Final Breakdown: Big Ten Scenarios and Tournament Seeding

With one day of games remaining among the B1G contenders, the possibilities are starting to dwindle.  On Monday and Wednesday, I had looked at the eight most likely scenarios and the resulting conference tournament seedings.  Now with four games remaining between the front-runners, I give you the four scenarios based on the Illinois-Ohio State game and the Indiana-Michigan game assuming that Michigan State and Wisconsin hold serve against Northwestern and Penn State respectively.  Within each scenario, I show what will happen if Michigan State OR Wisconsin lose their respective game.  In the unlikely event that BOTH teams lose their games, the seedings would certainly shuffle but Wisconsin would remain outside of the top four seeds.

Sunday's Games:

12:00 UW @ PSU
12:30 UI @ OSU
4:00 IU @ UM
6:00 NU @ MSU

Scenarios:

A) Ohio State, Michigan win

1. IU
2. OSU
3. UM
4. MSU
5. UW

If MSU loses in this scenario: no seeding change but MSU loses share of conference title
If Wisconsin loses in this scenario: no change

B) Ohio State, Indiana win

1. IU
2. OSU
3. MSU
4. UW
5. UM

If MSU loses in this scenario: no change 
If Wisconsin loses in this scenario: UM gets 4-seed, UW gets 5-seed

C) Illinois, Indiana win

1. IU
2. MSU
3. UW
4. OSU
5. UM

If MSU loses in this scenario: OSU gets 3-seed, UW gets 4-seed 
If Wisconsin loses in this scenario: OSU gets 3-seed, UM gets 4-seed, UW gets 5-seed

D) Illinois, Michigan win

1. IU
2. UM
3. MSU
4. UW
5. OSU

If MSU loses in this scenario: OSU gets 4-seed, UW gets 5seed, MSU loses share of conference title
If Wisconsin loses in this scenario: OSU gets 4-seed, UW gets 5-seed

Note: Green Bolding denotes a share of the conference championship

Further Breakdown: Big Ten Scenarios and Tournament Seeding

With Ohio State's win over Indiana last night the picture for the B1G title and tournament seeding got a lot more interesting with several teams' hopes likely coming down to Sunday's match-up between Indiana and Michigan.  On Monday, I looked at scenarios based on outcomes of three games.  One of those games was the IU-OSU game so now I am looking a little deeper since I can make some stronger assumptions.  The remaining games involving teams with title (and Thursday tourney bye) hopes are:

March 6: UM @ Purdue
March 7: UW @ MSU
March 10: UW @ PSU, UI @ OSU, IU @ UM, NU @ MSU

For the scenarios, I am only considering the yellow-bolded games.  I am now including the Illinois-Ohio State game.  As I said on Monday, the other games are "handle your business" games.  Sure, anything can happen but it just opens up too many (unlikely) possibilities. So here are the eight most likely scenarios and the resulting Big Ten tournament seedings. Teams that take a piece of the conference title are green-bolded.

Scenarios:

A) Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana win

1. IU
2. UW
3. OSU
4. MSU
5. UM

B) Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan win

1. UW
2. IU
3. UM
4. OSU
5. MSU

C) Wisconsin, Ohio State, Michigan win

1. UW
2. UM
3. OSU
4. IU
5. MSU

D) Wisconsin, Ohio State, Indiana win

1. IU
2. UW
3. OSU
4. MSU
5. UM

E) Michigan State, Ohio State, Michigan win

1. IU
2. OSU
3. UM
4. MSU
5. UW

F) Michigan State, Ohio State, Indiana win

1. IU
2. OSU
3. MSU
4. UW
5. UM

G) Michigan State, Illinois, Indiana win

1. IU
2. MSU
3. UW
4. OSU
5. UM

H) Michigan State, Illinois, Michigan win

1. IU
2. UM
3. MSU
4. UW
5. OSU

 Bullet Points:

• Again, the Indiana-Michigan match-up will answer most questions.  An Indiana win secures them the outright title and relegates Michigan to a Thursday tournament game.  An Indiana loss opens the door to a three or four-way tie for the crown.
• I have commented on the imbalance of the schedule before.  Of the five contenders, Wisconsin benefits by playing Indiana and Michigan only once.  To their credit, they won both contests which gives them a huge advantage in tie-breaking procedures.
• For Michigan State and Michigan fans, scenarios A, D & H likely set up a tournament rematch between those teams.

