B1G Bubble Watch:
A week or so ago Iowa looked to be "probably a lock" and Ohio State looked to be "should be in". Then Ohio State ran Iowa out of the gym in Columbus and that didn't look like too big of a deal for the Hawkeyes but seemed to solidify Ohio State's NCAA chances.
Since then Iowa lost at home to Rutgers and the Buckeyes have looked like hot garbage in their two games without the indefinitely suspended Kaleb Wesson.
Iowa is still "probably a lock" because the worst they could possibly do is 10-11/21-11 and that would probably still get them in but finishing up by losing five straight and six of seven can't be good. I know that "last 10 games" is no longer an official consideration but I can't honestly believe that the every committee member is going to completely ignore trajectory. At a minimum, Iowa's slide will severely diminish their seed. In Lunardi's latest projection they are down to a #9 seed.
Ohio State's chances, meanwhile, are now on life support. After the Iowa win the worldwide leader's bubble watch analysis suggested that Ohio State *might* be a lock because their worst case scenario of 8-12/18-13 might get the job done. I don't believe that in part because it failed to account for an early BTT exit. Nonetheless, Ohio State appears to be determined to test the limits of that theory as they have just looked flat awful in their last two games. They were only competitive for the first few minutes in West Lafayette before Purdue ran them out of the gym and then they never even held a lead (or tie other than 0-0) in Evanston against a team that came in on a 10-game losing streak.
Minnesota is now looking possibly more likely than Ohio State to make the tournament and Indiana might have a shot as well.
That brings us to tonight's games:
Iowa at Wisconsin:
The Hawkeyes have got to reverse this slide but winning in Madison is no small feat and clearly if they look like the team that lost in Columbus and lost at home to Rutgers, they can't do it. If Iowa can't pull this one off then it will be nearly impossible for them to get off of the 7-10 seed line where game #2 involves a nearly impossible task. Furthermore, if the Hawkeyes lose this and then lose in Lincoln this weekend they'll be edging dangerously close to bubble territory. Bubble territory is great when you are moving up into it, but it is not great at all when a few weeks ago you looked like a #6 seed.
Indiana at Illinois:
The Jeckyll and Hyde Hoosiers take their circus on the road to Champaign where they desperately need a win. Indiana has loads of quality wins, far more "quad 1" wins than any other team with a record like theirs but the problem is that record. The same Indiana team that swept Michigan State, beat Wisconsin, beat Louisville, and beat Marquette has 14 losses and is only one game over .500. Their problem is bad losses. They lost to an Arkansas team that is well below .500 in the SEC, they lost at home to Nebraska (admittedly that looked better at the time), they lost at Northwestern, they lost at Rutgers, and they lost at home to Ohio State. There is a point at which bad losses swamp quality wins and Indiana is dangerously close to that point. I'm not sure that they can afford even one more bad loss. It would be in their best interests not to find out.
