2025-2026 B1G Basketball Thread

[MaximumSam]

Which undefeated team?

[medinabuckeye1]

They finished #43 in Strength of Record.  15 spots behind Miami.  But ahead of Texas, NC State and SMU

#38 in NET, 26 spots ahead of Miami.  

#41 in Torvik, 45 spots ahead of Miami.  

#38 in KenPom, 55 spots ahead of Miami.  

Auburn was also undefeated against rotting corpses (6-0 in Q4) as were Texas (7-0), and SMU (6-0) but NCST did have a Q4 loss (4-1) as did Miami (15-1).  

Also note that all 33 of Auburn's games actually count in NET as they are 17-16.  The same is true for SMU (20-13) and NCST (20-13).  Texas does have one game so bad that it doesn't even count in NET while Miami has not one but two.  

The committee has shown us all that they are either unwilling (too lazy) or unable (too stupid) to evaluate quality of opposition so now ALL schools have been put on notice that Bill Snyder was right, NEVER SCHEDULE A LOSS.  

For Auburn, playing Michigan, Arizona, Houston, and Purdue was fatal to the NCAAT hopes.  

The problem is that, as always, you will get more of what you reward and less of what you punish.  The committee has rewarded crap scheduling and punished tough scheduling.  

[medinabuckeye1]

Not only are they NOT undefeated, they aren't even undefeated in games against rotting corpses (Q4) as they LOST to a 200+ bodybag.  

But if you want to talk about conditional undefeateds:

• Indiana (12-0) actually IS undefeated in Q3/4 games.  
• Texas (7-0) actually IS undefeated in Q4 games.  
• VCU (20-0) actually IS undefeated in Q3/4 games.  
• New Mexico (10-0) actually IS undefeated in Q4 games.  
• Oklahoma (9-0) actually IS undefeated in Q3/4 games.  
• Baylor (8-0) actually IS undefeated in Q3/4 games. 

[grillrat]

Haven't weighed in on this is a few pages, but again, I think it comes down to your definition of what the tournament actually is.
It is not a tournament of "these are the best 68 teams in the country".  If it were, you'd have maybe 5 teams from the smaller conferences and that's it.

The tournament is a "these are the 68 teams that are the most worthy".  While there is a very large amount of overlap of those two concepts, they are not the same thing, and people have varying opinions about what "worthy" means.  The committee had to decide if going undefeated in the regular season against a weak schedule was better than picking a stronger team that couldn't even go .500 in its own conference.  You can't look at it from a "team A is better than team B" perspective.  

I think the bigger problem is that the committee doesn't help itself by having inconsistent opinions one year to the next.

[ELA]

#38 in NET, 26 spots ahead of Miami. 

#41 in Torvik, 45 spots ahead of Miami. 

#38 in KenPom, 55 spots ahead of Miami. 

They always say they use resume metrics for selection, predictive for seeding.

That's why every Bracketologist went 68 for 68

[847badgerfan]

They always say they use resume metrics for selection, predictive for seeding.

That's why every Bracketologist went 68 for 68

That's BS in my book, as a Wisconsin fan.

[medinabuckeye1]

They always say they use resume metrics for selection, predictive for seeding.

The committee didn't even do that.  

They crated a fiction by pretending that Miami was actually good enough to get a bid but that created a problem for them because the best team in the MAC and the actual MAC Champion got an auto-bid and was slated (probably correctly) as a #12 seed.  

So if you were being honest then an also-ran from the MAC should be 13+ but Miami got a #11 (play-in).  Why?  Well the committee was in a box.  In order to maintain the lie that Miami was good enough to deserve a bid they had to expand the lie to then pretend that Miami was better than the actual MAC Champion who was:

• 10 spots better in NET (54 vs 64)
• 15 spots better in Torvik (71 vs 86)
• 39 spots better in KenPom (64 vs 93).  

Oh what tangled webs we weave when we practice to deceive.  

[CatsbyAZ]

Bruce Pearl crashing out over a 17-16 team getting "snubbed" is more of a reach than, say, the football coach of a three loss team lobbying for a spot in the CFP. An Auburn team that went 7-11 and finished 12th in conference. Give it a few days - once the games tip off later this week nobody will be thinking about who was left out.

[MaximumSam]

Not only are they NOT undefeated, they aren't even undefeated in games against rotting corpses (Q4) as they LOST to a 200+ bodybag. 

