Crunching a Big Ten Basketball Game

(LG3K) -- I love looking at games I have no personal bias or knowledge of other than researching numbers. I only talk about team stats and did not include any player stats.

Northwestern’s RPI is 38 with a SOS of 7. Northwestern is 11-2 at home.

At home, Northwestern averages:
72 points for and 63.3 points against

in 11 home wins, won by an average of 12.8 (beat MSU by 7, Penn St. by 12)

in 2 home losses, lost by an average of 14.5 (lost to Baylor by 28, Illinois by 1)

Purdue’s RPI is 65 with a SOS of 48. Purdue is 2-3 on the road.

On the road, Purdue averages:
64.8 points for and 71.2 points against

in 2 road wins, won by an average of 8 points. (Iowa, Minnesota)

in 3 road losses, lost by an average of 16 points. (Xavier, Penn St., Michigan St.)

Common opponents:

Penn State (NW won vs., Purdue lost @)

Illinois (NW won vs., Purdue won vs.)

Michigan (NW lost @, Purdue lost vs.)

Michigan St. (NW won vs., Purdue lost @)
Wisconsin (NW lost @, Purdue lost vs.)

Minnesota (NW lost @, Purdue won @)

Currently most lines have Northwestern at -1.5 with an O/U of 136. Take NW/Purdue averages of home/road points for and against and you get Northwestern at 71.6 and Purdue at 64.1 with a total of 135.7. On Thursday (Jan 26) ESPN had a Big Ten prop for Nebraska @ Iowa for 134 under/135 over. 87.3% picked under and then this happens. Nebraska shoots 52% and Iowa shoots 49%; were their defenses that bad?

I fell for it too.

Luckily for us this is a straight up pick.

The last time Northwestern had a home game was two weeks ago where they tied for their fourth highest point total all season of 81 and won by seven points. Oh, and it was against #7 Michigan State (currently #11). Northwestern’s two home losses were not that bad. Baylor was #8 at the time and undefeated. Illinois is currently 5^th in the Big Ten and would be #3 if the Leaders and Legends carried over. See the Big Ten joke there?

For Purdue, you can somewhat compare Northwestern to Illinois. NW RPI is 38 and Illinois RPI is 39. Purdue won at home against Illinois 75-60. Of course, Purdue’s numbers decline slightly in B10 road games (2-2, won by average of 8, lost by an average of 22.5). In terms of standings, I understand losing at MSU, but Penn State is last in B10 and beat Purdue by 20. Was Purdue still hung-over on January 5^th?

Does this scare a Wildcat? 

If you believe in college stamina, Purdue has had four days and NW has had six days to rest. If you believe in straight up basic number crunching, Northwestern should win. If you are a Purdue fan, you will probably hate me when I say I am going to pick Northwestern to win. See the trend here? As I finish this, 74.5% have Purdue, 25.5% picked Northwestern.


Oh you want me to have confidence? Small streaks 5/5, big streaks 3/5.


UPDATE: I was wrong. Purdue just won 58-56. Northwestern had a horrible offense, especially in the first half. Even their passing made me cringe. Sorry guys!