Today I present my lineup-based model’s projections for the Big Ten in 2013-2014. While the top of the Big Ten remains strong, the league lacks the depth it had last season.

As always, these won’t necessarily be the final numbers. Last week I presented my model’s projections for the ACC and already two teams have meaningfully improved. First, Wakes Forest added a three point-shooting specialist in Robert Morris transfer Coron Williams. Williams will be eligible immediately as a graduate school transfer and should instantly upgrade the Wake Forest offense. Meanwhile, Miami added Kansas St. transfer Angel Rodriguez and he may be able to get a family hardship waiver to play next year.

Of course it isn’t clear whether Rodriguez should play next year for Miami. Even if he plays, Miami is still going to be behind NC State in my projections and well outside the NCAA bubble. (While the Wolfpack have more talent, Jim Larranaga is the better coach which puts Miami in striking distance of NC State.) That might suggest Miami should save Rodriguez until the following season. On the other hand, Rodriguez has two years of eligibility left and the young Miami players might develop better with a true PG on the floor. Thus it may be worth getting Rodriguez on the court next season even if the NCAA tournament is out of reach.

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Michigan St.: Derrick Nix posted surprisingly low block numbers for a post-player last season and Adreian Payne was by far the better defensive rebounder. Thus the model doesn’t project a major defensive drop-off for the Spartans.

The departure of Nix may also make the offense run more smoothly. With Nix departing Branden Dawson will get a chance to play more minutes at the power forward spot which I truly believe is his natural college position. When Dawson played more minutes on the perimeter last year, his offensive rebounding numbers slipped.

Michigan:  Mitch McGary, Jordan Morgan, Glen Robinson, Nik Stauskas, and super PG recruit Derrick Walton mean Michigan will be a Top 10 team nationally again.

Wisconsin: As of May 5^th on Verbal Commits, Wisconsin has 14 players on scholarship for next year. Did the Badgers actually over-sign? Is this the sign of the apocalypse? According to Twitter the answer is no. One of the walk-on freshman was given a free ride last year.

With Josh Gasser, Ben Brust, Traevon Jackson, Frank Kaminsky, and Sam Dekker, Wisconsin should have a dominant offense again, even if the defense takes a bit of a hit with the loss of so many quality post players. And as always with Wisconsin’s depth, they can bring Top 100 freshman Nigel Hayes along slowly and limit his mistakes. Of course we all expect Wisconsin to dominate the regular season and disappoint again in the tournament. That is what Bo Ryan does.

Ohio St: I think most experts are overrating the Buckeyes because they are overlooking how important DeShaun Thomas was to the Ohio St. offense last season. The same people who expect Georgetown to fall off the map without Otto Porter don’t seem to be dropping the Buckeyes much at all. But Thomas was responsible for a much larger portion of the Ohio St. offense. With all the key defensive players back, the model thinks Ohio St. will have the best defense in the nation. But the offense will probably struggle at times next season.

Iowa: Aaron White and Roy Marble are already stars. Mike Gesell and Adam Woodbury were Top 100 recruits out of high school and both should make a significant sophomore year leap. Plus Josh Oglesby should bounce back from a subpar season. Oglesby shot 37% from three two years ago, but only 27% last season. And with virtually the entire rotation coming back, Iowa won’t have to break in a bunch of new freshmen. Overall that is a formula for an offense that should be substantially improved. This is the season Fran McCaffery finally breaks into the top of the Big Ten.

Indiana: I may have the most pessimistic projections in the nation for Indiana next year, but let me explain what the model is thinking. Essentially everyone who has Indiana in the Top 25 is saying this, “Well they aren’t going to fall that much. They still have some talented players coming in. They’ll still be pretty good.” But having talented players doesn’t ensure anything. What allows coaches to reload and stay in the Top 25 is teaching elite defense to young players. The reason Kansas is projected as a Top 25 team has everything to do with the defense. And Tom Crean doesn’t have a great defensive track record. His only elite defensive teams have come when he has had veteran squads at Indiana and Marquette. He isn’t that good at getting young players to play great defense immediately.

