The EvanMiya College Basketball Show

Evan (00:00)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Evan Miyakawa College basketball show. I am your host, Evan Miyakawa, and I am really excited. This is the debut episode of the show. I have been thinking about this and prepping for this for months, and I'm excited to finally get this in your feeds. And there's a lot to talk about. Last week we had some huge outcomes that are reshaping what the top of the sport looks like. We had Michigan take their first loss of the season. We have Nebraska still undefeated in 16 and 0.

And there's a lot of other stuff to get into as well. So we're to get into that really quickly. I do want to tell you off the top what the format of a typical episode is going to be. We're going to start with a national picture conversation talking about recent games and other national topics. And I'm often going to invite a guest who covers the sport nationally, be that in the media, journalist, ⁓ TV personality, something like that, to have a fun conversation with me about what's going on in the sport.

So that'll be the first segment of each episode. The second segment is gonna be more of a team specific deep dive. I'm gonna pick a team each week that we're gonna dig into a little bit more of how they're doing, ⁓ strengths and weaknesses, their outlook for the season, some interesting numbers related to that. And I'm gonna have someone who covers that team really well, specifically be that a local journalist or someone in the media who knows that team really well to do that with me. So we're gonna have a national conversation, a team specific conversation.

And at the end of each episode, I'm going to have a segment called analytics corner where I'm going to pick out a few other pieces that we maybe didn't get to cover during the show that I think are really interesting, probably a little bit more analytics heavy. Often a lot of these insights are going to be coming from my website, Evanmia.com. So that's going to be the general format of each episode. And I think you're all going to really like it. I want to go ahead and jump right into the national conversation. And I am so pumped to have the one and only John Fanta on with me to do this today.

who he's killing it over this year at NBC and Peacock. And Fanta, before we get into the title favorites talk, which I'm really interested to see your thoughts here, I wanna get some of your biggest reactions to the games this week. And for me, are two, the two biggest ones to me, the biggest outcomes are Michigan losing at home this weekend to Wisconsin. think Michigan viewed by many to be the biggest juggernaut in the sport. I know they didn't have the number one ranking next to their name.

but on my website and on many other websites they were and still are the number one team in the country, but they lost in surprising fashion to Wisconsin. And then in the Big Ten, you also have Nebraska, who is incredibly still undefeated 16 and 0. And the odds of them getting to this point still undefeated are insanely low. It is probably the best story in the sport right now. So to me, those are the two big storylines.

Evan (02:48)
Which one of those stands out as the most compelling to you?

John (02:52)
Well, Evan, it's great to be with you and the job that you're doing in this sport is a joy for us all to watch and it helps college basketball in every single way. So congratulations on the pod and I'm looking forward to future episodes. I think it's beyond surprising considering the fact that Michigan owns six wins of at least 40 points. Considering the fact that they got a scare at Penn State and then we're coming back home.

I think a lot of people would have naturally thought, numbers aside, well, teams human nature is gonna kick in, they're gonna say, guys, let's get our stuff together, and let's be a lot better than we were in Happy Valley. But Wisconsin didn't hear a bell. And Wisconsin, I thought coming into the year, Evan, was going to be a dark horse in the Big Ten. Because when I looked at them, even though they had some questions with their roster, I felt like...

This is was a team with John Blackwell that he could steer the ship that Nick Boyd brought some NCAA tournament Experience to the fold and would fit okay with Blackwell. Look did I have Alexis Beloucus Hitting five threes and scoring 17 points No, but that's a product of Greg guards offense and I know this is something that you've studied the offensive evolution of Greg guard is really interesting and it comes with

staff members and different suggestions that he's taken over the years that have evolved his style. But Evan, the evolution of that style is why Wisconsin won this game. Because of how they play and how they can make shots. So, it was shocking. I mean, you would have said that Michigan's first loss would come probably on the road in the difficult Big Ten. And I don't think that we need to overreact to one game for Michigan and a loss for Michigan. But one thing that you do look at with them is you say, okay,

They can be scored upon. Now, how are they going to get scored on? Well, you have to set elite ball screens. You've got to be able to have great off ball motion and you've got to make threes. And maybe they're big, they're super big lineup that they can just impose on teams. You've got to use spacing to beat that. was, was incredible win. It's a season trajectory changing victory for Wisconsin. That was the biggest takeaway from, from my end of the weekend because

It's eye popping to see that happen. That being said, the Nebraska Cornhuskers are the best story in college basketball. Bar none. Fred Hoyberg comes into the year. There are no expectations. People do not have them in a projected field. People do not expect them to figure into a loaded Big 10. And for them to be sitting on January the 12th at an unbeaten 16 and 0.

And I know they might not be top five on analytic sites. I get that. That's a testament to their will to win, their toughness and Rick Mast, who is a tone setter in every single way. Nebraska is the best story in the sport.

Evan (05:54)
I agree with you and I'm going to save some of my Michigan thoughts for later in the podcast, but I think Nebraska, mean, forget about the analytics for a second. I know that they're not ranked as a top 10 team right now in my site and other sites, but the ⁓ ability for them to win all of these games is, is remarkable to me. And not only, mean, you, you were already talking about them being 14 and no coming into this last week and saying, this is great. You know, they had a win.

against Michigan State, they're gonna have two tough road tests in the Big Ten. And this is oftentimes when teams come to die is just like middle of the pack teams in the Big Ten on the road. It's tough to win. And the Big Ten is so, so loaded. So you had a team going against, you had them going against Ohio State and then Indiana. And, you know, it would have been a pretty reasonable expectation for me if they just go one and one and split those games. I think you would be very happy with that. But they led most of the Ohio State game. They won by three.

And then they're going into a really energetic assembly hall against Indiana. Already a tough task. Indiana, think, was favored in that game. And then you find yourself down by 16 points in the second half. I think according to ESPN, their probability of winning that game at that point was 5%. And then they have a 20 to four run to tie the game. Jamarcus Lawrence has the best game of his career. 27 points, five threes. I think that's his career high. He only averages 10 points a game. ⁓ So to me, it's

And Nebraska now, according to my site and kind of my opinion, I think they have arguably one of the best resumes in the sport. No, maybe they've not knocked off a top five team or top 10 team, although you can definitely argue that Michigan state is that, but just from a, a probability standpoint, winning every single game of those 16 games is a feat that almost no other team in the country could do. So that alone to me is incredibly impressive. They're setting themselves up really well.

for the rest of the season. I don't care when their first loss comes. It's gonna come at some point, but this is remarkable.

John (07:57)
No, I mean, you look in the top two quadrants and you break it down right now in this sport. And there are only four teams in the country that can say they're a combined nine and O in quads one and two, Arizona, no surprise. Iowa state, no surprise. The Vanderbilt Commodores, who we can get to and the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Michigan now has a loss in those top two quadrants. Now what's Michigan's benefit resume wise?

They've only played two quad four games. I respect the heck out of that. think the committee does too. Nebraska has played six games of that nature, but nine and in the top two quads and five and in Q one, that's incredible. And when you break them down analytically, which I love bringing this up on broadcasts. think it adds to a broadcast when you can contextualize things. When you look at their style of play, number one, it's a top 15.

defense in America. Number two, it's a top 30-ish offense, but the three-point line is where they're winning a lot of games. And not just offensively, but on the defense event. Yes, Indiana hit 11 threes, and they did shoot 37%, so it wasn't like they had a horrid day from three-point land, but in the second half, Nebraska couldn't miss, and Nebraska was able to get enough stops packaged together.

to make Indiana eventually give in. I just, the fact that Lawrence goes for the 27 points speaks to their versatility. On one night it could be Price Sanford, on one night it could be Rink Mask, on another night it could be Lawrence, like we saw. know, Sam Hoiberg is a guy that, he doesn't always do it flashy in the box score by the numbers, but his presence means a lot. And what do they have, Evan? Top 30 experience in the country. ⁓

portal era, we are seeing the teams that possess top 30 experience. Another team that's ranked in the top 25 today that would surprise everyone is Seton Hall. They went from sub 280 in experience to top 25 in experience. Experience wins more than it loses.

