2020-2021 B1G Basketball Thread

[betarhoalphadelta]

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.

What is "tournament quality"?

Because if it's "has a legitimate shot at getting to the F4 or winning the championship", anyone past the 9-10 seed is out. Nobody past the 11 has EVER made it to the F4. The 9 seed has made it once, the 10 seed once, and almost inexplicably the 11 seed has made it 4 times.

Heck, anyone past the 4 seed is a damn moon shot for the championship. In the history of the 64-team tournament, the 4, 6, 7, and 8 seeds have only won the championship once each. 

So what's the point of replacing a bunch of tallest midgets with a bunch of disappointing normals?

[ELA]

Northwestern blew that game twice

[Brutus Buckeye]

One way to look at it is that the Conference Tournaments are part of the NCAA Tournament, only when those rounds are over they award mulligans to a certain number of teams based on their regular season result, and then call them "at large" bids while reseeding the remaining rounds.

[medinabuckeye1]

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

That is hardly equivalent.  Morgan State is the best team in theirs, Nebraska would be too.  Nebraska has almost zero chance in the BTT and Morgan State's chances would be even worse.  

[medinabuckeye1]

So what's the point of replacing a bunch of tallest midgets with a bunch of disappointing normals?

I'm actually not in favor of that.  My proposal here (the plausible one) is to leave the tallest midgets but effectively make them play play-in games against mediocre normals in the new 13/20, 14/19, 15/19, and 16/17 games.  

I agree with you that nine's and below aren't going to win and I'd personally be thrilled with no auto-bids and a 32 team tournament but that isn't going to happen.  

[Brutus Buckeye]

Well a 32 team tourney might be less likely than the other proposals, but none of them are probably "going to happen." 

[bayareabadger]

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. 

We agree, polls are silly. This is good

I respect you a great deal, but please, I don't need to see really long lists that tell me playing in a Big Ten schedule means you play more high level games than a WCC schedule. I know that's the case. I will always know that's the case. It will be the case in March, May, September. That is the structure of the sport. 

Now, you point out correctly, I said they would take on all comers. I suppose I didn't imagine a world where they just eschew home games altogether. I suppose they could've done that. They won't, in part because people alas respond to incentives, and particularly persnickety outlooks do not make incentives. The main way to do that would be to drop them seed lines, but we were talking about fairness, and that leads to some high-end unfairness. Also, in normal years, selling tickets has some value, and you can't just pay to chase the standards of someone who is likely to be unsatisfied barring a home game free slate. 

Anyway, since we're talking impossible things like not playing home games, might as well have every Big Ten team schedule them. Helps Big Ten SOS. Helps Gonzaga SOS. Makes for good TV. Say seven home games, seven away. You wipe out a big chunk of of the Zags' bad non-conference opponents and get a good game on everyone's slate. I'm all for this. 

[bayareabadger]

I'm actually not in favor of that.  My proposal here (the plausible one) is to leave the tallest midgets but effectively make them play play-in games against mediocre normals in the new 13/20, 14/19, 15/19, and 16/17 games. 

I agree with you that nine's and below aren't going to win and I'd personally be thrilled with no auto-bids and a 32 team tournament but that isn't going to happen. 

On Saturday, you have a 32-team tournament. You have teams that were either in that Top 32, or midgets or mediocre normals that a top-32 team couldn't beat. Sounds peachy. 

[bayareabadger]

Wisconsin won a kinda crappy game. 

I think they're one win from being a lock, but they're only gonna be favored once the rest of the way and face four top-5 KenPom teams and a game at Purdue in the final six. 

Efff. 

[medinabuckeye1]

We agree, polls are silly. This is good

I respect you a great deal, but please, I don't need to see really long lists that tell me playing in a Big Ten schedule means you play more high level games than a WCC schedule. I know that's the case. I will always know that's the case. It will be the case in March, May, September. That is the structure of the sport.

Now, you point out correctly, I said they would take on all comers. I suppose I didn't imagine a world where they just eschew home games altogether. I suppose they could've done that. They won't, in part because people alas respond to incentives, and particularly persnickety outlooks do not make incentives. The main way to do that would be to drop them seed lines, but we were talking about fairness, and that leads to some high-end unfairness. Also, in normal years, selling tickets has some value, and you can't just pay to chase the standards of someone who is likely to be unsatisfied barring a home game free slate.

Anyway, since we're talking impossible things like not playing home games, might as well have every Big Ten team schedule them. Helps Big Ten SOS. Helps Gonzaga SOS. Makes for good TV. Say seven home games, seven away. You wipe out a big chunk of of the Zags' bad non-conference opponents and get a good game on everyone's slate. I'm all for this.

I get where you are coming from but I think that Gonzaga has built up enough of a "brand" to be realistically able to avail themselves of H&H series with power conference opposition.  Even if they haven't, they could easily AT LEAST get H&H series against other typical mid-major powerhouses.  Four of their OOC games this year were against not only teams that were not that good, but against some of the absolute worst teams in the entire sport.  Some of that may have been pandemic issues this year but I've noticed this about their schedule in other years as well.  

