Who will be the last team without a loss?
Ken Pomeroy ran the numbers...
KenPom: Who will be the last undefeated college basketball team?
By Ken Pomeroy 3h ago
Since the start of the season, the list of unbeatens has been narrowed from 353 teams to something we can wrap our arms around. Over the past weekend alone, the unbeaten club was cut from 16 to eight. And it could have been worse as Maryland and San Diego State needed heroics in the final seconds to avoid defeat.
So let’s handicap the chase for the honor of being the last one standing. To do so, I simulated the rest of the season 10,000 times using the win probabilities generated for each game from my ratings. Before I reveal the results of those simulations, keep in mind I’m not concerned about a team finishing the season undefeated. The chances of that are tiny enough to ignore. No, this is simply about which team will be able to outlast the others before losing its first game.
1. San Diego State (24.1 percent chance of being the last unbeaten): The Aztecs have already passed neutral-site tests against Iowa and Creighton to go along with a road win over BYU. But they also nearly suffered the biggest college basketball upset in modern times on Sunday, needing a Malachi Flynn 3-pointer with less than a second left to topple 29-point underdog San Jose State.
But unbeaten glory is a special marriage of team ability and a helpful schedule. In the short term, the schedule doesn’t provide many challenges, starting with NAIA San Diego Christian on Dec. 18. The Aztecs will be significant favorites in every game until a Jan. 4 showdown at Utah State, which may be the only time they’ll be an underdog the rest of the regular season. If they happen to win in Logan, they could remain unbeaten for a while.
2. Auburn (21.0): The Tigers’ best win appears to be a neutral-site victory over Richmond, which may have kept some people from appreciating their unbeaten start. However, all but one of Auburn’s previous opponents have been in the top 150 and we’ve seen better teams than Auburn lose to worse teams than that. The Tigers play six of their next seven in Alabama and won’t be an underdog until possibly at Florida on Jan. 18. And with the way things are trending, getting to that game without a loss might be good enough to be the last unbeaten.
3. Louisville (18.5): Duke’s loss to Stephen F. Austin and Kentucky’s loss to Evansville were monumental upsets. And I mentioned San Diego State nearly going a step further against San Jose State on Sunday. But despite being unbeaten, Louisville also suffered an amazing upset of sorts. On Nov. 20, the Cards trailed 37-point underdog USC Upstate with 14 minutes remaining. Of course, no one keeps records of the biggest underdog to have a lead in the second half. But I think it would take a diligent researcher quite a while to find one to top USC Upstate, currently 2-8 and No. 343 nationally.
Between a game at MSG against Texas Tech on Tuesday and a New Year’s Eve game at Kentucky, the No. 1 team in the AP poll doesn’t have an easy road to get to 2020 without a loss. The early January schedule is somewhat friendly if they Cards can survive those two tests, but that’s a big if.
4. Ohio State (15.5): Finally, after four weeks of basketball where every potential great team has disappointed us at some point, we have a team that has looked consistently great regardless of its opponent. Except for a three-minute stretch in the opener against Cincinnati, the Buckeyes haven’t trailed in the second half of any game. The problem for the Buckeyes is the top of the Big Ten is very tough and Ohio State has neutral-site games against Kentucky and West Virginia before conference play even kicks into gear in January. And while the Buckeyes have looked unbeatable, no team actually is. Ohio State’s time to look human will come, and in the short term, the schedule doesn’t give it much room for error.
5. Duquesne (7.1): The team without a home this season has a remarkably good chance of being the last unbeaten. This is partly because the Dukes’ first game against a top-100 team will not be until Jan. 5 when they “host” Davidson at Robert Morris. The Dukes should be favored in each of their next nine games, although in many of them they will only be slight favorites. Their next four games are neutral-site affairs before they start Atlantic 10 play with two home games.
6. Maryland (5.1): The Terps survived a sluggish first half to escape Illinois in College Park on Saturday. They’ll have to play a lot better to survive their next two: road games against Penn State and Seton Hall. A return to the Big Ten schedule looms after the holidays and as mentioned with Ohio State, that’ll present one challenge after another. It’s conceivable that a battle of the unbeaten will take place on Jan. 7 when Maryland hosts the Buckeyes, but don’t get your hopes up. There’s just a 6 percent chance of that happening.
