Tag: espn bpi

What are the odds Arkansas beats Kentucky? Seven percent, per ESPN

Arkansas hasn’t been this big an underdog against Kentucky in at least a decade.

The Arkansas basketball team would not have been favored or predicted to beat Kentucky on Saturday regardless of how the team’s last several games worth of outcomes.

But when the Razorbacks lost to lowly Vanderbilt on Tuesday at home, Kentucky’s chances of beating Arkansas grew even larger. Now, according to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index, the Wildcats have a 93% chance of winning Saturday’s matinee.

Arkansas had been playing good basketball until the Commodores arrived in Fayetteville. Vanderbilt left Bud Walton Arena with its first road win in almost a whole calendar year and left Arkansas in danger of its worst season in more than a decade.

Kentucky meanwhile is climbing. The Wildcats are projected as a No. 4-seed in the NCAA Tournament in Joe Lunardi’s most recent Bracketology for ESPN. They own wins over Auburn, Alabama and Mississippi State over the last two weeks – all teams also projected to make the Dance.

Arkansas hasn’t beaten a team that is currently “in” Lunardi’s projections in since November when the Razorbacks beat Duke.

With March here and the ACC race down to the wire, what does ESPN BPI think?

With less than a week and a half remaining in the regular season, what does ESPN BPI think of Duke’s chances to win the ACC?

With less than 10 days remaining in Duke’s regular season, only one game separates the Blue Devils and Tar Heels atop the ACC standings.

Duke has three games left to play, including a regular-season finale against North Carolina next weekend. With the end of the year imminent and ACC Tournament seeding on the line, here’s a look at what ESPN’s Basketball Power Index thinks of the conference race.

BPI not only considers Duke the best team in the ACC right now, but it also thinks the Blue Devils have a comfortable lead. Duke is ninth in the site’s national rankings while UNC is all the way down in 13th.

Despite the difference, however, the Tar Heels hold a narrow lead in projected conference record. BPI projects the Tar Heels to win 16.2 games against conference opponents while it only forecasts Duke with 15.4.

UNC has the third-weakest remaining strength of schedule among top-15 teams with two home games against NC State and Notre Dame, who have a combined record of 28-28, before the showdown in Cameron.

Duke also faces the Wolfpack but must do so on the road, and they face a potential tournament team in Virginia on Saturday.

All that to say, the Blue Devils likely need to win out in order to claim the regular-season title.

Where Alabama basketball ranks in ESPN’s BPI entering final two weeks of regular season

Alabama has some impressive rankings in ESPN’s Basketball Power Index

[autotag]Nate Oats[/autotag] and the Alabama men’s basketball are entering the final two weeks of the regular season and an SEC title is still within their reach.

Before tip-off on Wednesday night against Ole Miss, let’s look at the latest update of ESPN’s Basketball Power Index.

According to ESPN, the BPI is a “measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of performance going forward. BPI represents how many points above or below average a team is. Strength of Record (SOR) is a measure of team accomplishment based on how difficult a team’s W-L record is to achieve. Game predictions account for opponent strength, pace of play, site, travel distance, day’s rest, and altitude, and are used to simulate the season 10,000 times to produce season projections. Numbers update daily.”

Here is a breakdown of where Alabama ranks in the BPI.

Pressure? Arkansas basketball favored for first time in ages Saturday

Wait a second. Arkansas is…favored? Like, objectively? It’s almost as though the Hogs have played well lately.

Arkansas basketball coach Eric Musselman has been in a more pleasant mood lately in his post-game press conferences, Tennessee notwithstanding.

No one would call him giddy, exactly, but his team has played much stronger basketball in recent weeks. So much better, in fact, the Razorbacks are actually projected as winners Saturday.

ESPN’s Basketball Power Index gives Arkansas a 68% chance to beat visiting Missouri when the Tigers and Hogs tip off at Bud Walton Arena at 11 a.m. It’s the first time the Razorbacks have been projected to win by the metric in about a month.