And anyone who studies college basketball closely realizes that even teams with loads of talent can take time to gel offensively. Look no further than North Carolina last year. They were 11^th in last year’s AP preseason poll because they were loaded with Top 100 recruits. But I had the Tar Heels 26^th in my preseason rankings and they finished with the 30^th best margin-of-victory numbers in the nation. The reality is, if you are going to rely on recruits outside the Top 20 (and only Noah Vonleh is a Top 20 recruit,) it usually takes time for those players to figure out the college game.

Even the late transfer of Remy Abell hurts. While Abell didn’t seem to do much against good teams last year, he did show signs of an outside shooting touch. Abell’s departure drops Indiana to a .500 team in my model. The future is still bright for the Hoosiers, especially in 2014-2015. And Indiana will likely be a tournament team in 2013-2014. But I disagree with folks who have the Hoosiers in their Top 25.

Purdue: After Indiana, I am rather pessimistic about the rest of the league. While most of the teams have smart coaches who will get their teams to play good enough defense to be competitive, the talent difference between the top and bottom of the league is pretty significant.

The best news for Purdue is that the Boilermakers gave fully 44% of their minutes to freshmen last year. That investment in young players should pay off this season. Most notably, tons of prognosticators are in love with AJ Hammons potential. Clearly many of the freshmen mistakes that plagued the team last season should be eradicated this year.

But this team simply lacks the depth to compete with the top teams in the league on a consistent basis. The slew of recent transfers is actually a bit of mixed bag in that regard. Even if Anthony Johnson and Jacob Lawson had returned, that wouldn’t have helped a lot. Anthony Johnson improved his free throw shooting last year, but still struggled mightily with his shot, posting an ORtg of 89. And Lawson basically never put up shots. Thus the loss of those two players isn’t major. But the transfer of Sandi Marcius will matter. Even if Hammons is the future of the team, Marcius would have provided needed depth in the paint. And on a roster full of improving young players, but plenty of question marks, the loss of a dependable option is costly.

The model also assumes some improvement for the Purdue defense based on Matt Painter’s early career success. But the defense has been trending in the wrong direction in recent seasons, and if that continues, Purdue could finish even lower in the standings.

Illinois, Minnesota, and Penn St.: Let’s start with the offenses. For all three teams the backcourt will be the strength. Penn St. probably has the best back-court with Tim Frazier (returning from injury), DJ Newbill, and Jermaine Marshall. But Minnesota’s unit will also be strong. Andre Hollins, Austin Hollins, and Joe Coleman all played well at times last year. Illinois’ backcourt will be the weakest, but Tracy Abrams, Joseph Bertrand, and Drake transfer Rayvonte Rice (a high volume shooter who should be more efficient in a more limited role) will still be quality Big Ten players.

But the differences are much more notable in the front-court. Penn St.’s offensive options in the post are pitiful. Ross Travis is probably the best option, but his 87 ORtg last year was dreadful. And none of the Nittany Lions other post options were even three star athletes out of high school. Certainly Penn St. will be as perimeter-oriented as possible next season, but the front-court looks like a huge offensive liability.

Minnesota brings back Elliot Eliason who had moments last year, but who shot so little he cannot be counted on to carry the load. And while Mo Walker continues to have potential, after missing a year and a half with injury, he struggled last season. And that means plenty of minutes for the highly inefficient Oto Osenieks or unranked recruit Charlie Buggs who red-shirted last season.

And suddenly here is where Illinois stands out. Nnanna Egwu isn’t a star by any means, but he had more offensive game last year than any of Minnesota or Penn St.’s post-players. And Illinois St. graduate school transfer Jon Ekey is one of those sneaky useful pickups. He didn’t score a lot last year, but he was super-efficient, and he also has an outside game. Ekey actually made 59 threes two years ago while shooting 40% from deep. Ekey and the improving Myke Henry will play a lot of stretch-4 minutes for Illinois next season.