Big Ten Scenarios and Tournament Seeding

The B1G hoops season has one week to go with five teams in the mix for a piece of the title and one of the top four seeds in the conference tournament.  Indiana has locked up at least a share and can win the conference outright with either a win at home against Ohio State or at Michigan.  The other four, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Wisconsin are also battling for a Thursday bye in the conference tournament as they jockey for a more favorable NCAA seeding.

In the next week, these five teams play seven games amongst themselves. Seven games means there are 128 potential possible endings (2^7) to the regular season.  The games to be played are:

March 5: OSU @ IU
March 6: UM @ Purdue
March 7: UW @ MSU
March 10: UW @ PSU, UI @ OSU, IU @ UM, NU @ MSU

128 possibilities is far too much to look at but luckily each outcome is not equally likely.  Four of the above games are "handle your business" games (they are the un-bolded games); if those teams handle their business, the league finish will get decided by three games with eight (2^3) more or less equally likely scenarios.  I know it's the B1G and handling your business is not always just that.  Should any one of the teams lose games they are expected to win they would likely drop to fifth place and lose a bye in the conference tourney.  If multiple teams fail to handle their business, well it becomes a shit-storm and you can throw this whole thing out the window.

Bullet Points:

• Today, Indiana has a better than 75% chance of winning the conference outright.  Tuesday's game against OSU will decide a lot and is arguably the least in doubt of the big three (yellow bolded) games.
• If all teams handle their business, Michigan will need to beat Indiana to avoid the 5-seed regardless of anything else. They really get stung by tie-breakers having lost their only game against Wisconsin.
• If Indiana beats OSU on Tuesday, the title is decided leaving the other teams scrapping for a tournament bye with four scenarios.  In two of those scenarios, Michigan falls to the 5-seed. In another scenario, OSU gets the 5-seed.  In the final scenario where MSU loses to Wisconsin, MSU and OSU would go deep into tie-breakers for fourth place relying on the finish of Minnesota and/or Illinois.
• If OSU and Michigan both beat Indiana, it likely creates a four-way tie and the MSU-UW game becomes very important with the winner sharing the B1G title and the loser falling to the 5-seed.  Wisconsin would also get the #1 seed with a win over MSU.

Disclaimer: This all relies on my proper interpretation of the B1G tie-break procedures which I got here.  Go State.

Information Markets on Romney Running Mate Pick: Meh

With Mitt Romney's announcement of Paul Ryan as his running mate for the upcoming election, the information market has answered with an emphatic "whatever".  As of Thursday, Romney's predicted chance to win the upcoming election had gone as low as 38.0%, its lowest since May 22nd.  After Romney's announcement this morning that Wisconsin State Rep Paul Ryan would be his running mate, his win percentage has increased to 39.6% (an increase of .8% on the day).  While it is doubtful the Romney campaign missed out on a home run, it at least avoided a Palin-esque disaster.

Edit: Since I posted this, Romney's .8% gain had swung into the negative for the day.

Link to Intrade for stat geeks:
Closing Prices chart - Mitt Romney to be elected President in 2012

JB = JT

Confession.  I just watched the (new? idk) Justy Biebs video.  There was a link. It said he got pummeled by a "bad-boy actor".  Either way I win. Either 1) I see Bieber get what he's got coming. Or 2) I see an out-of-work actor look stupid. Or 3) I see an out-of-work-actor redeem himself (if only in a Biebs video)  Video here:



I've been on the record for a while as saying that I don't get the whole Bieber thing. Where did he come from? Why do people like him? Etc. After watching this, I get it, kinda. He's pulling up Justin Timberlake's slack. Now I'm not saying he's lost it but JT hasn't done much in awhile aside from chase a movie role here and there. Timberlake is a talent. He can act. But don't think that his real talent isn't on the song and dance side. So back to Biebs though. Has pop music become entirely derivative?  I didn't do so great in calculus so I apologize if I am re-RE-stating the obvious. My original question though, who the frick is Justin Bieber? If you're looking for a JT fill-in, is the best you can do? Or is this just as good as you have to do?

