Dr. Green and White Basketball Odds Update: Big Ten Tournament Seeding
At the beginning of the Big Ten men's basketball regular season, there were a total of 140 games on the schedule. Simple math tells us that there were 1x10^42 (or one "tredecillion") different ways in which the full season could play out. That is approximately the number of water molecules in all of the oceans on earth.
That astronomically large number of scenarios could have resulted in any one of 87 billion different brackets for the Big Ten Tournament.
As of Tuesday morning, 129 of those 140 games are in the books, leaving just 11 Big Ten games in the regular season. This still leaves 2,048 different scenarios and 966 possible unique Big Ten Tournament brackets that could occur.
In today's update, let's explore the remaining possible Big Ten Tournament scenarios that are still on the table for the Michigan State Spartans (9-9 in conference play) following Saturday night's loss at Purdue. As always, the full set of data related to the Big Ten race and Big Ten Tournament can be found in the odds and data tracker.
State of the Big Ten Race
Table 1 below shows the updated enhanced Big Ten standings as of March 5.
Saturday's loss to Purdue dropped the Spartans to 0.500 in Big Ten play and into a tie with Minnesota for seventh place in the conference. But with a total of 10 teams with records between 11-7 and 7-11, with two games remaining Michigan State could finish anywhere between tied for third place down to tied for ninth place.
Big Ten Tournament Seeding Odds
For most of the Big Ten season, there are so many possible scenarios that simulation is the only reasonable way to estimate Big Ten Tournament seeding odds. I usually run a million Monte Carlo cycles when I generate the tournament seeding odds.
However, in the final 10 days of the season, the number of scenarios reduces enough that it is possible to calculate both the odds and the exact seeding of all (as of today) 2,048 endings to the regular season.
Table 1 below shows the results of this calculation. In addition to listing the odds for the Spartans' first tournament opponent, Table 1 below also shows Michigan State's most like quarterfinals opponent (if they advance that far).
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