7. Liberty (4.5): The Flames are very similar to the team you remember beating Mississippi State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last season. But they have yet to be tested. It’s almost as if coach Ritchie McKay scheduled for the purpose of ending up on this list. That will change with road games against Vanderbilt and LSU coming up along with a neutral-site affair against a feisty Towson squad.
Liberty is in an odd spot. The Flames have the second-lowest chance to be the last unbeaten, but the best chance to get to their conference tournament without a loss — although that chance stands at less than 1 percent. But if they can somehow get through their upcoming nonconference tests, there’s a legit (though still small) possibility the team will be 30-0 entering the Atlantic Sun tournament.
8. Butler (4.1): After a sub-.500 season, coach LaVall Jordan has Butler back in the national spotlight and Kamar Baldwin is playing like a first-team All-American. Jordan wasn’t afraid to load up the nonconference schedule either. The Bulldogs have already played five top-100 teams and have a game at Baylor on Tuesday. Assuming they pull off the upset there, Butler will need to beat Purdue in Indianapolis on Dec. 21 to make it to the New Year unbeaten. That’s a difficult task even for a team that has played as well as the Bulldogs.
Based on the simulations, the most likely day for the final unbeaten to be determined is Jan. 4. This date was the special one in 26.8 percent of cases as six potential unbeaten teams playing that day have challenging games. And the most likely single event to crown the last unbeaten would be San Diego State earning the honors on that afternoon after Auburn takes its first loss at Mississippi State. This scenario happened 4.5 percent of the time.
The earliest we could end the watch for the last unbeaten is Dec. 15. It is realistic for each unbeaten except San Diego State to lose by then, but for all of them to do so would be quite the car wreck. The longest this could go is sometime after the regular season, though the chances are incredibly slim. However, in one of the simulations, both San Diego State and Liberty made it to their conference tourneys unbeaten.
We don’t know how the chase for the last unbeaten will turn out, but we do know that eventually everyone will lose. Maybe someday a team will run the table again, but this doesn’t figure to be the year. Not with seemingly hopeless underdogs routinely challenging the top teams in the game.
Ken Pomeroy ran the numbers...
KenPom: Who will be the last undefeated college basketball team?
By Ken Pomeroy 3h ago
Since the start of the season, the list of unbeatens has been narrowed from 353 teams to something we can wrap our arms around. Over the past weekend alone, the unbeaten club was cut from 16 to eight. And it could have been worse as Maryland and San Diego State needed heroics in the final seconds to avoid defeat.
So let’s handicap the chase for the honor of being the last one standing. To do so, I simulated the rest of the season 10,000 times using the win probabilities generated for each game from my ratings. Before I reveal the results of those simulations, keep in mind I’m not concerned about a team finishing the season undefeated. The chances of that are tiny enough to ignore. No, this is simply about which team will be able to outlast the others before losing its first game.
1. San Diego State (24.1 percent chance of being the last unbeaten): The Aztecs have already passed neutral-site tests against Iowa and Creighton to go along with a road win over BYU. But they also nearly suffered the biggest college basketball upset in modern times on Sunday, needing a Malachi Flynn 3-pointer with less than a second left to topple 29-point underdog San Jose State.
But unbeaten glory is a special marriage of team ability and a helpful schedule. In the short term, the schedule doesn’t provide many challenges, starting with NAIA San Diego Christian on Dec. 18. The Aztecs will be significant favorites in every game until a Jan. 4 showdown at Utah State, which may be the only time they’ll be an underdog the rest of the regular season. If they happen to win in Logan, they could remain unbeaten for a while.
2. Auburn (21.0): The Tigers’ best win appears to be a neutral-site victory over Richmond, which may have kept some people from appreciating their unbeaten start. However, all but one of Auburn’s previous opponents have been in the top 150 and we’ve seen better teams than Auburn lose to worse teams than that. The Tigers play six of their next seven in Alabama and won’t be an underdog until possibly at Florida on Jan. 18. And with the way things are trending, getting to that game without a loss might be good enough to be the last unbeaten.
