In our pregame post we had written that Sparty had slipped a notch or two at home on defense but dismissed its meaningfulness because of the ineptitude of NU's offense. The crystal ball was wrong again. In this game of two movable objects NU's offense broke through!
That was the good news. The bad news is that Sparty blitzkrieged the NU defense to the tune of 85 points on 64 possessions.
GAMBLE Report
The unexpected outburst by NU's offense was fully offset by the setback to NU's defense. In the end the actual 15 point margin was just 1 point more than predicted. Hence kenpom's overall rating did not change much (improved one rung).
The offense improved 12 rungs and is now at its "best" since after the win over the Illini. The defense only dropped 3 rungs which is surprising seeing that three of the four factors dropped by about 10 rungs while the other factor (FTR) improved by about 10.
BIG CCR
The B1G CCR chart summarizes how out of character last night's game was for NU. The red offense line smashed through that 0.00 average B1G team ceiling to the tune of a downright CBC-esque +0.178. That means NU scored 0.178 more points per possession than MSU's prior opponents had on average.
On the other hand NU's defense fell drastically to -0.228 PPP. That means NU's defense allowed MSU's offense to score 0.228 points per possession more than it had against prior opponents on average. The -0.228 PPP figure barely nosed out the Wisconsin game for the NU defense's worst effort of the season.
Next Up
NU hosts Goldie on Sunday. Both teams are 5-7 and deadlocked for a 7th place tie in the B1G standings. Haven't these two teams been here before? And often? Minny is favored by kenpom by two points, but NU is trending up and Minny is trending down. A little home cooking would be just what the doctor ordered for ailing NU which is riding a two game losing streak.
