2022-2023 B1G Basketball Thread

[medinabuckeye1]

Holtmann January?

He should be fired tonight.

[boilerbanger]

He should be fired tonight.

They looked completely lost on both ends of the floor.

[rolltidefan]

I was only vaguely aware of some of these.

The way I follow CBB is vastly different from the way I follow CFB.



The result of all of this, at least for me, is that I really don't care about CBB nationally until the Tournament. I know there will be some SEC teams in the tournament but I could care less if Arkansas and Kentucky get in while Bama and Tennessee host NIT games or vice-versa so I don't care who wins the AR/TN and Bama/Kentucky games.

this isn't all that different from the way i follow cbb. bama just happened to play certain teams where i learned some of this through happenstance.

uk/arky is obvious. played unc, which happened to be right at beginning of their downfall this season. also played uconn, houston, and gonzaga, which had me looking at top of rankings a lot during non-conf season. so i noticed a few teams early on drop quickly.

also, bama is (hopefully) unusually competing for a potential 1 seed, so i've looked a little more than normal because of that.

and finally, when you (or whoever, too lazy to go back and see who posted it) said it was bad start for preseason fav, i knew sec and acc favs also had bad starts, and decided to check all major confs. vaguely knew bigxii was a mess due to strength of conf. had no idea about pac though.

basically, i had proximate knowledge, but had to look up to confirm.

[medinabuckeye1]

They looked completely lost on both ends of the floor.

I didn't watch but I was keeping an eye on the score and knew this anyway because you can't lose to a team as terrible as Minnesota without a pathetic performance.

This will continue until Gene Smith realizes that the Ohio State University is being robbed. They are paying top-tier money for a (charitably) second tier coach.

Frankly, Gene Smith screwed this up from the beginning but I'm willing to give him a pass for the transition from Matta. I can understand that one. Like the AD, I kept hoping that Matta would learn to delegate or find some other way to return to his earlier glory. When he never did, he had to be removed but the delay caused the search for his replacement to be a complete cluster-f#*k.

This is Holtmann's sixth season and the Buckeyes haven't been a serious contender for the league title since his first. They also haven't made the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament since the twilight of Thad Matta's heyday.

I opened this thread with the following prediction:
"In the 2022-2023 season the Buckeyes will finish st least three games out of the B1G Championship and their season will end before the second weekend of the NCAA tournament."

I'm not Nostradomus but his predictive abilities are not needed to see the future in this case.

[medinabuckeye1]

Attendance last night in Columbus was just over 11k for a conference game in a large City on a Campus with 50k students. That is less than 3/5 capacity. It is pathetic but can you blame the locals? The program hasn't given them a reason to be excited in over a decade. 

[medinabuckeye1]

Holtmann January?

• 18/19: Ohio State was 12-1 and #14 at the beginning of January then went 1-6 in January with the only win coming against a terrible Nebraska team. They had a secondary collapse down the stretch, losing four of their last five games.
• 19/20: The Buckeyes beat Kentucky in a top-6 game in Las Vegas just before Christmas to move to 11-1 and #2 in the poll. They then lost to WVU in Cleveland just before New Years and proceeded to lose six out of seven with the lone win coming, once again, against Nebraska.
• 20/21: Just before Christmas the Buckeyes knocked off #11 Rutgers at home to move to 7-1. Then they lost two out of three (if you guessed Nebraska as the exception pick a prize). They actually had a solid January for once but then imploded in late February to drop from 18-4, #4 nationally, and in the league race to 18-8 and, as always, nowhere close to the league title. Nonetheless the had a solid run to the title game in Indianapolis which got the a #2 seed in the big dance but they crapped the bed with an embarrassing loss to a #15 seed.
• 21/22: Ohio State was 8-2 heading into January. They were ranked #13 in part because both losses were close and to quality opponents. They went 5-3 in January which looks decent so long as you don't look closely enough to notice that the wins came against IUPUI, Nebraska, Northwestern, Penn State (barely and at home), and Minnesota. Most of February was pretty good but then they suffered yet another season-ending collapse. They lost three of their last four including at home to Nebraska before being sent home from the B1G Tournament after just one game by #11 seed Penn State.
• 22/23: On NYD the Buckeyes moved to 10-3 and #24 in the poll by beating Northwestern. Since then they've lost three straight and while the close loss to #1 is nothing to be too ashamed of they were not very competitive in College Park Maryland and I think that even Holtmann's most steadfast apologists will have to admit that the home loss to Minnesota was outright pathetic. Also, the Purdue game loss was avoidable. It isn't like they won because Edey simply overpowered a defender or they hit a tough shot. Nope, Purdue won because Ohio State committed a turnover when that was the one thing they HAD to avoid. Four of their five remaining January games are on the road and they open February by hosting Wisconsin then traveling to Ann Arbor. They may well leave Ann Arbor as a sub .500 team.