Evan (10:11)
I agree with you.

I agree with you. think it's experience. I think it's bringing key pieces back and you're seeing a lot of the best teams in the sport do that really, really well. So, you know, Nebraska, they're relentless. I love Rick mass. I think he's an incredibly fun player. ⁓ and honestly has been pretty underrated for them, not just this season, but in years prior. So I love him getting the attention. There were some other big results this week and you got to be at the center of the action for some of them calling these games. ⁓ Yukon had a, his like an incredible

⁓ come back to win in overtime against Providence. And then you also had Houston, I think, is being slept on nationally. They went 2-0 this week. They beat Texas Tech at home in a big win. And then they just absolutely walloped Baylor on the road. Both UConn and Houston, I think, are really lurking in that category of like, hey, maybe we're not number one, but where will we be in a month? So I think those two teams are really impressive. What sticks out to you about them?

John (11:09)
Well, Houston, it's the freshmen. It's the Kingston Fleming's and Chris Sinek have come in and just found a way to become a real part of their identity and contribute to winning. And when Sinek starts to make perimeter shots, which is starting to happen, forget about it. Like Kelvin Sampson having a big man who can stretch the floor. Uh-oh, that's gonna be problematic for teams.

Because as is, like, we gotta win this war down, you know, down low. We gotta be able to get through the physical battle there. Wait a minute, they got some finesse? And Evan, I felt that at times, even last year, even last year when Houston had three tremendous shot-making guards, and they have that again this year, that even then, their style could lend itself to going through droughts. Well, look at Houston right now. You would actually say, and the analytics show this, that...

Their offense, even though their defense, ⁓ like Brian Roff said this, like yeah, their defense is still among the nation's best, it is. But as he said, like their defense actually relative to some other Houston defenses is not as good, which is scary because the defense is still a top 10 unit. I think they're ahead on the offensive end of the floor, Evan. And when it's freshmen that I'm talking about and it's January,

That's what encourages me about Houston. Like this Houston team isn't done getting better. That's why I like them more than other Houston teams. Now I loved last year's team, but other teams prior that I'm like, I think there's a ceiling. And you know, we're in a group chat, our Scrapple group chat, and that group chat said, there's a shout out, our group chat said like, I think they might be reaching, you know, this is the same old, same old. No, like Kelvin's evolving and his team is too. So.

That's the thought process on Houston. By the way, Baylor's in danger. Their NCAA tournament streak is very much in danger. They have a ton of questions and they did not return any scholarship players. Fun fact, sounds smart with your friends, them, Miami and Memphis are the three. For Miami, it's worked out all right. For Memphis and Baylor, not at all. UConn. UConn, defensively last year, was a disaster at this point of the season.

They are now an excellent defensive machine. And when they are able to start making perimeter shots, they're an unstoppable beast. How are they making those perimeter shots? Because they're playing Breyland Mullins at the two. Solo ball who got benched, but got benched from the Providence game, which is another element here at the three, and Alex Carabane at the four. If it's not ball, it's Jalen Stewart. Carabane is at his natural position on this team.

and you as a defense have to pick your poison, somebody's gonna get free for a shot. And now Silas Demery, that's the biggest thing with UConn. Silas Demery looked like the Tristan Newton type piece to the UConn national title teams this past week. Will it continue? We'll see, I would think it does. But Connecticut's a freight train. Braylon Mullins is a stud, another freshman. This freshman class is gonna go down as maybe the best we've covered collectively. Because even like,

Evan, even the mid-tier freshman, and Mullins isn't a mid-tier one, but even the middle freshman, you're like, man, he's really good. This draft is gonna be unbelievable. Mullins, Terris Reed has gotten better. UConn has everything. They have an answer to every one of your questions. You have to hope that they're having a rough night from three or turning it over to have a chance at beating them.

Evan (14:50)
Yeah. And you mentioned Yukon's defense last year. There were obviously a lot of things that didn't go well for this team. One of them was they had a defense outside the top 40 nationally, Evanmia.com. Right now they rank as the sixth best defense in the country. That's great. I mean, what, what a defensive improvement there. And I think this is a good segue into kind of the, the title contenders list. So something that I do about once a month is I put out a graphic that looks at the efficiency landscape of all the teams in college basketball. And I specifically have a title favorites tier.

that I kind of have a systematic way of determining like who are the teams that are real, the real title favorites. And I'm going to give that list here. It's basically right now, currently Michigan for me, Michigan, Arizona, Iowa State, Purdue, Yukon, Duke and Houston. Those are my seven. Okay. But you could also include Vanderbilt, BYU, Illinois, Gonzaga in that conversation. So

John (15:38)
Yep. ⁓

Evan (15:47)
For me, those are the seven and I feel good about that seven, but would you make any changes to that list or where would you kind of put the threshold for? These are the teams I feel are the real serious threats to win this whole thing.

John (15:56)
Okay, so here's how I would look at it. I still like Michigan more than enough. I'm gonna form a couple of tiers. This is tier A. Michigan, Arizona, Yukon.

And I will go with Iowa State in tier A, okay? And Iowa State's earned it. And Iowa State, my only question with Iowa State is, will they be able to come out okay? And Houston would be in the tier A. Tier A is that, that's tier A. So three big 12 teams are in tier A. Houston belongs in the top tier. They do. And if you're not, if you don't think so, you're not watching them play basketball because they're unrelenting. Iowa State belongs because they have

Tame and Lipsy to run the show, Joshua Jefferson and Milan Mamchilovic. Yes, with Iowa State, the one question I have is can they just get through the wear and tear of their league? And does their offense stay as efficient as it's been? I would think it does. But the Big 12's a monster. And we have seen some of these leagues where, yeah, a team ends up coming into March not at their best. It's a very real part of the sport.

But that would be tier, tier A for me.

tier B would be Vanderbilt, Duke, Nebraska, and Gonzaga. that would be, that would be, and Purdue. It's a large tier B. I only want to do four teams, but I'm going to put five teams in there. And you got to put Vandy in Nebraska. like Vanderbilt Evan,

What they did last week to Alabama, they look like a final 14. And the ball spreads and coach Binton runs an elite offensive system, but they've got multiple guards. Tanner, Miles, Nickle, their ability to make shots. mean, if you had any concern about them, you, you, you might say, well, you know, if Washington were to get into some foul trouble, but he only averages 19 minutes a game. You know, they, they've got a couple of forwards, uh, McLaughlin.

Okurikkei, like they've got pieces that suggest they're gonna be in this thing for the duration. They're a well-rounded, complimentary team and they're top 12 or 13 in both offense and defense. Andy's not going anywhere, Andy should be in a regional final. If all goes the way that I think it can, they're gonna be sitting there. So, you know, that's tier B. Like, I watch Illinois play, there are sequences where I'm like,

They look like T-Rex.

They might be the most underrated team in the country. Because I just think people are like, yeah, another good Brad Underwood team. No, no, no. A Brad Underwood team with upside that could be great. Because when you combine the Ivacich brothers and everything that they do, Keaton Wogler's been the biggest surprise freshman in the country. I mean, who saw this coming from Keaton Wogler? Mirkovic, tough. He's got some shangoon in him. How about that for some praise? Stojakovic, tough.