I don't know about you, but as an Ohio State fan, I'd be disappointed if my team scheduled 300+ opponents OOC and my team (like yours) has the legitimate excuse that they get PLENTY of tests in conference so they don't need extra tests OOC beyond the Challenge and a few games here or there.  Gonzaga doesn't have that excuse so, to me, scheduling the absolute dregs of the sport OOC is . . . inexcusable.  

What to do about it?  Well, if it were me, I would take it into serious consideration when seeding them in the tournament.  Even if they finish undefeated, there will be a whole lot of major conference teams that are not undefeated but that have a LOT more quality wins than they do.  I'm not saying I would seed teams exclusively by "number of wins against quality opponents" but I also wouldn't do it exclusively based on winning percentage against quality opponents.  I'd balance the two and IMHO, the balance has leaned too heavily in Gonzaga's favor for quite some time.  

I have the same issue looking at the B1G right now.  Michigan is probably our best team and I'm not saying this to pick on them (even though I am an Ohio State guy) but at some point their lack of games and thus wins due to this interminable COVID pause has to be considered.  Their winning percentage of 1.000 against the B1G's .500+ teams and their winning percentage of .857 against the B1G's best 12 (all but NU and UNL) are both best in the league but:

• Their two wins against .500+ B1G teams is tied for 5th/6th/7th/8th/9th/10th in the league with PU, IA, RU, IU, and PSU and trails tOSU (5), IL MN, and UMD (3 each).  
• Their six wins against the top-12 is tied for 4th/5th/6th with UW and RU and trails IL and tOSU (8 each) and PU (7).  

I'm not saying that Michigan isn't a great team, just that they are going to have to get back to actually playing games and proving it if they are going to maintain their assumed status as the B1G's #1 contender come Tournament time.  

[medinabuckeye1]

Wisconsin won a kinda crappy game.

I think they're one win from being a lock, but they're only gonna be favored once the rest of the way and face four top-5 KenPom teams and a game at Purdue in the final six.

Efff.

Your team is a bit of an enigma to me.  They are perfect against the league's worst two teams and a very respectable 7-2 against the league's >.500 teams.  That is better than all but Michigan, Illinois, and Purdue (6-1 each).  However, they are an abysmal 1-3 against the .500+ teams.  That is tied with PSU (2-6) and only better than MSU (1-5), NU (1-8), and UNL (0-3).  

Being consistent about beating bad and mediocre teams isn't nothing.  If it were easy, every good team would do it every time out and they don't.  As noted, Wisconsin is one of the best in the B1G at it.  However, they haven't been very good against their equals.  OTOH, Wisconsin's three losses to .500+ teams were to the top three in the standings (M, IL, tOSU) and two of the three were on the road (M, IL).  They have five games left against the .500 teams and three of the five are at home:

• vs M
• vs IL
• @ PU
• vs IA
• @ IA

Wisconsin's near-annual top-4 B1G finish is in serious jeopardy.  They are in fourth now and only a game behind #3 and also #2 but as of right now they would lose a tie with either of them so they are effectively 1.5 games from moving up and only 0.5 games ahead of #5 and #6.  Since it seems unlikely that they'll be able to catch the Buckeyes or Illini it will likely hinge on their two games against Iowa and their game in West Lafayette.  

[betarhoalphadelta]

Rough finish for the Boilers in Minneapolis... 

Credit to Marcus Carr for being a stone cold killa at the end. Purdue shut him down in the first meeting, so I'm sure he was motivated. 

Certainly not a bad loss, but with a late lead feels like a missed opportunity given the way the team was playing--led the game from late in the first half until the last minute.

[Brutus Buckeye]

How did Bwarbs change his name? And why weren't we consulted for suggestions? It really should have been voted upon, imo. 

I'd have ran "Bwarb Wire" up the flag pole, in order to see if anyone would have saluted it. 

[medinabuckeye1]

How tough is the B1G this year?  Here is the worldwide leader's BPI SOS ranking within the B1G:

• #1 PSU
• #2 NU
• #4 RU
• #5 IL
• #6 UMD
• #7 IU (that is six of the top 7 nationally)
• #9 PU
• #16 MN (the B1G is still at half, eight of the top 16 toughest schedules)
• #22 tOSU
• #30 Iowa
• #31 UW
• #32 UNL
• #36 MSU
• #68 Michigan

Note that the three with the weakest SOS so far have played the fewest league games.  Michigan has only played nine (second least), Michigan State has only played 11 (tied for third least), and Nebraska has only played eight (least). 

Michigan has by far the weakest SOS and that is largely because they have played so few league games.  Additionally, two of their nine league games played so far were against the worst two teams (vsNU, @UNL) and they have only played two games against the top half of the conference (vsUW, @PU).  Their other five league games were against the middle with two each against 6-7 MN and 4-8 UMD and a home game against PSU. 


Record against the B1G's .500+ teams:

• 1.000 Michigan, 2-0
• .714 Ohio State, 5-2
• .714 Illinois, 5-2
• .429 Iowa, 3-4
• .429 Purdue, 3-4
• .400 Minnesota, 4-6
• .400 Wisconsin, 2-3
• .375 Rutgers, 3-5
• .286 Indiana, 2-5
• .273 Maryland, 3-8
• .222 Penn State, 2-7
• .182 Northwestern, 2-9
• .167 Michigan State, 1-5
• .000 Nebraska 0-5