2021-2022 B1G Basketball thread

[medinabuckeye1]

I know tonight's game is a big deal for at least @betarhoalphadelta !  Purdue travels to Bloomington and is favored by 3.5.  

Purdue, of course, was up to #1 at one point and is still top-5.  Their road win at Illinois on Monday looks great but the losses at home to UW and on the road to RU do show some chinks in the armor.  They aren't unbeatable.  

For their part the Hoosiers have looked very good even if not as good as Purdue.  Their four losses are:

• At Syracuse in OT.  
• At Wisconsin by 5.  
• At Penn State by 3.  
• At Iowa by 9.  

None of those are particularly embarrassing.  Syracuse and Penn State aren't great but both of those losses were very close and note that all four were on the road.  The Hoosiers haven't lost in Bloomington since losing to #3 Michigan on February 27, 2021.  

That makes this an intriguing match-up to me.  I could see it going either way.  We project an IU win but that is only due to this being a home game for them.  

Purdue is probably the best team in the league and when they are playing at their best there is no doubt about that.  They are #5 in BPI (next best is #11 IL), and #4 in both the AP and coaches polls (UW is next best in both at #8).  Despite that the Boilermakers are currently 1-1/2 games behind co-leaders UW and IL, 1 game behind MSU, and 1/2 game behind tOSU/RU and they still have some very tough road games remaining (@UW, @MSU).  

Purdue's next two road games will tell us a lot about how the Boilermakers will fare in the league.  They are in Bloomington tonight then in Iowa City a week from tonight.  Both are projected losses in our tier system but we acknowledge that PU is better than IU and IA, we just project losses in these games due to location.  If Purdue loses these two that will give them four league losses.  At that point they would likely need to win out to even tie for the league title so their margin for error would be gone before January ended and it just isn't very likely that they could get through all of February and a couple games in March without losing somewhere along the way.  OTOH, if they win both their projected finish would improve to 15-4 which is only 1/2 game out of first (UW/IL/tOSU all at 16-4).  

[medinabuckeye1]

POTFH!

I had to google it, found two definitions.  The first was "Pounce On The Fighting Hoosiers" while the second was not fit to be shared here.  I assume you meant the latter.  

[betarhoalphadelta]

I had to google it, found two definitions.  The first was "Pounce On The Fighting Hoosiers" while the second was not fit to be shared here.  I assume you meant the latter. 

Oh, definitely the latter.

[betarhoalphadelta]

Purdue is probably the best team in the league and when they are playing at their best there is no doubt about that.  They are #5 in BPI (next best is #11 IL), and #4 in both the AP and coaches polls (UW is next best in both at #8).  Despite that the Boilermakers are currently 1-1/2 games behind co-leaders UW and IL, 1 game behind MSU, and 1/2 game behind tOSU/RU and they still have some very tough road games remaining (@UW, @MSU). 

Purdue's next two road games will tell us a lot about how the Boilermakers will fare in the league.  They are in Bloomington tonight then in Iowa City a week from tonight.  Both are projected losses in our tier system but we acknowledge that PU is better than IU and IA, we just project losses in these games due to location.  If Purdue loses these two that will give them four league losses.  At that point they would likely need to win out to even tie for the league title so their margin for error would be gone before January ended and it just isn't very likely that they could get through all of February and a couple games in March without losing somewhere along the way.  OTOH, if they win both their projected finish would improve to 15-4 which is only 1/2 game out of first (UW/IL/tOSU all at 16-4). 

Purdue's question is defense. I believe that when they can play defense, they can beat anyone in the country. But... We haven't seen it much. 

Purdue can get lost on the perimeter over-helping, and if the opponent gets hot from deep when getting open looks, it can be ugly. 

I don't worry about Tredey. Our bigs can handle anyone, as they showed with Kofi. The problem is that when an opponent abandons the paint and beats us on the outside, well, it's possible to exploit that. That's my concern with IU. They don't have ANY ability to battle us in the paint. If they simply work the perimeter, though, they've got a shot. 

[MaximumSam]

TJD had the worst game, until the last ten seconds

[betarhoalphadelta]

That was... Infuriating. 

[medinabuckeye1]

I moved Rutgers up to tier-2 because otherwise they have two positive upsets (vs PU and at UMD).  With them in tier-2 there is one less upset overall and now all teams are within +/-1. 

