Was Brian right about the football-basketball dichotomy? (The first step of an investigation.)
On MGoPodcast 14.18: Daddy's Sports Words, in the wake of a men's basketball loss to Purdue, Brian lamented the fact that the Michigan football and men's basketball programs could never seem to be good at the same time.
"I mean, it's like, you know? Can't have everything. As soon as one thing gets good, the other thing goes in the trash... It's the football-basketball dichotomy; they can't be good at the same time... You get the one year, and then something blows up."
–– BPONE Brian (01-29-23)
Seth pointed out that both programs were good in the early days of his fandom, but Brian countered that the Fab Five's success led to Michigan's string of four-loss football seasons from 1993 to 1996.
I Want To Do My Own Investigation
I want to do my own investigation in order to prove Brian's thesis true or false. The first thing I need to determine is: "What defines a good Michigan football/men's basketball season?"
I thought I'd start by asking this question to the community at large, since "goodness" can be defined very differently from fan to fan, especially, I imagine, for Michigan fans: some might only say a football season is good if we run the table in the Big Ten, while others might be okay with multiple losses; some might say a basketball season is only good based on a deep NCAA tournament run, and others might be okay with a two seed getting bounced in the Round of 32.
Here are my rough criteria for what makes a "good" season in each sport:
FOOTBALL
- Double-digit win total (bowl game included)
- Top 12 finish in AP poll
- Beat MSU and lose competitively to OSU OR lose in an annoying way to MSU (annoying like 2021 or 2015, not annoying like 2014) and beat OSU
- General good vibes about the state of the program
BASKETBALL
- Sweet 16 appearance
- Top 20 finish in AP poll
- Top 4 seed in Big Ten Tournament OR Big Ten Tournament Champions
- General good vibes about the state of the program
What do you think about these criteria?
Are they too harsh? Are they too forgiving? Am I missing some stuff? Do I need to remove some stuff? Is it possible to have an objective answer about this?
Any and all feedback is welcome so that I can go ahead and create an "objective" checklist for "goodness," and get to work proving or disproving Brian's theory from the BPONE.
February 28th, 2023 at 8:55 PM ^
For basketball, the B1G tournament only started in 1998. You should have some criteria for the era before the BTT. Maybe finish in the top 4 of the league? Or an NCAA tournament seed of 4 or better?
Is the 1984-85 MBB team good or bad? Big 10 champs but flamed out in round of 32. Final poll rank in top 5.
February 28th, 2023 at 9:01 PM ^
We won the Rose Bowl in Jan 89, then the national title in march of 1989 then won the Big Ten again in football.
February 28th, 2023 at 9:23 PM ^
Turns out there isn't much correlation, unsurprisingly.
Here is a chart plotting win percentage in hoops vs. win percent that same year in football:
If you compute Pearson's correlation coefficient over it, you get 0.13, which is a very weak (positive) correlation.
If it were truly the case that when one went up, the other went down, the correlation would be strongly negative.
February 28th, 2023 at 9:37 PM ^
Please excuse my ignorance, but does the fact that football and basketball's win percentages are generally above (let's say) 65% affect how we should read that correlation?
February 28th, 2023 at 11:03 PM ^
not really.
Let's say you just had three years of data; if each won 80% year 1, then 90%, then 100%, the corr. coeff. would be 1 (perfect positive correlation).
it's just assessing whether when one is up, is the other likely up, etc. Compressing the scale doesn't really change that.
The data shows they're not really correlated, which makes sense, because they are basically different teams with different players and coaches playing a different sport. It would only be surprising if they were strongly correlated (whether negative or positive).
February 28th, 2023 at 10:43 PM ^
The MGoBlog difference.
So I don't think you can use pure win % to map it all out, in both sports due to cupcake/nonconference scheduling anything under .500 would be an outright disaster. There's a feelingsball number likely at around .750 in football and .650 in basketball for a season to be considered "good" - ranked in the top 25.
Then there are other feelings based things to consider: How much is each win in the NCAA tournament worth? How much is it worth even getting to the tourney? Is/Was a NYE/BCS bowl better than the Outback Bowl? How much weight should be placed on OSU etc.
To that end I developed a quick model to tell us whether or not a season was "good", tentatively named StAUsKAS - (STatistical Analysis Using Known AdjustmentS)
- Wins and losses are the starting point
- In Football: OSU win/loss worth 2 games. +1 win if BCS/NY6/Playoff.
- A season that ended up with an adjusted winrate of .750 or above is a success.
- In Basketball: Making the NCAA tourney is 2 wins. Each first weekend win is worth 1 additional win, each regional victory is worth 4 wins, each final 4 victory is worth 8 wins
- BTT win is worth an additional win.
- Why not count big ten titles? it turned out to be unnecessary, if a team was good enough to win the regular season title it was going to be considered successful without the help of modifiers
- It was necessary to make some feelingsball adjustments on top for basketball
- 08-09 basketball is a success due to the NCAA Tournament appearance
- Ditto 10-11
- 05-06 and 02-03 basketball considered unsuccessful - final winning percentages are inflated by NIT runs and weak non-con schedules
I only went back to the 2000 season, roughly around the start of the blog.
StAUsKAS:
The tally is:
7 years of deep sadness and soul searching
4 years of relative happiness:
- 2011-2012, Brady Hoke's Sugar Bowl false hope and a 4-seed in the tournament that ultimately lead to Caris Levert.