Thus while none of these teams have great front-courts, Illinois can expect the most offense from its front-court, and Penn St. can expect almost nothing, which is why you see the offensive prediction you see above.

On defense Penn St. was miserable last season and without any true post options, expect more of the same. Illinois should drop-off some, but don’t expect a huge drop-off. The departing Sam McLaurin and Tyler Griffey were dreadful defensive rebounders. Minnesota is the real wild-card here, as it is a bit hard to project how Richard Pitino will do in his first season.

Final Note: I mentioned on Twitter a few weeks ago that Illinois was a 6-12 team. But the addition of Jon Ekey really is a big deal in the lineup based model. Instead of needing to rely on unranked recruits Austin Colbert and Maverick Morgan to play major minutes in the post as freshmen, with Ekey available Illinois can break those two players into the lineup more slowly.

Northwestern: Even if Bill Carmody had kept his job, this was going to be a different Northwestern team this year. With the teams three most efficient players graduating, there simply were not going to be enough great outside shooters to run the offense Carmody loved. (To some degree, there were not a lot of great outside shooters last year. It was Northwestern’s worst three point shooting season since 2007.) So Northwestern was going to have to try to re-invent itself around the plethora of “project” big men on the roster. New head coach Chris Collins at least has the luxury of an established point-guard and he welcomes Drew Crawford back for a fifth season of eligibility. But beyond those two players, basically everyone else is projected to have an ORtg below 100. And that means Collins has his work cut out for him. I truly believe Collins will get Northwestern to the NCAA tournament. But give him some time to bring in his players.

Nebraska: Nebraska returns just 52% of its possessions from last year which should slow the momentum Tim Miles was building late in the season. JUCO transfers Leslee Smith and Deverell Biggs, Texas Tech transfer Terran Petteway, and Florida transfer Walter Pitchford should add some experience which might help a little. But none of them would start for a good team in the Big Ten. (Petteway had a hideous 75 ORtg in limited minutes for Texas Tech. I remember watching him two years ago and thinking that he had no idea what a good shot was. Perhaps that is correctable, but he was still dreadful.) Realistically, this is still the beginning of the rebuilding project. Tim Miles needs to give a lot of minutes to his young players next year and build for 2015-2016.

Last fall on Basketball Prospectus I introduced the first ever lineup-based predictions model. Even -though I intend to make improvements to the model over the summer, since I already have the programming code written, today I wanted to rerun the first version of the model and see what it tells us about the 2013-2014 season.

The biggest problem is guessing which players will declare for the draft. I haven’t seen an official announcement for Nerlens Noel or Shabazz Muhammad, but I think it is clear they are both leaving. I also assume that anyone who can make this year’s lottery would be foolish not to leave. Thus I assume Ben McLemore, Marcus Smart, Victor Oladipo, Otto Porter, and Trey Burke are gone. Michael Carter-Williams never struck me as an obvious lottery choice this year, but the consensus seems to be that the scouts like his size and NCAA tournament play, so I project him as leaving.  Similarly a slew of big guys seem likely to go pro from Gorgui Dieng, to Cody Zeller, to Alex Len, to Kelly Olynyk.

Notably, I’m not going to assume Doug McDermott and Russ Smith come back. I understand there isn’t much more they can accomplish in college, but based on the draft projections I have seen, neither player is guaranteed to be a first round pick right now.  I think that if you are not certain to get a guaranteed contract in the NBA, the risk of leaving is pretty high. Thus I’m going to assume these players return, even though that may be a dubious conclusion.

 Key:

Pred Off, Pred Def, Pred Pythag: The predicted points scored and allowed per 100 possessions, and predicted winning percentage against an average D1 team on a neutral floor.

Returning Minutes, Possessions: The loss of high possession players can be a larger detriment to the offense, thus I list percentage of returning possessions in addition to returning minutes.

T100: Number of players who were Top 100 recruits out of high school. People focus on Top 100 freshmen, but Top 100 players are also more likely to become breakout stars later in their career.

