2022-2023 B1G Basketball Thread

[medinabuckeye1]

At this point I am thoroughly confused. 

Yeah, not getting any less confused:

Michigan looked like hot garbage losing at home to directional-Michigan on December 29. Three days later they absolutely ran the Terps off the court. Three days after that they beat up Penn State. 

At the end of November I'd have told you without hesitation rhat Illinois had one of the best teams in the league. Since then the Illini:

• Lost at Maryland 
• Got run off their own court by Penn State 
• Got drilled in St. Louis by Mizzou
• Lost by double-digits to Northwestern. 

[medinabuckeye1]

I am unilaterally moving up the date to update the tiers to Friday, January 6.  Between now and then we have:

• MSU, RU, and UW have what should be easy home payday games tonight.  They all won easily.  
• No games on NYE
• Three league games on NYD:  UMD@M, IA@PSU, tOSU@NU.  Michigan obliterated Maryland, Penn State beat Iowa, Ohio Sate obliterated Northwestern.  
• RU@PU amidst the bowls on 1/2.  Rutgers waltzed into Mackey and upset #1 Purdue.  
• UNL@MSU and MN@UW on Tuesday, 1/3.  Both home teams won but Wisconsin struggled a LOT more than they should have with the woeful Gophers.  
• PSU@M and IL@NU on Wednesday, 1/4.  Both home teams won but Michigan's win was easier than most of us would have expected and Illinois losing to Northwestern was also surprising based on pregame rankings.  
• UMD@RU, PU@tOSU, and IU@IA on Thursday, 1/5

Current tiers (needs updated but waiting until next Friday) are:

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

Updates to the above in bold.  

We definitely need to update tiers.  Based on the existing (see above) tiers, the teams are:

• +2:  Northwestern
• +1:  Rutgers, Wisconsin, Nebraska
• even:  Indiana, Ohio State, Maryland, Michigan State(+1,-1), Michigan, Penn State(+1,-1), Minnesota
• -1:  Purdue
• -2:  Illinois, Iowa

We'll see what happens tonight then rearrange tiers tomorrow.  Based on the existing tiers:

• UMD@RU 630BTN:  They are in the same tier so if that is right then RU should win a competitive game.  
• PU@tOSU 7FS1:  PU is a tier above tOSU so if that is right tOSU should win since they are at home but it should be a VERY close game.  
• IU@IA 9FS1:  Same as PU@tOSU.  

I'd like to get some consensus on tiers by around noon tomorrow so that I can update the tiers and post an updated projection tomorrow afternoon.  

[ELA]

Wow, Chris Beard fired.  Looks like they didn't buy his fiancees backtracking to save his job

[ELA]

Random postseason thought with the discussion of expanding the tourney.

32 conferences.  Change all conference tournaments to top 4 only, at the home court of the #1 seed.  4 day tournament, with best of 3 semifinals, and a single game elimination.

Then the NCAA tournament is a 48 team tournament of the 16 best conference champions, plus the 16 other conference champions and the 16 best runners up.  First weekend is a best of 3 series of those 16 runners up at the 16 worst conference champs.  That gets you to 48.

4, 12 team, single elimination regionals to get a Final 4

[MaximumSam]

Wow, Chris Beard fired.  Looks like they didn't buy his fiancees backtracking to save his job

The Liberty head coach is sweating already

[FearlessF]

Gus Johnson

terrible

[ELA]

Gus Johnson

terrible

He became a caricature of himself, like Vitale did.  It seems hard for big announcing personalities to not do that. Marv Alberts and Don Cherry certainly did.  I think Madden did a great job of straddling the line.  Bill Raftery probably does it best among present options

[FearlessF]

I'd rather listen to Dickie than Gus

at least Dick has some knowledge

[medinabuckeye1]

I'd like to get some consensus on tiers by around noon tomorrow so that I can update the tiers and post an updated projection tomorrow afternoon. 

My thoughts on tiers:

Tier #1:

• 3-1 Purdue:  Their loss was at home which is bad but it was a one point loss to a good looking Rutgers team which is good.  They also have road wins over tOSU and UNL and a home win over Minnesota.  Finally, their OOC was REALLY good which is why they are currently ranked #1 nationally.  
• 3-1 Rutgers:  If we were ranking based solely on league games, the Scarlet Knights would be ahead of Purdue.  Their loss was on the road by a single point on a three-point heave at the buzzer with some controversy thrown in.  They have a road win over Purdue and blowout home wins over UMD and IU.  