- 2015-16 and 16-17 Harbaugh's first 2 seasons and peak Beilien
- 2018 - may need to be adjusted due to the absolute blowout of an OSU game.
6 years each of one team being clearly superior. Football was dominant until Rich Rod took over. Basketball shouldered the load until Harbaugh came.
So that's 12/23 years of one team being a head and shoulders above the other. If we assign even more weight to OSU losses and turn 2015. 2016, and 2018 into basketball dominant years a clear trend emerges but I'd think that an average Big Ten fan would consider those years successful.
So not quite your thing, but I just did the simple thing: >75% wins, success, otherwise failure.
Correlation is still low and slightly positive.
Adding in your "extra" factors could make a slight difference, but I doubt it would change much.
Mostly, I think by looking at the last 20 years, it just makes us remember the darkest football period in a long time.
February 28th, 2023 at 9:35 PM ^
Good topic....
For football -- ten or more wins out of the 12 games, including a win over OSU, is the minimum for a good (or better) season. 9-3 (or worse) and even 10-2 with a loss to OSU just doesn't do it for me. The only way these records would be okay is if we end up winning the Big Ten anyway in a very weird season. That said, finishing 10-2 WITH a win over OSU is fine with me. That win would salvage a "good" season.
For basketball -- it seems like, as it stands, making the Sweet Sixteen defines a good season. I don't really care who we beat, although beating MSU is nice.
February 28th, 2023 at 9:41 PM ^
didn't both teams hold the big ten title at the same time just a couple years ago. what am i missing here?
February 28th, 2023 at 9:55 PM ^
Basketball won the Big Ten regular season title in 2020-21, and football won the Big Ten championship in the fall of 2021, so, yes, technically, they did hold titles at the same time. Extra technically, they were different years, cause of the summer break in between. I think this would also fall under the category of "the one year before things get put in the trash".
February 28th, 2023 at 10:03 PM ^
I think that your criteria seem fair.
I'm a Manchester United fan, and my general criteria for a successful season is qualify for the champions league and win a trophy.
In Michigan terms this would be : qualify for the 12 team playoff, and win over msu or osu.
In basketball: make the tourney and 1.make the 2nd weekend 2. Win the b1g regular season or 3. Win the b1g tourney.
February 28th, 2023 at 10:29 PM ^
GGMU!
February 28th, 2023 at 10:49 PM ^
I don't know about your criteria, but M-Football and Basketball have been good at the same time and it's only really only been the dark ages of the Ellerbe/Amaker years in hoops and the RichRod/Hoke years in football where you could say all hope was lost since the 1960s.
I mean, we've been to five straight Sweet 16s and it may have been six if not for COVID. All Michigan football has done under Harbaugh (minus the COVID year) is go to bowl games and win 10+ games in five of seven years.
1989 is probably as good as it got, with a National Title in hoops and a Rose Bowl win in the same school year. I think we're still the only team to claim that.
February 28th, 2023 at 11:39 PM ^
I'm more in your camp than in Brian's camp. I'm just opening the dialogue so I can start from some semblance of a definition of "good" before taking a deeper look at his claim.
February 28th, 2023 at 10:56 PM ^
Brian is being a bit “woe is me” (arguably quite a bit “woe is me”, and I’m sorry, but not for the first time) —- geez, Michigan had a Final Four and Sweet 16 team just LAST YEAR! Final Four in hockey too!
Credit to the poster above who actually did the math and the correlation factor is weak to non-existent.
February 28th, 2023 at 11:45 PM ^
Nonsense. Long term Michigan has been elite in both basketball and football despite a few rough patches over the past couple decades. Was Brian even alive in the mid 70's? D@mn sure he wasn't in '64. Craig Ross would have a better perspective on this.
In March of 1976, Michigan basketball played in the national championship game against Indiana. That fall, the football team was ranked #1 most of the season, beat OSU 22-0 in Columbus, won the Big 10 title, played USC in the Rose Bowl (with possible national championship ramifications for both teams), and finished ranked #3 in the country.
I went to the b-school from 91-93, and the football team went to two Rose Bowls. the basketball team went to two final fours, the hockey team to two final fours. So of course, I thought, that's the way it will always be!
Just to be clear, are there "And"s between those bullet points? Like a good football season won 10+ games, and had a top-12 finish, and beat MSU, but it would not be a good season if we just did one of those things?
I would relax it a little and say that 2 of the 3 categories is good enough. If we had a top 12 finish and 10 wins but lost to MSU and OSU, I would say that's a good albeit frustrating year. More likely, a top-12 finish while beating MSU and dropping a close game to OSU would be a good year even with 9 wins (especially if you're looking historically during the 11-game regular season era).
I also think the trajectory is also important which adds complexity to the problem. If there was a 9-win year between our CFP years in 2021 and 2022, I would still say the football team was in a good place. Whereas I wouldn't necessarily say that about a 9-win year on its own, surrounded by 7 win seasons. On the other hand, 1997 was a great year that is not dragged down at all by the 4-loss seasons before it.
Yes, there are "ands" between those bullet points. Sorry for the confusion.
Good point on the context, but I think that's more a valuation on the health of the program, not on how good the year was.