One more look at MSU basketball’s championship chances

Earlier this month, we compared MSU men’s basketball to the rest of the Big Ten by analyzing each team’s percentage of minutes returning from last season and their average recruiting grade (freshmen and transfers). We came up with an equation using these variables and found that the Spartans were the favorites to win the 2027 Big Ten championship.

Some of TOC responded along the lines of, “That’s nice, but the Spartans should have goals for 2027 beyond just a conference title.” O then followed up with a deep dive on how MSU compares to a way-too-early top-10 ranking from On3 and concluded that the Spartans have what it takes to cut down the nets in Detroit.

These were the team’s from On3’s rankings for 2026-27 that O broke down:

1. Florida
2. Michigan
3. UConn
4. Duke
5. MSU
6. Houston
7. Illinois
8. Virginia
9. Gonzaga
10. Arkansas

Now, we’ll put our formula to use again and see how it compares Michigan State to several of these expected contenders for 2027, many of which MSU will face in the regular season or exhibition play:

• Arkansas (Thanksgiving Classic, Detroit)
• Duke (Champions Classic)
• Florida (MSU does not play, but at or near the top of many “way-too-early” rankings)
• Gonzaga (Acrisure Classic, Palm Springs, CA)
• Illinois (B1G, away)
• Michigan (B1G, home & away)
• Tennessee (away)
• UConn (exhibition)

The teams in this article don’t necessarily represent a “way-too-early” top-10 (there are only nine teams). To save a bit of time, Tennessee was swapped for Houston and Virginia. More importantly, hopefully this creates a bit more interest because it not only compares MSU to heavy title favorite Florida, but also many of the top teams the Spartans will face this season.

Let’s just get right to the point and look at the results. If you’re interested in reviewing the power rating equation, and how it needed to be slightly modified for this analysis, that information is the second half of this article.

CONTINUITY VS TALENT FOR SELECT NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDERS

In the Big Ten article, we had a scatter plot that separated teams into four quadrants (with examples):

1. High continuity, high grades for incoming players (MSU, Illinois)
2. Low continuity, high grades (UM, USC, Indiana)
3. Low continuity, lower grades (Penn State)
4. High continuity, lower grades (Minnesota, Iowa, Rutgers)

These categories are seen in going counter-clockwise from the top right (where MSU is) in the following scatter plot:

However, the teams that are the focus of this article all of have highly-rated recruiting and transfer classes. Instead of four quadrants on the scatter plot, we just get two halves – teams that return a lot of minutes from last season (towards the right) and teams that don’t (left):

Florida has the lowest incoming talent grade of the nine teams we’re looking at here, but their continuity score is stunning. The Gators return nearly 80% of their minutes from last year’s team that went 16-2 in the SEC.

RANKING THE CONTENDERS WITH THE TOC POWER RATING EQUATION

Just like in the Big Ten article, these teams are sorted where the continuity component (M1 in the table below) and incoming talent grade (M2) are weighted equally (the Balanced Baseline column in the table below). While the power rating itself does change depending on the weighting, the order would be same if sorted by the continuity component (Continuity-Heavy column) or by incoming talent (Talent-Heavy column). This was nearly the case with the Big Ten rankings, where only a few teams in the middle of standings changed positions depending on the variable weighting.

Florida, with everything they bring back from last year’s team, is the clear favorite in this model. They are nearly 10 points ahead of second-ranked Duke on the 50/50 scale.

The Spartans come in at number three, less than a point behind the Blue Devils.

Illinois and Connecticut come in at fourth and fifth, respectively, and then it’s a bigger drop to Michigan, Arkansas, Gonzaga, and Tennessee. This isn’t a surprise because these are the teams on our list that lost a lot of their production from last season (the teams on the left side of the above scatter plot). When there isn’t a whole lot of separation in the recruiting rankings, the teams with better continuity are going to be ranked higher.

As mentioned in the last article, these are the high-ceiling, high floor teams, where the four teams on the left side of the scatter plot are still high-ceiling but also have the possibility of a lower floor, due to less returning production from last season. You can see this as the range between the talent-heavy and continuity-heavy columns gets larger as you go down the list.

