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.

For the definition of column headings, click here.

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.

Duke isn’t a perfect team. Their defensive rebounding remains suspect. On Saturday Night, it felt like Louisville could take as many bad threes as they wanted because the Cardinals always got the rebound. Ryan Kelly usually takes the blame. He wasn’t a great defensive rebounder last year, and that trend continues into this season. But the moment you start to question one of the Blue Devils, he finds a way to surprise you. Just when you thought that Ryan Kelly lacked strength on the interior, there he was at the end of the Louisville game getting a key block that led to a run-out and basket on the other end. And that four point swing was critical in a five point win.

Meanwhile, Kelly and Mason Plumlee were vital in beating VCU’s press, and that allowed Duke to escape the VCU game with a 12.3% turnover rate. That was the best job a team did holding onto the ball against VCU since the 2011 NCAA tournament. Meanwhile Plumlee and Kelly also matched the physicality in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament. While the refs called plenty of perimeter whistles in the Bahamas, they seemed to swallow their whistles on the inside. And Duke managed to avoid being overwhelmed by the physical strength of players like Minnesota’s Trevor Mbakwe.

Duke may not be #1 in the polls, but in terms of accomplishments, no one has more quality wins than the Blue Devils at this point. They’ve beaten two preseason Top-5 teams and two more probable tournament teams. And as we near the end of November, we are once again reminded that no one has their team ready to play at the start of the season better than Mike Krzyzewski.

Year after year his teams win these preseason tournaments, and they do it by simply making fewer early season mistakes than their counterparts. With Duke nursing a three-point lead in the final minute of the Louisville game, the shot-clock was winding down. Duke was going to have to settle for a tough shot against a Louisville defense that had been shutting them down all day. But then Russ Smith made a foolish gamble. He dove for the ball instead of playing straight up, and Quinn Cook spun into the lane for a beautiful floater that sealed the victory. Duke made the right play, Louisville didn’t, and the Blue Devils won again.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that Duke will be the best team in March. Kentucky is still very young. Gorgui Dieng was out of the lineup for Louisville. And as the analysis below will show, Duke’s early season success doesn’t always translate into March success. But give Mike Krzyzewski credit for dominating the early season once again.

Other Impressive Teams

- Is the key to the early season simply good guard play? Illinois is off to a 7-0 start, and the Fighting Illini made at least ten threes in the first six games of the season. They broke the streak of outside shooting against Gardner Webb (and almost lost the game), but Illinois’ guards have looked fabulous so far this season.

Meanwhile, Cincinnati has rode its guards and looked incredibly impressive in its 6-0 start. In almost every game so far guards Sean Kilpatrick, Cashmere Wright, and JaQuon Parker have scored in double figures. In the preseason I wondered if the inside play of Cincinnati’s forwards would drag the offense down enough to stop the Bearcats from becoming an elite team. And the truth is Justin Jackson has continued to struggle with turnovers. That’s a three year trend that may not be correctable at this point. But Mick Cronin hasn’t felt obligated to give Jackson major minutes. Instead, he has been giving plenty of time to JUCO transfers Titus Rubles and David Nyarsuk, and the early returns are good. Not only have those players been able to finish the lay-ups and dunks that have come their way, their defensive intensity has allowed the Bearcats to reach even higher levels than last season. Cincinnati’s two point defense is near the tops in the nation right now. It helps that Cincinnati has played four of the worst teams in D1 in the early season. But Cincinnati also stifled Iowa St. and Oregon in winning the Global Sports Classic in Las Vegas, so there is some reason to think their defense is for real. I still think the question marks in the post could hurt Illinois and Cincinnati in conference play, but the early returns are fantastic.

Of course, perhaps we should continue to be reminded that the season is still early and we still have a small sample of games. No one looked more impressive than Baylor to start the season. The development of Cory Jefferson into a dominant player and the impressive debut of Top 10 freshmen Isaiah Austin had us all raising our expectations for Scott Drew’s club. But with Brady Heslip out of the lineup after having his appendix removed, Baylor couldn’t produce any points against the College of Charleston and the Bears fell at home on Saturday. Pierre Jackson and Heslip are outstanding guards, but the dropoff to Baylor’s backup guards Gary Franklin and AJ Walton is huge. Franklin and Walton have experience, but they just aren’t good offensive players.

Bullets

- Stanford’s Chasson Randle’s would like to erase the Minnesota game from his memory bank. Randle was 3-for-19 from the floor which was bad enough. But he may have committed the worst play of the season when he fouled Minnesota’s Andre Hollins at the end of the game. Hollins took a desperation half-court heave in a tie game, and Randle inexplicably fouled him. Hollins calmly sunk three free throws to give Minnesota the win. Hollins scored 41 the previous day against Memphis, and Stanford held him in check for most of the game, but Randle’s foolish foul allowed Hollins to win it at the end. Despite the dumb play, I love the postgame comments from Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins who tried to deflect some of the blame from Randle. Dawkins noted that one play doesn’t decide a game, and that Stanford made other mistakes that contributed to the loss.

