2018-2019 B1G Basketball Thread

[medinabuckeye1]

General B1G Bubble Issue:

Lunardi currently has us getting nine teams in but I really don't think there is any chance of that.  He had Ohio State as a #9 seed and not on his "bubble" but that was before the Illinois loss.  Then he has Minnesota listed among the "last four byes" and Indiana as one of the "last four in".  

I don't think there is any practical way for us to get nine teams in.  The problem, as I see it, is that our bubble teams are going to roughly be those teams with the #7 through the #10 seeds in the BTT.  Ie, right now we project the three bubble teams as:

• #8 Ohio State
• #9 Minnesota
• #12 Indiana

Even if Ohio State, Minnesota, and Indiana all do a bit better than the projections they would still all wind up in that #7 - #10 range.  Then the problem is that on Thursday of the BTT, #7 plays #10 and #8 plays #9.  I just can't see any likely way for the losers of those two games to make it.  

Looking at the projected #8/9 game:
Right now we project that to be:

• #8 Ohio State 8-12/18-13 vs #9 Minnesota 7-13/17-14

If that happens, there is simply no way that the loser (either 8-13/18-14 Ohio State or 7-14/17-15 Minnesota) is getting in.  Even if Ohio State did two games better than projected or Minnesota did three games better than projected the loser would still finish 10-11/20-12.  That seems tenuous and anything worse seems like there would be almost no chance.  

[betarhoalphadelta]

Well, what if it goes differently? 

By our projection, Illinois is pretty much stuck at the 7. But Minnesota and Rutgers are projected for identical records at the 9/10, and OSU is only a game ahead. Those could easily shuffle, with OSU at the 8, Rutgers at the 9, and Minnesota at the 10. Indiana and Nebraska are both projected for the same record, but one game improvement from Indiana would put them solidly into the 11. 

OSU ends up at 8
Minnesota at 10 (flips with Rutgers)
Indiana at 11 (flips with Nebraska)

OSU is 37th in KenPom. Rutgers is 87th. I definitely see if OSU avoids a Thursday game against Minnesota, they could certainly beat Rutgers.

Minnesota is currently 50th in KenPom. If they slip to the 10, we project them playing the Illini, currently 64th in Kenpom, so you'd think they'd at least have a shot.

Conceivably, that would put Indiana (45 in KenPom) in the 11-14 game on Wednesday against 59 PSU, so they could possibly have a win before Thursday even came around. Then on Thursday they'd be up against the 6 seed, which obviously is a harder game, but right now we'd probably project that as Iowa, which IMHO is a lot easier than any of our top 5. The top 5 are all in the top 15 by KenPom, while Iowa is 27. Iowa's no slouch, but Indiana could gain 2 wins.

So you have OSU and Minnesota both winning Thursday games, and Indiana possibly picking up two wins. 

Is that likely? Perhaps not... But I can certainly see it as being possible. One positive upset for Rutgers would move them into the 9 ahead of Minnesota if Minnesota plays to projection, and one positive upset for Indiana [who did knock off MSU] would put them into the 11 ahead of Nebraska. And we could avoid any logjams in that 7-10 range.

[medinabuckeye1]

Conceivably, that would put Indiana (45 in KenPom) in the 11-14 game on Wednesday against 59 PSU, so they could possibly have a win before Thursday even came around. Then on Thursday they'd be up against the 6 seed, which obviously is a harder game, but right now we'd probably project that as Iowa, which IMHO is a lot easier than any of our top 5. The top 5 are all in the top 15 by KenPom, while Iowa is 27. Iowa's no slouch, but Indiana could gain 2 wins.

So you have OSU and Minnesota both winning Thursday games, and Indiana possibly picking up two wins.

Is that likely? Perhaps not... But I can certainly see it as being possible. One positive upset for Rutgers would move them into the 9 ahead of Minnesota if Minnesota plays to projection, and one positive upset for Indiana [who did knock off MSU] would put them into the 11 ahead of Nebraska. And we could avoid any logjams in that 7-10 range.