Last Pythag: Last year’s Pythagorean winning percentage according to Kenpom.com. This is essentially a measure of each team’s margin-of-victory in 2012-13.

Kentucky: The Wildcats have the most talent by far, and the most NBA potential, by far. The only question is time. Can John Calipari teach such a wide array of talent to play together in one year? In three of his four years, John Calipari has managed to get the Wildcats to play elite defense. The model hedges its bets and says the defense might not come together that quickly. (The fact that defense-lacking Kyle Witjer is still going to play meaningful minutes is also a concern.) But with all those Top 20 recruits, and all those highly ranked returning sophomores, it is very hard to predict anything other than a special offensive team.

Michigan St.: I’m assuming Gary Harris is coming back based on Tom Izzo’s comments. When a Top 10 Big Ten squad returns basically all its key players, it is hard not to have high expectations. Kenny Kaminski will be healthy. Denzel Valentine and Matt Costello both remain high potential guys who should see a sophomore leap in efficiency. And Harris, Keith Appling, Branden Dawson, and Adreian Payne are as good a returning set of four starters as you will find. Michigan St. might not be the most talented team in the country, but they have fewer lineup questions than just about anyone.

North Carolina: The Tar Heels will be back. The two biggest lineup issues this year were point-guard and one of the forward slots.  We already saw glimpses of point guard Marcus Paige’s improved play late in the year and he should be a star in year two. I can’t tell you exactly who will develop as a post compliment to James McAdoo, but someone will. Whether it will be freshman Isaiah Hicks or Kennedy Meeks, or (after a summer of working out in the gym) Brice Johnson or Joel James, the Tar Heels have four former elite high school post players to choose from. At least one of them will be ready. Overall, North Carolina has more Top 100 talent than anyone else.

Louisville: With players like Montrezl Harrell playing well in limited time this year, Louisville has a chance to go to the Final Four again. But this high ranking depends on Russ Smith’s return. Without Smith, the team will be putting a heavy burden on incoming freshman point guard Terry Rozier. Rozier isn’t in this year’s ESPN’s Top 100 because he needed a year of prep school, but he was a consensus Top 100 recruit last year. RSCI had him 75th.

Florida: Don’t be scared away because the Gators return only 54% of their offense from last year. The Gators add two instant impact recruitsin Kasey Hill and Chris Walker, along with two transfers who were former Top 100 players, Damontre Harris and Dorian Finney-Smith. If the point-guard Hill lives up to his hype, Florida might be even better than last year. They will certainly be deeper.

Michigan: The further development of Mitch McGary, Glen Robinson, and the addition of another stellar recruiting class should help overcome the loss of Trey Burke. But if additional players declare for the draft, Michigan’s expectations could slip.

Arizona: My gut tells me Arizona may be a little too low here. Arizona loses a lot of production, but they have the right pieces coming in. Point guard TJ McConnell was phenomenal at Duquesne and unlike Mark Lyons, McConnell is more of a natural PG. Aaron Gordon and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson should be instant-impact recruits. And the returning sophomores on the front line should be better in year two. The model is mostly concerned whether Sean Miller can bring together an elite defensive team. Last year was Miller’s best defensive team yet, but it still wasn’t an elite defensive team. Until Miller gets his team to play great defense for a full season, there will always be reasons to be skeptical.

Marquette: Vander Blue, Davante Gardner, and Jamil Wilson are back. Buzz Williams has his best recruiting class yet, and the team should have more Top 100 talent than it has ever had in his tenure. Plus Buzz Williams gets the most out of his players by studying the data and eliminating bad possessions. Still, even if the model likes Marquette as a top 10 team, I am concerned that Williams typically has a short-leash with his freshmen. And if they don’t contribute, Marquette may still lack the talent to be an elite team.

