What's the farthest that each seed has gotten in the Big Ten Tourney, under the current bracket format?
The B1G website has all of the history. I compiled it just to see what patterns would emerge. There *SHOULD* have been eight tournaments in the 14-team format but the 2020 tournament was cancelled after the Wednesday games due to COVID-19 so instead we have had seven tournaments plus an "extra" 14-11 and an "extra" 12-13 game. That makes 93 games (7*13+2) and 186 appearances. Here are the results from the eight sets of Wednesday games:
Nothing terribly shocking there. The #12/13 game is even but the 12th and 13th teams in the league are usually right around even so that makes sense. The #11 seed has a 6-2 advantage over the #14 seed. Frankly, I'm surprised that isn't a bigger differential. It just seems that in a conference with 14 members (this was true even when we only had 11) there is always at least one team that is just a trainwreck so whoever gets to play the worst team *USUALLY* gets almost a freebie.
Here are the results from the Thursday games:
Back when we had an 11-team league the #6 seed almost always won their game against #11 (beating the worst team is typically pretty easy, see above) and then also almost always went on to "upset" the #3 seed in their second game. After much discussion around these parts the conclusion that I (and I think the rest of us, but if you disagree feel free to add your $0.02) came to was that the advantage/disadvantage of playing more/less games isn't a linear relationship. Our working theory is that it works like this:
- In your first game you are at a relative disadvantage vs a team playing their second because they already had a chance to get comfortable in the venue and shake any rust off.
- In your first game you are probably at a slight advantage vs a team playing their third. You have the advantage of being fresh and rested but the disadvantage of potentially being rusty and settling into the venue. They have the advantage of being comfortable, settled, and not rusty but the disadvantage of being tired.
- Beyond that the team having played the fewest games gets a significant advantage because the rust/comfort issue goes away so it is simply a matter of fatigue.
You can see that here. The #8 has a slight advantage over the #9 as you would expect. Both are playing their first game and the #8 is generally a slightly better team than the #9. The bottom three games are where things get screwy. As you can see the #7 has an enormous lead over #10 which is surprising both because #7 typically isn't THAT much better than #10 and because #7's advantage over #10 is *MUCH* larger than the advantage that #5 and #6 have over 12/13 and 11/14 respectively. If it were solely about higher seeds being better teams then you would expect #5 to have the biggest advantage followed by #6 then #7.
I think the theory outlined above explains this oddity. #7 and #10 are both playing their first game and #7 is generally better so #7 is near-perfect against #10. #5 and #6 are playing a team that already had a chance to shake the rust off and they do not do nearly as well as #7.
A counter or additional reason may be the motivation issue. #7 is much more likely to be a bubble team whereas #5 and #6 are almost always locks. They have very little to play for because they are probably mid-range NCAA seeds regardless so this game doesn't move the needle for them. #7 may be a bubble team and, even if not, they are likely staring down the possibility of an #8/9 seed in the NCAA where the second game is nearly impossible.
I don't know, just spitballing.
Anyway, here are the results from the quarter-finals on Friday of the BTT:
Four things stand out to me here:
- The performance of the #1 and #2 seeds is *REALLY* unimpressive. They are each barely over .500 even though they are playing against teams nowhere near as good as they are. I think the theory outlined above explains this. The 7/8/9/10 seeds are playing their second game on Friday while the 1/2 seeds are playing their first. This gives the lower seeded teams an advantage and explains why they are almost .500 in a games against vastly better teams.
- #3 is the place to be! They are 3-1 against the #6 and 3-0 against the #12 and #13.
- Note that #4 is 1-3 when they have to play #5 and 3-0 when they get to play 12/13. This fits the theory as well.
- Note that Friday is *ALWAYS* the end of the road for the teams that had to play on Wednesday. The third game in three days is rough.
Here are the results from the semi-finals on Saturday of the BTT:
By the time we get to Saturday the double-digit seeds are all gone. The #1's are a somewhat surprisingly pedestrian 2-2 and only one team seeded below #5 has won a semi-final. I think the major anomaly here is that the #5 seed is a remarkable 3-0. I'm not really sure why. They are playing their third game in three days here so you would expect them to be worn out but they are perfect in semi-finals so far.
Here are the CG results on Sunday of the BTT:
The #8 seed winning it is clearly an outlier. That is a tough road, to win four games in four days. Although, to be fair, those three #5 seeds that made it to the CG also had to play four games in four days and two of them managed to win it as well. Looking at the two sides of the bracket, the team to make the CG was:
On the #1 side:
- A #5 seed three times
- A #1 seed twice
- A #4 seed once.
- A #8 seed once.
On the #2 side:
- A #3 seed four times
- A #2 seed three times
Overall, this surprises me. The #1 seed *SHOULD* be the best team in the league. Thus, they *SHOULD* at least get to the CG more than this. For some reason they don't.
Note also that while those #3 seeds are really good at getting to the CG (more appearances than any other seed), they have yet to actually win a CG.
So back to your initial question, furthest advance by each seed in the 14-team BTT:
- Two Championships.
- Two Championships and a CG loss.
- Four CG losses.
- One CG loss.
- Two Championships and a CG loss.
- One semi-final loss.
- Three semi-final losses.
- One Championship (next best was a semi-final loss).
- Two semi-final losses.
- One quarter-final loss (the other six #10 seeds lost their opener).
- Two quarter-final losses.
- One quarter-final loss.
- Two quarter-final losses.
- One quarter-final loss.
