WSU Odds of UNDEFEATED Regualar Season? 100%

[sixth ace]

LOL..0% chance.

It would be 100% if they didn't have to play UE twice.

Colt gone...can't lose to the twice...right?

once would be enough but twice is nice

[CBB_Fan]

Remember statistics. If Wichita State has a 99% chance of winning any one of their next 21 games, they have an 80% chance of going undefeated. If they have a 95% chance, that goes to 34%. 90% goes to 10%.

Ken Pomeroy's average over the next 22 games (missed one when I was counting earlier) is 85%. That's a great number; very few teams ranked above Wichita State have that type of projected winning percentage. Now there are complications with this, as this isn't a linear progression (a game with 50/50 odds is far worse than the average game Wichita State is playing, even though that isn't necessarily obvious when we average), but this will work.

Anyway, using that we get a 3.19% chance of going undefeated till the MVC tournament, roughly 1.99% after that. In reality those numbers are high because of the enhanced likelihood of losing @ Alabama, or @ Indiana State, but again for this analysis we don't need a lot of precision. I'll note that KenPom gives our percentage of going undefeated at 2.6%, and our odds of sweeping the MVC at 6.9%.

Those numbers are the highest of any of team. Most of the BCS conferences have a projected champion with a 0.1% to 0.5% chance of going undefeated through their conference. The next highest is Louisville at 4.7%. After that, the best I could find is UMass at 0.8%. Keeping track:

Undefeated:
#16 Wichita State: 2.6%
#2 Ohio State: 0.2%
#22 UMass: 0.2%
#4 Pittsburgh: 0.09%
#5 Villanova: 0.09%
#13 Arizona: 0.06%
#9 Wisconsin: 0.04%
#8 Syracuse: 0.03%

Undefeated through conference schedule:
#16 Wichita State (MVC): 6.9%
#1 Louisville (AAC): 4.7%
#17 Gonzaga (WCC): 1.4%
#3 Oklahoma State (B12): 0.8%
#22 UMass (A10): 0.8%
#5 Villanova (BE): 0.4%
#7 Kentucky (SEC): 0.4%
#2 Ohio State (B1G): 0.3%
#4 Pittsburgh (ACC): 0.2%
#13 Arizona (P12): 0.2%

So, is it a good bet? Of course not. Right now the odds say that Wichita State has a 2.6% chance to actually complete the task. That is a crazy long shot, and any many put into it is likely going to be lost. BUT it is 10 times higher than the next projected teams chances, which doesn't say much for the MVC or our nonconference schedule. The fact that we are projected as having higher odds to sweep our conference than the #1 team in a midmajor conference should speak volumes.

I don't think either happen, but I do think anywhere from 2-4 losses would be considered par for the course with what we have remaining. Lose 0 or 1, and we beat expectations. Lose 5 or more and we've messed up somewhere.

[glm38]

A 5% chance sounds about right to me. Which is not a knock against the Shox who are undoubtedly the class of the Valley.

I would think this weekend's game with Tennessee is going to be pretty tough. Hope that one is on TV.

[pafan]

I ran a simulation this weekend that showed WSU losing, on average, 0.39 games in the MVC in 10000 simulations. Every loss was either @Trees or @D+. Which would give WSU a pretty good shot of going undefeated in the MVC.

Unfortunately for the Wichitahns on the site, I don't think the model has enough data yet to provide good predictions. For example, it put SIU at 9-9 and in 4th place...

[iSASO]

The Tennessee game is on ESPN2, moved from the original timeslot just prior to the season to accommodate the national audience.

No one needs a calculator or Excel spreadsheet to know that WSU has ZERO chance of going undefeated. Everyone recognizes that the Valley is just way too tough. In fact, I'm still sticking with WSU finishing in its traditional 9th place. There's always next season. If a Final Four team cannot win the Valley last season, there's no way this year's squad has a snowball's chance in Hades to do it this season.

[Wushockduke]

Fun to think about, but I doubt we ever see a div 1 team ever do this again.
If it happens ever again I hope it's not in the valley. That may mean the conference would be slacking as a whole. What I would rather see is valley teams going undefeated before conference play starts and then playing each other!

[Black]

A 5% chance sounds about right to me. Which is not a knock against the Shox who are undoubtedly the class of the Valley.

I would think this weekend's game with Tennessee is going to be pretty tough. Hope that one is on TV.

espn 2 at 1:00

And it would be hard for Arizona to go undefeated in the Valley. It's hard who matter who you are and who you're playing to go unscathed through a Division I college basketball schedule. A bad night or an opponent going off is likely to get you at some point. Also team dynamics can change throughout the year.

Undefeated talk is cool but it's not practical, even in a less tough Valley. I'm personally hoping for 3-5 losses. Anything less would be gravy, anything more would be a little disappointing.

[rlh04d]

A 5% chance sounds about right to me. Which is not a knock against the Shox who are undoubtedly the class of the Valley.

A 5% chance sounds incredibly optimistic to me, as a Shox fan. It's just incredibly difficult for any team to go undefeated -- in any sport. College football only has 12-13 games before the bowl post-season, and yet only one of 125 teams went undefeated this year.

I think a 2% chance sounds fair. I'd say maybe 1%. My guess is one noncon loss, two conference losses. It's almost inevitable that one of these poor first half starts will last all game, or we'll have a game or two where we shoot under 30%.

HOWEVER -- as a Florida State grad, I'm having the greatest sports calendar year of any fan in sports history. So it's possible my sports wizardry will keep WSU undefeated. You're welcome.

[UNIFanSince1983]

I am almost positive UNI won't beat them so there's that...

[LMS]

Wichita State will be favored in every game, but what we've seen in the past would certainly indicate an undefeated season is almost possible. It's too bad they couldn't have gotten into one of the big early season tournaments to face a couple of Top 10 teams so we'd have a better idea on this year's version.