Happy New Year, Spartans fans!

The last time I provided a math-based update on the prospects of the Michigan State men's basketball team, the Spartans had just defeated the Baylor Bears in Detroit. Michigan State was able to ride the wave of momentum following that victory into a five-game winning streak, including an impressive win over a tough Indiana State club and the first conference win of the season over Penn State.

But that win streak came to an abrupt end on Sunday night in Evanston, Illinois as Michigan State dropped a road game to the Northwestern Wildcats. Some of the same problems that haunted the Spartans earlier in the season (most notably perimeter defense) reared their ugly head.

Michigan State is just four games into the conference slate, but with a record of just 1-3, the Spartans have already dug a sizable hole. How bad are things? Let's check the math and find out.

Table 1 below shows the updated enhanced Big Ten standings with 19% of the regular season now complete.

The raw standings show that Michigan State is currently in a four-way tie for 10th place in the conference. However, Table 1 also shows that the Spartans' current Kenpom ranking of No. 19 is good enough for fourth best in the conference. This is a much better predictor of where the Spartans are likely to finish.

The other value of note in Table 1 is the "luck" metric, which essentially measures the ability of a team to win toss-up games. The Spartans have just one Big Ten win, yet the expected value of wins for the already played game is 2.61. Essentially, Michigan State should be 3-1 or 2-2 based on the point spreads of the first four Big Ten games. This translates to -1.6 games of "luck."

This negative luck rating is by far the worst in the Big Ten. Based on Kenpom's calculations, the Spartans rank No. 352 out of 362 Division 1 basketball programs in luck for the full season. The good news is that luck usually will even out by the end of the season.

Table 2 below shows the updated Big Ten win matrix.