And makes, Brad has said it, like he's still trying to figure out his role and stuff. I like that Brad lets them play through their mistakes. They are so talented. They are so fun to watch. I didn't bring up BYU. just, I worry about them a little bit as big 12 season goes on, on the road. I think they're so talented. I love their style. But you you got to leave somebody out. can't, you can't, I can't love everybody. To me, the team that's going to end up in tier B.

That is nowhere close. I have a scalding hot take on this podcast. And you probably won't think it's scalding, but I think the country would right now. My SEC champion, the Florida Gators. I think they will ultimately win. And think about it, I didn't check the poll today. I'm assuming that they're back into the rankings. They sure as hell should be back into the AP top 25. But if you look at them analytically, I mean, that's a...

Evan (19:37)
Let's hear it.

I'm with you there.

John (20:03)
They're up to 19. So that's good. They were on ranked. They're up to 19. They're they to me are the dark horse in the country.

Evan (20:10)
I agree. mean, they have a great team. They've been underwhelming, but it's this type of team that often ends up making noise in March of like, you have a great roster, you were up and down during the season, you get hot when it's right, and then your talent just overwhelms people. So I really like the Florida shout out there. Okay, I'm going to end with this. This is a similar conversation, but I'm going to make you pick a little bit of a tighter answer here. So one of the things that I do on Twitter is I have this thing going where I'm predicting what seed a team is going to get.

two months plus before the tournament and my deadline to get a pick teams is Thursday because Thursday is going to mark two months before selection Sunday. And I've only picked I've already picked three teams as my one seeds. Again, this is way too early. So, you know, we're just having some fun with this. But through the course of November, December, early January, I picked three teams, but I haven't decided who my fourth number one seed is going to be. So my three that I've already picked are Michigan, Arizona and Duke.

That last spot, that last spot I've been waiting to decide on because I feel like it's a toss up here and the contenders for that last spot in terms of predicting who's going to be a one seat on selection Sunday would be Yukon, Iowa State. And then maybe if you want to throw Purdue in there, potentially Vanderbilt, I guess you can throw Nebraska in there and Houston. But for me, I think it's really

John (21:09)
Wow!

Houston.

Evan (21:36)
UConn and Iowa State feel like the most obvious picks there for me to personally pick who's gonna be that last one seed. So which of those teams do you think is the most likely to get on the one seed line come selection Sunday?

John (21:49)
Because Iowa State and Houston will at some point get a hiccup in the Big 12. And I don't know if you, UConn, UConn might go 19 and one of the Big East. They might, maybe not, but they might damn well. And assuming that that, if that were to happen, if even if they go 18 and two and then win the Big East tournament, I just think based on situational stuff and the league that they're in, I think that that Connecticut would be that fourth one seed. They're chasing it.

They know it's there. The Big 12 has more battles and just harder games along the way. so I love the Duke pick. Duke tested themselves in non-con. They're a really good team. know, they kind of get like for lack of it, they get criticized more than any other team. Like they're 15 and one and they've got seven. They got seven quad one wins. Like, you know, people are like, I don't trust them. don't trust. Well, when are you going to start trusting John Shire?

Like yeah, he had a tough Final Four loss. It's scary for the rest of the country that John Shire could be the coach for 30 years. He's going to break through and win a title. They're not going anywhere. And it's good for the sport. Duke is, they're as relevant a brand as any, but like they're winning like that. Kentucky's not doing that. Carolina ain't doing that. Kansas isn't doing that. Kansas has fallen off. The blue bloods in this sport are in a bit of crisis outside of Duke. Think about that, Evan.

So, but I would take UConn, UConn's a blue blood. UConn's a blue blood, and by the way, UConn and Duke need to play. Okay, those two teams need to, those two programs need to figure out a way to start playing. They need to be playing every year. They need to get that deal done. It needs to happen. I know there's been some chatter. Get it done. UConn would be my fourth number one seed. So you've got Michigan, you've got Duke, Arizona, right? And then, and then UConn. Yeah, I mean, I can't argue with that. I love all four of those teams.

Evan (23:23)
That would be incredible.

John (23:44)
consider that Houston could manage to hop Arizona. I know that sounds absolutely nuts right now, but remember a lot can happen in two months.

Evan (23:55)
I don't think that's a nuts take. Houston has dominated the Big 12 to absurd, absurd degrees the last several seasons. I think everyone else in that conference is really, really scared of Houston.

John (23:58)
Dominated.

There

are 37 and four in the big 12. 37 and four with one home loss. And that was to Texas Tech. Speaking of which, not mentioned at all, Texas Tech still, that's how good the top of the country is, Evan. Like college basketball is in a very good place. I know that there's, and you and I celebrate the game. I can be negative when it calls for it, but in the midst of all the chaos, the sports quality and shot making has never been better. And I think your site,

Evan (24:09)
That's unreal.

John (24:35)
would suggest that.

Evan (24:36)
Absolutely. mean last year coming into the tournament I think we had a very clear top four in those four one seeds and then it was maybe you could throw one or two teams in but You we knew the national champion was liking coming from that list this year. I think it's more like 10 to 12 teams I really do think we have some really really excellent teams and I think that's gonna make for a really fun tournament This has been great Fanta. I really really appreciate you coming on. You're the best and I just really appreciate this. This was a fun convo. And so yeah, hope you have a good one

John (25:06)
Right back at you, Evan, you're doing tremendous work in this sport and can't wait for this show to keep on growing and keep rolling. I'd be glad to join you to talk ball anytime.

Evan (25:16)
Great stuff from Fanta, always love talking to him and ⁓ he just does tremendous work and he is one of the rising stars in my opinion in the college basketball play-by-play and analysis department. He's already called some really, really big games for NBC and Peacock so far this year and he's got another big one. Michigan is taking ⁓ Oregon on on the road this Saturday and he will be on the call. So ⁓ be sure to tune in and watch Fanta for that. ⁓

A couple things I wanted to kind of follow up on from that conversation. I do want to quickly mention a few more things on this incredible Nebraska story. I mentioned this. I think Nebraska has an argument for one of the best resumes in the sport. On my website, I have a metric called resume quality. It's similar to wins above bubble. If you're familiar with that, it's basically a way of determining how difficult would it be for

a team that's right on the NCAA cut line to perform against your schedule and then compare that to actually how you did as a team. Now, Nebraska right now ranks third in the country in resume quality ⁓ behind Arizona and Yukon. it is fractions of a decimal here that separates them from having the best resume in the sport. Now, do they have the best ⁓ wins in the sport? No. ⁓ going playing the entire schedule that they've played

including the conference games and winning every single one of them should not be ⁓ undervalued here. And that is one of things I really like about resume quality is that it doesn't just look at like what are your elite wins. It also looks at like the fact that Nebraska has beaten Creighton and Kansas state and Wisconsin and New Mexico and Oklahoma. All of those games matter and mean something. And it's not a given that a team of their strength or any strength would go undefeated against that schedule.