Duke: Quinn Cook hasn’t been dominant yet, but he was a Top 10 recruit out of high school, and he is still a high potential player. Andre Dawkins should return from his sabbatical and paired with Rasheed Sulaimon on the perimeter, the Duke back-court looks strong. In the front-court, Amile Jefferson was a solid offensive player when filling in for Ryan Kelly and Jabari Parker is an instant impact recruit. And don’t overlook Mississippi St. transfer Rodney Hood. Duke loses a lot, but the lineup still looks dominant.

Wisconsin: Once again, a model based on the tempo free numbers loves Bo Ryan’s squad. I’m skeptical, but the lineup does look legitimate next year. Remember Josh Gasser is coming back after missing all of last year with an injury. The team’s most important scorer Ben Brust is back. Frank Kaminsky played well in limited minutes. And most importantly, Sam Dekker might be the best post player Bo Ryan has ever had. Seriously, the Badgers lose 45% of their possessions from last year, and the tempo free model still loves them.

Click here for Teams 11 to 25.

Inconsistency can be a good thing. Illinois is a borderline NCAA tournament team this year. But thanks to the peaks of their inconsistency, the Fighting Illini won the Maui invitational, won at Butler, and beat the top ranked Hoosiers. Sure, the Illini were blown out by 20 at home by Northwestern, but the season wouldn’t have nearly been as fun if the Northwestern and Indiana victories were flipped.

On the flip side, if your team is a national title contender, inconsistency is a bad thing. If you want to win six games in the NCAA tournament, you cannot afford to have lapses every few games. In the next table, I attempt to determine which teams are most likely to have those lapses.

I take the teams in the Top 16 of the Pomeroy Rankings and figure out how often they look beatable on the basketball court. Determining a cut-off for beatable is somewhat hard, but I decided to count any game where the team’s game-specific Pythagorean Rating would be less than 0.9000. (Pythagorean Rating adjusts for opponent and venue as on kenpom.com.) 

This cut-off is quite different from counting losses. A team doesn’t have to lose to have a bad game. Miami’s two-point win at Clemson and one-point win at Boston College were bad games even though the Hurricanes ultimately prevailed. Those games showed Miami was beatable, even when at full strength. Similarly, Michigan St.’s three-point home win against Louisiana-Lafayette was one of the worst performances of the season by an elite team, even if the Spartans were victorious.

On the flip side, by using the 0.9000 cutoff, a few losses will not be counted as bad performances. Michigan lost by three at Ohio St. and in overtime at Wisconsin, but neither of those count as bad games. Florida lost by one point at Arizona and Georgetown lost in OT to Indiana, but those do not count as bad games either.

One thing I noticed is that a lot of games against teams ranked 300+ in the rankings looked like bad performances. Even if you beat a team ranked 300+ by 20 points, that doesn’t look like a dominant game because everyone beats those teams by 20 points. But I don’t think a 20-point win should ever count against a team, so I’m throwing those games out. The table only includes games against teams ranked 1-300 in the Pomeroy Rankings.

Surprisingly, this metric paints a different picture than the Pomeroy rankings. While Indiana and Louisville have had disappointing moments this season, the truth is that both teams rarely look beatable. Indiana and Louisville have only played poorly about 15 percent of the time this year. Conversely, Kansas has looked beatable 43 percent of the time. And while Michigan St. has played better in-conference, the Spartans were simply pedestrian throughout the non-conference schedule. 

Next, I wanted to look for the common-denominator in these bad performances.  This can be different from an overall weakness. For example, Florida’s overall weakness is getting to the free throw line. But that does not explain what happens when the Gators play poorly. When the Gators play poorly the problem is that the defense isn’t playing at an elite level. In the five games listed above, the Gator’s opponents have an eFG% of 52 percent compared to 41 percent during the rest of the season. 

When Teams Play Poorly 

Indiana: The Hoosiers struggle most in slow-paced games where their opponents avoid turnovers. Presumably, the Hoosiers do not want to see a team like Notre Dame running the burn offense in their bracket. The Hoosiers have been nearly identical on offense in their good and bad games. But forcing turnovers is key to their defensive success, and when they don’t force turnovers, the Hoosiers are beatable.

