Wisconsin Basketball vs. Indiana: Analytics Game Prediction

If you missed my latest Wisconsin Basketball Predictions, find them here:

Northwestern

Penn State

The “Analytics” models were way off in projecting Penn State’s offensive performance on Tuesday night. It happened because Wisconsin struggled mightily in slowing down Ace Baldwin and Kanye Clary, who torched us for 20 & 27 Points, respectively! In our losses this season they’ve come at the hands of guards who have an ELITE ability to create (Scoring & Passing) vs. Drop Coverage:

• Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht scorched us for 24 Points
• Arizona’s Kylan Boswell & Caleb Love combined for 30 PTS & 14 Assists
• Providence’s Devin Carter got 21 points, getting to the FT Line 9 times

I’ve said this a while back, but Wisconsin’s DEFENSE will be its limiting factor. And in his Post-Game, Greg Gard said just as much. What’s happening is two-fold.

Firstly our Bigs get caught in No-Mans Land far too often (Nolan Winter in particular), leaving a bunch of lob/easy bucket opportunities for the Opponent’s Big-Men. As this happens often our off-ball defenders begin to help too much..and it opens up easy Catch & Shoot 3P opportunities for Wings (PROV: Pierre 3/3 | ARIZ: Larsson 4/4 | PSU: Hicks 3/6).

The above was exacerbated by another issue, which was the on-ball defender NOT getting over the top of the ball screens quickly enough. Chucky/Max/Blackwell got erased from the play far too many times on Tuesday. This allowed the ultra-quick Baldwin & Clary way too much time one-on-one with our bigs. And if we did get over, we were completely off-balance which led to some fouls and easy step-back jumpers.

The good news is these are two quite easily correctable issues, and I’m not very concerned it’ll be an ongoing issue in the short term. What I am concerned with is it’s something Gard has continually had to harp on and correct. That’s the mark of inconsistency & lack of attention to detail; it’s been covered up by an ELITE offense. Come March, it’ll mean a quick ticket home to Madison.

With that, let’s dive into the Prediction Model for Friday’s matchup vs. Indiana!!!

Wisconsin Basketball Prediction Model

First, let’s start off with what comprises my Prediction Model (See Below):

Pace:

Gard Your Fickell’s Model | 67.23 Projected Possesions

KenPom Model | 67 Projected Possesions

Torvik T-Rank | ???

Haslam Metrics | 68.24 Projected Possions = (Projected Points / “Should” OEFF)

Height:

Wisconsin Basketball does NOT have the Height advantage over Indiana, with an Average Height of 78.39 vs. 79.15 (inches). This greatly influences my DREB% Model along with the other Metrics listed in that Model (3PAR, FTAR, 2P%, 3P%, and OPP OREB%).

DREB%:

Wisconsin Basketball also has the DREB% advantage over Indiana, with an expectation of UW grabbing 81.25% of their Defensive Rebound opportunities in Friday’s Matchup vs. an expectation that Indiana grabs only 79.55% of their Defensive Rebound opportunities.

DREB% is a huge component in Stop Factor, which is essentially my own Defensive Efficiency Metric. I’m still working on adjusting my DREB% model to account for past performance and see if a team can have outsized influence over the model metrics. Still debating over the HOW to do this:

• Do I look at overall performance vs. the Model and regress over that?
• Or regress over each factor and adjust each factor in the model?

This will probably take a few weeks to test out! But for now, we’ll stick with the current model.

Stop_Factor:

Wisconsin Basketball has a major edge in Stop Factor, coming in at a projected 1.92 Stop Factor to Indiana’s 1.70. For those unfamiliar with Stop Factor, it’s looking at a Team’s ability to be efficient on Defense.

That can come in various ways:

• Low eFG% given up to your opponent
• Forcing a lot of turnovers
• Collecting a high % of Defensive Rebounds available.

Doing all three at a high level will usually put you >2.00 in Stop Factor; UW is really close to being projected there. And here’s how they do it.

Wisconsin is fairly mediocre in DeFG% given up (Got a lot worse Tuesday Night), a bit above average in forcing turnovers, but ELITE in keeping opponents off the offensive glass. But given that even the best teams offensively struggle to make >50% of their FGAs (11 NCAA Teams shoot >50% from the field), it shouldn’t shock that Wisconsin is a Top-35 KenPom Defense & ranked so highly in my Defensive Metric. Nearly half the battle defensively is not allowing 2nd Chance Points, and Wisconsin does that better than 98% of the College Basketball!

Score Prediction & Model Table:

Final Thoughts on Wisconsin Basketball vs Indiana

I don’t think that Xavier Johnson or any of the Indiana Basketball Guards fall into the category of an ELITE creator vs. Drop P&R Coverage. Therefore Crowl/Winter/Gilmore should easily sink off and have no worries Friday night. This should allow them to keep Kel’el Ware away from easy buckets and off the O-Boards. Also Indiana shoots 3s at a very low volume (only 29.89% of FGAs) so we’ll be able to pack the paint a bit better to help slow down their offense even more. The thing I’m worried about is FTs, Indiana hasn’t shot as much lately but they’re extremely adept at getting to the FT Line. We’re 6-4 when allowing an FTAR >25%. Those are the things you should be watching for Friday Night.

How are we able to defend the P&R? Can our guards fight over the top easily, and can our Bigs sink off right away? If we do that, I’m confident we’ll be able to keep IU off the FT Line also. Doing these two things well and if our offense keeps humming along, we’ll be just fine Friday Night.

On Wisconsin!

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