And another thing I've been talking about on Twitter is looking at the probability that this Nebraska team would still be undefeated at this point in the season. If you look at the pregame probabilities on evanmia.com in terms of going into the game, what was their probability of winning? And that generally reflects kind of public opinion about are they going to win this game or are they going to not? If you stack up all 16 of those games that they have won, the probability that the Nebraska Cornhuskers would still be undefeated right now

is 0.09%. That is unbelievable that fractions of a percent chance that they would have an undefeated record here just speaks to the job that the coaching staff has done that the players have done. And the big storyline for them is Nebraska has never won a NCAA tournament game. You would have to think that's going to happen this year. ⁓ did predict, you know, talking about the whole predicting team.

seeds in the tournament thing. A couple weeks ago I predicted Nebraska is a five seed that's already looking really way too low. So I think they're going to be much better than that. ⁓ I am a little bit cooler than Fanta. I really respected him putting in his national title contenders list there in his tier B. I've got Nebraska as the 17th best team right now in terms of my predictive analytics of how good they're going to be going forward. But when you talk about the fact that they have the third best resume in the sport ⁓ and the other factor that really helps them is

They have been better than any other high major in the sport this year at playing up to elite competition. When you look at the best teams that they have played, they have saved their best performances and their best ball for those games. So really, no matter who they have on their schedule, they're going to give them a fight and that bodes well for them. ⁓ So I'm interested to see how they do going forward, but I certainly hope the wins continue because this has been an incredible storyline. The other thing I wanted to follow up on here is

When we're talking about national title contenders, I do not want people to be sleeping on Purdue and Houston. John Fanta put Houston in his ⁓ tier A of title contenders. I think that's a great take. And I think, you know, as we talked about, Houston is really dangerous. Purdue, also think ⁓ is being slept on because I think both of these teams took a loss earlier in the season that really knocked them out of being the number one team in the country.

and they've sort of fallen off the radar a little bit in respect to that. But Purdue was the number one team in the preseason in the AP poll. They were the number two team in the preseason in my preseason analytics predictions for teams at evanmia.com. Houston was the number one team. So these were the, according to the pieces that they had on their roster, the coaching acumen, the team success, all that, these were the two teams, Houston and Purdue, that were predicted to be the best two teams in the country. And right now they have been quote unquote disappointing

and are sitting at fourth best in the country, Purdue, at evamia.com and seventh for Houston. ⁓ And so I think people are kind of have forgotten about them a little bit. I think that would be unwise to do so.

Evan (30:12)
The thing that's so interesting about Purdue and Houston, these two teams, is that they are kind of polar opposites in terms of the product that they're putting on the court. Purdue is a very offensive team and Houston is, their bread and butter is defense. Purdue right now has the best offense in the entire country, according to my predictive team ratings, and the 23rd best defense. And Houston has the best defense in the country and the 22nd best offense.

So almost the exact same on the offensive defensive inside of the court, just with a bit of a different emphasis for each of them. But again, I think, ⁓ you know, both those teams are going to be ⁓ very, very dangerous as we get into February and March into tournament play. ⁓ And so I think they could be ⁓ very, very dangerous for those teams at the top, Michigan, Arizona, Iowa State, et cetera. You know, and I think again, this blueprint that I see so many teams succeeding with in this modern portal era,

where you can rehaul a roster from scratch and fill it with anybody that you want. The best teams, the teams that are the most reliable are the ones who are retaining the key talent, the key pieces from the year prior and returning them and then adding other talented pieces around them. But keeping that continuity, at least the important continuity as much as possible. And both of these teams, Purdue and Houston, have a trio of players who they brought back who are doing exactly that. Purdue, it's Brayden Smith, it's Trey Coffman-Renn, it's Fletcher Lawyer.

And for Houston, it's Emanuel Sharp, Myles Yuzan, Joseph Tuggler, all players who played in the national title game last year. And then their best player is Kingston Fleming, a freshman who, ⁓ you we knew Houston's freshmen would be good. I don't think people thought this would be the player who not only is their best freshman, but their best player. But you have to imagine that having Sharp, Yuzan Tuggler, and some of these other guys returning from last year is what allows these other new pieces to be so successful.

So I love Purdue and Houston, keeping an eye on them going forward.

Evan (32:13)
Next up, we are going to do our weekly team deep dive. And there is no better time to be talking about the Michigan Wolverines than a couple days removed from their first loss of the season in shocking fashion in Ann Arbor, Wisconsin, 91, Michigan, 88. And with me to talk about this team is Greg Waddell from Sleepers Media, who is a Michigan fan and does a great job covering them over on Sleepers channel. One of my good friends.

Greg Michigan had a scare earlier this week ⁓ where they played Penn State on the road, a game that they were favored by 23 to win according to my site. And they only ended up winning that game by two. It came down to the end. And then there was a thought of them just like crushing Wisconsin this weekend to kind of rebound. But that was not what happened. Wisconsin wins the game 91 to 88. Michigan again was favored by 23 at home. According to my game predictions, favored by close to 20 points according to Vegas.

and they did anything but have a convincing performance this weekend. So big picture, how do you feel about Michigan right now? I know you were in the building for that game this weekend.

Greg (33:18)
Yeah, as long as I'm not there, I think they're fine. ⁓ No, I'm rocking the Wisconsin shirt today just out of pure respect for Nick Boyd and John Blackwell. And they earned that victory. They really did. It was a shot making fiesta of sorts. was, you know, 10 minutes of that second half right out of halftime where 66 points were scored between the two teams. And it was just one of the highest level offensive games I've ever witnessed in person.

And obviously that that can say something about what's going on defensively to they played Michigan out of the drop coverage with Mara and that was a big problem. And you know, I, I do wonder matchup specifically what other teams might be able to employ stretch fives and bomb them out of something like that. But at the same time, like if a guy that had eight made threes on the season makes five, you got to tip your cap and Boyd and Blackwell were truly spectacular. So

I don't think I'm really moving off my belief that Michigan's the best team in the sport when they play their best. I think there are conversations to be had about what their floor maybe is versus in Arizona, who certainly feels like they are playing to a higher floor right now than Michigan any given night. But I do think there's a little bit of a misnarratively with how people are discussing this Michigan team that, you know, if they are a historically good team, that must mean they're going to win every game by 20.

I don't think that's real at all. I mean, I would point to last year's Duke team, historically good team that was on the ropes and had they played in a stronger version of the ACC, we would have seen some more flair and drama. Even 2015 Kentucky started 38 and ⁓ they had a couple of games in overtime in the SEC and obviously you need to win these games. But, ⁓ I think we've seen even the best teams in NCA history have a two week stretch, like what Michigan is going through right now.

It's going to be about how do they come out.

Evan (35:13)
Yeah, I mean, Michigan's gonna have 20 plus more games this season. There's no way that we're talking about a historically great team even like just knocking out all those matchups off with ease. I think we're gonna talk Michigan versus Arizona a little bit. ⁓ But I think the thing that sticks out to me about Michigan is, and I'm with you, I think that they are the best team in the country when they're at their best. I think there is a really wide range of outcomes with this team, but I think when we get to tournament play, ⁓

If they are clicking the way that we saw them in that tournament format in the players era in Vegas, the way that they were dialed in, ⁓ you know, I don't necessarily think there's a team in the country I would take ⁓ rather than them to win six games. But again, they have to be on it and they'd certainly weren't this week. And, know, you could attribute some of that to the fact that maybe they weren't locked in as much because they weren't playing in a high profile game. But every game in the Big Ten is tough. And so.

You know, this is what the Big Ten does to you during the regular season. ⁓ My kind of outlook on them is like, I still have them as the number one team in the country at evanmia.com. They certainly dropped a little bit, but I still have them above Arizona. I still have them ranked as the best defense in the sport. ⁓ I think resume wise, this is actually kind of interesting. They now have the 10th best resume ⁓ in the country according to my resume quality metric.

Now, I don't think that's where they'll end up. I think they will probably end up on the one seed line most likely, if not a two seed. There's just so many great opportunities for this team and the critique for them, for a lot of people, and I think there has been a lot of people sort of hate watching this Michigan team because the media has been gassing them up so much. That's been kind of interesting to observe. ⁓ you know, I think that, ⁓ you know, they do now have some work to do in terms of getting some more marquee wins. They're certainly not going to have their lack of opportunities playing teams like Purdue and Illinois.

