2024-2025 B1G Basketball Thread

[bayareabadger]

Wisconsin was sloppy in the face of a Penn State team that just. Kept. Hitting. 3s. 

It’s weird because the season was objectively wetter than expected. But two of the last five games were decidedly not great. 

On to the next. Let’s see what happens. 

[medinabuckeye1]

The only games left are:

• Michigan at Michigan State, noon CBS
• Iowa at Nebraska, 12:30, FOX
• Minnesota at Rutgers, 1pm BTN
• Oregon at Washington, 3pm BTN

Seeds:

Michigan State is the #1 seed no matter what.  

Michigan is currently 1/2 game ahead of Maryland for second but Michigan would lose the tie so:

• If Michigan beats MSU, Michigan is the #2 seed and UMD is the #3
• If MSU beats Michigan, Maryland is the #2 seed and M is the #3

The #4 seed is a mess.  Wisconsin, UCLA, and Purdue are all tied for 4/5/6 at 13-7.  First tiebreaker is H2H2H:

• 1-1 Wisconsin:  Won at PU, lost at UCLA
• 1-1 Purdue:  won vs UCLA, lost vs UW
• 1-1 UCLA:  won vs UW, lost at PU

That doesn't help.  The next tiebreaker is record vs the best team(s) then the next, etc.  UCLA holds a win over MSU so I believe that makes UCLA the #4 seed.  

At that point PU and UW revert to the two-team tiebreaker and UW beat PU so Wisconsin is the #5 seed and Purdue is the #6 seed.  

Illinois is currently in 7th place but Oregon can catch them with a win at Washington.  It doesn't matter because Illinois beat Oregon so they get the #7 seed either outright or by tiebreaker.  Oregon is the #8 seed.  

Indiana is the #9 seed.  


Ohio State is the #10 seed.  

11th place is currently a three-way tie between Minnesota, Rutgers, and Nebraska with all three of those teams playing on Sunday.  

The Minnesota/Rutgers winner will be 8-12 as will Nebraska if they beat Iowa.  

The Minnesota/Rutgers loser will be 7-13 as are Northwestern and USC and they will be joined by both Nebraska and Iowa if the Hawkeyes win in Lincoln.  

That is a REALLY complicated tiebreaker potentially involving five teams at 7-13 so I'm not going to bother with it.  

Penn State is out at 6-14.  Their best-case-scenario is a tie with Iowa for 16th.  

Washington is out at 4-15.  Their best-case-scenario is to finish only one game out of second-to-last.  

[bayareabadger]

T-Rank puts OSU at 40.5% to make the tournament, IU 52.5.

IU will finish at worst 19-13. OSU has to go 2-1 in Indy to reach 19-15 status. IU has a bad NET and dearth of Q1 wins. OSU is just in a bad place on the win/loss front. 

In either case, a perfect case for keeping the tournament at the current 68.

[FearlessF]

and cutting back to 64

[OrangeAfroMan]

I hate to be mean to college athletes, because we all know they shouldn't be in college, but none of us could dunk a basketball.  But today was the first Ive heard Mark Sears speak, and man, Im not sure he would be eligible on my sons 5th grade team

Same for RB Dalvin Cook, who went to FSU.  He sounded so bad, I (wrongly) predicted he wouldn't even stay on the team enough to finish his football career.  
It's a good thing I was wrong and he was successful, but HO-LY SHIT he sounded dumber than a bag of hammers.

[bayareabadger]

I hate to be mean to college athletes, because we all know they shouldn't be in college, but none of us could dunk a basketball.  But today was the first Ive heard Mark Sears speak, and man, Im not sure he would be eligible on my sons 5th grade team

I have no idea his academics, but the older I’ve gotten, the more I have become convinced that someone’s ability to sound smooth as a speaker, especially extemporaneously, is not a good proxy for their academic intelligence.

[Cincydawg]

I have no idea his academics, but the older I’ve gotten, the more I have become convinced that someone’s ability to sound smooth as a speaker, especially extemporaneously, is not a good proxy for their academic intelligence.

I think there is a decent correlation, but not without the usual exceptions.  It certainly helps a lot in public if one can speak "smoothly".

There are times when a person is nervous, not used to be on TV etc.

