2023-2024 B1G Basketball Thread

[ELA]

Today is the first ever Bracketology, which is 22 years old, at any point of the season, where Gonzaga was not projected into the field

[FearlessF]

leaving a spot for Nebraska???

[medinabuckeye1]

leaving a spot for Nebraska???

According to Lunardi/ESPN, yes!

There are three B1G bubble teams:

• Northwestern, one of the last four with a bye gets an #11 seed
• Nebraska, one of the last four with a bye gets a #10 seed
• Ohio State, the Buckeyes' annual "Holtmann January" midseason collapse has dropped them from a #5 (IIRC) all the way to a play-in just to make the 64 team field

B1G teams in the field per Lunardi:

• #1 Purdue (Top overall seed per Lunardi)
• #2 Wisconsin
• #4 Illinois
• #9 Michigan State
• #10 Nebraska
• #11 Northwestern, Ohio State (play-in)

Based on past history of those seeds, they typically result in:

• 4.2 teams winning an R64 game
• 2.4 teams making the S16
• 1.4 teams making the E8
• 0.8 teams making the F4
• 0.4 teams making the NC Game
• 0.2 NC's

[medinabuckeye1]

I was entering games into my projection spreadsheet and noticed that we really start March with a bang.  On Saturday, March 2 our top four teams all play each other:

• Illinois at Wisconsin at 1pm
• Michigan State at Purdue at 8pm.  

Then Purdue and Illinois back that up by playing each other in Champagne on Tuesday, March 5.  

For the final weekend of the regular season only Minnesota and Northwestern play on Saturday.  The other dozen B1G teams are playing on Sunday with:

• UNL@M, noon
• UW@PU, 12:30
• tOSU@RU, 2
• MSU@IU, 4:30
• UMD@PSU, 6:30
• IL@IA, 7

[ELA]

Lay whatever the points are for Purdue at home against Michigan State.  That is a guaranteed blowout every year.  Even when MSU has the better team, they lose by 20 at Mackey.  So when Purdue has the better team, it's going to be even more of a laugher

[bayareabadger]

I was wondering when UW would catch one of those random losses because the Big 10 is a good league and most teams can get you on a given night. 

Was hoping it would come later, but here we are. 

[MaximumSam]

Tier 1 Penn State

[847badgerfan]

I was wondering when UW would catch one of those random losses because the Big 10 is a good league and most teams can get you on a given night.

Was hoping it would come later, but here we are.

I didn't feel good about this game going in, so I'm not bummed.

[grillrat]

In this topsy-turvey world, it's nice when things return to a level of normalcy:

Purdue in the hunt for the Big Ten title and Indiana fans wanting to fire their coach.

All is good.

[boilerbanger]

In this topsy-turvey world, it's nice when things return to a level of normalcy:

Purdue in the hunt for the Big Ten title and Indiana fans wanting to fire their coach.

All is good.

I was at the game last night in enemy territory .... it was a glorious night, also entertaining to see the IU fans lose their minds in their first after every foul call.  

[medinabuckeye1]

Tier 1 Penn State

LoL

I'll but updating the tiers and projection on Friday so looking for input but at this point no changes appear to be needed.  Current tiers:

• UW (+1/-1), PU, IL -1, MSU -1
• Iowa (+1/-1), NU, UNL
• MN (+1/-1), tOSU, RU
• PSU +1, IU +1, UMD +1, M -1 (+1/-2)

The numbers listed are for upsets relative to the projections.  Upsets so far have been:

Note that all 14 teams are within +/-1:

• PSU, IU, and UMD are +1 with one positive upset each
• PU, NU, UNL, tOSU, and RU are even with no upsets
• UW, IA, and MN are even with one up and one down
• IL, and MSU are -1 with one negative upset
• Michigan is the wildcard, they are -1 with one up and two down

We have three teams in tier-1 with negative upsets and all four teams in tier-4 have a positive upset.  That is fairly common because tier-1 teams have 15 or 16 chances to be upset and only four or five chances to get an upset while tier-4 teams have 15 or 16 chances to get an upset and only four or five chances to be upset.  

[boilerbanger]

I still say Iowa should be Tier 3 ... Purdue is going to be favored by double digits Saturday at Iowa

[medinabuckeye1]

I still say Iowa should be Tier 3 ... Purdue is going to be favored by double digits Saturday at Iowa

The difference is the projected result in home games against tier-1 and road games against tier-4 so potentially eight games but Iowa does not host MSU so we are down to seven:

• vs PU, 1/20
• at M, 1/27
• at IU, 1/30
• at PSU, 2/8
• at UMD, 2/14
• vs UW, 2/17
• vs IL, 3/10

Their home loss to M and their road win at MN would be upsets either way so it is just a question of what you think they will do in the seven games listed above.  If you think 4-3 or better, tier-2.  If you think 3-4 or worse, tier-3.  

[boilerbanger]

The difference is the projected result in home games against tier-1 and road games against tier-4 so potentially eight games but Iowa does not host MSU so we are down to seven:

• vs PU, 1/20
• at M, 1/27
• at IU, 1/30
• at PSU, 2/8
• at UMD, 2/14
• vs UW, 2/17
• vs IL, 3/10

Their home loss to M and their road win at MN would be upsets either way so it is just a question of what you think they will do in the seven games listed above.  If you think 4-3 or better, tier-2.  If you think 3-4 or worse, tier-3. 

I would say 3-4 or worse, but who the hell knows this year.  I see them losing those 3, plus 1 of the other 4, just not sure which one.

• vs PU, 1/20 L
• at M, 1/27 
• at IU, 1/30 L
• at PSU, 2/8 
• at UMD, 2/14
• vs UW, 2/17 L
• vs IL, 3/10