3. Louisville (18.5): Duke’s loss to Stephen F. Austin and Kentucky’s loss to Evansville were monumental upsets. And I mentioned San Diego State nearly going a step further against San Jose State on Sunday. But despite being unbeaten, Louisville also suffered an amazing upset of sorts. On Nov. 20, the Cards trailed 37-point underdog USC Upstate with 14 minutes remaining. Of course, no one keeps records of the biggest underdog to have a lead in the second half. But I think it would take a diligent researcher quite a while to find one to top USC Upstate, currently 2-8 and No. 343 nationally.
Between a game at MSG against Texas Tech on Tuesday and a New Year’s Eve game at Kentucky, the No. 1 team in the AP poll doesn’t have an easy road to get to 2020 without a loss. The early January schedule is somewhat friendly if they Cards can survive those two tests, but that’s a big if.
4. Ohio State (15.5): Finally, after four weeks of basketball where every potential great team has disappointed us at some point, we have a team that has looked consistently great regardless of its opponent. Except for a three-minute stretch in the opener against Cincinnati, the Buckeyes haven’t trailed in the second half of any game. The problem for the Buckeyes is the top of the Big Ten is very tough and Ohio State has neutral-site games against Kentucky and West Virginia before conference play even kicks into gear in January. And while the Buckeyes have looked unbeatable, no team actually is. Ohio State’s time to look human will come, and in the short term, the schedule doesn’t give it much room for error.
5. Duquesne (7.1): The team without a home this season has a remarkably good chance of being the last unbeaten. This is partly because the Dukes’ first game against a top-100 team will not be until Jan. 5 when they “host” Davidson at Robert Morris. The Dukes should be favored in each of their next nine games, although in many of them they will only be slight favorites. Their next four games are neutral-site affairs before they start Atlantic 10 play with two home games.
6. Maryland (5.1): The Terps survived a sluggish first half to escape Illinois in College Park on Saturday. They’ll have to play a lot better to survive their next two: road games against Penn State and Seton Hall. A return to the Big Ten schedule looms after the holidays and as mentioned with Ohio State, that’ll present one challenge after another. It’s conceivable that a battle of the unbeaten will take place on Jan. 7 when Maryland hosts the Buckeyes, but don’t get your hopes up. There’s just a 6 percent chance of that happening.
7. Liberty (4.5): The Flames are very similar to the team you remember beating Mississippi State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last season. But they have yet to be tested. It’s almost as if coach Ritchie McKay scheduled for the purpose of ending up on this list. That will change with road games against Vanderbilt and LSU coming up along with a neutral-site affair against a feisty Towson squad.
Liberty is in an odd spot. The Flames have the second-lowest chance to be the last unbeaten, but the best chance to get to their conference tournament without a loss — although that chance stands at less than 1 percent. But if they can somehow get through their upcoming nonconference tests, there’s a legit (though still small) possibility the team will be 30-0 entering the Atlantic Sun tournament.
8. Butler (4.1): After a sub-.500 season, coach LaVall Jordan has Butler back in the national spotlight and Kamar Baldwin is playing like a first-team All-American. Jordan wasn’t afraid to load up the nonconference schedule either. The Bulldogs have already played five top-100 teams and have a game at Baylor on Tuesday. Assuming they pull off the upset there, Butler will need to beat Purdue in Indianapolis on Dec. 21 to make it to the New Year unbeaten. That’s a difficult task even for a team that has played as well as the Bulldogs.
Based on the simulations, the most likely day for the final unbeaten to be determined is Jan. 4. This date was the special one in 26.8 percent of cases as six potential unbeaten teams playing that day have challenging games. And the most likely single event to crown the last unbeaten would be San Diego State earning the honors on that afternoon after Auburn takes its first loss at Mississippi State. This scenario happened 4.5 percent of the time.
The earliest we could end the watch for the last unbeaten is Dec. 15. It is realistic for each unbeaten except San Diego State to lose by then, but for all of them to do so would be quite the car wreck. The longest this could go is sometime after the regular season, though the chances are incredibly slim. However, in one of the simulations, both San Diego State and Liberty made it to their conference tourneys unbeaten.
We don’t know how the chase for the last unbeaten will turn out, but we do know that eventually everyone will lose. Maybe someday a team will run the table again, but this doesn’t figure to be the year. Not with seemingly hopeless underdogs routinely challenging the top teams in the game.