- My biggest question for Michigan was whether someone could step in and fill the spot-up shooter role (played by Stu Douglass and others in past seasons.) So far Nik Stauskas has been more than up for the challenge. I don’t think his current efficiency numbers are sustainable, but the 78th ranked player out of high school has been much better than advertised. Certainly playing alongside Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway helps, but as teammate Matt Vogrich has shown, simply playing with other good guards doesn’t guarantee you will become a dominant scorer. I don’t know how much longer John Beilein can start Vogrich ahead of Stauskas.

- Northwestern held off Illinois St. in OT (thanks to a late technical by Illinois St.’s Jackie Carmichael), and that gave the Big Ten its fifth title in the nineteen Feast Week tournaments, most of any conference. That has given the Big Ten the early lead in most ranking systems from conference RPI to Sagarin.

- Oregon got 44 points from freshmen in the team’s 83-79 win at UNLV. With those new players and Arsalan Kazemi surprisingly declared eligible, Dana Altman has some great new pieces to work with.

Early Season vs Late Season Coaches

Team X is “going to be so much better by the time conference play rolls around.” I heard this phrase a lot during Feast Week. But I hate to break it to the announcers. Even if everyone improves, some teams are going to fall behind the curve and look even worse in conference play.

Two weeks ago, I talked about how freshmen-led teams have the most potential to improve, (unless the losses pile up and they stop playing defense.) But another question I have been pondering is whether certain coaches are particularly good at developing their teams over the course of the season. The results are presented below. At some level, they make sense to me. Duke hasn’t lost an early season tournament game since 2006. And Krzyzweski has more wins in the ACC/Big Ten challenge than any other coach. Clearly, Duke is at its best in November. And I think Tom Izzo clearly has a reputation as a coach whose teams improve over the course of the season.

But I am hesitant to say that these numbers have much predictive power. By random chance, some coaches are going to have teams that get better over time, and some will have teams that get worse over time. This doesn’t guarantee that Michigan St. will be better in March or that Duke will be worse in March again this season. But whether they have predictive power or not, the past trends are worth examining.

A few notes on the tables. I calculated the average Pythagorean winning percentage for each coach for the time periods listed duplicating the formula used on kenpom.com. Then I averaged those splits over a coach’s career. At most this includes 10 years of data for each coach. This doesn’t include the current season, or the near death-penalty 2006 season at Baylor since I cannot construct splits for those seasons. In many cases, such as Bill Self’s splits, the differences are so small as to be meaningless. Bill Self is dominant in all seasons. The Pythagorean winning percentages are listed in the following tables:

Coaches that Are Great Early

Unfortunately, I think there is a negative stigma associated with the coaches on this first list. Rich Barnes teams have often looked dominant early in the year only to disappoint as the season progresses. But instead of praising Barnes for getting his team up to #1 at some point in the season, we all view him as a “choker” for not getting his team to the Final Four more often.

There also seems to be a negative stigma associated with blasting small schools early in the season. Wisconsin absolutely punishes the small schools it faces, and that raises their power numbers, even though a 40-point win against Presbyterian may not have as much predictive power as the top ranking systems give it.

But that is a very negative way to look at this table. There is real skill to having a team prepared to play in November and December. Mark Few’s teams have typically been fabulous in the Feast Week tournaments, and we respect him for that. So don’t bash Mike Krzyzewski for having his team ready to play in November.

One other trend in the table is worth noting. The best mid-majors tend to show a pattern of less impressive play in January and February. (See Dave Rose and Mark Few.) I think the issue here is that it is hard to blow out conference opponents by 20 points every night, even if they are inferior teams.

The mid-major effect partly explains Mick Cronin’s poor numbers as this includes his time at Murray St. Also remember the 2007 season where Cronin’s Cincinnati team was 9-4 at the end of December with wins against three Top 100 teams, only to go 2-15 the rest of the way. Cronin inherited a team in chaos at that point in time, and I wouldn’t necessarily say it reflects on his future expectations, but it does cause his splits to look pretty poor. I wouldn’t expect a collapse this season based on past performance.

Coaches that Dominate Mid-Season

It is no surprise Bill Self would be on this list given how his teams win the Big 12 ever year, but the truth is Kansas is usually pretty dominant in all seasons. Ben Howland on the other hand, typically needs a couple of months before his teams get on a roll. Buzz Williams numbers look a little lower than expected because this includes one season at New Orleans.

