2020-2021 B1G Basketball Thread

[ELA]

Being in the B1G and "not being Nebraska" is a MUCH more impressive accomplishment than winning the MEAC Tournament. 

So why play a season?

[ELA]

Watching the fans at this Texas Tech game

Chris Beard is now a one man superspreader event

[Brutus Buckeye]

I like the auto-bids, but I can see why they would be infuriating to Medina's statistical brain. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

This debate feels like it centers on a few things that Medina strongly holds which most other folks either disagree with or don't care about.

1. That it is deeply unfair for teams that missed opportunities presented to them be replaced by a different caste of teams with  considerably less opportunity (well, that said schools are given a clean opportunity at all)
2. That chasing more competitive games for about half of two days is something that should be made a priority.

IMHO that's how I read Medina's posts as well.

Regarding the first point, I have a fundamental disagreement that there is some deep lack of fairness for mediocre power conference teams to not be in the tournament.

Last year, for example, Purdue was sweating the bubble. We were a decent team in a brutally difficult conference. As a fan, of course I wanted my team to get into the tournament, but I didn't think that Purdue "deserved" a bid just because we were better than those tallest midgets. I knew Purdue wasn't a team with any chance to make a deep run, so it would have been a "we're just happy to be here" luxury. They certainly didn't do anything last season that would have been deserving.

So I don't see anything unfair about teams with no chance at a deep run who haven't accomplished anything not getting in, while teams with no chance of a deep run who HAVE accomplished something getting in. Maybe winning a 1-bid league's conference tourney isn't as difficult as going 9-11 in the B1G regular season, but all you can do is win the games in front of you.

What I do think is that college sports in general is a deeply unfair process to begin with. Players are secured via recruiting rather than a draft, so it makes it much more of a "haves vs have-nots" system rather than a parity system. As such, I think that one of the things that I like about the NCAAT is the fundamental fairness. Win your conference, you're in. That's it. Simple. You control your destiny. Win and you're in. 

It may not happen often, but I find it FAR more entertaining to see some team I've never even heard of seeded at #14 beat a big-name #3. I root for it. Those kids are getting to play on the world stage for potentially the only time they'll ever get a chance in their lives. How is that not more meaningful than a mediocre power conference team in that same spot? I know nothing about UMBC other than them knocking off #1 UVA, but I'm going to have that in my head as a trivia question possibly the rest of my life. Would I care as much if that was a mediocre power conference team?

I like things the way they are.

I would do two things:

• Make the auto-bid the conference's regular season champion. I know this will never happen because the conferences make money from their conference tournaments, but it's always seemed like proving yourself the best over an 18 game conference schedule should be rewarded than getting a lucky run of a few games. This would also improve the quality of those tallest midgets.
• I agree with Medina that the play-ins, if they have to exist (I'd go back to 64 or at least 65), should all be the 16-seeds. I find it odd that 11-seed teams have to participate in play-in games. Those teams are FAR stronger than the 16 seeds. I think it was purely a money situation where the NCAA realized nobody would care about the play-in if they were only the 16s. At least if you have a couple major conference teams in the play-in, basketball fans might tune in for both games each play-in night rather than tuning in for zero games because nobody cares about the 16s. 

[ELA]

I know now the games are on ESPN+ and what not.  But except for a couple exceptions, it's just the championship game that's on TV.

Personally I love championship week. I might like it more than the tournament itself. But if you want to retain that TV money, and still put your best team in a good situation, why not replace conference tournaments with conference championship games. Or even conference championship series. Have #1 play #2, where #1 has to win once, and #2 has to win twice.

Granted then you could have situation like the Big Ten last year where you have a three team tie, and a co-champ is out of it based on a tiebreaker

[betarhoalphadelta]

Interesting thing I noticed from KenPom:

• The B1G has zero undefeated teams
• #3 Michigan - 13-1: Highest rated 1-loss team
• The B1G has zero 2-loss or 3-loss teams.
• #7 Ohio State - 16-4: Highest rated 4-loss team
• #4 Illinois - 13-5: Highest rated 5-loss team
• #5 Iowa - 13-6: Highest rated 6-loss team
• #22 Purdue - 13-7: Highest rated 7-loss team
• #27 Indiana - 10-8: Highest rated 8-loss team
• #30 Penn State - 7-9: Highest rated 9-loss team
• #44 Maryland - 10-10: Highest-rated 10-loss team
• The B1G has no teams with more than 10 losses

Seems the analytics certainly respect the toughness of schedules in the conference!

[medinabuckeye1]

So why play a season?

Come on, that is silly.

The B1G isn't always this strong, we need those early OOC games to know just how strong the league is. We also need them on a macro level to know the relative strength of all 30-some leagues. 

Then within each league we need the conference games to know the relative strength of each team. 

Only then can we determine which teams are tournament quality and which aren't. 

Based on OOC games we now know that a whole bunch of B1G teams are and that Nebraska and Northwestern are possibly the only B1G teams that aren't. However, we are going to ignore that knowledge and hold multiple tournament quality B1G teams out so that we can give those spots to vastly inferior teams that won a tallest midgets competition. 

[ELA]

Come on, that is silly.

No it isn't.  If you are saying the 12th and 13th best Big Ten teams are simply in, then what the hell are we doing?  Basically don't be Nebraska, and you can play for a national title.

