2020-2021 B1G Basketball Thread

[bayareabadger]

That's probably the special sauce in OSU's offense - they are too small to consistently bang in the paint and at least early in the season weren't shooting the three well, but Liddell's midrange game carried them through.  Seth Towns has some old man game too.

OSU is 10th nationally in long 2 shooting percentage. Bucks are 79th in how often the shoot those shots, which are generally considered bad. It's a nice bit of stat bending.

Liddell's lone 3 was also maddeningly well timed.

One update since I found the numbers
OSU was 47 percent at the rim, 70 percent on non-rim 2s, 31.1 percent from 3. Also got to the line at a slightly above average rate. 

That rim number is just awful. Bleh. 

[MaximumSam]

BTW has the B1G said anything about making up games? OSU isn't scheduled for a week, but PSU's schedule opened up because they were scheduled to play Michigan on Wednesday.  Seems like a good place to put in a makeup game if they are trying to do that.

[MaximumSam]

To answer my own question, Bucks playing PSU Wednesday now

[FearlessF]

Rutgers!

[medinabuckeye1]

Almost half way through the league season, gaps larger than one game in the standings are:

• First place Michigan (8-1) is 1.5 games ahead of second place Iowa (6-2).
• Fifth/sixth place PU and tOSU are 1.5 games ahead of seventh/eighth place MN and IU.

With those exceptions, every team is within a game or less of both the team ahead of them and the team behind them.

Michigan is on a pause due to COVID-19 and by the time they get back to playing they may have a prohibitive lead in the league. 

Standings and games through next weekend:

• 8-1 Michigan, no games.
• 6-2 Iowa, @IL.  
• 6-3 Wisconsin, @UMD, @PSU.  
• 6-3 Illinois, vsIA.  
• 6-4 Purdue,  vsMN.  
• 6-4 Ohio State, vsPSU, vsMSU.  
• 4-5 Minnesota, @PU.  
• 4-5 Indiana, no games.
• 4-6 Rutgers, vsMSU, @NU.  
• 2-4 Michigan State, @RU, @tOSU.  
• 3-6 Maryland, vsUW.  
• 3-7 Northwestern, vsRU.  
• 2-5 Penn State, @tOSU, vsUW.  
• 0-5 Nebraska, no games. 

[ELA]

Cool, MSU just has to come off a 2 week break without practicing, and beat a pair of good teams on the road to salvage their tourney streak.  Should be fun.

[medinabuckeye1]

Cool, MSU just has to come off a 2 week break without practicing, and beat a pair of good teams on the road to salvage their tourney streak.  Should be fun.

The COVID-19 pause just sucked for MSU timing wise.  They just missed two straight home games (IU, IL) and now they have two straight road games (RU, tOSU).  Played as scheduled that is no big deal but with the pause knocking out the home games well, it sucks for MSU.  

The Worldwide Leader's latest Bracketology lists MSU as one of the last four in, playing Stanford for an 11-seed.  

At this point the teams closest to the cut-line are MSU and UMD followed closely by RU and IU.  

I don't think this is a make-or-break week for the Spartans.  A win in either game would help but a loss in either game would be a "good loss".  After that MSU has back-to-back home games against Nebraska and Penn State.  Those are close to "must-win" territory simply because either would obviously be a bad loss.  IMHO, the four games after that will determine MSU's fate:

• vs Iowa on Saturday, February 13
• at Purdue on Tuesday, February 16
• at Indiana on Saturday, February 20
• vs Ohio State on Thursday, February 25

As I see it, those are four games that could plausibly go either way.  

[medinabuckeye1]

Speaking of Bracketology, here are all of the B1G teams listed:

• #1 Michigan
• #2 Wisconsin, Iowa
• #4 Ohio State, Illinois
• #5 Minnesota
• #7 Purdue
• #10 Indiana (last four byes)
• #11 Rutgers (last four byes), Michigan State (last four in)
• First four out Maryland
• Not listed Northwestern, Penn State, Nebraska

FWIW, that allocation of teams/seeds would yield on average:

• 6.66 R64 winners
• 4 S16 teams
• 2.18 E8 teams
• 1.12 F4 teams
• 0.49 NCG teams
• 0.25 National Champions

If anybody wants to see the math behind that, I can show it. 

