2015 Forecast: Pre-Holiday Cupcakes Edition

Here are some bar charts that forecast NUs results using the current win probabilities per kenpom.com.  First is an overall chart:

NU has 31 games on its regular season schedule.  Thus 16 wins or more would mean a winning overall record.  We'll help save you the trouble of breaking out a calculator: NU has just over a 15% chance of a winning regular season record.  If Vegas were to care about NU basketball then they'd likely set the over/under at 13.5 wins.  CCC's 2nd season -- one with favorable cream-puff non-conf schedule and a lightened B1G load -- is expected to finish at (13.5-17.5).  Yikes!

Next up we show NU's forecasted B1G wins:

For those of you who are holding out hope that CCC will improve on last year's 6 win campaign ..... don't.  Kenpom data predict NU has an 11% probability of at least 7 wins.  More depressing: kenpom data gives NU just a 4% chance of at least 8 wins, a 1% chance of at least 9 wins, and less than a 0.25% chance of a winning conference record.  

Conversely NU is much more likely to regress this season. NU has a 75% chance of not achieving 6 B1G wins.  Worse yet is that there is slightly better than a coin flip's chance that NU doesn't even make the 5 win mark.  That is to say a betting man would jump at even odds for a bet that NU finishes 2015 no better than the ill-fated 2013 season.  

That's just sad.