2018-2019 B1G Basketball Thread

[ELA]

Danny Nee and I think Miles taking a digger after a triumph over Rutger was hilarious.

https://twitter.com/RobDauster/status/1105998639170809856?s=19

https://twitter.com/CoachMiles/status/1106003415182782465?s=19

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is.....how do you truly determine WHO the best team is?  In the pros.....NBA, NHL, and MLB specifically.....multi-game series imo do a pretty good job of determining the "best" team and crowning a true champion.  The NFL not as much since one game can go the wrong way or be decided based on a fluke.  Same goes for the NCAA Tournament.  But what would be a better system?  There are too many teams that could make a claim to be in a multi-game tournament bracket if the NCAA were to go to something similar to the NBA.

There are no perfect systems for selecting a "pure" champion. Still, we can disinguish championship formats based on how much wackiness they welcome.
Based only on weighted win probability, a 64-team tourney is as likely to crown a false champion as any system in sports. I guess I should define that - false champion. Obviously it's a relative term (winners of championships are technically always true champions). I mean "false champion" to describe a team that wins a national championship but was emphatically not in our "who's the best" consciousness during the regular season. Using the NCAA MBB tournament, the classic examples of this wackiness are that 6-, 7- and 8-seeds have won the NC before. 16-seed UMBC toppling #1 UVa is also infamous -- that is, great for entertainment, disappointing in terms of "pure champion" chalk.
By comparison, skipping a tournament to just put it to pollsters at the end of the regular season is boring. It'll never happen. And it wouldn't eliminate controversy anyway. But the wackiness quotient for it would be as low as is realistic in the college game (approximately the same as if there were a 2- or 4-team single elimination tournament).
You mentioned the NBA and NHL models. Because they discard with single elimination, those are neat comparisons and, yes, 3-, 5-, and 7-game series have (can have) even lower wackiness quotients than a 2-team single elimination championship game. Obviously the college game can't adopt too much of that. College kids can't have months-long tournaments, for one, and college games have a culture that can erode if it gets too derivative of the pros. Having said that, some NCAA sports already run this way. And the ice hockey conference championships that do are great, though the flipping between multi-game elimination rounds and a single-elimination final isn't exactly elegant. So even there there's room to improve.

[medinabuckeye1]

I want to reply to @bayareabadger point by point because my post was absolutely NOT a half truth:


First, he admitted that the tournament favors teams from crappy conferences because they simply do not have to be as good.  That is the end of the discussion, full stop.  


For some reason he felt it necessary to continue:

He asserted that they have no leeway.  This is obviously incorrect and the example of Gonzaga proves it.  They play in a crappy conference as I illustrated above.  They failed to win their crappy conference and yet they will still be invited to the NCAA tournament due to their gaudy 30-3 record.  The thing about that record is that 16 of those wins came against Gonzaga's crappy conference-mates.  


Remember from above that this is a conference in which half of the members are substantially worse than any B1G team.  Even on the rare occasions when Gonzaga does have to play a decent opponent in conference they NEVER face the grind that comes with playing decent opponents game-in and game-out in the B1G.  They played #34 St. Mary's three times:

• They played them at home on February 9.  In their game prior to that Gonzaga played #72 San Francisco.  
• They played them on the road on March 2.  In their game prior to that Gonzaga played #213 Pacific.  
• They played them in the WCC Tournament on March 12.  In their game prior to that Gonzaga played #167 Pepperdine.  

Note that on two of the three occasions that Gonzaga played St. Mary's their preceding game was against a team at least 60 spots worse than ANY B1G team.  The other time that Gonzaga played St. Mary's their preceding game was against a team that would have been the 10th best in the B1G.  

The only time all year that Gonzaga played back-to-back games against quality opponents was in December.  They lost to #6 Tennessee in Phoenix then traveled to #7 UNC and lost that game as well.  

Next @bayareabadger asserted that the only thing these crappy conference teams can do is to play long-odds games, that if they win they might get blackballed, and that they are not pulled into exempt tournaments where they can build resumes.  The example of Gonzaga obviously illustrates that all three of these assertions are flatly false.  Gonzaga has won high-end games in the past and yet they still get that opportunity.  This year alone they hosted Washington, traveled to UNC, played a neutral-site game in Phoenix against Tennessee, and played resume-building exempt tournament games against Illinois, Arizona, and Dook in Maui.  


