By the Numbers: Nebraska at Kansas

What’s the best cure for a three-game losing streak? Certainly not a visit to Allen Fieldhouse, home of the undefeated Jayhawks. Nebraska will have its hands full this game. Here’s how some of the numbers shape up.

Analysis: Last 5 Venue-Appropriate Games

The charts below illustrate the performance for each team over their last 5 venue-appropriate games. That is, KU home games and Nebraska non-home games (NU only has three non-home games this season). The red bar represents each team’s current Sagarin Predictor rating, which best represents team strength for the entire season. The “Performance” is calculated by taking the opponent’s Sagarin rating for the game and adding (subtracting) the margin of victory (loss) for each game. Home advantage is also factored into the equation.

In this analysis, Kansas has performed about 3 points better than its average. Nebraska has underperformed its season rating by 4 points. Thus, over the last five venue-appropriate games for each team, Kansas has been 24.3 points better than Nebraska. Another 4.3 points can be given to KU for the expected homecourt advantage, meaning this analysis predicts a blowout victory for Kansas, approaching the 30-point range.

Statistical Strengths and Weaknesses Analysis

(Note: These are based on raw statistics that are unadjusted for strength of opposition.) 

** Denotes that team with advantage also ranks in Top 50 in that category
Clear Advantage for Kansas	No Clear Advantage	Clear Advantage for Nebraska
Kansas 3pt FG%**
Nebraska OREB**
Nebraska FT%**
Nebraska % Poss STL by Opp**
Nebraska % own 2FGA's blocked**
Nebraska PTS/Poss**
	Kansas % own 2FGA's blocked
	Nebraska TO rate
	Nebraska eFG%
	Nebraska 3pt FG%
	Nebraska 2pt FG%
	Nebraska FT Rate
	Kansas eFG%
	Kansas PTS/Poss
	Kansas 2pt FG%
	Kansas TO rate
	Kansas FT%
	Kansas OREB
	Kansas % Poss STL by Opp
		Kansas FT Rate

Four Factors Game Projections

This method matches up each team’s offensive statistics against the other team’s defensive statistics. It also adjusts for the strength of opponents’ offense and defense faced so far. Thus, a team that has played an extremely weak defensive schedule will not be artificially projected to shoot well. Keep in mind that this is a projection of what would happen if each team played at its average level to date. It does account for the location of the game, but it does not adjust for teams that play particularly well or poorly based on location more so than the average team.

Statistic	Team With Projected Advantage
eFG%	KU 55-42%
TO Rate	KU 26-20%
O-Reb%	KU 36-24%
FT Rate	Tied 22% each
Four Factors Overall	KU's significant shooting edge will be reinforced with decent gains in TO and OREB% to produce a blowout.