Greg (36:47)
Yeah.

Evan (37:03)
Michigan State. ⁓ But they certainly didn't have a good week. ⁓ Their rating dropped the second most of any team in all of Division 1 this week in the last seven days at FNBA.com. certainly wasn't a good week, but big picture like they're still as strong as they get. And so, you I still feel pretty comfortable with them going forward.

Greg (37:22)
Yeah, I think that's the right outlook for sure. I'm not overly surprised at your site or ⁓ really anywhere you look analytically. I'm not surprised that they're holding strong atop the sport, just given how dramatically ahead of everyone else that November stretch was. ⁓ You know, I would point this out. I feel like there's been a lot of discussion as if they're untouchable at their best and

you know, against the Gonzaga's and you know, Gonzaga is very good, right? That was a great data point outside of that Gonzaga game. It became a little bit for me on online hashtag play somebody. We don't know how good Auburn is. We don't really know how good Villanova is even yet to this point. I just think even if Michigan ceiling is the best in the sport, I think there's teams who can approach their ceiling. I don't think they're like on another

planet in another universe away from Arizona or, or top five teams. And, it's been funny. know we were talking offline a little bit about it. There's been a lot of smart people doing think pieces on how do you beat Michigan in the last two weeks? ⁓ I get why there's also a lot of different ways to beat Michigan. You don't have to follow one to two specific ways. You could make twice as many threes as Michigan makes. That's what Wisconsin just did. You can attack Mara. You can

Get more off the floor and possibly put him at the free throw line in this game Wisconsin got Elliott Cadeau Auto benched in the first half and they blew a 14-point lead into a one point half team halftime lead without Elliott Cadeau in the game So I just want to make that clear as a fan like even if they are historically good There's plenty of different ways you can possibly beat this Michigan team and maybe we should get into some of those

Evan (39:08)
Yeah,

well, mean, you know, I think Wisconsin has an ability to ⁓ have incredible performances against, you know, top 10 teams kind of no matter how good they are. And the two stats that stuck out to me ⁓ about their win over Michigan kind of comparing to all other games that Michigan has had under Dusty May in the last two years, Wisconsin made 15 threes. That's a lot. And it's the most conceded by Michigan in any game in the last two years. And then another thing, too, is that I think a big

Calling card from Michigan this year has been their ball pressure and forcing turnovers and they just had one steal against Wisconsin also the fewest in any game under dusty May and they were averaging like seven per game this year So like you said, know other teams can if they play their best and they they find a specific angle You know, this team is not impenetrable ⁓ You know, I think a lot of the the weaknesses that you might point to with this team

⁓ I don't necessarily know if those were actually fully on display against Wisconsin like Mara didn't really like he still played around his normal amount of minutes Cadeau had the ball in his hands a lot, but he scored almost 20 points. He just had one turnover and ⁓ Wisconsin still won the game ⁓ So, you know, like you said, I don't think they're unbeatable ⁓ but I the the interesting data point for me that I want to ask you about is One of the things I track on my website is looking at teams that are either really consistent from game to game

or really volatile from game to game. When you look at the top two teams in the sport right now between Michigan and Arizona, and those are the two teams I believe are up there. Arizona is the number one team in all of division one in terms of consistency from game to game. Their performances are consistently always excellent. They rarely have games where they just like really, really blow the brakes off of a good team, but they also don't really have many letdown spots at all. On the flip side of that coin, Michigan is like the polar opposite. They are

third worst inconsistency or the third most volatile team from game to game. We've certainly seen that with their big performances against Gonzaga and other teams in that players era tournament. And then some of the ridiculous games that they've had in late December and early January. But then also you have this week where they were 20 points or more off of what the predicted score from the game was from a margin standpoint. So to me, I think that means

Michigan at their best is capable of a like Yukon-esque run from what we saw from those two years in the tournament where no one's really coming close to them. Again, when they're clicking well, but if they're not clicking well, we're talking about a team that's way more beatable potentially than some of these other teams in the top five. What do you think about that?

Greg (41:48)
It's really interesting and it's great data and I fully believe that it's true and in trying to wrap my mind around what might be such the drastic difference between Arizona and Michigan. The first thing that jumps to my brain is the three point volume. Arizona is a team that we know is not a great shooting team. think Jayden Bradley is the only guy above 40 % that's really on the court a lot and he doesn't shoot many of them as a team. They're very low in three point volume and that's by design and I think

You know, inherently three point shooting is a thing that comes and goes in Michigan's best performance this year. Poor performances this year. They've shot between 40 and 50%. those are the nights they hang 110 points on you and there's nothing you can do while they dominate the pain. And I think, ⁓ the other thing I would say is, know, Wisconsin was a great team with a great game plan that executed this very well. But when I do my version of the scout team,

or it was Isaac Trotter who did the other version of it. If I'm doing my own version of how do you beat Michigan, you turn it into a three point lottery. Like you have to completely go away entirely from the thing that makes this Michigan team most special, which is their two point dominance on both ends. So if you even try to challenge Michigan, it's not going to go well for you. Wisconsin attempted, I believe,

three two point field goals in this game from non-guards. was Blackwell and Boyd that went inside and no bigs even attempted shots in this game because they knew that's not how you beat Michigan. I think they really did a good job of kind of setting forth what you have to do. Now the interesting thing is despite all of this, despite Michigan being bottom three in the country and consistency or whatever you call that metric totally tracks for me.

We're also talking about a night where Wisconsin made 15 threes doubled up Michigan in that category executed to perfection. The game plan that we're saying is a good way to beat Michigan and was up three with a minute left. Like I still think there's such a margin for error for Michigan. Not only do you have to do these things, but you've got to knock them out of the park just to get it to a final possession game. And maybe that still speaks to how high the ceiling is, even when they might not play to it certain nights.

Evan (44:07)
So when we kind of think about the rest of the season and then kind of in the postseason, what are your thoughts on like, what do you think is the biggest key to Michigan's success if they're going to win the Big Ten, make a run in March Madness, potentially win a national title? I mean, when I think about this team just from a big picture perspective, ⁓ I think the big quote unquote experiment, if you will, is that the three bigs of Yaxle Lundiborg, Merez Johnson and Ademara being in the game together.

And I think the first several games of the season, people were like, I don't know if this is working. And then that's really what actually allowed them to knock the socks off of so many of these of these teams that they've beat. And I think that they're going to have an ability to roll out a unit with those guys that is unmatched in college basketball. No one else is really able to do that. And so if they are able to lean into those strengths, I just think they have not just the dudes across the roster, but specific skill sets that they've figured out so far for most games this season.

how to have those guys play well and be ⁓ effective together. mean, Yaxle, think, is an argument to be the best player in the country. Merez Johnson has been really, really good. A market improvement from last year, he's like more or less doubled his scoring from when he was at Illinois. I think he's been a big piece for them. And then Ademara, like, provides a certain X factor rim protection and all this other stuff that they can do so many unique things through him. So I think that's their strength that also could be their weakness, depending on how teams play it. So.

What are your sort of thoughts on what that key is for them if they're really going to ⁓ finish the season like they want to?

Greg (45:43)
Yeah, it's a great question. I've heard a lot of different theories, I think, on this and they all raise good points. Kind of back to my general theory or thesis here that there's more than one way to do this. You don't need to follow a perfect script. I'll throw something out that I don't feel I've heard many say when speaking about this Michigan team. I think it's Yaxle Lendeborg.

