Michigan State basketball "four factors" analysis at the midway point

A few weeks ago, I introduced my annual Big Ten basketball preview where I broke down the concept of strength of schedule, performed a deep dive on the conference slate for the Michigan State Spartans, and gave the current results of my state-of-the-art Big Ten basketball simulation.

But there are other statistics that are useful to understand basketball at a deeper level. Today, I would like to reintroduce a concept referred to as the "Four Factors" of basketball success.

The Four Factors have been discussed in great detail elsewhere. Briefly the four factors on both offense and defense are:

1. Effective field goal percentage (eFGPct)

2. Turnover percentage (TOPct)

3. Offensive rebounding percentage (ORPct)

4. Free-throw rate (FTRate)

Basically, the four factors account for how well a team shoots or defends shots (eFGPct), the ability of a team to create (or lose) shots opportunities (TOPct and ORPct), and the ability of a team to score or avoid points from the free throw line (FTRate).

Big Ten Breakdown

Let's first compare the 18 Big Ten teams based on the four factors. The Table 1 below give the adjusted Kenpom offensive efficiency and performance in the four factors on offence for each team as of the morning of Jan. 11.