In his penultimate paragraph @bayareabadger uses PSU as an example and asserts that if it favored them individually, the Nittany Lions would try to find a way to play in a bad league rather than they (and others) trying to move to better ones.  First, PSU's conference affiliation is in the B1G and we don't have football only or all-but-basketball members.  Penn State can't just drop out of the league for easier BB schedules because they would also have to give up everything that the conference gets them in other areas.  

Our league has plenty of advantages.  Chief among those are money and exposure.  That does nothing to change the fact that the NCAA tournament favors crappy-conference teams because they simply do not have to be as good.  

Finally, I mostly agree with @bayareabadger 's final paragraph.  The tournament is about stories and moments.  That is fine, but I still think that there are too many auto-bids.  My measurement here is the vast number of auto-bids who will be worse than the worst at-large teams.  In Lunardi's latest, the last four at-large teams are UF/NCST who are projected to have a play-in game for the last #11 seed and tOSU/TX who are projected to have a play-in game for the first #12 seed.  Thus, Lunardi is projecting that 21 auto-bids will be worse than the worst at-large:

• The three other #12 seeds
• All four #13 seeds
• All four #14 seeds
• All four #15 seeds
• All six #16 seeds (including the two play-in games).  

Note that it will likely actually be worse than that because most conference tournaments are not yet complete and for those incomplete tournaments Lunardi assumes that the best team will win.  There will be upsets like St. Mary's over Gonzaga in the WCCCG and when those happen there will be even more bad auto-bids claimed.  

[bayareabadger]

“First, he admitted that the tournament favors teams from crappy conferences because they simply do not have to be as good.  That is the end of the discussion, full stop.”

See here’s the thing, you passionately feel this matters. I do not.

Now if you want to disagree that it’s harder for Lehigh to make the dance than Nebraska, go ahead. We’re disagreeing on a finer point there. Pointing to Gonzaga is not really applicable. That’s a unicorn and treating it as a standard is at best disingenuous.

Again, I am perfectly fine if the fringe teams are not so much “better” as more interesting. If you’re on the damn fringe, you didnt do enough to earn your spot anyway.

[ELA]

It also ignores things like how basically every Big Ten game counts as a Quad 1, and I think absolutely every Big Ten game counts as at least Quad 2.  So we established these NET Rankings, then tacked on this other thing to make it easier for power conference teams.  MSU keeps getting credit for conference games, like Rutgers or Northwestern, that Furman or Belmont or whoever could absolutely win, but they don't have them in their conference.  

Second, this is only viewing it from the standpoint of auto-bid or bust.  Yeah, some MEAC team doesn't have to be as good.  But what about a Furman, or UNC Greensboro or Belmont?  You have to be SUBSTANTIALLY better than a supposedly equivalent power 5 non-conference team.

And either way, are the top NIT teams (probably all the NIT teams, considering it's the best non-selected teams, plus the regular season mid-major champs, who are usually better than the teams who upset them) better than the bottom auto-bids?  Sure.  But maybe not.  And we know what NC State is.  What Florida is.  What Indiana is.  They are the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, whatever best teams in their own conference.  I'd much rather give Vermont a shot to prove something, than give Clemson one more game to prove what they already proved over the past several months.  This isn't football.  We aren't even pretending that every team in the field is a valid national title contender, so why would anyone want to see the 10th best team from the ACC?

[ELA]

Massey composite rankings (67 rankings) going into the tourney, with last week in parenthesis (does not include this week's games)...

• Virginia (1)
• Duke (2)
• Gonzaga (3)
• North Carolina (4)
• MICHIGAN STATE (6)
• Tennessee (5)
• Kentucky (8)
• MICHIGAN (7)
• Texas Tech (9)
• Houston (12)
• PURDUE (10)
• LSU (14)
• Kansas (11)
• Virginia Tech (13)
• Florida State (15)
• WISCONSIN (17)
• Nevada (18)
• Auburn (21)
• Buffalo (16)
• Kansas State (24)
• MARYLAND (25)
• Mississippi State (23)
• Louisville (-)
• Villanova (22)
• Wofford (-)

• 36. Iowa (32)
• 43. Minnesota (45)
• 44. Indiana (50)
• 46. Ohio State (39)
• 55. Nebraska (55)
• 56. Penn State (58)
• 88. Rutgers (76)
• 92. Northwestern (99)
• 97. Illinois (86)

[medinabuckeye1]

“First, he admitted that the tournament favors teams from crappy conferences because they simply do not have to be as good.  That is the end of the discussion, full stop.”

