But that may not mean what you think it does
Both Indiana and Michigan State finished their regular seasons and Big Ten Tournaments at 19-14 overall, 3-9 against Quad 1 opponents, 10-10 in the Big Ten season, and 1-1 in the Big Ten Tournament.
On Selection Sunday, one team heard its name called as a nine seed, while the other had already semi-publicly declined an NIT invitation to focus on rebuilding in the portal.
If this doesn’t strike you as a little bit odd, it’s because the use of advanced statistics in college sports has become so ubiquitous as to feel obvious. The team that’s 98th in NET, 93rd in KenPom, and 80th on Bart Torvik has no reason to expect a spot in a field of 68.
The NCAA still uses a committee to make the official selections for the NCAA tournament, erasing some of the computer bias, but it’s still a process heavily informed by analytics. That’s why any article you read about Indiana State’s exclusion from the field will include some of these metrics to show just how anomalous their absence is in March Madness.
The algorithms behind the NET, Torvik rankings, and KenPom are imperfect, but they are likely to stick around, even if in modified form. Going forward, Indiana will need to know how to win (and lose) in a way that serves them well analytically when its record doesn’t speak for itself.
Here’s what that does and does not mean:
Margin of Victory (and defeat)
The thing that killed Indiana more than any individual win or loss this year was its inability to blow out bad teams or keep it close against the good teams that it lost to. 10 of Indiana’s 14 losses this year were by double digits, while just six of its 19 wins were by more than 10 points.
Taking KenPom as just one example, Indiana dropped eight spots from 61 to 73 overall for failing to beat no. 161 Wright State by more than nine points. By contrast, the one point win over no. 18 Michigan State moved Indiana up just six spots.
Unlike other issues with Indiana’s style of play, this can be more easily attributed to Woodson’s NBA experience. At the professional level, there’s nothing to lose by emptying the bench at the end of a blowout game.
In college, blowouts matter. Even if Woodson was protecting starters from injury towards the end of the Auburn game, the lopsided result cost Indiana 12 spots in KenPom, something most teams need to avoid in the non-conference slate to have a shot in March.
Strength of Schedule
For the reasons laid out above, there’s no real analytical advantage to scheduling a tough non-conference slate. Especially for a team that’s not going to be firing on all cylinders in November.
This can be a little bit tougher to implement given the peripheral reasons for participating in big events, like program visibility and recruiting footprint. However, teams like this year’s Nebraska squad or last year’s Indiana team demonstrate that there’s a path to March Madness that doesn’t involve a signature win by January.
Being in a Power Five conference will give any team a chance for built-in big wins, so it doesn’t always benefit a program to fill a non-conference schedule games that could look impressive come March.
Playing Style
This is where you expect me to say something about 3-point offense or 3-point defense that would demonstrate how woefully inadequate the current philosophies are. But the fact is that there aren’t really any statistical markers that guarantee good results on the court.
None of the top five teams right now on Kenpom are even within the top 100 for point distribution from 3-point range. UConn is the closest, with 32.4% of its points coming from deep, good for 121st nationally.
Iowa State, on the other hand, has made the overall top five almost entirely on the strength of its defense. The Cyclones are 300th nationally in point distribution from deep, which contributes to a lackluster offensive rating of 55th. With the no. 1 overall defense, the Cyclones have been a top ten team analytically since about mid February.
What analytics, especially those used by the NCAA, love more than any single stat is efficiency. Indiana was not a great 3-point shooting team last year, but had a top 30 offensive efficiency rating because it stuck to what it’s good at.
If Indiana can establish an identity early, stick to it to blow out some bad teams, and avoid devastating losses through conference play, the Hoosiers will have a better shot at being the 19-14 team that gets a nine seed in down years.