If you read it on the internet, it must be true

Dusting off the old blog again.  This time, I got called out for calling out the verisimilitude of an article on breitbart.com regarding the declining unemployment rate and newly elected republican governors.  The article is here. It's a two minute read, I encourage you to check it out before continuing.  The "calling out" is here:

I'll begin by restating that I don't doubt any of the unemployment statistics given.  I searched unsuccessfully for the numbers because I wanted to see ALL of the unemployment stats but I have no reason to believe the ones presented aren't correct.  I do however have numerous problems with the presentation, analysis and conclusion.   

1. Flawed- The article argues that the 17 states are reducing unemployment 50% faster than the rest of the country.  The U.S average decline is .9%.  Add up the total percentage declines and divide by 17 and you get 1.35%, 50% better than the country.  If you can't see how this math is wrong, I'll offer up a baseball analogy: Say your first-baseman has been slumping all season; he is batting .200 (20%).  At some point mid-season, you bring in a pinch hitter who in his first and only at-bat gets a hit.  What is the collective batting average of your first-basemen?  By the article's math, your first-basemen are collectively batting .600 ([.200+1.000]/2).  Obviously wrong.  When I look at the list of states, I see three states that are squarely in the top half of the country by size (Pennsylvania, Florida & Ohio with possible inclusion of Michigan and Georgia).  So what we have is a collection of states dominated by the little guys.  Maine anyone?  And while those three big states did have big declines, they were already outliers with high unemployment that were reverting to the mean.
2. Lazy- If you click the link in the article to the examiner.com you'll see that this is merely a summing up of another article with most of the same problems that I am pointing out here.  The breitbart piece does manage to omit the performance of the new democratic governors.
3. Incomplete- What would make this story stronger?  Maybe the whole story.  Whatever that is.  How about looking at all the states?  States with incumbent republicans and democrats or where new leaders have taken over for the incumbent party.  How about just a glance at the numbers from the other side?  Unemployment fell in all states with new-party governors except one.  I would also point out, from the numbers provided, that 29% of the new republicans have seen unemployment drops below the national rate while democrats are a bit worse at 38%.  Clearly electing a republican over a democrat is not the sure shot to reducing unemployment... if the governor or their policies are indeed what is driving down unemployment.  Which leads me to my last point...
4. Correlation does not prove causation-  It's the cardinal rule when using statistics.  Just because X frequently appears with Y, does not mean X causes Y.  But read the last line of the story: "This is yet another example of how the so-called “blue state” model is not working." What ever that model is.  What exactly is the red-state model that IS working?  I think the issues here are a bit more complicated than an imagined cookie-cutter model of governance.  

The story certainly provides a neat and intriguing headline and a seemingly concise take-away, just as long as you don't think about it too much.  

Let's Get It On!

I've been off the blog now for *looks at watch* three and a half months. Ouch. With Summer approaching and more time to kill, I thought I'd put down a couple thoughts on today's news to get back in the swing.

The Prez finally came down on the side for same-sex marriage today. Not that he wanted to politically, but perhaps what he had long wanted to do personally [fact check needed]. His hand was forced by the vote reinforcing same-sex union bans in North Carolina. The vote showed that the topic once again would play a role in a presidential campaign. With the conservative vote obviously on the side against and the topic at the forefront, the frequency and directness of questions was only going to increase. You can't not pick a side on such an important issue in an election year. We all knew this was the side that The Office would come down on; the other side was just never compatible with Democratic party ideals.

I have been following the news all day and the way it has played out has been pretty sweet. The day began with the reports on the outcome of the vote in NC. Disappointing for sure, but a victory for the right? Certainly not in the long-term. The practice of restricting one group's rights has quite the tradition down there but things eventually move forward, if slowly. Later on, in an obviously hastily called interview, The Prez made his announcement (finally). Did he just make up his mind on it that morning?  It feels like it could have been more definite but given the timing, it looks like a signal that this new campaign is fully prepared to defend the rights of same-sex couples from Mitt Romney and other social conservatives and also feels like a long awaited step towards inevitable progress. To end the news day, Romney told reporters that he is still against same-sex unions just in case we weren't clear on that. Romney's reaffirmation along with his taking credit for the auto-bailout are definitely starting his campaign out on a kind of "me too!" tone.

Coincidentally while I was writing this I got an email from POTUS on the same topic.  It included a link to stand up in support with him. Which is here: Stand up with The Prez!