2022-2023 B1G Basketball Thread

[ELA]

Texas Tech just gave the most half assed court storm ever.  I think probably because most fans realized they just beat a decent Iowa State team, 3 years removed from playing for a national title?

[medinabuckeye1]

Roughly mid-way through the conference slate, here is what KenPom has to say:

• 4 Purdue
• 17 Rutgers
• 18 Indiana
• 24 Illinois
• 28 Ohio State
• 32 Maryland
• 35 Iowa
• 40 Penn State
• 43 Northwestern
• 44 Michigan State
• 68 Michigan
• 70 Wisconsin
• 100 Nebraska
• 192 Minnesota

Frankly, I think it is a crapshoot.  Looking at my team, for example:

• Pushed the league's highest ranked team to the brink and would have won but for a boneheaded turnover.  
• Beat the league's second highest ranked team once and pushed them to OT on the road.  
• Lost to the league's second lowest ranked team.  
• Lost AT HOME to the league's lowest ranked BY FAR team.  

I do not think the Buckeyes are unique in this regard.  Most of the teams in the B1G's vast middle this year can be VERY good on their good days and VERY bad on their bad days.  

Ohio State's January was REALLY bad.  They were an abysmal 2-7 and dropped from the fringes of the AP top-25 to a projected NIT team but even at that, the Buckeyes had more than a few really good performances in the month of January:

• Beat the crap out of Northwestern in Evanston on New Year's Day.  You might say that NU isn't very good but that very same NU team beat Illinois by double-digits their next game out and followed that up with a win over the Hoosiers in Bloomington.  
• Pushed national #1 Purdue to the brink and basically had the game won until a boneheaded turnover allowed the Boilermakers to escape with a win.  
• Took the league's second highest ranked team (Rutgers) to OT in Piscataway.  
• Beat the crap out of Iowa.  Iowa may only be ranked seventh in the league but this same Iowa team beat Rutgers twice in January.  

For this fairly large group of teams, the end result in three or four close games is probably going to be the difference between easily making the tournament, the bubble, or the NIT.  

[medinabuckeye1]

NET Rankings roughly half way through the league schedule:

• 3 Purdue
• 20 Indiana
• 21 Rutgers
• 26 Illinois
• 29 Ohio State
• 36 Iowa
• 38 Maryland
• 40 Northwestern
• 48 Michigan State
• 53 Penn State
• 74 Wisconsin
• 83 Michigan
• 99 Nebraska
• 220 Minnesota

Tidbits that help explain these:
Quad-4 Losses:

• One each by tOSU, IA, M, and MN.  The other 10 teams in the league are perfect in Quad-4 games.  

Quad-2 and Quad-3 Losses:

• 0:  PU
• 1:  IU, IL, tOSU, UMD, M
• 2:  IA, NU, MSU, UW
• 3:  RU, PSU, UNL
• 5:  MN

Quad-1 Wins:

• 7:  PU
• 5:  IA
• 4:  RU, IL, NU, MSU
• 3:  IU, UMD
• 2:  tOSU, PSU, UW, UNL
• 1:  MN
• 0:  M

[ELA]

Haven't updated the Massey composite rankings in a while.  (54 rankings - last week in parenthesis)

• Houston (2)
• Tennessee (4)
• PURDUE (3)
• Alabama (1)
• Kansas (6)
• UCLA (5)
• Arizona (8)
• Texas (7)
• Saint Mary's (10)
• Marquette (14)
• Baylor (16)
• Connecticut (9)
• Gonzaga (11)
• Virginia (13)
• Kansas State (15)
• Iowa State (12)
• TCU (18)
• Xavier (19)
• San Diego State (20)
• INDIANA (21)
• Creighton (-)
• ILLINOIS (-)
• Auburn (17)
• Duke (23)
• RUTGERS (25)

• 37. Maryland (46)
• 38. Northwestern (50)
• 41. Iowa (38)
• 42. Michigan State (35)
• 48. Penn State (44)
• 50. Ohio State (41)
• 63. Wisconsin (51)
• 72. Michigan (69)
• 104. Nebraska (93)
• 188. Minnesota (189)

[medinabuckeye1]

Haven't updated the Massey composite rankings in a while.  (54 rankings - last week in parenthesis)

• 50. Ohio State (41)

This seems a lot more realistic than tOSU's 28/29 in KenPom/NET.

FWIW: No upsets last night as the home teams all won but I was surprised Indiana didn't look better in College Park.

Tonight we have two games with wide spreads.

[medinabuckeye1]

This has to be the least exciting conference title race I can remember in the B1G.

Here at roughly the half-way point the Boilermakers are three games ahead of everyone in the loss column.

Prior to last night I was thinking that *MAYBE* the Hoosiers could give them a little competition.

If Indiana had won in College Park, then taken down Purdue in Bloomington this weekend they'd have gotten to 8-4 and just two games behind the Boilermakers (assuming PU beats PSU tonight) with a H2H win over them and one more chance (2/25 in Mackey).

With Indiana's loss in College Park dropping them to 6-5 I don't think anyone will challenge Purdue in the slightest and they'll likely clinch in February.

The trade-off, of course, is that there is a very exciting race between 11 teams (all but PU, UNL, and MN) for:

• Getting the last three double-byes
• Avoiding having to play on Wednesday.

Barring a stupendous collapse by Purdue or a massive improvement by either UNL or MN those other 11 teams will be split between:

• Three will get double-byes (the #2, #3, and #4 seeds)
• Six will open up on Thursday (the #5 through #10 seeds)
• Two will have to play on Wednesday (the #11 and #12 seeds).

