2025-2026 B1G Basketball Thread

[Brutus Buckeye]

OT in the Ivy

[bayareabadger]

And his name is?

Make the man an offer he can't refuse.

Jeff Bourne. Age 67 or so retired after 25 years at JMU.

Maybe he'd want that challenge. But considering the work-to-profit ratio he might be working on now, might not be worth it. 

Right now he can charge a hefty fee to say "this is what I would do." and then get paid thousands to make some speeches and enjoy his pension. 

[847badgerfan]

Make him the Chancellor.

[MaximumSam]

MARCH FRAN INCOMING

[bayareabadger]

Make him the Chancellor.

No, no, you need to offer him a job someone would WANT to take.

[bayareabadger]

VCU wins, removing the last small chance of a big theif.

[medinabuckeye1]

Purdue is on fire so far this half.

[FearlessF]

I figured Purdue is pretty good and playing pretty well this week, but beating Michigan is impressive

[bayareabadger]

This makes it easier for the committee to do their freaking job.

Apparently it did not. 

[MaximumSam]

[medinabuckeye1]

I don't know... I think there's a very good point here about trying to schedule a decent mid-major or two.

One of two things would happen:

• They'd win those games and now they'd actually have some quality wins that would boost their rankings (incl. NET).
• They'd lose one or more of those games and nobody would be saying "well look at their undefeated regular season" and it would be moot.

Right now they have two Q2 wins. One is a one-possession home win over #54 Akron. The other is a 7 point away win over #127 Wright State. The Akron game is literally the only game they've played against a top-100 NET team.

There are currently 19 teams in the NET top 75 from non-major conferences. If they'd played any one of them on the road and won, they'd be sporting a Q1 win.

You don't think we--or the NET rankings--would evaluate them differently if they had a Q1 win?

This!
 @bayareabadger implied that I wouldn't care if they had a couple better wins on their resume and I absolutely would view this differently. This is particularly true if the decent opponents replaced the two non-DI opponents. 

I think there would be a reasonable argument for including them if they had won the MAC Quarter-final against UMASS and the Semi-Final against Toledo and lost a close game to Akron in the MAC Championship:

• UMASS is now #201 so that win would likely be Q4 but on the border of Q3.
• Toledo is 130 so Q3.
• Akron is 54 and 1-50 on a neutral court are Q1. It is possible that Akron would be top-50 with a hypothetical MAC Championship win over Miami so the hypothetical MAC Championship loss to the Zips would be at least Q2 and possibly Q1.

As it is UMASS dropped back below #200 after the Toledo loss so Miami's loss to them is a dreadful Q4 loss. 

AFAIK, there are no teams legitimately in the bubble conversation with a Q4 loss. Even if there are, they are only in the conversation because they have offsetting good wins. 

It would be ridiculous to include Miami because they have a loss worse than any other bubble team without ANY offsetting good wins.

If Miami had lost to Akron it would be at least a Q2 loss and nearly all bubble teams have at least one Q2 loss so it would fit in. 

[medinabuckeye1]

Why would anyone expect Sam to be on the other side of this argument? He went to Miami. Of course he wants them to go to the NCAA tournament.

I'm glad you reminded me of this because I kept wondering what was wrong with him. 

It is an emotional argument utterly devoid of a logical basis but knowing that he has an emotional connection explains that.

[medinabuckeye1]

Apparently it did not.

Yep. Apparently they are spineless cowards who lack integrity but life goes on.

[MaximumSam]

Miami in was pretty much a no brainer, excessive emotional pleas notwithstanding. The regular season has to mean something and the bubble was so sad this year that letting in a team like Auburn would have been just charity for Bruce Pearl.