Projecting how well a college basketball team will perform has become harder and harder thanks to NIL and the transfer portal. That hasn’t stopped us (or anyone else) from making predictions.
Today, we took the time to re-visit some of our projections both from the preseason and in-season as well. So how did we do?
Let’s start all the way back in May 2024. Following Dusty May’s construction of his inaugural roster in Ann Arbor, we asked our readers what their expectations are for the 2024-25 season. It turns out we all underestimated how good the Wolverines would be — 48 percent predicted one NCAA Tournament victory, 40 percent predicted an NCAA Tournament appearance but no wins, nine percent chose Michigan would be on the wrong side of the bubble, and two percent thought it would be a true rebuild.
The fact we didn’t even pose the Sweet Sixteen as an option shows just how wildly the season played out.
In August, we took our first stab at projection a starting lineup and rotation. While we nailed the back court, we had one glaring omission in the front court.
On the guard duo of Tre Donaldson and Rubin Jones:
[…] It would make sense for Donaldson and Jones to both start. Donaldson proved to be a valuable shot-creator at Auburn, and Jones brings tons of experience and excellent on-ball defense. Jones is the type of experienced guard every team could use, so he seems like one of the locks to start looking at this roster on paper.
On Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin sharing the floor:
May and Michigan’s assistants did hint Goldin and Wolf could share the floor for stretches, but that pairing both being in the starting lineup seems unlikely. With Goldin as the starting center, I could see Wolf serving as the backup center who can earn more minutes if he makes his shots. In the second unit, he also has more of a chance to be a lead creator, which is a good thing for his long-term growth.
I’ll give us half points for complimenting Wolf’s chance at being a lead creator, but he was far from a backup center. Not only did Wolf start every game, he became Michigan’s best player rather quickly.
Next, let’s look at our starting lineup projection from October. While we still had the back court mostly correct, we still vastly underrated Area 50-1. The idea of a 7-footer pick-and-roll hadn’t appeared in anyone’s minds yet.
Fast forward to mid-January with 13 games left, when we took a game-by-game approach to projecting the remainder of the season:
- At Purdue: Projected loss, Actual loss
- Vs. Penn State: Projected win, Actual win
- At Rutgers: Projected win, Actual win
- Vs. Oregon: Projected win, Actual win
- At Indiana: Projected win, Actual win
- Vs. Purdue: Projected win, Actual win
- At Ohio State: Projected loss, Actual win
- Vs. Michigan State: Projected win, Actual loss
- At Nebraska: Projected loss, Actual win
- Vs. Rutgers: Projected win, Actual win
- Vs. Illinois: Projected loss, Actual loss
- Vs. Maryland: Projected win, Actual loss
- At Michigan State: Projected loss, Actual loss
Final Record: Projected 22-9 (14-6 in conference), Actual 22-9 (14-6)
Our midseason projection absolutely nailed Michigan’s final record. However, how the Wolverines got there went a little bit unexpected. We correctly predicted the result of nine of the 13 games. In two games, we projected a loss when Michigan ended up winning (at Ohio State, at Nebraska). Vice versa, twice we projected a Michigan win when the Wolverines came up short (vs. Michigan State, vs. Maryland).
Lastly, we turned to KenPom in mid-February to make one final prediction on how Michigan’s post-season would play out. We looked at historical teams that KenPom gave Michigan a similar resume to. While Michigan ended up being seeded significantly lower than most of the similar teams, we hit the post-season ceiling on the money:
March Madness is great because of the chaos, and there is certainly plenty of that to be had. But based on the historical metrics of where teams similar to Michigan’s current KenPom ratings, it appears the ceiling this year is a Sweet 16 run, while an exit before winning a game is also in the cards. Anything beyond that on either side of the spectrum would be a bit of a surprise.
All in all, I don’t think we did too bad for predicting an entirely new roster in a newly expanded conference.