But if you want to talk about conditional undefeateds:

• Indiana (12-0) actually IS undefeated in Q3/4 games. 
• Texas (7-0) actually IS undefeated in Q4 games. 
• VCU (20-0) actually IS undefeated in Q3/4 games. 
• New Mexico (10-0) actually IS undefeated in Q4 games. 
• Oklahoma (9-0) actually IS undefeated in Q3/4 games. 
• Baylor (8-0) actually IS undefeated in Q3/4 games.

31-0. I'll take that over all of them. Pretty awesome season and obviously deserving of a bid so long as you count winning as more important than losing. But I know we have the loser supporters out there too.

[medinabuckeye1]

I'll do my annual data-driven post on this soon. I sort by timezone and historically there are enough MST/PST teams to barely justify ONE MST/PST first round site which is why EVERY year a bunch of EST and CST teams get screwed.

As promised:

This year the top-4 seeds were from the following timezones:
EST:

• Dook
• UF
• M
• UCONN
• PU
• MSU
• UVA

CST:

• Houston
• ISU
• IL
• KU
• Ark
• Bama
• UNL

MST:

• Zona

PST:

• Gonzaga

Over the last 22 tournaments (2004-2026 but no 2020):

• 8.55 average from EST in a range of 6-11
• 5.36 average from CST in a range of 2-9
• 0.64 average from MST in a range of 0-1
• 1.45 average from PST in a range of 0-3.  

The MST and PST timezones have combined to produce an average of 2.10 top-4 seeds which justifies BARELY over 1 first round site in those two timezones combined.  This is the third consecutive year that we have had two or less top-4 seeds from those two timezones so for the third consecutive year the seeds haven't justified having more than one MSU/PSU first round site.  

Where are the sites:
EST:

• Buffalo, NY
• Greenville, SC
• Tampa, FL
• Philly, PA

CST:

• OKC, OK
• St Louis, MO

MST/PST:

• Portland
• San Diego

So, as usual, we have a major shortage of top-4 seeds from out west.  There are eight spots to fill and only Arizona and Gonzaga to fill them.  So who got screwed:

• #4 Arkansas got shipped out to Portland where they will play Hawaii.  I suppose Arkansas is technically closer to Portland than Hawaii but this is about as favorable of a location as Hawaii could dream of.  If Arkansas gets to the R32 their likely opponent is #5 seed Wisconsin who is closer to Portland than they are.  
• #4 seed Kansas got shipped out to San Diego where they will play, get this, California Baptist.  Kansas will literally be at a geographic disadvantage as the #4 seed in a 4/13 game.  However, if they do get to the R32 their likely opponent is St. Johns.  

[grillrat]

The way I figure it is that Purdue is purposely losing games so that they get the 5 seed and get a game against the 12/13 seed (which they would presumably win), and thus guarantee that Braden Smith gets at least two BTT games so that he has a better chance of breaking the all-time assists record.

That's some 5-D chess there. 

I mean, I was kinda kidding.......

[medinabuckeye1]

31-0. I'll take that over all of them. Pretty awesome season and obviously deserving of a bid so long as you count winning as more important than losing. But I know we have the loser supporters out there too.

Don't lie. 

Nobody here is supporting losing.  However there are a number of us who support actually schedule games against teams that aren't bodybags. 

Some of us want to encourage quality BB, you are advocating a position that discourages it. 

Oh, and they aren't 31-0 they are 31-1 because they LOST.  So stop implying that they went undefeated.  They didn't.  More lies.  

Oh, and according to NET they aren't even 31-1 they are 28-1 because three of their opponents were so completely awful that they can't calibrate it.  

[medinabuckeye1]

Give it a few days - once the games tip off later this week nobody will be thinking about who was left out.

Nobody . . . except the coaches and ADs whose paychecks depend on this.  They will be thinking about it when they set future schedules and the committee gave them a VERY strong message:  Schedule weak.  It is a sad day for anyone who appreciates quality basketball.  

[ELA]

Nobody . . . except the coaches and ADs whose paychecks depend on this.  They will be thinking about it when they set future schedules and the committee gave them a VERY strong message:  Schedule weak.  It is a sad day for anyone who appreciates quality basketball. 

Literally every college hoops podcast is saying they got the 68 right.  If we had one more or one fewer big thief, it would have been interesting, but the gap between Texas/SMU and Auburn/Oklahoma/SDSU was massive.  One was interviewing a Bracketologist that said anyone who didn't go 68 for 68 shouldn't be taken seriously, because it was that obvious.

This thread, and maybe the Pearl household, are the only places questioning it