Wisconsin Basketball vs. Michigan State: Analytics Prediction

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

Northwestern | Penn State | Indiana | Minnesota

It wasn’t a “pretty” win on Tuesday Night, but nothing is going to come easy on the Road for any team in the B1G. This Wisconsin Basketball Team won’t be immune to that fact.

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

Wisconsin Basketball Prediction Model

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

Pace:

Gard Your Fickell’s Model | 62.94 Projected Possesions

KenPom Model | 64 Projected Possesions

Torvik T-Rank | ???

Haslam Metrics | 65.14 Projected Possions = (Projected Points / “Should” OEFF)

Height:

Wisconsin Basketball has the Height advantage over Michigan State, with an Average Height of 78.39 vs. 77.13 (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 Michigan State, with an expectation of UW grabbing only 78.26% of their Defensive Rebound opportunities in Friday’s Matchup vs. an expectation that Michigan State grabs 75.51% 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 minor edge in Stop Factor, coming in at a projected 1.54 Stop Factor to Michigan State’s 1.44. 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 Michigan State

Michigan State is 8-2 in their last 10 Games, with a Neutral Court/”HOME” win vs. Baylor in Detroit seemingly giving this Spartan Team their spark. When looking at Bart-Torvik in the last 10 Games, their Efficiency and “BARTHAG” are ELITE and good for 6th Best in the country as of this writing.

Some extremely poor defensive outings vs. Penn State and Indiana impacted Wisconsin’s numbers in comparison, coming in at 25th in “BARTHAG”. So this isn’t going to be an easier game than what we saw in East Lansing, where we boat-raced them for 90% of the game.

This is going to be a battle…

My Model still has us as a 1.39-Point favorite. Torvik, EvanMiya, and Haslametrics agree with spreads at or below 2 Points in favor of Wisconsin Basketball. The outlier in the “Analytics” community comes from KenPom, who has Wisconsin as a 4-Point Favorite.

We’ll see how well our Offense fairs in Friday’s matchup. This will be the best Defense we’ll have played by a very wide margin since Arizona. Things got a bit dicey in the 2nd Half vs. Minnesota offensively. I think that speaks to how invaluable Kamari McGee has proved to be in providing Chucky with needed rest, allowing him to maximize his performance while on the court. But our offense has maintained elite levels of efficiency with McGee on the court. With his indefinite absence, I expect deflation in our offensive efficiency numbers until Klesmit or Lindsey can give valuable minutes at the PG spot. Until McGee’s return or one of our other guards steps up, we’ll find ourselves in some battles; Either that or our defense will have to pick up the offensive slack and step its game up. Either way, things will get much more difficult in our next three games, all of which vs. Top-50 KenPom teams.

But I’ll continue to have faith in this ball club, and for now, the Model has them winning!

On Wisconsin!

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