Arkansas is coming off a victory over Texas A&M from Tuesday. The Aggies are a borderline NCAA Tournament team and the Hogs’ win was on the road, to boot. Before that, Arkansas nearly beat Mississippi State on the road in a game that was in doubt until the final seconds.

That’s hardly a glimmering endorsement, one straight win. But in a season that has seen the Razorbacks struggle throughout, a brief shine is cause for a good mood.

Duke now favored to win ACC according to ESPN BPI

After a five-game win streak, the Blue Devils now sit atop the ACC and have the best chance to take the regular-season title via ESPN BPI.

After Duke won its fifth straight game on Wednesday night, a near-30-point blowout over Miami on the road, ESPN’s Basketball Power Index thinks the Blue Devils are the best team in the ACC.

The Blue Devils moved up two spots to 10th in the site’s rankings, jumping two spots ahead of the North Carolina Tar Heels to assume the highest rank of any team in the conference.

Duke has won 16 of its last 18 games now and eight of its past nine, while the Tar Heels have lost three of their past six games.

The strength of Duke’s team has always been its offense, and the Blue Devils rank seventh in the nation in the site’s offensive power index. The defense has lagged behind a little but still moved up to 21st in the site’s defensive rankings after a few solid showings in a row.

ESPN’s modeling has the Blue Devils projected to win 24.9 games and 15.9 games in conference play. Once you factor in Duke’s current record of 21-5 and 12-3 in the ACC with five games left, the site is projecting almost an exact 4-1 finish to the regular season.

North Carolina’s projections are 23.7 wins and 15.7 ACC wins, so the two are truly neck-and-neck down the final straight.

The only other ACC teams in the top 35 are Wake Forest (21st) and Clemson (22nd).

Hogs given less than 10% chance to beat Texas A&M

Arkansas has been dreadful on the road this year. ESPN’s BPI doesn’t see that changing Tuesday.

The Arkansas basketball team can still finish its SEC season without a losing record in conference.

The Razorbacks just can’t lose again.

With six games left, the task is tall, nigh impossible. If the Hogs fall to Texas A&M on Tuesday down in College Station, Arkansas will have clinched a second straight losing season in SEC play for the first time since 2018-19 and 2019-20. Those seasons correspond to Mike Anderson’s last year as head coach and Eric Musselman’s first year.

ESPN’s Basketball Power Index isn’t giving Arkansas much of a shot to avoid such a fate. The BPI provides Texas A&M with a 90% chance of victory when the two teams meet Tuesday. Arkansas did win the first meeting between the two by a point back on January 16. The Hogs have won just two games since.

Arkansas went 8-10 in SEC play last year but made the NCAA Tournament by virtue of a strong results in nonconference play. The only Dance-building win this year came against Duke, which while a high-quality win, is not bolstered by anything else of note.

If Arkansas were to fail to win any of its final six SEC games, the Razorbacks would finish with their worst league record since 2008-09 when they went 2-14.

Wisconsin basketball is no longer one of the best teams in the Big Ten

Thoughts on the last few weeks of Wisconsin basketball?

The Wisconsin Badgers fell at the overtime buzzer to the Iowa Hawkeyes Saturday in Iowa City.

The loss was the Badgers’ fifth in their last six tries and dropped the team to 17-9 on the season and 9-6 in Big Ten play. In 18 days, Wisconsin has dropped from the clear conference leader to tied with Michigan State for third, 3 1/2 games behind first-place Purdue.

The standings tell the story. The Badgers are in the midst of an incredible collapse.

ESPN BPI and KenPom’s ratings also tell the story effectively. Each has Wisconsin as the distant fourth-best team in the conference.

  • KenPom: Purdue (No. 3 overall), Illinois (No. 8), Michigan State (No. 15), Wisconsin (No. 19)
  • ESPN BPI: Purdue (No. 2 overall), Illinois (No. 10), Michigan State (No. 16), Wisconsin (No. 20)

Remember, Wisconsin was alone at No. 2 in the conference behind Purdue entering the month of February.