And I think it's, it's more of him and him at his best. is the key to determining Michigan's fate from their perspective. Now, to your point, I think there's an argument that Yaxle at his best is one of the top two or three players in the country. think we've seen that on full display. ⁓ he had a stretch earlier this season of just impeccable play really from that TCU game where he was the best player on the floor through players era where they dominated. And then through that Maryland game, where if you remember.

They're down eight early in the second half and just kind of made the axle pick up diggie quite full court take him out of the game and he dominated in transition as a result. For whatever reason since that Maryland game he has not been at his best and I believe he's won for his last or no excuse me three for his last 16 from three over the last five games. He started the year on fire from outside. He's down to 35%. That's probably more true to who he is but

You know, even just from a usage rate perspective, Michigan has not really featured him yet the way I think some people thought they would when he signed in Michigan. I think it was kind of, got our Danny Wolf 2.0 and I would argue the fact that Michigan's been so good without needing to feature Yaxle in the half court that way speaks to maybe some strides and some untapped potential we could still see in the second half of the season. But for now the concern, I think he's not a hundred percent healthy.

He's been in and out of the lineup last couple of games. I watched him at in the Wisconsin game. Every time he checks out, he's got a huge brace and pad on his back and his burst just doesn't visibly look the way it did back in November. So they've got to that figured out because the axle end of board that was there for the month from players era through the Maryland game is I think the best player in the country. The axle we've seen in the five games since I think is leaving Michigan a little bit exposed.

Evan (48:00)
Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. I currently have Yaxle ⁓ as the number one player in the country according to Bayesian performance rating This isn't just saying like how good a player has been on the season. It's predicting how good they're be going forward I think he has such a unique skill set that's unmatched by anyone else and ⁓ You know when you look at the rest of this roster, you know There's a lot of really talented players here But like you said if he's far in a way your best player We should be leaving games more often than not being like Yaxle Lendeborg was awesome today

And I think a lot of the times Michigan hasn't necessarily needed to lean on that because it's so comfortably dismantled opponents. But the reality is that you're not going to be able to have so many of these games in the crunch time when, you know, you only have to play your starters 25 minutes because you're just so comfortably ahead. So there might be need to be a few tweaks there. Kind of looking forward for me, ⁓ you know, I think before this weekend, there was a lot of talk about like, how long is Michigan going to go until they lose? And obviously that's that's no longer a conversation.

But when I look at the rest of their conference play right now, they're currently 14 and one, four and one in the big 10. ⁓ I predict them, according to my website, I predict them to go 13 and three rest of season. That includes the neutral side game against Duke. So that would put them at like 27 and four with like three or four losses in big 10 play. ⁓ That's gotta have them in the conversation to be winning the conference for sure. ⁓ I think in terms of

snags that they could see going forward. The only game I have them where right now they're not favored is February 17th at Purdue, where they have a 54 % chance of losing that game. So it's more or less a coin flip, but like Purdue is going to be slightly favored there, but you also play on the road against Michigan State on the road against Illinois. So like, what are you hoping for to see for the rest of big 10 play and really like what position do you want them to be in kind of heading into the tournament so that

they're locked and loaded and ready to go.

Greg (50:01)
Yeah, I don't know if this is the, a pessimistic view for me coming off what I saw against Wisconsin or, ⁓ maybe just a little dose of my own reality check on the schedule here. But, ⁓ I think they're, they're gonna have the odds against them down the stretch here. It's a brutal stretch. They go, ⁓ at Mackey arena, Purdue to Duke in Washington, DC.

home against Minnesota packed in between it to on the road at Illinois in a two week stretch. I mean the the play somebody jokes are over by the time we get there and then that leads a final week of the regular season at Iowa, which is not going to be an easy game by any means. And then the rivalry game on senior night against Michigan State. So look, I think Michigan is the best team in this league. I still feel strongly about that. I also don't think they're going to win the league or at least not be my favorite to win the league. I've seen coin flip games.

in Mackey arena turn away from coin flips very quickly. Michigan got dismantled in Mackey last year when Michigan was playing pretty good ball at that point. This team is obviously different. They're better. The calibers is changed, but so is Purdue. They're vetting and I think they've got a great front court that'll be up for the challenge. ⁓ I look at at Purdue at Illinois at Michigan State as the three games that will decide this team season. And you know, when you add in the fact they go to Illinois,

as the fourth game of those four in that two week death stretch. It's Merez Johnson's homecoming in Champaign. There's just a lot of emotional things going on by the time we get to that point in the season. I honestly think that we'll be fortunate to win one of those three. And the one I think they're most likely to get is Michigan State in East Lansing. In a weird way, I think losing a game before that game. Everybody's had January 30th circled as what if Michigan's undefeated by then.

think it's pretty good Michigan lost one before then just to reevaluate some things. ⁓ But if they can win that one, I think they'll be in the mix to win the big 10. Just only getting Illinois and Purdue on the road is a tough break for them this year.

Evan (52:07)
Yeah, I think the Big Ten has been one of the most fascinating conferences to watch in terms of who are the most likely teams to win this conference. My take is that I feel like this could be a situation where whoever wins the Big Ten ⁓ regular season won't be the team that's the most successful in the NCAA tournament. I just feel like there is so much ⁓ attrition in this conference that even if you end up with the best record at the end of the season, ⁓

it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be the best team. And so for me, I kind of feel like if I take a step back, even if Michigan loses four or five games in conference play and they are not the number one team in the state, the big 10 standings by the end of the season, maybe they end up as a two seat instead of a one seat in the tournament. ⁓ I think when we sort of take a step back and are just looking at the tournament picture, I still think that team's going to be extremely scary and would be

maybe even more dangerous from a two seed line where people are not piling as much pressure on them, but they know that they have the dudes in the ceiling like we talked about to go to the final four and potentially win a national title. I don't think I necessarily, I mean, it's going to be a bloodbath at the top of the conference between those four teams, Michigan, Purdue, Michigan state, Illinois. Like all of them are, are really solid. Of course, Nebraska, we can't forget about Nebraska ⁓ and that they could win the conference too. So, ⁓

Greg (53:28)
No, I'm good.

Evan (53:33)
I think overall it's gonna be fun to see how the rest of the Big Ten plays out. ⁓ And you do a great job covering the Big Ten on your channel over at Sleepers Media, and so I will definitely direct people to go over there. ⁓ But thank you for coming on to talk about Michigan. And again, just to me, one of the most fascinating teams in the country. ⁓ So your analysis was great. I appreciate you so much for coming on the show, Greg.

Greg (53:57)
Yeah, thank you and congrats on the show. It's been great to listen to so far.

Evan (54:00)
yeah, I really appreciate

Evan (54:01)
Great stuff from Greg, he does a great job covering not just Michigan and the Big Ten, but all of college basketball, him and Carter Elliott and all the other guys over at Sleepers Media YouTube channel. They cover more stuff in video form than I think anyone else in college basketball. have ⁓ recaps and previews for almost every big game, so many other segments that they do. There's just a ton of stuff over there. And the other thing too, talking about Big Ten, they have a podcast this year with Braden Smith from Purdue.

Running point is what it's called and so they have I think more or less weekly shows with Braden Breaking down what's going on with him and Purdue and all that stuff and so definitely worth checking that out and I think some of these upcoming games for Michigan specifically that game at Mackie Against Purdue that's going to be must-watch television a couple of notes for me on Michigan that we didn't get time to touch on you know again, they had this big snag this weekend, but

Defensively, I think is really this team's calling card. And when you look at the player analytics side of things on my website, I have player ratings for every single player that looks at their value offensively and defensively when they're on the court. And when you look at the top players defensively, if you want to talk about why Michigan, in my opinion, is the best defensive team in the country or top two there, right with Houston, ⁓ the top players in defensive BPR right now in terms of the value that they bring on the defensive end of the court.