See here’s the thing, you passionately feel this matters. I do not.

Now if you want to disagree that it’s harder for Lehigh to make the dance than Nebraska, go ahead. We’re disagreeing on a finer point there. Pointing to Gonzaga is not really applicable. That’s a unicorn and treating it as a standard is at best disingenuous.

Again, I am perfectly fine if the fringe teams are not so much “better” as more interesting. If you’re on the damn fringe, you didnt do enough to earn your spot anyway.

My point was that it was easier for crappy conference teams because they don't have to be as good.  You can't say that I'm wrong unless you can refute THAT point.  
I'm fine with your statement that you don't think that matters.  Ok, agree to disagree.  Saying that my point is irrelevant (to you) or arguing that my point is irrelevant generally is not the same thing as saying that I am wrong.  
I disagree wrt Gonzaga.  They are an example of a crappy-conference team that gets into the NCAA Tournament every year (20 straight, about to be 21).  Their streak proves that it is possible for a crappy-conference team to make the tournament consistently.  
I'm willing to accept SOME teams getting in that are clearly not as good as the others but I think that as currently formulated there are too many of those.  As I explained above, there will be ~21 auto-bids that wouldn't be good enough to get an at-large invite.  That is almost 1/3 of the total.  IMHO, that is too many.  
Finally, your last comment:  "If you’re on the damn fringe, you didnt do enough to earn your spot anyway.":
Look, I am a fan of a team that is on the fringe.  I get your point.  My Buckeyes had their chances.  They lost a one possession game to Rutgers and pushed your Badgers to OT.  With a couple of plays they could have won those two games in which case they would be 10-10/20-11 and a lock for the NCAA.  They'd be a #7 seed in the BTT playing Penn State for the right to play Purdue and it would only be relevant for seeding.  
It is easy to say that they didn't do enough.  @Brutus Buckeye clearly agrees with you and I don't completely disagree.  The Buckeyes (and all the other fringe tournament teams) are clearly NOT NC material.  My objection isn't that they are, it is that there are going to be at least 15-20 teams worse than Ohio State in the tournament.  
Even there, I grudgingly accept that there are a bunch of crappy-conference tournament champions who won a "tallest midget" competition and there is some benefit to giving them access in terms of entertainment value.  It just ticks me off when I hear people try to claim that it is biased against the little guy because it isn't.  It is clearly easier for a crappy-conference team to get in than it is for a quality-conference team to get in.  

[Brutus Buckeye]

The mid majors are in a similar boat as teams at the lower levels, where the autobid is everything, and nothing else really matters unless you are a top ten team including regular season conference titles.

[medinabuckeye1]

It also ignores things like how basically every Big Ten game counts as a Quad 1, and I think absolutely every Big Ten game counts as at least Quad 2.  So we established these NET Rankings, then tacked on this other thing to make it easier for power conference teams.  MSU keeps getting credit for conference games, like Rutgers or Northwestern, that Furman or Belmont or whoever could absolutely win, but they don't have them in their conference.  

Ok, but Furman and Belmont don't have to play challenging games practically every time out.  Your Spartans lost to the Hoosiers twice.  One of those games followed a loss to Purdue and the other followed a win over Michigan.  Let me know next time Furman or Belmont plays back-to-back conference games against #12 and #51 or #10 and #51.  

Second, this is only viewing it from the standpoint of auto-bid or bust.  Yeah, some MEAC team doesn't have to be as good.  But what about a Furman, or UNC Greensboro or Belmont?  You have to be SUBSTANTIALLY better than a supposedly equivalent power 5 non-conference team.

I disagree for the reason stated above.  Furman, Belmont, and UNC-Greensboro haven't proven that they are as good as the fringe power-conference teams because they haven't played enough quality opponents.  If you want a chance outside of the auto-bid (which is REALLY easy to obtain) then go out and schedule some quality OOC opponents.  

And either way, are the top NIT teams (probably all the NIT teams, considering it's the best non-selected teams, plus the regular season mid-major champs, who are usually better than the teams who upset them) better than the bottom auto-bids?  Sure.  But maybe not.  And we know what NC State is.  What Florida is.  What Indiana is.  They are the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, whatever best teams in their own conference.  I'd much rather give Vermont a shot to prove something, than give Clemson one more game to prove what they already proved over the past several months.  This isn't football.  We aren't even pretending that every team in the field is a valid national title contender, so why would anyone want to see the 10th best team from the ACC?