I think this is about the only chance we have to get nine teams in.  We would need two of our non-bubble teams to land in that 7-10 range and the two remaining bubble teams not to play each other.  
Indiana:
We currently project them to finish 5-15/14-17.  I don't think there would be any chance of them getting in with 18 losses but with their good wins I could see 16.  Even to get there, they'd have to win two upsets down the stretch to finish 7-13/16-15.  Based on our current projections that would put them in a three-way tie with Minnesota and Rutgers for 9/10/11.  In that scenario I agree with you, they would be better off to lose the tie and get the extra game on Wednesday along with a more likely upset on Thursday.  Then they'd play (probably) Penn State on Wednesday, Iowa on Thursday, and #3 on Friday (possibly Michigan).  Assume Indiana wins all those and the semi-final on Saturday then loses the CG on Sunday.  They would finish 11-14/20-16, would that do it?  

[mcwterps1]

Wow. Swallowed whistles today. 

Someone made their point last game.

[mcwterps1]

Michigan could punch every Maryland player in the face right now and now a whistle would sound. 

Holy F***ery

[bayareabadger]

Michigan could punch every Maryland player in the face right now and now a whistle would sound.

Holy F***ery

For the half, Maryland drew seven fouls and was called for only four, one a non impactful push with a few seconds left and another the best moving screen I’ve seen in a while. Real rough whistle.
Granted, if a punch in the face woke up that transition D and helped with the turnovers, might do some good. 

[mcwterps1]

For the half, Maryland drew seven fouls and was called for only four, one a non impactful push with a few seconds left and another the best moving screen I’ve seen in a while. Real rough whistle.
Granted, if a punch in the face woke up that transition D and helped with the turnovers, might do some good.

Those whistles came in the last 10 minutes.
Jalen was literally hit in the mouth off a miss, and not a look.
Maryland called for a walk with a Michigan player on his back. 
Several players hacked on the way up to the basket, but not a whistle.
Cute to take the total at the end of the half and ignore what's actually going on in the game as a whole.
Maryland playing like crap, and taking dumb shots (Jalen, you're not a 3-point shooter), stupid turnovers, and TURDgeon 0-352 on the road vs ranked teams, will of course be the reasons they lose, but the refs let Michigan play "hack a Terp" early, allowing the game to get away quick. 

[bayareabadger]

Cute to take the total at the end of the half and ignore what's actually going on in the game as a whole.
Maryland playing like crap, and taking dumb shots (Jalen, you're not a 3-point shooter), stupid turnovers, and TURDgeon 0-352 on the road vs ranked teams, will of course be the reasons they lose, but the refs let Michigan play "hack a Terp" early, allowing the game to get away quick.

Turned on the game around four minutes in , went looking, seems mostly fine.

At the time, Maryland was called for one or two.

[bayareabadger]

Huh, the look in on Beilein’s huddle speach was actually kinda informative. Weird. 

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I love this Xavier Simpson sky hook (just aesthetically), and then for its productivity, I really really can't believe it hasn't been scouted and eliminated yet. I get that the sky part means it's tough to defend, but he can only go to the right with it. Am I missing something? Is he just st that good of a distributor that adapting to take it away exposes something else for him to capitalize on, hence what we're seeing?

[ELA]

In a sport with probably the most pronounced home/away Jekyll-Hyde effects, the two teams in the conference with seemingly the largest gap in play between home and away (per my eyeballs) produced a very predictable result.

[mcwterps1]

0-19 vs ranked teams on the road.

Second half was called decently though.  Only problem I had was when Fernando did the underarm layup, Teske was up in the air and bumped him, but no call.

Minuscule compared to the first 10 minutes of the first half. 

[MichiFan87]

Definitely a very ugly game today. Fortunately Maryland's turnovers were the difference.

Teske's bad offensive game (finally making his last 3 and a few dunks aside) was disappointing, but DeJulius' unexpected minutes due to Simpson's early fouls were okay, even though the offense was particularly bad late in the first half.

Brazdeikis needs to stop shooting unassisted threes, since he's a much better shooter when he's not trying to create his own shot..... Same goes for Poole for that matter.

It seems that Beilein has given up on Austin Davis, since Brandon Johns played more than usual and only at center, even though Maryland has such a big front court.

Fortunately, the next game at Minnesota isn't until Thursday.

[bayareabadger]

Minnesota murdering IU at home. Interesting.