[medinabuckeye1]

FWIW, chances to make the S16 by seed:

• 6 in 7
• a little under 3 in 5
• a little over 1 in 2
• a little under 1 in 2
• 1 in 3
• a little under 1 in 3
• a little under 1 in 5
• a little under 1 in 10
• 1 in 20
• a little over 1 in 6
• a little over 1 in 6
• a little under 1 in 7
• a little over 1 in 23
• a little under 1 in 70
• a little over 1 in 140
• hasn't happened

[medinabuckeye1]

SoS rankings nationally and within the B1G per BPI:

• #1 Penn State
• #2 Northwestern
• #4 Rutgers
• #9 Purdue
• #12 Maryland
• #14 Maryland
• #15 Indiana
• #19 Illinois
• #32 Ohio State
• #39 Wisconsin
• #40 Nebraska
• #46 Iowa
• #51 Michigan
• #78 Michigan State

Michigan State's is as low as it is simply because they have less conference games than the others to balance off their early OOC games.  Right now four of their 12 games were against minor in-state schools (EMU, WMU, Detroit Mercy, Oakland) and another was against Nebraska.  

I'm guessing that the cut-line in the B1G this year is going to be right around .500 overall.  If you look at the four bubble teams (from above) their records (conference and overall) are:

• 4-5/9-7 Indiana (last four byes)
• 4-6/8-6 Rutgers (last four byes)
• 2-4/8-4 Michigan State (last four in)
• 3-6/9-7 Maryland (first four out)

Michigan State has 10 games left on the schedule plus four postponed games that may or may not be rescheduled plus the B1G Tournament.  I'd rank the 10 remaining in order from most likely win to most likely loss as:

• vs UNL
• vs PSU
• vs tOSU
• @ UMD
• @ IU
• @ RU
• vs Iowa
• @ tOSU
• @ PU
• @ M

The four games that could potentially be rescheduled are (same order):

• vs IU
• vs IL
• @ IA
• @ M

Then they will most likely start the BTT on Thursday (seeded 5-10) or possibly Wednesday (seeded 11-14).  In theory it is better to be a top-10 seed and not start until Thursday but if they are close to the 10/11 line they would probably be better off to fall to #11.  That gets them an easy Wednesday win over #14 then a Thursday game against #7.  

Example based on current standings:
If the BTT started tomorrow, MSU would be the #11 seed, their games would be:
Wednesday vs #14 Nebraska
Thursday vs #6 tOSU (tOSU loses H2H tiebreaker with PU for 5/6)
Friday vs #3 IL (IL wins tie for 3/4 with UW based on record against PU)
Saturday vs #2 IA (or #7 or #10).  

If they magically passed Maryland for the #10 slot their games would be:
Thursday vs #7 MN (MN wins 7/8 tie with IU based on record against M)
Friday vs #2 Iowa
Saturday vs #3 IL (or #6 or #11 or #14)


I don't think their games this week are "must win" because I think that they probably only need to win about five or six more games and the games this week are their sixth and eighth most likely wins.  

[ELA]

Nah, that's supposedly "major" college coaches.

I assume you won't see any 1-bid league teams opting out, because they're never "safe".

And at the major conference level, like the B1G, you might see "safe" teams opting out, but in a league as strong as the B1G this year you'll probably have a number of teams that would be on the bubble, not "bid stealers".

The on the bubble teams would be even more incentivized to play in the conference tourney to move from bubble to automatic bid. And even more incentivized not to have a bad loss to Nebraska on their resume.

This change would be good for one bubble team from each conference IMHO, and bad for all other bubble teams in case a bid stealer manages to get lucky enough to get through in other conferences.

Andy Katz asked Mark Few about it, and he would not commit to playing in the WCC tourney, basically saying they still need to evaluate a lot of factors.

[MaximumSam]

Andy Katz asked Mark Few about it, and he would not commit to playing in the WCC tourney, basically saying they still need to evaluate a lot of factors.

Almost no upside for the Zags to play in that, and if they get an outbreak right before the real tourney, considerable downside.

[ELA]

Almost no upside for the Zags to play in that, and if they get an outbreak right before the real tourney, considerable downside.

Right, so is the WCC now a 2 bid league?  How does the committee treat that?

I would say the only upside would be the WCC tournament is a week early (usually), so by skipping it, the Zags would enter the NCAA tourney on a 2 week break

[FearlessF]

not sure a 2 week break is a good thing