Louisville: The 0.9000 cutoff is a little generous for Louisville. Both the Syracuse and Georgetown losses do not count as bad games. If we raised the cutoff to 0.9100, Louisville would actually have two more bad games on their ledger. Still, I think Louisville’s bad performances are illuminating. In the team’s four worst performances on the season (the loss to Villanova, a home squeaker against Kentucky, a home squeaker against Illinois St., and the loss to Notre Dame), Russ Smith has struggled to make good decisions with the basketball. Louisville needs Russ Smith to play well to win. Louisville also plays poorly when a lot of fouls are called in the game and they cannot force clean turnovers.

Michigan: If Russ Smith is an indicator of whether Louisville will win or lose, Tim Hardaway Jr. is equally important for Michigan. Hardaway had an ORtg of 19 in the team’s loss at Michigan St., an ORtg of 68 at Bradley, and an ORtg of 73 vs Penn St. The other issue for the Wolverines is offensive rebounds. Michigan is not a great offensive rebounding team, but in the Wolverines worst offensive games, they’ve seen their offensive rebounding percentage plummet from 34% to 26%. Finally, Michigan’s biggest strength is avoiding fouls, but against a team like Wisconsin, that doesn’t need to get to the free throw line to score, that asset was less valuable. Mid-majors like Creighton or South Dakota St. could be a nightmare for Michigan, because both teams can score without needing to get to the free throw line, and both teams do a solid job on the defensive glass.

Florida: When the Gators play poorly, it is usually about shooting. They shoot worse and their opponents shoot better. That’s a little hard to predict, but one thing to keep in mind, Florida does seem to do better when the pace is in the 50s. Missouri and Arkansas had success against Florida by upping the tempo. But this isn’t all about turnovers. Florida played poorly against Kansas St. in a game where they didn’t turn the ball over much at all. I think a team like Memphis that can push the ball up and down and attack before the Florida defense gets set, might be the true kryptonite for the Gators.

Duke: Duke’s five worst performances have come since Ryan Kelly went down. But before we get too excited about his return, remember that not all players return from injury and dominate. Mike Moser is still getting back into shape for UNLV, and we cannot guarantee that Ryan Kelly will return Duke to early season form. For Duke, throwing off the pace also seems like a big deal. They struggled in a very slow game at Boston College, and in very high-paced games at Maryland and Miami FL. With Kelly out and Seth Curry playing through an injury, I don’t think Duke wants to play high possession games quite like in past seasons.

Syracuse: Syracuse’s weaknesses are the typical ones with a zone defense. If a team has a forward who can dominate from the high post (see Davante Gardner), that team can carve up Syracuse. And as is typical with the zone, when Syracuse doesn’t grab defensive rebounds, the Orange do not play well. Syracuse struggled with defensive rebounding in narrow wins over Cincinnati and Detroit and losses to Pittsburgh, Connecticut, Villanova, and Temple. A strong offensive rebounding team like Colorado St. or Minnesota is presumably Syracuse’s worst nightmare. This year, without depth on the perimeter, Brandon Triche is also a concern. Triche isn’t a perfect predictor of Syracuse’s poor play (he did play well against Temple and Villanova), but when Triche is struggling, Syracuse also typically struggles. Finally, Syracuse struggles in slow-paced games this year. Because they are not a great half-court team, Syracuse needs transition opportunities to play well.

Pittsburgh: When Pittsburgh plays poorly, it is usually about the offense not working. Their adjusted offense is 123.1 in their good games and 104.9 in their bad games. Teams that have perimeter depth and can keep Tray Woodall, James Robinson, and Lamar Patterson out of the lane are Pittsburgh’s biggest problem. Guard-oriented teams from Rutgers to Cincinnati to Marquette to Michigan have been able to do that.

