2022-2023 B1G Basketball Thread

[ELA]

Solid schedule, hoping for a big game or two to pop.

This team will be testing my theory of depth being overrated unless they land a late transfer who can play or the redshirt freshman steps up (ideally both).

Depth is overrated if you can't find a solid 7-8 man rotation.  If you have that, you just need depth for practice and in case of injuries.  MSU has had a couple of "deep" teams recently, where options #3-11 were all decent bench guys.  Nobody stepped up, and this nobody deserved to be cut out.  Guys would go for 15 and 8 one night, get an increased role and score 4 points on 1-8 shooting the next game

[ELA]

Well if the early returns in summer league, are any hint, the Big Ten actually made Ivey and Murray look worse than they actually are

[bayareabadger]

Depth is overrated if you can't find a solid 7-8 man rotation.  If you have that, you just need depth for practice and in case of injuries.  MSU has had a couple of "deep" teams recently, where options #3-11 were all decent bench guys.  Nobody stepped up, and this nobody deserved to be cut out.  Guys would go for 15 and 8 one night, get an increased role and score 4 points on 1-8 shooting the next game

That's mostly the case. You'd rather be top-heavy in college. You only play 40 minutes. You play like twice a week. 

UW won the conference without much depth last season. It bit them, when a backup point guard was out, and then a starter got hurt in the tournaemnt, but to a degree, that's the game. Even a deep team is probably toast without the top two point guards. 

If you have 1-2 really good lineups (even one really if it's good enough), plus a couple other solid pieces, you can be pretty good. One good lineup, two good bench guys and another decent one, you can make the Final Four. 

MSU has always been interesting because it often plays top-heavy, but with sort of a frayed end of the bench. So like 3-4 real horses, a few solid bench guys and either at 7th or 8th guy, it's basically shared roles that can get inconsistent. 

[medinabuckeye1]

FWIW:
Way too early tiers that I've just assigned for now based on vague preseason expectations:

• Indiana
• UW, IL, PU, tOSU, MSU, IA, RU, M
• PSU, NU, UMD, MN
• UNL

I realize that tier-2 with eight teams is WAY too large but at this time I just don't have the foggiest idea which of those teams need moved up/down.  For example, my team of tOSU:

• If the transfers move in seamlessly and the freshmen are as talented as advertised and ready to play then this team is probably the most experienced in recent Buckeye history and as talented as any since Matta's peak and they should project to easily be in tier-1.  
• If the transfers don't mesh well and the freshmen are unready or not quite as good as advertised then this team would be lucky to stay ahead of tier-3.  

That said, with the announcement of who team team is going to miss both home and away and using the tiers as above, here are the projections:

Explanation of columns:

• Team:  duh!
• noAway:  team not played on the road
• noAway:  see above
• noAway:  see above
• noHome:  team not played at home
• noHome:  see above
• noHome:  see above
• RR-W:  Projected wins in a full double-round-robin, 26 game schedule
• RR-L:  Projected losses in a full double-round-robin, 26 game schedule
• miss-W:  Missed games (columns 2-7) that would be projected wins if played.  
• miss-L:  Missed games (columns 2-7) that would be projected losses if played.  
• Proj-W:  Projected wins (column-8 less column-10).  
• Proj-L:  Projected losses (column-9 less column-11).  
• RR%:  Projected winning percentage in a full double-round-robin, 26-game schedule.  
• Proj%:  Projected winning percentage in the actual 20-game schedule.  
• Diff:  Difference between column-14 and column-15.  ie, this is the projected impact of SoS.  

So at this point I'm projecting Indiana to win the league at 14-6 with Nebraska finishing last at 4-16 while the other twelve teams are all projected to finish between 11-9 (UW, IL, PU, tOSU, MSU, IA) and 9-11 (PSU, NU, UMD, MN).  

[medinabuckeye1]

WAY too early projected final standings, BTT seeds, and BTT match-ups:

• 14-6 Indiana
• 11-9 Purdue tied with UW with a H2H...2H of 4-3, beats UW based on record against IU
• 11-9 Wisconsin see above
• 11-9 Ohio State, next after PU/UW with six-way H2...H of 5-4
• 11-9 Iowa, next after tOSU with six-way H2H...2H of 4-4
• 11-9 Illinois, next after IA with six-way H2H...2H of 3-4
• 11-9 Michigan State, last in six-way H2H...2H of 3-5
• 10-10 Rutgers, wins tie with M based on H2H, no game inn Ann Arbor (doesn't matter, they are #8 and #9 and play each other on Thursday in BTT so this just determines jersey color)
• 10-10 Michigan
• 9-11 Northwestern, first in four-way H2...H at 2-1
• 9-11 Maryland, second in four-way H2...H at 3-2
• 9-11 Minnesota, third in four-way H2...H at 2-2
• 9-11 Penn State, last in four-way H2...H at 1-3
• 4-16 Nebraska