Tier #2:

• 2-1 Ohio State:  The Buckeyes are 1-1 against the tier-1 teams with two EXTREMELY close home games.  Their other win was a road wipeout of the Wildcats.  
• 3-0 Wisconsin:  The good is that they are 3-0 and beat Iowa on the road.  The bad is that they struggled mightily with woeful Minnesota at home, had a rather unconvincing home win over Maryland, and that the Iowa team that they beat in Iowa City was in the midst of a disastrous stretch in which they lost six of eight including a home loss to Eastern Illinois.  
• 2-1 Michigan State:  The home loss to Northwestern is . . . not good.  OTOH, they won convincingly at PSU and blew out Nebraska at home.  Frankly I need a LOT more evidence before I'll believe that a Tom Izzo coached MSU team is anything less than one of the better teams in the league.  

Tier #3:

• 3-0 Michigan:  Yes, they are 3-0 but the win against Minnesota almost doesn't count and the other two were at home (UMD, PSU).  Still, they've honestly looked better than this ranking in league play so far but their OOC was a 6-5 crapshow with zero quality wins, a terrible loss to directional-Michigan, and a few close calls against other bad teams.  
• 2-1 Northwestern:  The wins were great, one was in East Lansing and the other was a solid, 13 point home win over Illinois.  The problem is that the loss was a blowout at home to Ohio State.  
• 1-2 Indiana:  The good is that both losses were on the road.  The bad is that one was to an Iowa team that has looked like hot garbage for a month and the other was a blowout in New Jersey.  
• 2-2 Penn State:  The wins (@IL by 15, vs IA) look good but the losses (vsMSU by 9, @M by 10) look bad.  I'm just basically dropping them here until further information clarifies the picture.  
• 1-3 Maryland:  They are this high only because their OOC was decent and all three league losses were on the road.  The concerns are that the Illinois win looks a LOT less impressive now than it did when Illinois was #16, the Rutgers loss was not particularly competitive, and the Michigan loss was a blowout.  
• 0-3 Illinois:  Once upon a time the Illini were looking pretty good and nationally ranked.  Now, not so much.  Two of their three losses were on the road (UMD, NU) but none of the three (PSU) were to teams at the top of the league.  
• 1-3 Iowa:  Prior to last night I was prepared to give up on the Hawkeyes and drop them down but then they beat a pretty good Indiana team so maybe they are going to be decent back at full strength?  I don't know.  The losses were not good.  They lost at home to UW, in Lincoln and at PSU.  

Tier #4:

• 1-3 Nebraska:  The win was over Iowa during Iowa's period of collapse.  The close loss to Purdue is fine but the other losses were blowouts in Bloomington and East Lansing.  

Tier #5:

• Blank

Tier #6:

• 0-3 Minnesota:  The bright spot of the season so far is a close loss in Madison.  That was their most recent game so maybe things are looking up but I doubt it so for now I'm simply treating that as a fluke.  Their other two league games were blowouts in West Lafayette and to Michigan and their OOC was . . . not good.  

Tier-3, with half the league's teams is undoubtedly WAY too big but I just don't know which teams to move up/down out of it.  

Thoughts?

[medinabuckeye1]

I'd like to get some consensus on tiers by around noon tomorrow so that I can update the tiers and post an updated projection tomorrow afternoon. 

My thoughts on tiers:

Thoughts?

Anyone, anyone, Bueller . . . ?

I kind of enjoy managing this, but I don't want it to be "Medinabuckeye1's projection", I've always seen it as a group project by the posters here generally. 

@ELA 
Bwar?
Grillrat?
Jhet?
847?

[ELA]

I just don't know how doable it is this year.  It also seems like home court means less

[Abba]

I don't like Purdue.  Buckeyes were finally healthy, and Purdue has to injure one of our bigs.  Again.

[medinabuckeye1]

It also seems like home court means less

I've definitely noticed a longterm trend of home court meaning less over time.

Since I first got involved our system has been:

• Each team should win all home games except those against teams at least two tiers above them, and
• Each team should lose all road games except those against teams at least two tiers below them.

When I first started managing the projection it seemed like, even with that massive home court advantage built in, a lot of the upsets still involved inferior teams pulling off home upsets over obviously superior opponents (like NU beating IL at home on Wednesday).

The last few years a lot of the upsets are simply the slightly better team winning on the road (like PU beating tOSU in Columbus on Thursday).


I'm curious about the reasons for this trend. Has officiating gotten more even-handed? Are players less responsive to the home (supportive) or road (hostile) crowds?

[medinabuckeye1]

I just don't know how doable it is this year.

It is definitely extra tricky this year because with the exception of Minnesota being just flat awful, the rest of the league feels pretty bunched up.