Arizona: The Wildcats might win the Pac-12, but seven of Arizona’s eight bad performances have come in conference play, so I am worried that this team is not peaking. Arizona is a team that really relies on getting to the free throw line, and teams that avoid fouls can be Arizona’s kryptonite. In the tournament, Arizona does not want to see a team that can defend well without fouling. Whether it would be a team with size (like Maryland) or just good fundamentals (like Wisconsin), there are a lot of teams that fit this profile.

Gonzaga: Gonzaga hasn’t been challenged much lately, so it is hard to find a stat that really does the job, but I’m going to focus on defensive rebounding. Since Gonzaga does not have a great eFG% defense, they cannot afford to give up second chance points. Teams like San Diego and Santa Clara hung with the Zags in conference play by crashing the glass. In most games Gonzaga grabs 72% of the defensive boards, but that percentage has dipped to 66% in their worst games. Gonzaga’s defensive rebounding also nearly cost them the game against Washington St. Gonzaga’s defense also has trouble containing great point-guards, but there are not enough of those in the WCC to really prove the point.

Ohio St.: Ohio St. has been Jekyll and Hyde defensively this year. In the 16 good games, the adjusted defensive efficiency has been 83.3. But in the team’s 9 worst performances on the year, the adjusted defense has only been 97.9. It seems like the Buckeyes have struggled more with perimeter-oriented-teams. Northwestern, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Illinois have all made the Buckeye defense look porous this year by shooting lights out. But you have to blame the Ohio St. offense a little too. When the team falls behind, because the offense isn’t good enough to score points in bunches, they have to take more chances defensively. And those gambles have led to some ugly final margins. Really, I wish someone could explain why Ohio St.’s defense is so bad in some games, because I really believe defense is Ohio St.’s strength.

Georgetown: Georgetown’s worst games have come at a slow pace against mediocre teams. See Liberty, Towson, and South Florida. They also usually involved a horrible offensive performance by the team, but that has been changing. Only one of the Hoyas bad performances has come in February, the narrow win at Rutgers.

Miami: Miami should probably be a little higher on this list, because some of the worst performances (like the Florida Gulf Coast game) came with personnel missing. Still, I think it is revealing that four of Miami’s worst performances have come in February. Miami may only have one ACC loss, but that doesn’t mean they have been dominant every time out. Much like Georgetown, Miami has struggled against some bad teams (Boston College, Wake Forest).

Kansas: Kansas has looked like an average team remarkably often this season. When the offense isn’t working, turnovers are almost always to blame. Kansas has to feed Ben McLemore and Jeff Withey to score consistently, and teams that can take the ball away on entry passes are potentially a big problem for the Jayhawks. A team like Robert Morris could be a nightmare first round opponent, given the Colonials ability to create turnovers. This is especially true given that Kansas has struggled against mediocre teams this year from Chattanooga to TCU.

Oklahoma St.: Oklahoma St. is not a great shooting team, particularly from the perimeter. So they need offensive rebounds and free throws to compete. Baylor and Virginia Tech avoided fouls and beat the Cowboys. Kansas St. crashed the defensive glass and did the same thing.

Michigan St: While most of the Spartans mediocre performances came in the non-conference schedule, the Spartans have struggled to put away Penn St. and Nebraska in conference play too. The story for Michigan St. always seems to be about turnovers, good or bad. When the Spartans force them, they win. When the Spartans give the ball away, they look bad.

Wisconsin: Wisconsin has seven games where they were completely dominant. In the blowout wins over Ohio St., Northwestern, Illinois, Cornell, California, and Southeastern Louisiana, and the big time win at Indiana the Badgers had a Pythagorean winning percentage above 0.9900. But over the rest of the schedule the Badgers have been remarkably pedestrian. As the numbers listed above show, Wisconsin has looked beatable on 14 occasions. It usually comes down to shooting. In Wisconsin’s 11 best games of the year, they have an eFG% of 54%. In the 14 games where they were beatable, the Badgers eFG% has only been 44%. Even if Wisconsin has snuck back into the Top 10 of Sagarin’s Predictor and Pomeroy’s rankings, with that kind of offensive inconsistency, they do not look like a Final Four team.