Coaches at their Best Late

I love the contrast of Roy Williams and John Calipari here. Both coaches have had their teams playing at a peak level in March, but John Calipari’s teams have relied much more heavily on in-season growth. John Calipari’s numbers are even more impressive here when you consider that this includes his time at Memphis.

Many of the coaches like Rick Pitino, Tom Izzo, and John Beilein have truly been at their best in the NCAA tournament and everyone is aware of that. But I didn’t want one tournament loss to skew how a team was playing late in the year, so I used the whole month of March instead of only the NCAA tournament. Thus Leonard Hamilton and Frank Haith also get credit as late-season coaches based on their ACC and Big 12 tournament title wins.

Follow @DanHanner

I have a lot of excuses for not using Twitter more often.

1. I am extremely cheap.

2. I don’t have enough time.

3. Writing witty things in real-time is a skill.

There is a reason Grantland’s content is filled with retro-diaries and not live-blogs. The most amusing writing takes time to develop. There are a handful of people who can think on their feet and make amusing observations in real time, but not that many.

(This is one of the reasons that announcers get a bad rap. They have to make observations in real time for hours at a time. How many of us have watched a sporting event with a group of people and had someone say: “Hey, I could do better commentary than that guy.” Maybe, but I doubt it. It is very hard to talk for three straight hours and not say something stupid at some point.)

But the most important reason is simple:

4. I own a DVR.

I have said it before, and I will say it again. The DVR has made almost everything on TV better. It eliminates the commercials. It eliminates the endless shots of the leaderboard in golf. It eliminates the time between the icing whistle and next puck drop in hockey. It eliminates the annoying time between the foul and the free throw when they run ads for Franklin and Bash. And it can even make events like the Spelling Bee into riveting television. (If you love the thrill of competition, watching Gifton Wright spelled harengiform was pure magic.)

But the DVR is the bane of Twitter because Twitter is best absorbed when it is live. For some reason I tend to have my most witty observations when I am watching a game on a 90 minute tape delay. And while I’m sure someone would get a kick out of me living in perpetual delay, I prefer to keep those comments to myself.

The DVR also keeps me off Twitter because Twitter is the easiest way to spoil a sporting event I have on pause. I have a tendency to look things up online during a game. Wow, South Florida’s Anthony Collins seems to be playing great basketball. Are his stats as good as he looks? But I always forget that twitter has no “pause” button. One nonchalant look at the Twitter feed and I see that South Florida’s rally just came up short. Doh!

But while the DVR is bad for tweeting, the college basketball season was full of moments that were best appreciated with the magic of recording technology.

Feb 8th, 9pm

Main Event: Duke vs North Carolina, Part 1

But the DVR saw: Notre Dame trailed West Virginia by three at West Virginia with 2:45 to go in the ball game. The Irish hit three 3’s in a row (Eric Atkins, Jerian Grant, and Scott Martin) to take the lead and pick up the win.

Why it matters in 2012-13: Mike Brey’s team does not have a lot of Top 100 high school prospects like most teams projected in the Top 25, but it has a bunch of players that can execute his offensive system. Winning at places like Morgantown is never easy, and the fact that Notre Dame could win that game is exactly why the Irish will be an upper division Big East team next season. Atkins and Grant are rising juniors, and Martin was granted a 6^th year by the NCAA, so the key pieces from that road win are back.

Feb 5th, 3pm

Main Event: Getting ready for the Super Bowl

But the DVR saw: Northwestern had lost to Illinois at home by a point and were significant underdogs. Illinois was 5-4 Illinois and had just defeated Michigan St. But with the game tied at 56 with five minutes left, Northwestern made several key buckets and held on to win by 4 points.

Why it matters in 2012-13: This was the type of win that saved Bill Carmody’s job. Northwestern has blown a lot of games against key opponents, but they out-executed Illinois in this game and now Carmody gets another year to try for the school’s first every NCAA bid. With Louisville’s Jared Swopshire transferring to Northwestern and with Swopshire being eligible immediately, perhaps Northwestern can have a semblance of a defensive presence on the interior. Under Carmody the offense has usually been fine, but the defense is what needs to upgrade to reach the next level.

March 15th, 7pm

Main Event: Duke upsets Lehigh, Ohio upsets Michigan

But the DVR saw: Purdue had gained a reputation for blowing leads and not being able to close out games thanks to early season losses to Xavier and Butler. And when the Boilermakers blew an 11 point lead against St. Mary’s in the NCAA tournament, it looked like history was going to repeat itself. But the Boilermakers made some late free throws and allowed Robbie Hummel to go out with an NCAA win.

Whit it matters in 2012-13: Rising Junior Terone Johnson scored 21 points in the game, and ended the year with eight straight double-figure games. The Boilermakers lose a lot of key players to graduation, but with Johnson’s improvement late in the year, there is reason for optimism next season.