Analysis
B1G Forecast - A "Simple Math" Projected '26-'27 Standings
This is a simple, mostly objective rating system that uses three criteria to forecast future performance:
Last year’s Win Shares – taken from Basketball Reference
Projected playing time – shown as % of total minutes so 70% would mean roughly 28 minutes per game. To protect against the prospect of possibly injury affecting the number, the highest any individual player is forecasted is 75% playing time.
Multiplier based on age/years played – using a multiplier that stat people way more competent than me use (Dean Oliver, Ken Pomeroy, Bart Torvik, etc) Here are the multiplier settings:
Year one – Year two: +40% (freshman to sophomore)
Year two – Year three: +15%
Year three – Years four/five: +10%
For transfers moving up from a non-Power 4 school, the multiplier is set at -20% based on historical data.
For Year one players based on 10-year research, Top 20ish players are given a blanket number of Win Shares that look roughly like: 50% playing time = 3 Win Shares. The higher the recruiting ranking, the higher the Win Shares.
Here are the definitions for the columns in the first slide:
Last year’s Bart Torvik ranking is the first column.
The next 4 columns are self-explanatory.
“Min%-“ shows the % of last year’s total minutes that have left.
Likewise, the next column shows the % of Win Shares that have left.
“HGT” is the average height in inches of all players projected to play more than 10% of the team’s minutes. Research hints that taller teams, particularly teams that play taller players at the 4 & 5 slots, are better defensively.
“AGE” is the average year of all players projected to play more than 10% of the minutes – “3” being what we used to refer to as a “Junior”. Teams with a higher number here tend to have less variance.
“TALENT” is the average Top 100 recruiting ranking of the >10% players. The higher the number, the more top prospects on the roster.
“Min %” shows the average playing time for the non-freshmen on the roster. Like the “AGE” column, the higher the number, the less variance in the projection.
“PRPG!” shows the average Win Shares for the non-freshmen. Same variance argument here.
The “WS+” & “WS-“ show the amount of non-freshman Win Shares returning & leaving the roster.
Since the playing time projections are my best guess, I’ve included each team’s roster showing playing time is included in the slides. My playing time projections are based on things like:
Coach’s history – Shauna & Dawn have been shown to use very short benches, for example.
Freshman & Transfer Hype / Position – Freshman bigs rarely play more than 50% of minutes & higher-rated prospects tend to play more. Also, high-profile transfers tend to get more minutes.
Positional Balance – Teams that are heavy in the backcourt still need to play bigs. I try to balance this out.
Fresh off the coaches/media pre-season poll, I've included the projected Top 20 B1G players by Win Shares for fun. NOTE: Addy Brown in #21...
If you have a case for adjusting this number, please let me know & I’ll adjust the math to see the new totals in the comments here. Speaking of that, I’ll include the results that I got prior to last season in the comments as well.
And yes, I realize the Minnesota number will be controversial… Let's chop it up!
I'm glad you mentioned this - the HS rating is from ESPN's final Top 100. For the foreign-born freshmen, I just used the general "expert" consensus, hence the high ratings for USC's duo & the mid-tier ratings for Sparty's French pair
Here are last season's results - UCLA running away with things & high on Minnesota. Missed on USC & Iowa. Saw Indiana's stuggles but didn't see just how bad Rutgers would be.
They have a 22 year old third year pro from Australia coming in. She played in the top pro league in Australia -- the WNBL a league with many WNBA players in it. She was 7th in scoring in that league
It's ridiculous that she is eligible to play college ball.
She can definitely help in the Holloway spot though
I did but perhaps not enough? I knocked her minutes down from 75% to 50% but I'm unclear just how severe this injury really is. Listened to KBA on a podcast recently and while talking about Holloway quite a bit, didn't let on when she'd be back. Anyone have any news here?
Wow ok - thank you for the info. I did see her recently on that one-legged wheel thing so it sounds pretty serious. I'll adjust her minutes down & reply here with the updated forecast & it looks like there's no change. Since Loughridge is a pro, I'm more confident in bumping up her projection so there's that.
I should've mentioned that I gave those lost 25% Holloway minutes to the mysterious Aussie PG who just showed up in Ann Arbor.
If we knock that number down further from 50% for Holloway, we'd have to probably have to spread those minutes around AND adjust down Holloway's performance since that would make it a far more serious injury.
As it stands, you could safely knock about 1.5 points off of Michigan's total which still puts them firmly in that 8-team contender soup there...
Good call out. We will see, but I expect their new Aussie pg to be more consistent than Mila was. They also are replacing BQD with Ogden from Stanford. BQD was a hard worker and glue player, but teams like Iowa freely helped off of her to take away driving lanes and passing lanes. Ogden is also 6’1” and a more versatile player besides being a clear offensive upgrade.
Well I'm gonna guess anyways - you don't have to respond of course!
Since you mention "depressing" as opposed to anger or disbelief, my guess is that your team had success in the recent past and has fallen since then - a few years of not reaching previous highs. So that's probably Indiana?
8
u/XanthippusJ 15d ago
I was gonna quibble about Journeys HS rating but then I realized who the poster was and uhh...you know more than me.