Tiers are:

• UW+1, IL even(+1,-1), tOSU, PU even(+1,-1), MSU-1
• RU+1, IA even(+1,-1), IU
• PSU+1, NU even(+2,-2), MN even(+1,-1), UMD-1(+1,-2), M-1
• blank
• UNL

Upsets so far have been:

The projected final standings/BTT seeds are as follows:

• 15-5/23-8 Illinois (wins tie with UW based on H2H, no game in Madison)
• 15-5/24-6 Wisconsin 
• 14-5/21-7 Ohio State
• 13-6/23-8 Michigan State (wins tie with PU based on H2H, no game in W. Lafayette)
• 13-6/25-6 Purdue
• 12-8/18-12 Rutgers
• 11-9/21-10 Iowa (wins tie with IU based on H2H, no game in Bloomington)
• 11-9/20-10 Indiana
• 7-12/13-15 Penn State
• 7-13/14-15 Northwestern
• 6-12/12-18 Michigan
• 6-13/15-14 Minnesota
• 5-14/14-17 Maryland
• 0-19/6-24 Nebraska

Based on that, the match-ups at the BTT in Indianapolis would be:
Wednesday, March 9, 2022:

• #11 Michigan vs #14 Nebraska, 830 BTN
• #12 Minnesota vs #13 Maryland, 6 BTN

Thursday, March 10, 2022:

• #5 Purdue vs MN/UMD, 230 BTN
• #6 Rutgers vs M/UNL, 9 BTN
• #7 Iowa vs #10 Northwestern, 630 BTN
• #8 Indiana vs #9 Penn State, noon BTN

Friday, March 11, 2022:

• #1 Illinois vs IU/PSU, noon BTN
• #2 Wisconsin vs IA/NU, 630 BTN
• #3 Ohio State vs RU/M/UNL, 9 BTN
• #4 Michigan State vs PU/MN/UMD, 230 BTN

Saturday, March 12, 2022:

• IL/IU/PSU vs MSU/PU/MN/UMD, 1 CBS
• UW/IA/NU vs tOSU/RU/M/UNL, 330 CBS

Sunday, March 13, 2022:

• IL/IU/PSU/MSU/PU/MN/UMD vs UW/IA/NU/tOSU/RU/M/UNL, 330 CBS

[medinabuckeye1]

All 14 teams have league games scheduled over the weekend (Friday through Sunday).  Here are the seven games ranked by what I believe is roughly the closeness of the match-up:

• RU @ MN, Saturday noon on BTN
• MSU @ UW, Friday 9p on FS1
• IL @ UMD, Friday 7p on FS1
• M @ IU, Sunday 330p on CBS
• PSU @ IA, Saturday 430p on BTN
• NU @ PU, Sunday 1p on BTN
• UNL @ tOSU

Nevermind, game #7 above (UNL@tOSU) has apparently been postponed due to "health and safety protocols within the Husker program".  

[medinabuckeye1]

Just an FYI, we have no had three games impacting five teams "postponed" due to COVID:

• MSU @ M scheduled for 1/8
• PU @ M scheduled for 1/11
• MN @ PSU scheduled for 1/19

I have not seen anything official about rescheduling and the schedules listed on the worldwide leader's site do NOT show rescheduled games. 

For the time being in our tier-based projections I am treating these games as "not to be played".  Thus, we currently project MSU, PU, MN, and PSU to play 19 league games each while M plays 18 and everybody else plays the originally scheduled 20.  That creates some goofy finishes:

• 14-5:  MSU is projected to finish 1-1/2 games behind UW/IL/tOSU and one game ahead of:
• 13-6:  PU is projected to finish 1 game behind MSU (who also has 19 games) and 2-1/2 games ahead of IA/IU. 
• 7-12:  PSU is projected to finish 1/2 game behind RU and 1/2 game ahead of NU. 
• 6-13:  MN is projected to finish 1/2 game behind NU and 1/2 game ahead of UMD. 
• 6-12:  M is projected to finish with the same amount of wins as MN and UMD but ahead of both due to having one less loss than the Gophers and two fewer losses than the Terps. 

If anyone sees anything about official rescheduled dates let me know and I'll update the projections accordingly. 

Now there are four "postponed" games involving seven teams so half the conference is impacted.  The UNL @ tOSU game scheduled for Saturday, January 22 has been postponed.  

[bayareabadger]

Today is the day I would like ELA‘s pessimism to come to fruition. That is all

[NickSmith4Three]

Kofi out (in concussion protocol) against Maryland

[847badgerfan]

Now there are four "postponed" games involving seven teams so half the conference is impacted.  The UNL @ tOSU game scheduled for Saturday, January 22 has been postponed. 

Sounding like UW won't get to beat them on Tuesday either.

[medinabuckeye1]

Sounding like UW won't get to beat them on Tuesday either.

This is starting to REALLY confuse me because my projection spreadsheet because was designed to track teams that all played the same number of league games.  

I built in a double-check that compares the calculated record with the projected record to catch any data-entry mistakes that I make but I don't have a column for "games not played" so right now my double-check column tells me that my projections are off for Ohio State, Purdue, Michigan State, Penn State, Minnesota, Michigan, and Nebraska.  That is already half the league and if UW/UNL gets "postponed" as well it will be up to eight out of 14.  I think I'm going to have to add two columns for:

• Projected wins not played, and
• Projected losses not played.  

That way I can get my double-check column working right again.  

[847badgerfan]

I was wondering about that. Solution seems fair.