KenPom (16) and Sagarin (11) don't agree that Nebraska should be tier-4 BTW. It's important to see their record in context... 11-4, but with the 31st strongest SoS in the country per KenPom. That SoS helps to buoy Wisconsin (15th in KenPom w/ 4 losses, 17th hardest SoS), and Purdue (17th in KenPom w/ 5 losses, 10th-hardest SoS).
In my proposed tiers I had Nebraska in tier-2 not tier-4.
Per Iowa/Minnesota, it is clear from the computer rankings that their gap has lessened. KenPom has Iowa 43, Minnesota 48, Northwestern 51. Sagarin has Iowa 50, Minnesota 49, Northwestern 52. Quantitatively, it seems to me that it would justify moving Iowa down, not moving Minnesota up. Penn State is around 60 in both computer rankings as well.
I get that, but like I said in response to
@HailHailMSP , I would prefer to take a wait-and-see approach unless there is broad consensus that we should move Minnesota up (or alternatively Iowa down) now.
I do think tier 2 looks a little cluttered. I personally am not sure a lot of those teams in tier 2 would be favored to beat Michigan or MSU at home, which suggests a few of them are overweighted. However, I think it's too early in the season to truly understand which teams should be dropped into tier 3 with Maryland.
I also thought that tier-2 looked a little cluttered as soon as I wrote up my proposal but I'm not sure what to do about it just yet.
One thought I had was that after Ohio State lost at home to MSU and Wisconsin lost at home to Minnesota, maybe we should have a blank tier-2 in between the Michigan Schools (at tier-1) and the current tier-2 teams (at new tier-3). The gap might be that big. Much like the Minnesota discussion, I think we should take a wait-and-see approach on this. Of the proposed (by me) tier-2 teams, their home games against the tier-1 schools:
- Ohio State lost at home to MSU and does not host M so they will finish the season 0-1.
- Nebraska does not host Michigan and hasn't hosted MSU yet (1/17).
- Wisconsin hosts both but hasn't hosted either yet (M 1/19 and MSU 2/12).
- Indiana hosts both but hasn't hosted either yet (M 1/25, MSU 3/2).
- Purdue does not host Michigan and hasn't hosted MSU yet (1/27).
So far the tier-1 teams are 1-0 on the road against tier-2 teams (MSU>tOSU). The remaining games of that type chronologically are:
- MSU at UNL, 1/17
- M at UW, 1/19
- M at IU, 1/25
- MSU at PU, 1/27
- MSU at UW, 2/12
- MSU at IU, 3/2
For now we need to be cognizant of the possibility that Ohio State's home loss to MSU could be either:
- Just one of those things that happens, or
- A problem with Ohio State specifically rather than tier-2 generally.
However, over the course of January we may discover that Nebraska, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Purdue aren't capable of winning home games against tier-1 teams either. In that case, we need a blank tier to separate them.