It's Joseph Tugler for Houston, who was the best player in college basketball defensively last season. I think he still is that this season. And then two, three and four are all Michigan players. It's those big three, Ademara, Yaxle Lendeborg and Mares Johnson, two, three and four. So you're talking about a Wolverines team with three of the top four players defensively in terms of their value nationally. ⁓ That's pretty crazy. And I don't want people to forget that.

And I think too, the thing that is really impressive about this team is that ⁓ I think most teams who are really good have some sort of a mix of star player and or really, really deep roster. But it's not always a given that you're going to have a team that has both. And I think Michigan has that. I mentioned that Yaxle Linda Borg right now is the number one player at evameah.com just ahead of Cameron Boozer. And that's predicting how good they're going to be going forward.

So not only do you have the best player in the country when he's healthy, as we talked about, but Michigan also has the best eight man rotation in the entire country in terms of where all of their players are ranked nationally. Their eighth best player, according to BPR, is Will Cheddar. He's ranked 259th in the country amongst all Division I players. No other team has another player whose their eighth best player ranked that high. That's how good Michigan's team is, top to bottom.

If you want to talk about those other teams that have that eighth man rotation depth, Louisville Cloxson at number two, Illinois three against Agafor, Kentucky five. So a lot of those other teams we talked about at the top, Arizona, Iowa state, Duke, they don't have the depth that Michigan has. So you have that and then you have a potentially the best player in the country. So I think this team has all the ingredients to do well, but like we talked about the consistency from game to game is the really, really big key for them.

because at their best they've been utterly dominant and at their worst they have had not only this loss to Wisconsin which they should have won that game at home against a team that they were definitely more talented than, ⁓ but they've had some other scares against TCU, ⁓ against Penn State earlier last week. So they really need to try and address that problem because otherwise they could be sniped ⁓ maybe more easily than some of the other big teams.

Evan (57:47)
All right, our last segment of the day is what I'm calling analytics corner, where I'm going to find a couple different interesting nuggets that are more statistics based ⁓ that I think are interesting to talk about.

I wanna start today by looking at the team efficiency tiers. So a graph that I put out last week that I try and update about once a month on social media

is a graph that looks at every team in the country in terms of how good they're predicted to be going forward.

According to the predictive analytics at evanmia.com, looking at your predicted offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency. And I really like breaking it down into these tiers of title favorites, final four potential, hit or miss, which are these are teams that some will do well in March, others won't. And then teams that are just kind of want to make the tournament and then we'll see. I like breaking it into these tiers because it really does show kind of the breakdown of where all these teams fall and.

⁓ significant team movement from say one month to the next month. When I shared the graphic last week, we had six teams in the title favorites category. I mentioned this earlier with Fanta. Now we have a seventh. Houston in the last week has moved into the title favorites tier. The way that I define this tier is the kind of breakdown that I found from looking at ⁓ team efficiencies on my site using relative rating, which is the metric I use to predict team performance.

⁓ I look at it on selection Sunday going into the tournament over the last 10 years and this is basically the criteria of team that almost always wins the title the last 10 champions have been in this title favorites tier on selection Sunday and specifically the criteria is I take the relative rating of the top team on selection Sunday right now that would be Michigan if the tournament were to be Michigan at 32.2 and then I take all teams within six points of that so

Last week there were six teams in that tier. Michigan, Arizona, Iowa State, Purdue, Yukon Duke. Houston has now moved into that as a seventh team. I think that totally tracks. think Houston should be in that conversation right now. Some other significant movement from this week. St. John's had a really good week. They beat Creighton and Butler both on the road, very comfortably. They had a pretty bad start to the season, but I think quietly they're back inside the top 20. I have them as the 16th best team.

in the country right now. They've moved into the final four potential tier for me. Tennessee and Kansas have dropped out of that final four potential tier. ⁓ Another interesting thing is, you know, as we were talking about Houston, Houston, as of last week, was comfortably the best defense in the country. I now have them ranked slightly behind Houston, or sorry, Michigan had the best defense in the country. I now have Houston's defense slightly ahead of them. So that's a pretty significant development. Purdue still comfortably has the best offense in the country.

Another huge thing is as we're talking about the teams at the top of the sport, not just the teams that are going to be one seed on Selection Sunday, but two seed, three seed line. I've been talking about this that I think the top 10-ish teams in the sport are as good as we've ever seen. And when you look at the top teams in the sport in the top 20 or so, there is a significant drop off from about the 12th best team in Florida.

to the 14th best team in everyone below in Alabama, Virginia, St. John's in that tier there, there is a pretty big gap. So there's basically a very well-defined top 12 teams that are all, they're not all exactly close to each other, but they're all, there's some separation between those top 12 teams in the rest of the sport. That number will change a little bit as we go forward. Maybe that number is nine teams or 14 teams when we get to selection Sunday. But I'm really noticing kind of a big gap between

You know, when we actually get to our bracket, maybe we're talking about the top three seed lines are really stacked and then the fours, fives, and sixes are a significant cut below that. That's how it would shape up right now if we were to have a bracket. So that's interesting to make note of. A few other teams I wanted to shout out. Virginia is now 15th the country. They're in the Final Four potential category. That's awesome. Utah State, 22nd in the country. St. Louis, 35th in the country.

They're both into the hit or miss category up from the just happy to be here category. What that means is not only are Utah State and St. Louis good enough to be in the tournament, they actually could make some noise. And I think that's a really exciting development for ⁓ the Mountain West and Atlantic 10 with those two teams. ⁓ So that's really interesting to note

OK, enough of that one. The second one I wanted to talk about is

this metric that I have on the team ratings page at FMA.com called opponent strength adjustment. There's a red or blue bar that you'll see for each team that represents how well they play up or down to competition. I think this is really important and very interesting to monitor for these teams. Basically what this does is it looks at the entirety of your body of work across your season and it measures what teams are really good at playing ⁓ their best level of competition or the best ball against the highest competition.

but then maybe struggle with lower competition. These are teams that play up or down to

So you'll often have teams like this. ⁓ Nebraska is a great example of this this year where, know, part of why they're not ranked as highly in the predictive analytics, they're only 17th right now at evanmia.com, is because they've just been okay in their winning margin against some of the weaker non-conference opponents that they've played on their schedule. But when they have faced the best teams on their schedule, they play lights out.

and they can beat anybody. So they have a really strong opponent strength adjustment. The other side of this coin is teams that will demolish bad teams on their schedule. But when you actually put the best teams on their schedule against them, they really crumble and don't play well at all. And so it's really interesting to see this play here. So if we look at the teams at the top of the sport, I mentioned Nebraska already, they're the second best in all of division one in this opponent strength adjustment. Other notable teams up near the top of this,

Vanderbilt, Arizona, Michigan State are all up there. That makes a lot of sense for me. I think these teams, when you look at the best teams that they've played against this season, they have been very, very good. ⁓ And that bodes well for these teams if they are in conference tournament play later in March Madness, playing against the best teams, they're gonna put their best product out there. A few other teams that have a pretty high opponent strength adjustment, Oklahoma State, Colorado. Colorado's an interesting one.

They beat Wisconsin earlier this season. They almost beat Texas Tech this weekend. So they're capable of knocking off a team potentially better than them because they typically play really well against better teams.