Thus, the BTT match-ups at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois would be:
Wednesday, March 8, 2023:

• #11 Maryland vs #14 Nebraska, 830pm, BTN
• #12 Minnesota vs #13 Penn State, 6pm, BTN

Thursday, March 9, 2023:

• #5 Iowa vs MN/PSU, 230pm, BTN
• #6 Illinois vs UMD/UNL, 9pm, BTN
• #7 Michigan State vs #10 Northwestern, 630pm, BTN
• #8 Rutgers vs #9 Michigan, noon, BTN

Friday, March 10, 2023:

• #1 Indiana vs RU/M, noon, BTN
• #2 Purdue vs MSU/NU, 630pm, BTN
• #3 Wisconsin vs IL/UMD/UNL, 9pm, BTN
• #4 Ohio State vs IA/MN/PSU, 230pm, BTN

Saturday, March 11, 2023:

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

Sunday, March 12, 2023:

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

Since I know @Brutus Buckeye will ask, in order for tOSU and M to meet in the BTT we would need:

• Michigan to beat Rutgers in the 8/9 game on Thursday, and
• Michigan to beat Indiana on Friday, and
• Ohio State to beat the IA/MN/PSU winner on Friday

In that case tOSU would play M in the early semi-final on Saturday.  

[medinabuckeye1]

https://bigten.org/news/2022/9/8/general-big-ten-announces-2022-23-mens-basketball-conference-schedule.aspx

[ELA]

Preseason Bracketology is up.  Indiana is a 3 (which I won't believe until I see it), but then six teams (UM, Illinois, MSU, PU, Iowa, OSU) between a 6 and 10 seed.  Rutgers to Dayton, and Wisconsin Next Four Out

[medinabuckeye1]

Preseason Bracketology is up.  Indiana is a 3 (which I won't believe until I see it), but then six teams (UM, Illinois, MSU, PU, Iowa, OSU) between a 6 and 10 seed.  Rutgers to Dayton, and Wisconsin Next Four Out

If that projection holds up it will make for an interesting race and a heck of a grind with nobody really great but nine tournament quality teams.

[FearlessF]

In March, Bruce Weber resigned as the head coach at Kansas State. Now, he has a new job — and he’s going back to the Big Ten.

Weber is joining Big Ten Network as an analyst this season, the network announced Tuesday at Big Ten Basketball Media Days. He coached at Illinois from 2003-12 where he took the Fighting Illini to the national championship in 2005, where they fell to North Carolina.

[ELA]

Abbreviated 20 game regular season.  256 team tournament into 32 regionals of 8.  Home and home round robin.  Winners advance.  2nd and 3rd place teams (64 total) advance to a play in.  Play best of 3 at the home of the higher seed.  Winner advance, and play best of 3 series on the road against the 32 regional winners.

16 winners advance, start the tournament at the Sweet 16


https://twitter.com/jeffborzello/status/1580363903317385216?t=2EK1e49bb3ROYwyLwEujMg&s=19

[LittlePig]

Abbreviated 20 game regular season.  256 team tournament into 32 regionals of 8.  Home and home round robin.  Winners advance.  2nd and 3rd place teams (64 total) advance to a play in.  Play best of 3 at the home of the higher seed.  Winner advance, and play best of 3 series on the road against the 32 regional winners.

16 winners advance, start the tournament at the Sweet 16


https://twitter.com/jeffborzello/status/1580363903317385216?t=2EK1e49bb3ROYwyLwEujMg&s=19

I wonder if the NCAA tourney would ever expand some of the final rounds to a Best 2 out 3 format.  I know lots of people would hate that idea and would probably at least double the number of games needed to win the tourney,  but part of me hates to see good teams lose early.  Maybe once the P2/P3 break away from the NCAA, it might happen.

[ELA]

I could see them doing it with the later rounds.  More games of best vs. best, and more chances for the Cinderellas, who nobody cares about after the first day, to lose.  They'll never do the first round that way.

[LittlePig]

Hmmm...
If they expanded the NCAA Final 4 to a Best 2 out of 3 format for each round,   they could play the semi-finals on Thur-Sat,  then the Finals on Sun- Tues.   NCAA fnalists could play as many as 4 more games total if both rounds go to 3 games.   

I guess you would have to have a special rule for BYU where the finals would shift to Mon-Wed,   or maybe you could just make it Mon-Wed for everybody.  Attendence could be a problem for so many extra games,  and you might have to shift back to normal arenas instead of the giant domes.

[847badgerfan]

I used to think Jim Phillips was a smart man.