At the risk of being called a Buttgers rasher Rutgers basher, I actually really enjoyed the all-encompassing statistical look at overall B1G conference standings that I developed and posted last week. It's an interesting piece of data that I intend to track going forward, and will be very interested to see how the standings change year-to-year.
That piece came at a good time, too, because we're rounding third and heading for home on the 2014-2015 Big Ten season. Just this past weekend, four more conference sports (men's and women's golf, men's and women's lacrosse) wrapped up their 2015 seasons, giving us some new data points to plug into the table. The only sports still outstanding are baseball, softball, rowing, and men's and women's outdoor track.
I thought about waiting until the end of those five sports to provide updated standings--softball standings will be finalized in roughly two weeks, and the other four sports in roughly a month--but I can't wait to plug new data into any new model I develop. Plus, four sports ending changed the standings enough that an update seems warranted.
(Note 1: I also discovered an error in my conditional formatting that affected the data in my previous post, lowering the CS% and WCS% values for each school incorrectly. That has been fixed for this post.)
(Note 2: For a refresher on the premise and methodology of these stats, check out the original post here.)
So without further adieu, the updated conference standings table:
And the updated results table, sorted by CS%:
Notes:
- Great news: not only is Michigan no longer the best-performing athletic department in conference, but Ohio State has overtaken them as God intended and is now riding in second place.
- Minnesota is now in first place in CS% by the slimmest of margins. Through 19 sports, Minnesota not only is one of three schools yet to finish in last place (along with Illinois and Northwestern), they are the only school yet to even finish in the bottom third of conference standings. Well done, Gophers. Of course, Minnesota only having completed 19 sports compared to 23 for Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State means they're sitting 4th in WCS%.
- Maryland seems to know their own strengths. Of the 6 times Maryland has finished in the top third of conference standings, they've won 5 B1G titles (most in the conference). However, they're still 8th in CS%, because they're below average in basically everything else.
- Northwestern is no longer perfectly mediocre, having captured a share of the B1G title in women's golf. This leaves Indiana, Purdue, and Rutgers as the only schools not to have won a conference title this season.
- Speaking of the bottom three: we have movement! Purdue passed Indiana for 12th place. Rutgers is still terribad, with only 4/16 sports finishing BETTER than the bottom third of the conference. Rutgers also has 8 last-place finishes, ahead of Purdue (5) and Indiana (3). No one else in the conference has more than 2. Purdue, at least, now has the same number of top-3rd finishes as bottom-3rd finishes (and probably triggers a bonus in Morgan Burke's contract in the process).
- Still shocked that Nebraska is in the bottom tier with those three.
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