Men’s Basketball: Big Ten Advanced Stats

Last month I looked at performance statistics for the last five years of teams that made the Elite Eight round of the NCAA tournament and compared how Oregon MBB teams have measured against that standard.

With ATQ’s Big Ten basketball previews in full swing (before Fall sports begin and we’re busy bringing you all the latest) I thought I would take a look at how the Big Ten as a whole compared to that same standard in 2025. Michigan State actually made it that far before being eliminated by Auburn, but were there any other teams that could have?

All of the numbers I use in this article come courtesy of sports-reference.com’s data portal Stathead to compile advanced statistics for players on these teams.

I’ll go over the summary descriptions for the metrics I chose to use, each of which is a rather involved formula. All of these definitions come courtesy of sports-reference.com.

Ortg — Offensive Rating; an estimate of points scored per 100 possessions.

Drtg — Defensive Rating; an estimate of points allowed per 100 possessions.

WS/40 — Win Shares Per 40 Minutes; an estimate of the number of wins contributed by a player per 40 minutes (average is approximately .100).

OBPM — Offensive Box Plus/Minus; A box score estimate of the offensive points per 100 possessions a player contributed above a league-average player, translated to an average team.

DBPM — Defensive Box Plus/Minus; A box score estimate of the defensive points per 100 possessions a player contributed above a league-average player, translated to an average team.

BPM — Box Plus/Minus; A box score estimate of the points per 100 possessions a player contributed above a league-average player, translated to an average team.

PER — Player Efficiency Rating; a measure of a player’s per-minute contribution adjusted so that the league average is 15.

Each roster was censored so that any player who appeared in fewer than 20 games in a season would not influence the results. After this, a mean for the various advanced stat categories was computed. Here is a measure of the distributions for teams that made the round of 8 from 201-2025.

Rather than display the means for the Big Ten squads in consideration and make you break out a calculator, I’ve gone ahead and computed the z-scores for the stats under consideration. A positive z-score means that year’s team measured above the Elite Eight mean (which is good for these metrics except for Drtg), while a negative score means the squad was below the average (which is bad in these cases except Drtg). Scores between -1 and 1 would be considered fairly typical for a team that could make the round of 8, while scores outside of this should be considered exceptional.

As I had mentioned in a previous article, Oregon’s 2025 numbers are all within one standard deviation of the Elite Eight standard, so it would not have been unreasonable if they had made a deep run. This made their early exit back in March all the more frustrating.

Michigan State’s numbers make it no mystery why they made it further into the playoffs than any other Big Ten team this past season. In particular, they were one of the few teams in the conference to boast a strong defensive performance.

Purdue actually played national runner up Houston to within two points in the Sweet Sixteen. This seems like the Boilermakers “punching high” in that particular game. Their mean Ortng is terrific, and most of their other measures are within one standard deviation of the Elite Eight median, but their mean Drting reveals a fundamental defensive weakness that was bound to catch up with them sooner or later.

Coincidentally, Maryland ran into eventual champion Florida and were eliminated in the round of 16 as well. The Terrapins were an unusual team this season by these metrics. Unlike most Big Ten teams Maryland succeeded due to their team defense rather than relying on simply out-scoring their opposition. This can be seen by having the best (remember, negative is good for Drtng) defensive numbers in the conference. Indeed, they are the only team besides MSU be on the good side of the Elite Eight median in team Drtng.

Perhaps the oddest team based on these measures is UCLA. The Bruins appear to have the best overall performance in these metrics of any Big Ten team. Despite this, the committee did well to make them a 7 seed as they were eliminated by 2-seed Tennessee in the second round.

Overall these numbers lead me to think that 2024-2025 was a bit of a down year for Big Ten men’s basketball. We’ll have to wait and see if Oregon can contribute to a rebound year this winter.