2018-2019 B1G Basketball Thread

[Brutus Buckeye]

Gophers win. 

[Brutus Buckeye]

youngster
I started following Gary at Boston College in the early 80s
the Big East was known as the Coach's conference back then

The first time I paid any mind to OSU hoops was when Randy Ayers was rocking and rolling with Jimmy Jackson. I was in fifth grade. 
Randy's brother coached my brother's HS basketball team, and one of his teammates was also named Jimmy Jackson. It made for quite the intimidation factor on the central Ohio HS basketball circuit. Especially since the coach looked exactly like Randy Ayers. 

[FearlessF]

Gophers win.

sorry Badge

[TyphonInc]

Good News for the Bucks, all 4 teams that ESPN had as the 1st 4 out all lost today. 

[Anonymous Coward]

TT going down to the worst team in the XII may open up space for a(nother) Big Ten team in 2-seed range.

[847badgerfan]

sorry Badge

I was hoping they would win, actually.

[bayareabadger]

Lunardi moved OSU out of Dayton, dropped Maryland to a 6.

[847badgerfan]

One thing I don't like about the brackets this year is that there are few options for the 4/5 seeds. Outside of the Hartford pod, all the other ones head West.

[bayareabadger]

One thing I don't like about the brackets this year is that there are few options for the 4/5 seeds. Outside of the Hartford pod, all the other ones head West.

Is that always the case? Fees like a 4 doesn’t get much say. 
Anyway, seems like an unusual concentration of top seeds in the upper South and Eastern Midwest. They’ve got a billion options for the Columbus and Columbia sites, Many of whose best alternatives are Iowa. Then Tulsa has its two 3s. So you have Jacksonville, which likely takes runoff Southern schools, so it’s Hartford and two to the west. 
It probably also hurts balance that your best West schools are Gonzaga, Nevada and Utah State. 

[847badgerfan]

Yeah, I think it's true more often than not. The 4's get shipped off to a land far, far away. I've seen UW get pushed out West a whole lot, it seems. If Lunardi were to hold, they would head to San Jose to play 13 seeded UC Irvine, which gets to stay a little closer to home. Grrr...



Ah well. After seeing them miss out last year, I'm happy they are back in the mix. They need to focus on today, and then see if they can possibly play their way to a 3. Doubt it, but it's fun to think about.

[bayareabadger]

Yeah, I think it's true more often than not. The 4's get shipped off to a land far, far away. I've seen UW get pushed out West a whole lot, it seems. If Lunardi were to hold, they would head to San Jose to play 13 seeded UC Irvine, which gets to stay a little closer to home. Grrr...



Ah well. After seeing them miss out last year, I'm happy they are back in the mix. They need to focus on today, and then see if they can possibly play their way to a 3. Doubt it, but it's fun to think about.

That would matter because of ... no time change? Certianly not because of fans.

[RestingB!tchFace]

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.

If you want to trim the tournament down to 32 or even 16 teams....that's fine.  But the way that I see it right now....the best team in the nation should be able to beat these teams that wouldn't even be invited to the hypothetical trimmed down tournament.

[bayareabadger]

Interesting. 

Lunardi has Belmont as his last team in as a lot of borderline schools took some hits. What's more interesting is his next eight out includes seven teams now in the clubhouse. If Bama loses to UK today, that'd be eight. An 18-15 team with three Q1 wins and two Q3 losses is a rough one.

Interestingly, Jerry Palm has them flipped has Bama and UNCG in, I assume because he doesn't want to give up RPI. 

Also, does anyone have any thoughts on the NC State SOS thing? It's either a call to arms or statistical lesson. 

[Riffraft]

The first time I paid any mind to OSU hoops was when Randy Ayers was rocking and rolling with Jimmy Jackson. I was in fifth grade.
Randy's brother coached my brother's HS basketball team, and one of his teammates was also named Jimmy Jackson. It made for quite the intimidation factor on the central Ohio HS basketball circuit. Especially since the coach looked exactly like Randy Ayers.

I feel old, I started following at the tail end of Fred Taylor. Watching Jimmy Clemmons smooth shooting with Jimmy Crums exclaiming "How about that!"