Michigan basketball: KenPom Big Ten rankings revealed for 2023-24
Analytics guru Ken Pomeroy has released his preseason projections for the 2023-24 college basketball season, where the Michigan Wolverines come in ranked as the No. 8 team in the Big Ten with a projected conference record of 9-11 this year.
Purdue, Michigan State, Illinois, Wisconsin, Maryland, Ohio State and Northwestern come in ranked ahead of Michigan. Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Rutgers, Penn State and Minnesota round out the teams behind U-M, respectively.
Here’s a quick refresher on what some of the numbers in the chart below mean:
Adjusted Efficiency Margin (AdjEM)
This is how KenPom determines the overall ranking of teams. This takes the offensive efficiency minus the defensive efficiency to determine how much (X) team would outscore the average Division I program. We will define those two terms below.
Adjusted offensive efficiency (AdjO)
This is the number of points a team scores per 100 possessions, or trips down the floor with the basketball. Last season, Michigan finished 48th in the country in AdjO by averaging 112.3 points per 100 possessions.
Adjusted defensive efficiency (AdjD)
This is the number of points a team allows per 100 possessions. Last season, Michigan was the 47th-ranked team in AdjD in college basketball with 97.4 points surrendered per 100 possessions.
With us caught up on those metrics, here’s a look at how KenPom ranks the Big Ten coming into the season.
Top 10
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| Team | AdjEM | AdjO | AdjD |
| Purdue | 1 | 2 | 14 |
| Michigan State | 13 | 17 | 10 |
| Illinois | 19 | 18 | 21 |
| Wisconsin | 20 | 31 | 13 |
| Maryland | 22 | 20 | 29 |
| Ohio State | 35 | 23 | 48 |
| Northwestern | 40 | 41 | 38 |
| Michigan | 44 | 46 | 42 |
| Indiana | 49 | 55 | 43 |
| Iowa | 50 | 12 | 108 |
| Nebraska | 58 | 48 | 68 |
| Rutgers | 59 | 89 | 34 |
| Penn St. | 85 | 87 | 96 |
| Minnesota | 112 | 121 | 121 |
Three quick observations
• Purdue and Michigan State are by and large considered the two teams to beat coming out of the conference this year. A lot of the names and faces are the same for the Boilermakers, headlined by the return of star center Zach Edey. It seems likely that they will be a buzzsaw throughout conference play, but they will continue to be judged by what they do in the postseason.
As far as Michigan State goes, this feels like their most loaded team in quite some time. They’ll be able to mix and match at guard as well as anyone in the country and have a potential lottery pick coming in as a freshman in Xavier Booker. This feels like a two-horse race.
• Michigan fits squarely into the middle tier of the conference, which isn’t all that surprising given the amount of question marks on the roster. If you’re someone who projects them to be worse than last year given the losses of two first-round picks and a former All-American center, you have reason to feel that way. If you think that some new blood and fresh faces can help set the reset button, you have reason to believe that, too. KenPom projects them to go 9-11 in conference play, which would put them in that 8/9 tier, which is where they’ve been the last two years.
• Fred Hoiberg is 40-83 at Nebraska, but this feels like his best shot to get the Cornhuskers into the NCAA Tournament since he’s been there. Keisei Tominaga is an all-league caliber player and there are good pieces around him. If there’s a candidate to out-perform its preseason ranking, Nebraska is as good a pick as anyone.
