expert says that Wisconsin has Final Four potential

There's been a lot of talk about this season's Wisconsin basketball team, and the more the Badgers win, the more pundits get involved. One voice that has been harkening on this Badgers team for a while has been college basketball analytics expert Evan Miyakawa. He's a self-proclaimed basketball nerd who loves to get into the numbers and stats and forecast performances.

His latest graph is a "predicted team efficiency landscape," and in that graph, there are five tiers: Title Favorites, Final Four Potential, Hit-or-Miss, Happy To Be Here, and The Rest. The teams fall into these categories not by some sort of eye test but because of the "team efficiency" numbers.

Evan Miyakawa says the stats showcase that Wisconsin basketball is elite

If you aren't quite sure how the graph is plotted, let's break it down. The horizontal axis is based on the team's defensive rating. The vertical axis is the team's offensive rating. The higher up in the graph, the better the team is offensively, the further to the right is how elite they are defensively. Thus, the teams that make it towards the upper right corner of the graph are performing and predicted to perform the best.

"The top corner is where the current title favorites are. The last nine National Champions have been in this tier on Selection Sunday...Next is the Final Four Potential group, they aren't in that top group but they are definitely good enough to make a really deep run in March. "

Evan Miyakawa

Wisconsin will need to continue to prove it. The biggest knock on Wisconsin so far this season is that they only have one big win on their resume: over Arizona. They will have a few shots to end the season, taking on Purdue this Saturday and then Illinois to follow. They also have a matchup looming against Michigan State. While they haven't had any bad losses, they could use a big win.