Of course the top NIT teams are better than the bottom auto-bids.  Look, the bottom auto-bids are terrible.  In the 30+ years that we have been doing this those #16 seeds are 1-135 against the #1's.  The #15 seeds are 8-128.  Of the nine that did manage to upset a top team, eight of them lost to a mediocre team (7-10 seed which generally means a ~.500 team from a power conference) in the second game.  The one-and-only #15 seed to make the Sweet Sixteen flamed out right there.  

Upsets happen so nine times in 270 tries the #15 and #16 seeds have managed to pull off the upset but they never went far.  They aren't relevant to the NC.  They aren't going to win any more than NCST, UF, IU, tOSU, Clemson.  Actually they have way less chance than those teams because those teams are usually teams that have pulled off at least one upset of a quality team this season where the worst auto-bids can't even say that (usually).  

[ELA]

Actually, it's not easy to obtain.  Furman offered to go to South Carolina and Clemson.  They both said no.  Gary Parrish discussed this recently.  Those top mid majors really struggle to find teams willing to play them.

BTW, Furman scheduled 2 of the 4 Final 4 teams from last year, beat them both, and played at LSU.

They are never going to get to the quantity of the Power 5 teams, because the way it's set up now, every conference game is a Quad 1 or a Quad 2 game.

[medinabuckeye1]

Actually, it's not easy to obtain.  Furman offered to go to South Carolina and Clemson.  They both said no.  Gary Parrish discussed this recently.  Those top mid majors really struggle to find teams willing to play them.

BTW, Furman scheduled 2 of the 4 Final 4 teams from last year, beat them both, and played at LSU.

They are never going to get to the quantity of the Power 5 teams, because the way it's set up now, every conference game is a Quad 1 or a Quad 2 game.

The parenthetical "(which is REALLY easy to obtain)" referred to the auto-bid.  Obtaining that requires nothing more than winning a "tallest midget" competition.  Here is what Furman did in their own Southern Conference:

• 0-2 against #13 Wofford (H/A)
• 1-2 against #58 UNC-Greensboro (won H, lost A and N)
• 1-1 against #71 ETSU (H/A)
• 1-1 against #162 Samford (H/A)
• 2-0 against #217 Mercer
• 2-0 against #272 Citadel
• 2-0 against #295 Western Carolina
• 2-0 against #305 VMI

You said upthread that you don't want to see the 10th best team in the ACC well I don't want to see the third best team in the Southern.  Neither is the best in their league and the 10th best team in the ACC is a better team.  Furman's 8-0 record against Mercer, Citadel, WCU, and VMI does not impress me and it shouldn't impress anyone else either.  Their loss to Samford is damning.  That is far worse than Ohio State's worst loss (I'm only using tOSU as the example because they are a fringe tournament team that I follow so I don't have to look it up, I just know).  I would guess that Furman's loss to Samford is worse than most fringe tournament teams' worst loss.  

All the fringe teams had their chances and Furman is no exception:

• Don't lose to the 162nd best team in the Country (would be worst in the B1G by far)
• Don't lose to the 71st best team in the Country (would be 12th in the B1G)
• Don't lose twice to the 58th best team in the Country (would be 12th in the B1G)

B1G teams get credit for lots of Quad 1 and Quad 2 games because they play a lot of quality opponents.  Southern Conference, WCC, etc teams don't because they don't.  

[MaximumSam]

St. Mary's wasn't on the bracketology until they won their auto-bid, but are 29th on KenPom, higher than several tourney locks.

[medinabuckeye1]

I follow this stuff, here are the number of first and second round wins by seed since the expansion to 64 teams (136 attempts):

Seed	R64	R32
1	135	116
2	128	85
3	115	70
4	108	64
5	89	46
6	85	42
7	84	27
8	68	13
9	68	7
10	52	23
11	51	22
12	47	20
13	28	6
14	21	2
15	8	1
16	1	0

Note the HUGE dropoff from the #12's to the #13's.  The #12 seeds have won 47 5/12 games.  That is almost as many first round wins as the #13-16 seeds combined (58).  The #12 seeds have also made 20 Sweet Sixteen appearances which is more than twice as many as the #13-16 seeds combined (9).  

The bottom line is that the worst auto-bids are laughably non-competitive.  They (the #13-16 seeds) have made only nine Sweet Sixteen appearances in 544 attempts (1.65%) and none of them have ever advanced beyond that.  

[Brutus Buckeye]

It is exactly as many as the 13 and 14 combined.