2022-2023 B1G Basketball Thread

[FearlessF]

My thoughts on tiers:



Tier #5:

• Blank

Thoughts?

I don't like blank tiers

[ELA]

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?

I think home crowds are less crazy, but I also think as 3 point shooting has become a bigger part of offenses, the home court reffing edge matters less, because games aren't decided nearly as much by points/calls in the paint.

[medinabuckeye1]

I don't like blank tiers

I understand but Minnesota is just so much worse than the rest of the league that I believe it is justified.  

[FearlessF]

I understand

doesn't mean I like it

besides, that's about all the input I have

[grillrat]

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?

For the moment, I would drop Iowa down to Tier 4.  That win over IU was a bit fluky in that Race T. for IU went down and there was that screwball tech on the IU player throwing the ball to the ref.  Even with that, Iowa would still have beat IU if they are tier 4 (IU a tier 3 on the road).

[medinabuckeye1]

Well . . . with little-to-no input from the rest of you, the new tiers are:

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

Based on those tiers, the upsets so far have been:


Based on that the projected final standings/BTT seeds are:

• 17-3/25-6 Rutgers, wins tie with PU based on H2H, won in West Lafayette and does not host PU
• 17-3/28-3 Purdue
• 13-7/21-9 Wisconsin
• 11-9/19-12 Michigan State, wins tie with tOSU based on record against RU/PU
• 11-9/19-12 Ohio State
• 10-10/16-15 Michigan, wins tie with UMD based on record against tOSU/MSU
• 10-10/19-12 Maryland
• 9-11/18-13 Penn State, see tiebreaker below
• 9-11/17-14 Iowa
• 9-11/18-13 Indiana
• 9-11/18-13 Illinois
• 8-12/17-14 Northwestern
• 7-13/14-17 Nebraska
• 0-20/6-24 Minnesota

Tiebreaker for the four teams tied at 9-11:

• 4-0 Penn State's projected H2H2H2H is 4-0 because they won in Champaign and do not travel to either Bloomington or Iowa City
• 2-2 Iowa's projected H2H2H2H is 2-2 because they do not host Penn State nor do they visit Illinois
• 2-3 Indiana's projected H2H2H2H is 2-3 because they do not host Penn State
• 1-4 Illinois' projected H2H2H2H is 1-4 because they lost at home to PSU and do not host Iowa

Thus, the match-ups at the B1G Tournament in Chicago Illinois would be:
Wednesday, March 8:

• #11 Illinois vs #14 Minnesota, 830pm BTN
• #12 Northwestern vs #13 Nebraska, 6pm BTN

Thursday, March 9:

• #5 Ohio State vs NU/UNL, 230pm BTN
• #6 Michigan vs IL/MN, 9pm BTN
• #7 Maryland vs #10 Indiana, 630pm BTN
• #8 Penn State vs #9 Iowa, noon BTN

Friday, March 10:

• #1 Rutgers vs PSU/IA, noon BTN
• #2 Purdue vs UMD/IU, 630pm BTN
• #3 Wisconsin vs M/IL/MN, 9pm BTN
• #4 Michigan State vs tOSU/NU/UNL, 230pm BTN

Saturday, March 11:

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

Sunday, March 12:

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

[medinabuckeye1]

For the moment, I would drop Iowa down to Tier 4.  That win over IU was a bit fluky in that Race T. for IU went down and there was that screwball tech on the IU player throwing the ball to the ref.  Even with that, Iowa would still have beat IU if they are tier 4 (IU a tier 3 on the road).

Sorry, did the update before I saw this.  I'll consider it for the next update depending on how Iowa looks between now and then.  

[medinabuckeye1]

I think home crowds are less crazy, but I also think as 3 point shooting has become a bigger part of offenses, the home court reffing edge matters less, because games aren't decided nearly as much by points/calls in the paint.

Interesting thoughts, you are probably right about 3 point shooting.  Officiating is less of an issue there.  

Looking at this years' upsets so far:

All seven were wins by the road team.  That said, some of that is simply because the home team is usually projected to win so the road team has a lot more opportunities to pull off an upset.  

Looking closer:

• Four of the seven were road wins by a superior team that our system projected to lose solely because they were on the road:  MSU@PSU, UW@IA, tOSU@NU, PU@tOSU
• Two of the seven were road wins by a team in the same tier as their host:  PSU@IL, RU@PU
• One of the seven was a road win by an inferior team:  NU@MSU

There probably is no system that could reasonably predict upsets in the #2 and #3 categories.  Those are either because the tiers are wrong or because the winner/loser had an unusually good/bad game.  It happens.  

Category #1 would be eliminated if we altered the system to saying simply that the home team beats equal or lesser opponents.  However, that would create these upsets (that previously were not):

• RU@tOSU
• IA@UNL

Given that two is less than four, maybe it is time to make that switch.  

[NickSmith4Three]

Some smoke that Skyy Clark, Illinois Freshman PG, will be transferring this month.  Not a good look for either side.  He has started almost every game.  His freshman counterpart Epps has looked better though. 

Illinois basketball a bit of a mess right now.

[FearlessF]

coach wasn't happy last night

might have been an ass chewin or 3, post game or this morning

[ELA]

• 11-9/19-12 Michigan State, wins tie with tOSU based on record against RU/PU

I would sign up for this in a heartbeat.  ESPN BPI projects MSU to go 8-12

[NickSmith4Three]

Some smoke that Skyy Clark, Illinois Freshman PG, will be transferring this month.  Not a good look for either side.  He has started almost every game.  His freshman counterpart Epps has looked better though.

Illinois basketball a bit of a mess right now.

Well the smoke got it wrong a little bit.  Who knows what is really going on.  The official statement from Skyy Clark and Illinois Basketball is that he is stepping away from basketball to focus on himself and family.  

[FearlessF]

Coach Woodson's post game comments about Fran McCaffery coming over to IU’s bench towards the end of the game.

[847badgerfan]

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?

Greetings from Cabo!!