The 2024-25 college basketball season is underway and most teams in the newly expanded coast-to-coast Big Ten just wrapped play prior to the holidays. In early December, each team also completed one home and one road game in conference play.

Throughout the Michigan State football season, I provide bi-weekly updates on the odds of various season outcomes. I utilize my own power rankings and a set of simulation and other analytical tools to generate these odds. My process for college basketball is very similar.

The major difference is that I prefer to use efficiency metrics, specifically those tabulated by Ken Pomeroy ("Kenpom") to estimate point spreads and odds. These data correlate well to point spreads - and point spreads correlate to actual game results. There is no reason for me to 'recreate the wheel' with my own power rankings for basketball.

I have recently performed my first simulation of the 2024-25 Big Ten season using the updated Kenpom efficiency data through December 22. The results of the simulation and other calculations can tell us a lot about how the Big Ten season will progress. In this week's two-part series, I will share what I have found.

The single most important factor in how the Big Ten season will shake out is the relative strength of each team. It might seem obvious, but good teams tend to win more games than not-so-good teams. The best place to start in this analysis is to review the current Kenpom ranking of all 18 Big Ten teams, which I have summarized below in Figure 1.

Figure 1 includes both the current Kenpom efficiencies and rankings as well as the rankings published by Kenpom on Oct. 15, prior to the season. Note that already a fair amount of movement has occurred in the efficiency of some of the teams.

Several teams are off to better starts than expected. Maryland, Michigan State, and Penn State saw the biggest jumps. On the other side of the ledger, Minnesota, USC, and Purdue have seen the largest downgrades.

A glance at Figure 1 provides a quick overview of the different potential tiers of the conference. Last year at this time, Purdue was projected to be significantly better than the rest of the conference. So far in 2024-25, there is significantly more parity.

There is currently a logjam at the top of the conference with six teams - including Michigan State - ranked between No. 11 and No. 23 in Kenpom efficiency margin. Maryland has suddenly claimed the Big Ten's top spot in Kenpom with strong play over the last few days, but the top six teams (which also includes MSU, Oregon, UCLA, Michigan, and Illinois) are essentially indistinguishable.

The second apparent tier in the Big Ten is made up of Purdue, Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Penn State which are ranked between No. 27 and No. 34. There is then a small gap before the third tier which is made up of Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern, and Indiana. Those teams are ranked between No. 43 and No. 55.

The remaining four teams make up the current Big Ten basement. USC, Rutgers, Washington, and Minnesota are ranked between No. 81 and No. 115 in Kenpom.

In an ideal world, the Big Ten regular season would be 34 games such that each team could face every other team twice, once on the road and once at home. Instead, there are only 20 conference games meaning each Big Ten team will play only three opponents twice, seven opponents at home only, and seven opponents on the road only.

This creates an imbalance in the schedule which does benefit some teams, and which hurts others. But how big is this effect and which teams benefit or suffer?

Table 1 below is a matrix that summarizes the full Big Ten schedule.