[ELA]

Its hard for him to win it at this point, but this might be the perfect confluence to get Izzo CCOTY

[ELA]

Danny Wolf just made his first basket, down 24 with 14 minutes left.  I think he has hit a bit of a wall the past couple weeks.  that's a lot of high usage minutes for a 7 footer

[bayareabadger]

Its hard for him to win it at this point, but this might be the perfect confluence to get Izzo CCOTY

He completely deserves it.

this Michigan state team is very weird. I did get in an argument with some bad fans about the roster quality. It’s funny because they have a ton of highly rated talent, but they don’t have but one particularly well-rounded player.

[bayareabadger]

I think there is a decent correlation, but not without the usual exceptions.  It certainly helps a lot in public if one can speak "smoothly".

There are times when a person is nervous, not used to be on TV etc.

I’ve run into too many situations where someone is some degree of quiet/a poor speaker/has a thick accent and they don’t come off very well. And then I will talk to someone else who is smooth and charming but I later figure out is academically very deficient.

[SuperMario]

Danny Wolf just made his first basket, down 24 with 14 minutes left.  I think he has hit a bit of a wall the past couple weeks.  that's a lot of high usage minutes for a 7 footer

I noticed it during the Minnesota loss that something just seemed off with him and it’s gone down hill since. The usage could certainly be it, but I also think all the attention on him added to it.

also, I need to eat some crow. I think I glossed over how Juwan handled some heated moments during his time. Today, watching the interaction between May and Izzo was so eye opening how in the wrong I was in the past about Juwan as a leader and head coach. Seeing May and Izzo go and interact to talk it through and ensure it didn’t escalate further was great to watch. It’s the example not only their players need to see, but also youth across the nation watching.

[medinabuckeye1]

I noticed it during the Minnesota loss that something just seemed off with him and it’s gone down hill since. The usage could certainly be it, but I also think all the attention on him added to it.

 @SuperMario , genuine question:
I obviously don't watch much Michigan BB.  The last game of theirs that I saw was their win in Columbus.  Coming out of that they were 20-5/12-2 and seemed to be on top of the world and headed for at least a share of a league title.  Since then the results have not been good:

• Lost by 13 at home to MSU
• Barely beat Nebraska in Lincoln (this would be good for a bubble team like tOSU but for a league title contender it is not impressive)
• Barely beat Rutgers at home (this wouldn't be impressive even for a bubble team)
• Blown out at home by Illinois
• Lost at home to Maryland
• Blown out in East Lansing

That is four losses some of them bad and two too-close-for-comfort wins over non-Tournament teams.  So my question is, what happened?  Did they just run out of luck?  We (mostly @ELA ) have talked extensively about Michigan remarkable and unlikely run of close wins so maybe they luck just ran out?  

Did they just have an off couple weeks, or is something more structural going on?

[medinabuckeye1]

I'm fairly certain the seeds are as follows (the league will probably officially release them by the time I finish typing this but I want to make sure I understand the tiebreakers so I'm taking a stab at it anyway):

• 17-3 Michigan State
• 14-6 Maryland (wins tie over M based on H2H, won in Ann Arbor)
• 14-6 Michigan
• 13-7 UCLA (H2H2H is all tied up at 1-1, UCLA wins based on record against MSU)
• 13-7 Wisconsin (wins tie over PU based on H2H, won in West Lafayette)
• 13-7 Purdue
• 12-8 Illinois (wins tie with Oregon based on H2H)
• 12-8 Oregon
• 10-10 Indiana
• 9-11 Ohio State
• 8-12 Rutgers
• 7-13 Minnesota
• 7-13 Northwestern
• 7-13 Southern California
• 7-13 Iowa
• 7-13 Nebraska
• 6-14 Penn State
• 4-15 Washington

The five-way tie at 7-13 is broken as follows:
First H2H2H2H2H:


Thus Minnesota gets the #12 seed, Northwestern gets the #13 seed, and Nebraska gets left out at #16.  Southern California and Iowa revert to the two-team H2H tiebreaker and USC beat Iowa so USC gets #14 and Iowa gets #15.  

Thus, the BTT match-ups are:
Wednesday Peacock:

• #10 Ohio State vs #15 Iowa, 6pm
• #11 Rutgers vs #14 Southern California, 830
• #12 Minnesota vs #13 Northwestern, 330 

Thursday BTN:

• #5 Wisconsin vs MN/NU, 230
• #6 Purdue vs RU/USC, 9pm
• #7 Illinois vs tOSU/IA, 630
• #8 Oregon vs #9 Indiana, noon

Friday BTN:

• #1 Michigan State vs Ore/IU, noon
• #2 Maryland vs IL/tOSU/IA, 630
• #3 Michigan vs PU/RU/USC, 8pm
• #4 UCLA vs UW/MN/NU, 230