2018-2019 B1G Basketball Thread

[ELA]

OSU can't hit open 3s against anyone, and for the second straight game they hit every contested 3 against MSU.  Have to be right around 50%

[ELA]

This is a game I'd prefer Beilein was coaching OSU, Wesson would have sat for the remainder of the half, rather than his coach trusting him not to pick up #3.  That was huge.

Welp.
He had 3 really bad games against MSU this year, and tha'ts been huge.

[MaximumSam]

Wesson must have taken the refs lunch money or something.

[grillrat]

There's a potential bid stealer situation about to occur in the A-10.  VCU down 3 with 17 seconds left.  I think I have seen that VCU is solidly in already, so if they drop this game, whoever wins the A-10 autobid will knock someone else out.

[MaximumSam]

Welp.
He had 3 really bad games against MSU this year, and tha'ts been huge.

His first game was really good, but the last two, yeah.

[bayareabadger]

MSU is the team that sees you take the lead and rips off a 23-9 run. 

[ELA]

VCU goes down, A10 just became a 2 bid league

[fezzador]

There are too many games held in the west. Even ignoring the implosion of the PAC, the vast majority of basketball is played east of the Mississippi, but the regionals aren't proportioned that way.

25% of the 1st and 2nd round games will be played in either MDT or PDT.  I don't think that's all that excessive.  
I get the point you're trying to make though, and yes, a relatively small percentage of D1 basketball is played in those two time zones, and yes, it sucks that 4 and 5 seeds have to travel well over 1,000 miles to play rinky-dink California schools in what basically amounts to being their own back yards, but honestly, there are high schools in Texas that have larger followings than said rinky-dink west coast schools, so at worst it'd be a true neutral court.  I believe only 3 seeds and higher are offered any sort of geographical "protection" (i.e. either staying in their own region or time zone), and any geographical proximity for lower seeds would be purely coincidental.
And geography is virtually a non-factor when upsets happen in March Madness.  Nine times out of ten, four seeds eat thirteen seeds for breakfast regardless of locale.  Thirteen seeds occasionally upset four seeds due to hot shooting (or extremely poor shooting by the favorite), taking the favorite out of their comfort zone by playing a different tempo, or simply catching the favorite looking ahead. 

[ELA]

His first game was really good, but the last two, yeah.

He was good when he was in, but IIRC he got himself in foul trouble there, and had to go out when OSU had a big lead, and that flipped the game.

[bayareabadger]

I get where you are coming from and I don't think we are THAT far apart.  
I get that a crappy-conference team winning a great proportion of its games often means nothing.  I don't see anything wrong with that because it SHOULD mean nothing.  Nobody would give a fringe NCAA team from a major conference any credit for winning games against HS teams, we shouldn't give crappy-conference teams credit for winning games against teams that aren't a challenge.  
Sure, we can agree that everything coming down to a three-day stretch is its own kind of difficult.  It REALLY sucks when you actually ARE the tallest midget but you have one bad game and lose the tallest midget competition (ie, crappy-conference championship) because then you are out.  On that subject, I think that @MichiFan87 's suggestion that 1-bid leagues should eliminate their tournaments has some merit.  
"The structure of college sports works against small schools", I agree if you are talking money.  This isn't a pro league where we can equalize the money.  Fans and alums spend and some schools do better in that arena than others.  If your school is lucky enough to count T. Boone Pickens (OkSU) or Phil Knight (Oregon) as an alum then you can build facilities and whatnot that most schools can only dream of.  Outside of that, if you are in a conference that rakes in TV money then you have at least enough $$$$ to keep up.  If you don't have either of those things well then you are probably playing BB in a glorified HS Gym.  

That first sentence is correct, and should probably be the board slogan.
I mostly agree with MichiFan. The only reason to do the tournaments is money and attention. I get that places want it, and that tradeoff just is what it is. If I was a good team in it, I'd probably dislike it, but I get why the conferences do it.
To get a little philosophical here. There's a very finite resource at play here: games against good teams. They get you into the dance, but they also tell a team, "You are in fact not good enough for this." And there just aren't enough of those to go around. There's not enough good games to say "Hey UNCG, you're not at this level," or to say "Hey, maybe Buffalo is that good." (And some small schools wouldn't want it because 20 soft wins get something if you'd never dance anyway) Net is an indicator, but resumes always matter most. There is a little bleed around the edges, like if you give a certain level of not quite tallest midget 10 Q1 games, the win 1-2, and some Power conference teams would slip a time or two if there were 25 Q3 and 4 games, but that too is life. 
Again, appreciate your perspective. 

[bayareabadger]

VCU goes down, A10 just became a 2 bid league

Sorry Belmont and good luck TCU

[ELA]

2005 Drew Neitzel 2.0?

This is the exact same thing that happened with Neitzel.  Disappointing freshman year coming of Mr. Basketball, then suddenly exploded in the postseason to extend Izzo's bench, and his career took off from there

[ELA]

Yeesh, Fab Five these guys are not.  15-2 run for OSU against MSU's five freshman.  Might as well try fouling now, cut it from 20 to 7, still 20 seconds left

[bayareabadger]

Cliff's Notes on what you mean, please.

Sooo, writers on the twitters started waving around that bubble team NC State had the worst NC SOS in the whole damn country. This was one of those little nuggets you use in sports arguments for why they shouldn't be in.
Then you look at that schedule and you see the No. 16 and 17 teams in the next rankings. Surely there are schedules without multiple opponents of that caliber. But the reason that happened was basically the reverse of how people used to game RPI. 
Basically, RPI or any SOS, everything matters, even in a super unbalanced sport like CBB. So if you schedule a bunch of home games vs teams in the 175 (13-17 Ohio) to 250 range (14-17 Eastern Washington) it kinda lifted things up. NC State seems to have done the opposite. 
The Wolfpack managed to play eight opponents between 281-352, which will just murder your schedule. They got struck with a few bits of bad luck and one bit of good luck. Beyond the two good games, this is their schedule:
Penn State, a Q1 win, though you probably don't plan for it to be. 
Vandy, a team that added two five-star recruits and a good 4-star and was supposed to be good, but managed to go 9-23
UNC Ashville and Mercer, two consistently solid mid to low majors who won 11 and 4 games
Six sort of irredeemable bad programs that are very bad. 
I clearly feel that's not the end of the world. Not a good slate, not a killer. But it seemed to really stick for some people. Wanted to know if others had feelings.