[medinabuckeye1]

Is someone not realistic about their challenges and accomplishments? I don't think anyone worth much is saying "Hey, what Gonzaga has done, being undefeated at this point, is more impressive than what Baylor has done." (Yes, I know Gonzaga leads the polls, which is in part because the polls are stupid and not built on accomplishments anyway)

It just seems like a hobbyhorse that doesn't go anywhere. They don't "accomplish" more because the structure of the sport makes it impossible. Perhaps that is their challenge. I'm sure if you offered them a chance to get challenged more and gain more accomplishments, they'd say sign us up. But that won't be offered.

I suppose I might have been too snarky, but nit-picking have-nots just draws that out of me.

Edit: I will say, your critiques on the bottom part of the tournament allowed me to crystalize what I think is good about it, and I appreciate that greatly.

You answered your own question vis-a-vis anyone worth much.  YES, poll voters have them ahead of Baylor, that is flat out ridiculous.  

The structure of the sport makes it such that Gonzaga will obviously never have the SoS in conference that Baylor or any other major conference team has.  However, that structure does not require Gonzaga to play ANY low-level OOC games.  These are Gonzaga's OOC games this year:

• Kansas, #25 BPI
• Auburn, #73
• WVU, #19
• Iowa, #3 
• NWST2x #299
• UVA, #6
• NAU, #309
• Dixie State, #330

Obviously Kansas, WVU, Iowa, and UVA are high-end and Auburn was intended to be but when your in-league schedule is complete crap there is no need to schedule #299, #309, and #330 OOC.  Gonzaga's OOC should be a LOT better than any Power Conference contender because their league schedule is obviously a lot worse.  

You said:
"if you offered them a chance to get challenged more and gain more accomplishments, they'd say sign us up. But that won't be offered."  Their AD chose to schedule four OOC games against absolute crap teams.  That is THEIR choice.  They could have chosen legitimate opponents but they chose not to.  That is on them.  

Gonzaga is 4-0 against AP ranked teams, the B1G teams have played and are:

• 10 Maryland 4-6
• 9 Northwestern 2-7
• 8 Purdue 4-4
• 8 Minnesota 4-4
• 7 Iowa 4-3
• 7 Indiana 2-5
• 6 Ohio State 5-1
• 6 Illinois 3-3
• 6 Wisconsin 3-3
• 6 Michigan State 2-4
• 6 Penn State 2-4
• 5 Nebraska 0-5
• 5 Rutgers 1-4
• 4 Michigan 3-1

So in the entire B1G only Michigan hasn't played more AP teams than Gonzaga and that is only because they are in the midst of an interminable COVID-19 pause.  Note also that while Gonzaga will not play another ranked team unless and until they make it deep into the tournament, every B1G team has ranked teams left on their schedule and will play more ranked teams if they go far enough in the BTT.  Using my school as an example:

• 6 The Buckeyes have already played 6 AP teams (5-1)
• 3 The Buckeyes have three more currently ranked teams on the schedule (vs #3 M, vs #15 IA, vs #6 IL)

Thus the Buckeyes will have more than twice as many games against ranked teams as Gonzaga before the BTT and they could potentially get to 3x in the BTT and that isn't anything special by the Buckeyes it is just typical of life in a big boy conference.  

[MaximumSam]

Zags have been flip flopping with Baylor at the top of the KenPom rankings all season. The gap between them and third ranked Michigan is about the same as Michigan and 20thh ranked Texas Tech.

[medinabuckeye1]

No it isn't.  If you are saying the 12th and 13th best Big Ten teams are simply in, then what the hell are we doing?  Basically don't be Nebraska, and you can play for a national title.

For one thing, I'm not saying the 13th best B1G team is in.  Right now MSU happens to be in 13th place but they aren't the second worst team, that would be Northwestern.  I'd only include down to #12 MSU and the Spartans (#63 in BPI), Terrapins (#61), and Gophers (#57) are all borderline so they could play their way out depending on how the rest of the season goes.  

Second, I already explained that you need the season to get the data to determine how strong conferences are relative to each other and to determine how strong teams within those conferences are relative to each other.  Maybe next year the B1G will not be so strong and will have four or five "obviously out" teams instead of only one or two like this year.  

Right now the best team in the MEAC is #212 Morgan State while the worst team in the B1G is #128 Nebraska.  Why is Morgan State likely to get in while Nebraska is basically hopeless?  Nebraska is a better team by a wide margin.  Northwestern, Michigan State, Maryland, and Minnesota are even more vastly superior to Morgan State yet Morgan State has an easier path to the tournament than any of them.  

[MaximumSam]

MEAC would probably welcome Minny to join their conference.

[medinabuckeye1]

Latest Bracketology from the worldwide leader:

• #1 Ohio State, Michigan
• #2 Illinois
• #4 Iowa
• #5 Purdue, Wisconsin
• #6 Rutgers
• #9 Minnesota
• #10 Indiana

On the Bubble:

• Indiana is one of the 'last four byes"
• Penn State is one of the "first four out"
• Maryland is one of the "next four out"

Based on historical performance those seeds should yield:

• 6.54 teams in the second round
• 4.01 teams in the S16
• 2.31 teams in the E8
• 1.26 teams in the F4
• 0.66 teams in the NC
• 0.36 National Champions

[Brutus Buckeye]

Nebraska and Morgan State both have to do exactly the same thing in order to get in at this point. Win their Conference Tournament.