Big Ten All-Sports Standings: Purdue Shows Improvement

In looking around the SB Nation network this morning I found the B1G ASS CUP standings over at Off Tackle Empire. For those unfamiliar, OTE is the Football-centric uber-Big Ten blog within our network, with writers from all 14 schools. They tend to talk about the conference as a whole and do touch on all sports, not just football. The B1G ASS CUP is put together as a FanPost, but it tracks the performances of every school across all sports:

B1GASS Points (Points): This is a new metric. First place in each sport receives 14 points (equal to the number of schools in the conference). Last place (including ties for last place) in each sport receives 1 point. Everyone else receives a proportional number of points, evenly spaced between 1 and 14, according the number of schools that participate in that sport and their final ranking. If a school doesn't participate in a sport, they receive 0 points.

Conference standing percentage (CS%): First place in every sport receives a 1, last place receives a 0, and everyone else is evenly spaced in between based on the number of schools participating in that sport, thus determining the percentile for each individual team. A school's overall CS% is the average of each of these percentiles for each of their sports.

Starting this year, final B1GASS results will be determined using Points. (Previous years' final results have been determined by CS%). Both metrics reward success; the difference between the two is, in a nutshell, that Points rewards a school for participating in more sports, while CS% shows how well an athletic department performed relative to their potential, regardless of the number of sports they participate in.

Purdue will struggle in these standings somewhat because it will get zeroes in several sports it does not sponsor. Men’s soccer, men’s and women’s lacrosse, crew, gymnastics, etc. There were a few things that stood out, however:

Bang For Your Buck

Purdue had the lowest budget in the Big Ten by a wide margin. We spent just a hair under $70 million, roughly $8 million less than 13^th place Northwestern. With that little spending we outperformed and finished 9^th in their points standings. I think there also should be some bonus for winning one of the “marquee” Big Ten titles by winning in Men’s Basketball.

Purdue actually dropped a little

In the overall standings Purdue dropped from 8^th to 9^th place from 2016. This is despite winning two conference championships, which were the first since 2013 in any sport. It is still a vast improvement from finishing 12^th out of 14 in 2015, which was the first year Rutgers and Maryland are included.

Purdue did win two Big Ten titles

This shouldn’t be overlooked too much. Purdue won its first Big Ten crowns since 2013 and its first men’s title since 2012. The previous triumph was women’s golf in 2013, but this year men’s basketball and women’s outdoor track came through. The women came up just short with a second place finish in indoor track as well.

Football did finish in 13^th place instead of 14^th

Hazell does go out one brick higher! Thanks, Rutgers.