Florida has a power rating of around 92 regardless of continuity and incoming talent being weighted equally, or one more than the other. Duke, Michigan State, and Illinois vary by about five points each between the talent-heavy and continuity-heavy models. UConn has a slightly wider variance but the remaining four teams all increase by double-digits from the continuity to talent-heavy model.

CONCLUSION

So, do the Spartans have a chance of winning in Detroit? These numbers say Florida is the heavy favorite. But a very similar Florida team lost to Iowa in the round of 32 of last year’s tournament.

The last article looked at how things might play out over a 20-game conference season. Here, we’re trying to figure out who has the best chance of winning six games in a row and, as Florida found out last season, a lot can happen in one game to get a team bounced out.

For MSU, this fun little exercise should just confirm O’s much more nuanced and interesting analysis – the Spartans have the goods to win the title.

Again, if you’re interested in reviewing the TOC equation, and modifications for this article, you can read that below:

REVIEWING THE EQUATION

To quickly review, our equation contains:

• A continuity component (M1): the percentage of a team’s minutes played that returns for ‘26-27
• The continuity component is combined with a success multiplier, which factors in a team’s conference wins from the ‘25-26 season. More on this below.
• An incoming talent component (M2): the average On3 grade for each new player for ‘26-27 (freshmen from high school, transfers, and international players). We had to make some grading decisions for the international players and a few ungraded transfers and this process is explained in the previous article.

In the last article, we compared all of the Big Ten teams, who played a 20-game conference schedule, where an “average” team would have 10 wins. For our success multiplier, we used:

SM = 1 + [(B1G wins – 10) / 20]

The continuity component is:

CC = (Mins retained % x 100) x SM

For MSU, who went 15-5 in the B1G last year, returns 60.4% of their minutes, and has an average On3 incoming talent (freshman and transfers combined) grade of 94.34:

Success Multiplier = 1 + [(15-10) / 20] = 1.25

Continuity Component = (60.4% x 100) * 1.25 = 75.56

Incoming Talent Component = 94.34

Then, we weighted the components differently and ranked the teams by each weighting:

• Continuity and incoming talent are weighted equally – 50% each
• Continuity (60%) is weighted more than incoming talent (40%)
• Incoming talent (60%) is weighted more than continuity (40%)

Calculating MSU’s power rating for the different weightings:

• 50/50 = (75.56 * 0.5) + (94.34 * 0.5) = 84.95
• 60/40 Continuity = (75.56 * 0.4) + (94.34 * 0.6) = 86.83
• 60/40 Incoming Talent = (75.56 * 0.6) + (94.34 * 0.4) = 83.07

This was done again here for the teams in this article but the success multiplier needed to addressed first. Our list of teams are from different conferences and they don’t all play 20-game schedules like the Big Ten.

ADJUSTING THE SUCCESS MULTIPLIER

The teams we’re comparing here play in conferences with either 18 or 20-game conference schedules. The different number of games requires a switch from wins to winning percentage for the success multiplier and the SM formula becomes:

SM = 1 + (Conf Win % – 0.5)

Where 0.5 represents an “average” team with a .500 conference winning percentage.

With this formula, MSU’s success multiplier with last season’s .750 winning percentage becomes:

SM = 1 + (0.75 – 0.5) = 1.25

The table below may not show up very well on a small screen but it shows the entire power rating calculation for each team, with each different weighting:

Look at Florida’s adjusted continuity score of 109.53. A “perfect” team is supposed to be 100 but, it turns out, when you add this success multiplier to a team that went 16-2 in their league last season and brings back nearly 80% of their minutes, this is what happens. Also, when the continuity component is weighted at 60%, Florida’s power rating is a beyond-perfect 101.74.

So, further refinement was needed with the success multiplier.

To reduce the multiplier effect, a team’s conference winning percentage above average was reduced by half and the equation becomes:

SM = 1 + [(Conf Win % – 0.5) x 0.5]

With this calculation, the above table becomes:

The teams are in the exact same order but Florida has an adjusted continuity score and power ratings below 100. The Gators are still elite, just not perfect.

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