On the flip side, the number one team that struggles against elite competition is Kentucky. Kentucky has the worst opponent strength adjustment, which basically means they have been really, really great against the bad teams on their schedule.

but against the great teams on their schedule, their performance drop off is immense. ⁓ They weren't even close in their games against Gonzaga, Michigan State, Alabama. And so they have yet to really put it together against some of these other teams that they were supposed to be in the conversation with for the best teams in the country. So that'll be an interesting trend to watch for Kentucky going forward. The other team that's right below them in the top five of this metric in division one is Louisville. Ironically enough, they're also struggling to play

as well against the better teams on their schedule. They were smacked by Tennessee on the road. They lost by 11 to Duke at home in a game that they were ahead for a while. They lost ⁓ by nine to Arkansas on the road. So they have yet to put their best product forward ⁓ in some of their bigger games. That's something that they're need to turn around or else there could be some problems for them down the road. A few other teams that do not play as well against the upper competition on their schedule, Baylor, NC State, Gonzaga,

Butler, Iowa, Creighton, all on that list. So for those teams, again, just something worth monitoring of. There may be more trustworthy in games that they're supposed to comfortably win, but against maybe the better teams in their conference, they're struggling a little bit. So just wanted to point that out. I think that's really interesting to track and we will keep note of that going forward.

Last thing I want to touch on today is ⁓ for the first time really this season, I took more of a deep look at what are the top performing five man lineups that we have seen in the country. Something that I do a lot of at evanmia.com is I have a lot of lineup metrics that measure how well different groups of players, whether that be five players or two players or three players on a given team are playing together in order to kind of look at what combinations of players are working best for teams. So.

On evanmia.com you can go to the lineup ratings page and pull up the five player lineups and it will sort them by ⁓ how well they have played in terms of per possession efficiency in offense and defense, adjusted for opponent ⁓ strength that they face. That's a very important distinction because there's a lot of lineup data out there, especially with lower sample sizes that can say, wow, this line has been great, but it's really just because they played against really, really bad competition. Adjusting for opponent strength is important.

So when we look at these top lineups that have all played

at least 100 possessions together. This is almost all at this point in the season that's gonna be almost entirely starting lineups for most of these teams. ⁓ 100 possessions is generally the threshold that I recommend for starting to really trust the lineup data for a lot of these lineups. So when we look at the best five man lineups in terms of just how well they've performed on the court so far, I'm just gonna read the teams here that are listed in the top 10. And again, most of these are gonna be these teams starting lineups.

Ohio, Iowa State has the best lineup in the country. Michigan has the second best. Three is Vanderbilt. Four is Purdue. Five is Iowa State. Again, Iowa State has two on here. Arizona, six. Houston, seven. Louisville, eight. LSU, nine. LSU starting lineup has been really good. ⁓ And then Michigan State, 10. Now an interesting point with ⁓ both Iowa State and Michigan State is. ⁓

Iowa State's starting lineup is the best lineup in the country. That's not a huge surprise. They've gotten a lot of production out of that. ⁓ But then the fifth best lineup is also an Iowa State lineup, and that is the lineup with Nate Heise in ⁓ instead of Taiman Lipsy. So Iowa State has two of the best five lineups in the country. That's really impressive. Michigan State's lineup that's there is interesting as well because the Spartans have...

three different lineups that have all played about the same number of minutes this season. They all feature the same four of Jeremy Fears, Cohen Carr, Jackson Kohler, and Carson Cooper. And then the fifth spot is either one of Tang, Fort, or Ugochukwu. ⁓ The lineup here that shows in the top 10 is the lineup with Kurt Tang. This lineup has been really, really great defensively for Michigan State. It's the third best lineup defensively.

of any lineup we've seen with this level of sample size in the country. And ⁓ it's pretty far ahead of the other two lineups that Michigan State plays regularly. So it will be interesting to see if they play that lineup with Kurt Angmore. I think he's been really good this season and is a key piece for them. ⁓ So that'll be interesting to note. A few other notes on this. Purdue has the best performing offensive lineup and Michigan the best defensive lineup. Again, not a surprise. We've been talking about this. Purdue has a great offense. Michigan has a great defense.

The other thing that you can see with these lineup ratings is that something a new I introduced last year is that not only do I have a lineup ⁓ efficiency margin for how good the lineup has played on the court so far this year, but I also have a predicted efficiency margin for each of these

This is predicting how good each of these lamps will be going forward. And this is very important and I think very useful because

A lot of times you can overreact to small sample sizes with lineups ⁓ and kind of disregard just how good on paper that lineup should be. So the predicted efficiency margin takes a combination of how good your lineup already has performed on the court so far and accounting for how much weight we should give that based on the sample size. But then also looking at how good that lineup should be on paper based on the individual players that are in that lineup in terms of their individual skill sets, their overall skill.

Also, lineup balance in chemistry, looking at is it positionally, does it make sense, ⁓ what are the strengths and weaknesses of that lineup? All this goes into a formula that predicts how good these lines are gonna be going forward. If we look at the top lineups in terms of the best predicted lineups, there's a few slight changes from how they've ranked so far this season. The top predicted lineup going forward is Michigan's starting lineup. The second best is Purdue's.

And then you have Vanderbilt, Iowa State, Houston. So a lot of those teams were in that top 10, but the shuffling is slightly different. And then Duke's starting lineup right now is outside the top 10 nationally in terms of its ⁓ on-court performance, but it's predicted to be the seventh best going forward in predicted efficiency margin. I think that makes sense. think Duke's starting lineup is really good. So they should be good going forward. Last thing I want to touch on here is...

Using this predicted efficiency margin can be fun because if we look at some of these lineups nationally that have been played less, there's actually some really exciting lineups that rank really highly in the prediction going forward that should be much more of a staple for these teams. Specifically, Illinois and Yukon both have team lineups that didn't meet the threshold for what I was talking about earlier with ranking this leaderboard of they've played less than 50 possession or 100 possessions.

⁓ But they rate as going forward predicted to be some of the best lineups in the country Specifically for Illinois their lineup with Kylan Boswell Keaton Wogler Jake Davis, David Mirkovic in Zvonovir Vicic is predicted to be one of the best lineups in the country going forward I'm really excited to see that lineup. They've been absolutely crushing it. They've played 58 possessions so far. So that's not a ton of burn ⁓ But it's been really really dominant, especially offensively

And so I think it's gonna be really good going forward. That's what the data shows. And then UConn's lineup with Braylon Mullins, this is really key for them. That lineup is with Demary Mullins, Stewart Carraband and Reid. So interesting for that is that that's not UConn starting lineup, but this lineup has only been the seventh most used lineup for UConn. And some of that has to do with player availability. Braylon Mullins hasn't played a full season, et cetera. But this lineup,

has the best plus minus of any lineup for Yukon and the best, ⁓ you know, when you adjust for opponent strength and all that stuff on a per possession basis. It rates as the best Yukon lineup comfortably, despite being only the seventh most used lineup. It's been way better offensively than all of the other lineups that they've used more than that one. So again, that lineup of Demary, Mullins, Stewart, Carabin, and Reed ⁓ has shown a lot of really good offensive potential and I think could be a key for them moving forward.

⁓ So we'll have to keep an eye on if they use that line up more, but it's been really great so far.

Evan (1:13:14)
Well, that's a wrap for our show today. I really hope you enjoyed it I had a lot of fun making this We will be back next Tuesday with another full-length episode and some other great guests who are gonna be joining me And we'll be doing this every single Tuesday for the rest of the season So I'm really excited to see what's gonna come over the next couple weeks and as we get into the heart of February March and the tournament ⁓ This is a completely ad-free show.

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