[medinabuckeye1]

Anybody else ready to let the Diebler brothers take over?

[Abba]

The 2 freshmen struggled and it was Key's first game back from injury.  I'll overreact in March, but these things happen in the middle of the year sometimes.

[bayareabadger]

Oh lord I hope they fire that man. Just for the sake of this thread. 

[medinabuckeye1]

The 2 freshmen struggled and it was Key's first game back from injury.  I'll overreact in March, but these things happen in the middle of the year sometimes.

If it was a reaction to one game it would be an overreaction. It isn't, it is a response to five complete seasons with no notable accomplishments and the fact that when @Brutus Buckeye posted "Holtmann January" no explanation was needed because we all knew what he was referring to. 

[Abba]

The Buckeyes might be undefeated in conference if Purdue hadn't injured Zed Key.  They might've made the Elite 8 a few years ago if Purdue hadn't injured Kyle Young.  Just the way things go sometimes.  

[medinabuckeye1]

For now the tiers are:

• Purdue, Rutgers
• Wisconsin, Michigan State, Ohio State
• Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Penn State, Northwestern, Indiana
• Nebraska
• Blank
• Minnesota

At least for now the method is that each team wins all home games except those against teams two or more tiers ahead of them and loses all road games except those against teams two or more tiers behind them.  

The upsets so far have been:

The updated projected final standings/BTT seeds are:

• 17-3/28-3 Purdue
• 16-4/24-7 Rutgers
• 12-8/20-11 Michigan State
• 12-8/20-10 Wisconsin
• 10-10/18-13 Iowa
• 10-10/19-12 Maryland
• 10-10/18-13 Ohio State
• 10-10/19-12 Illinois
• 10-10/16-15 Michigan
• 9-11/18-13 Northwestern
• 9-11/18-13 Penn State
• 8-12/17-14 Indiana
• 6-14/13-18 Nebraska
• 1-19/7-23 Minnesota

Tiebreakers:
Michigan State wins the 12-8 tiebreaker because they won in Madison and do not host the Badgers.  

10-10:
We start with H2H2H2H.  If we played a double-round-robin all five teams would be projected to go 4-4 against each other so I start there then adjust for upsets.  None of these teams have been involved in upsets of each other.  Then I back out games not played.  That gets us to a projection of:

• 4-1 Iowa:  Does not visit IL, UMD, or M
• 3-3 Maryland:  Does not visit IL nor host IA
• 3-4 Ohio State:  Does not host M
• 2-3 Illinois:  Does not host IA nor UMD, does not visit M.  Wins tiebreaker over M due to record against UW and MSU
• 2-3 Michigan:  Does not host IL nor IA, does not visit tOSU

9-11:
Northwestern wins because they do not visit PSU.  

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

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

Thursday, March 9:

• #5 Iowa vs IU/UNL, 230 BTN
• #6 Maryland vs PSU/MN, 9 BTN
• #7 Ohio State vs #10 Northwestern, 630 BTN
• #8 Illinois vs #9 Michigan, noon BTN

Friday, March 10:

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

Saturday, March 11:

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

Sunday, March 12:

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

[medinabuckeye1]

The Buckeyes might be undefeated in conference if Purdue hadn't injured Zed Key.  They might've made the Elite 8 a few years ago if Purdue hadn't injured Kyle Young.  Just the way things go sometimes. 

• "might be" = ARE NOT
• "might've" = DID NOT

[Abba]

I don't think the Buckeyes are going to get a much better coach than Holtmann.  His recruiting is picking up, so I think it's best just to wait it out for another year or two and see where things go.  If they fail to make the tournament this year, then we can talk, but I think this team has potential to be very dangerous in March.  Just go back and watch the game against Northwestern or North Carolina.  Let's get Zed back to 100%, let the freshmen learn (Malaki didn't break out until January last year) and see what things look like in March.