Not only have the Badgers dropped from a top seed in NCAA Tournament projections to clinging to a 4-seed, the team is falling further and further from the top of the Big Ten.

Time still allows for Wisconsin to turn it around and return to its early season form. Up next is a home game against Maryland (14-12) before a finishing at Indiana, home against Illinois, home against Rutgers and at Purdue.

The Badgers need to turn things around before it’s too late.

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The worst yet: Arkansas given a 10% chance to beat Mississippi State by ESPN

Arkansas stinks this year and Arkansas stinks in Starkville. The Hogs haven’t won at MSU in – get this – nine years. Yikes.

Dogging on ESPN has become so en vogue that it’s almost a caricature of itself among the masses. Lots of people who do it have no idea what they’re talking about.

That’s especially the case when it comes to the network’s data-driven content. Full disclosure: I am a former employee of such a department at said place. The College Football Power Index and the College Basketball Power Index are all numbers and therefore objective.

So when the BPI model states that Arkansas has just a 10% of beating Mississippi State on Saturday, no bias comes along with that. It’s just a statement of the Hogs’ flat-out indeptitude this year.

Twice this year have the Razorbacks (12-12, 3-8 in SEC) been beaten by record margins by their SEC brethren. Auburn knocked off Arkansas in January by more points than any team ever had in Bud Walton Arena. On Wednesday, Tennessee’s 29-point win was the largest margin that series history, too.

That’s how the Bulldogs, even with a sub-.500 records in SEC play themselves, are so easily favored for victory.

Really, there’s no surprise there. Arkansas hasn’t won in Starkville in – get this – nine years. Mississippi State hasn’t exactly been breaking down the walls of accomplishment for most of those nine years. The Razorbacks truly just play poorly there.

And in a season like this, in which they have exactly one impressive wins November? Yeah. Take the ‘Dogs.

ESPN BPI forecasts ACC photo finish with Duke and UNC’s near-identical projected records

ESPN’s Basketball Power Index expects the ACC to come down to a photo finish with Duke and UNC currently sitting on near-identical expected records.

The ACC is routinely one of the most competitive conferences in men’s basketball, and the 2023-24 season is shaping up to be no different.

North Carolina currently leads the way with an 11-2 record in conference play, but Virginia and Duke both sit just a game back at 10-3 apiece and all three teams are 19-5 for the season. Which of the three has the advantage down the stretch?

According to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index, the advantage goes to the Tar Heels…narrowly. North Carolina is expected to win 24.4 games during the regular season, according to the BPI projections, but Duke is expected to win 24.1 to sit right on their heels. The Cavaliers are third with 22.8 expected wins.

North Carolina’s advantage widens slightly when looking at ACC records. The Tar Heels are projected to win 16.3 conference games compared to Duke’s 15.1 and UVA’s 13.8 projected wins.

However, all signs seem to indicate the conference coming down to next month’s clash at Cameron Indoor.

Duke only two spots behind UNC in ESPN BPI rankings after Monday win

After a Monday night win over Wake Forest, the Blue Devils are 11th in ESPN’s BPI rankings…and two spots behind North Carolina.

Objects in the Tar Heels‘ mirror may be closer than they appear.

The ACC race is tightening down the stretch, and ESPN’s BPI rankings are reflecting that. North Carolina leads the conference in both ACC record and BPI rank, but after a Monday win over Wake Forest, Duke is just two spots behind them.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Blue Devils rank 11th in the nation in the site’s Basketball Power Index. North Carolina comes in ninth.

Duke is now 19-5 on the season and 10-3 against ACC opponents so far this year, just a game behind the Tar Heels in the conference rankings and tied with Virginia for second.

ESPN’s BPI ranks the Cavaliers as the 34th-best team in the country and the fifth-best team in the ACC. Clemson came in 29th with the Demon Deacons one spot behind them in 30th.

The Blue Devils’ surge toward the top 10 has been powered by an impressive offense, as they currently rank seventh in ESPN’s offensive power index.

The site expects a photo finish between Duke and the Tar Heels, with UNC expected to win 24.4 games and Duke projected to win 24.1.