The odd thing is that I'm not even sure what a given team should want. I actually kinda like Ohio State's current projection. They project to finish 9-11/17-14 and get the #11 seed. That would mean:

• Wednesday they'd get what *SHOULD* be an easy tune-up game against MN. The tune-up historically has been an advantage on day two and it helps for win volume. Assuming they win they improve to 18-14 and move on to:
• Thursday they'd get #6 Illinois. Most years the #6 seed is substantially better than the #11 seed but in this case the only difference is that #6 had an easier schedule than #11 so I would expect tOSU to win. More win volume and this time a quality win. Assuming they win they improve to 19-14 and move on to:
• Friday they'd get #3 Indiana. This would be a VERY tough game. The Buckeyes would be playing their third game in three days against a well rested opponent. Indiana also travels well but at least the Tournament isn't in Indianapolis this time. The upside is that losing a neutral-site game to Indiana wouldn't be damaging and a win would almost certainly lock up a Tournament bid. Assuming they win they'd improve to 20-14 and move on to:
• Saturday they'd get the Rutgers/Maryland/Penn State winner. At this point they'd be a Tournament lock and only playing for seeding but it certainly helps to be opposite Purdue in the bracket. I think that the Buckeyes would have approximately zero chance of knocking off Purdue in their fourth game in four days but in this scenario the Buckeyes would already have wins over all three potential Saturday opponents. Winning a fourth game in four days is tough but none of the potential match-ups seem hopeless.

[grillrat]

I'm not taking anything for granted yet.  IIRC, there was a season about 5 or 6 years ago maybe where Michigan had a 2 or 3 game lead on everyone else and we were pretty much ready to crown them, and then they lost like three of their last four games.
This is a quirky league.  I assume nothing.

[ELA]

I'm not taking anything for granted yet.  IIRC, there was a season about 5 or 6 years ago maybe where Michigan had a 2 or 3 game lead on everyone else and we were pretty much ready to crown them, and then they lost like three of their last four games.
This is a quirky league.  I assume nothing.

Maryland in 2020.  They had a come from behind win in East Lansing to go 3 games up with 5 to play.  Then they lost 3 of 4, while MSU and Wisconsin won 5 in a row.  IIRC 4 of MSUs 5 wins were over ranked teams, including winning at Maryland.  Maryland had to beat Michigan in the finale just to hold onto a share

[grillrat]

Maryland in 2020.  They had a come from behind win in East Lansing to go 3 games up with 5 to play.  Then they lost 3 of 4, while MSU and Wisconsin won 5 in a row.  IIRC 4 of MSUs 5 wins were over ranked teams, including winning at Maryland.  Maryland had to beat Michigan in the finale just to hold onto a share

While I agree that is the same situation, I could have sworn it was Michigan.  I'll have to look it up later when I am less sleep deprived (Currently on my 41st hour of work this week that is what?....54 hours into it?)

[medinabuckeye1]

I'm not taking anything for granted yet.  IIRC, there was a season about 5 or 6 years ago maybe where Michigan had a 2 or 3 game lead on everyone else and we were pretty much ready to crown them, and then they lost like three of their last four games.
This is a quirky league.  I assume nothing.

If I were a Purdue fan, or if it were my Buckeyes at 10-1 and three games up on the field, I'd feel the same way.

At this point, I'm a neutral observer with no "dog in the fight". My Buckeyes are 3-7 so even if they won out they'd still only finish 13-7. IIRC, no seven-loss team has ever won the league so my team is effectively eliminated.

As a neutral observer, this year's league title race is incredibly boring. If you look at the three ratings that have been posted here or the AP Poll, Purdue is the best in the league . . . By a mile:

• #1 AP, next is #21 Indiana
• #3 NET, next is #20 Indiana
• #3 Massey, next is #20 Indiana
• #5 KenPom, next is #17 Rutgers

Purdue is very good this year but it is not unusual for this league to have really good teams. What makes this year different is that in a more typical year there would be a team or two nipping at Purdue's heels. This year we have no such teams. Instead of our #2 through #12 being spread out between almost as good as PU and barely better than UNL, they are all bunched up together.

That makes Purdue the prohibitive favorite for two reasons:

• The gap between #1 and #2 (probably Indiana) is much bigger than usual, and
• The gap between #2 and #12 is much smaller than usual. Maryland is probably around the 10th or so best team in the league but they just beat #2 IU because #2 isn't THAT good and #10 isn't THAT bad. That makes it unlikely that any of the 2-12 group teams can get much of a run going because there are just too many teams good enough to derail it.

[ELA]

While I agree that is the same situation, I could have sworn it was Michigan.  I'll have to look it up later when I am less sleep deprived (Currently on my 41st hour of work this week that is what?....54 hours into it?)

2013 Michigan lost on a tip at home at the buzzer to Indiana.  If Michigan won, it would have been a 3 way tie with UM, MSU and IU, but that preserved a solo title for Indiana.  But Michigan was never in first place at any point in the season.

2019 Michigan started the season 17-0, and lost the title on the last day to MSU, but the teams were always within 1 game of each other in the standings

[NickSmith4Three]

Let the kids have some fun.

Orange Krush kids are saying that the Iowa Athletic department caught word or figured out that they had bought 150 tickets to the game this weekend and cancelled all tickets.  The kids are left on the hook for 50% of the bus service they were taking as well.

Usually, the Krush picks one away game to go to and does a "surprise" reveal.

[FearlessF]

[NickSmith4Three]

To be fair to both sides, it's being said that the Krush represented themselves as a Boys and Girls club in Illinois to get discounted tickets and once Iowa figured this out the tickets were invalidated.  

The tickets were bought in October.  It's unfortunate that it wasn't figured out until a few days before the game thus leaving the kids on the hook for half of the cost of the busses.