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If there's any silver lining in Wisconsin's loss to Indiana, it lies in the fact that the Big Ten title race has now become extremely interesting. If the Badgers had won, they'd still be pretty big favorites to win the title. As it stands, however, the race is a dead-heat between Wisconsin (40 percent chance of a share) and Michigan State (42 percent), with Iowa (33 percent) right in the mix. Ohio State (13 percent) and Michigan (10 percent) also have legitimate shots to crash the party.
To illustrate the closeness of the race, here's a chart that shows the likelihood of the contenders reaching various win totals, based on current KenPom win probabilities:
| Wins | Wisc | MSU | Iowa | OSU | Mich |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| 17 | 1% | 2% | 1% | 0% | 0% |
| 16 | 7% | 7% | 5% | 1% | 1% |
| 15 | 18% | 18% | 14% | 4% | 3% |
| 14 | 26% | 25% | 22% | 14% | 9% |
| 13 | 24% | 25% | 25% | 25% | 17% |
| 12 | 15% | 15% | 18% | 26% | 24% |
| 11 | 7% | 6% | 10% | 18% | 22% |
| 10 | 2% | 2% | 4% | 9% | 14% |
| 9 | 0% | 0% | 1% | 3% | 7% |
| 8 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 1% | 2% |
| 7 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 1% |
As you can see, there's a big cluster at 13 wins. Any team that gets to 14 wins is very likely to grab a share of the title, and 15 will probably win it outright.
Should be a thrilling race.
