~2017-18 Big Ten Basketball Thread~

[Brutus Buckeye]

It appears as though Penn St and Northwestern have been mathematically eliminated,

The Wolverines are done with one more M loss/OSU win. 

Nebraska's Big Ten Title hopes can technically still withstand another loss, but they badly need the three teams ahead of them to simultaneously tank, down the stretch. 

[ELA]

On paper, MSU shouldn't lose another.  But Minnesota, Northwestern and Wisconsin have more talent than they've shown.  That road stretch looked killer preseason, playing the preseason 3, 4 and 5 teams, all on the road, in an 11 day span.  I'm nervous one plays up to expectations and nips us.  MSU has been the definition of playing to the level of their competition level recently, with 3 straight 3 point wins, over various levels of competition. (Indiana, Iowa, Purdue)

[bayareabadger]

On paper, MSU shouldn't lose another.  But Minnesota, Northwestern and Wisconsin have more talent than they've shown.  That road stretch looked killer preseason, playing the preseason 3, 4 and 5 teams, all on the road, in an 11 day span.  I'm nervous one plays up to expectations and nips us.  MSU has been the definition of playing to the level of their competition level recently, with 3 straight 3 point wins, over various levels of competition. (Indiana, Iowa, Purdue)

A quick heads up: Wisconsin does not. 

[medinabuckeye1]

It appears as though Penn St and Northwestern have been mathematically eliminated,

The Wolverines are done with one more M loss/OSU win.

Nebraska's Big Ten Title hopes can technically still withstand another loss, but they badly need the three teams ahead of them to simultaneously tank, down the stretch.

The other big mathematical elimination that happened this weekend is that Wisconsin's Wisconsin's amazing run of top-4 finishes officially ended.  It was pretty clear a long time ago that it was going to end but going into the weekend they still could theoretically have finished 9-9 and tied Nebraska for fourth place.  Now the best they can mathematically do is 8-10 and tied with PSU for sixth.  
You are right as far as the B1G Championship.  It is wide open between tOSU, MSU, and PU.  

• Nebraska needs three tOSU losses or four if the Cornhuskers lose a game.  They also need two losses each from MSU and PU or three each if they lose a game.  
• Michigan is mathematically alive but they need to win out, they need Ohio State to lose out, and they need three losses each from MSU and PU.  

[medinabuckeye1]

Michigan's win at Wisconsin was an "upset" per the tiers so that changes the seeds a bit.  

• Michigan moves up to the 5-seed at a projected 11-7.  
• Wisconsin drops into a projected 5-13 tie with Iowa for 10th/11th.  Wisconsin would lose that tie and get the 11-seed.  

Note that Iowa now projects not to have to play on Wednesday.  With the H2H tiebreaker over UW they would get the 10 seed and play #7 on Thursday.  

[medinabuckeye1]

Here is the run to the finish for the B1G Championship contenders:

Team/Game	Toughest	2nd Toughest	2nd Easiest	Easiest
Ohio State	at Michigan	at Indiana	at Penn State	vs Rutgers
Michigan State	at Northwestern	at Minnesota	at Wisconsin	vs Illinois
Purdue	at Wisconsin	at Illinois	vs Penn State	vs Minnesota

I do not think anyone will disagree with me that Ohio State has the toughest finish.  
Vis-a-vis the #1 seed in the BTT at MSG in NYC:

• Ohio State has the toughest remaining schedule but they also have a one game lead and they win all ties.  
• Michigan State has the second toughest schedule, wins a tie with PU, but loses a tie with tOSU.  
• Purdue has the easiest schedule but they lose a tie with either the Buckeyes or the Spartans.  

[TyphonInc]

Go Bucks! Beat PSU!

[847badgerfan]

A quick heads up: Wisconsin does not.

Agree 100 percent.

[betarhoalphadelta]

Considering you seemingly wind up with one of two asshats in Vitale and Dakich every time you wind up on ESPN, I wish every MSU games was on CBS, FOX, FS1 or BTN.  I think Crispin is a major rising star.

Dakich doesn't have that bombastic tone of Vitale. And I feel like he actually brings a little bit more basketball knowledge to his player analysis whereas Vitale just likes to yell about how great the stars are. 

[FearlessF]

Agree 100 percent.

don't worry
the "other" Big Red will fill in this season as a top 4

[betarhoalphadelta]

Here is the run to the finish for the B1G Championship contenders:
  

Team/Game	Toughest	2nd Toughest	2nd Easiest	Easiest
Ohio State	at Michigan	at Indiana	at Penn State	vs Rutgers
Michigan State	at Northwestern	at Minnesota	at Wisconsin	vs Illinois
Purdue	at Wisconsin	at Illinois	vs Penn State	vs Minnesota

I do not think anyone will disagree with me that Ohio State has the toughest finish.  
Vis-a-vis the #1 seed in the BTT at MSG in NYC:

• Ohio State has the toughest remaining schedule but they also have a one game lead and they win all ties.  
• Michigan State has the second toughest schedule, wins a tie with PU, but loses a tie with tOSU.  
• Purdue has the easiest schedule but they lose a tie with either the Buckeyes or the Spartans.  

If Purdue doesn't get out of their funk, I could see them dropping the @Illinois or vPSU games. 
It feels for Purdue like that 2nd half of the Michigan was them firing their whole wad. They haven't been the same since. They struggled in the Indiana, Maryland, and Rutgers games, and then seemed to start strong against OSU and MSU but fade late in the games. They had a double-digit lead over OSU with 10 to play and lost, and seemed to control the flow of the game against MSU for 30+ minutes but lost. Their 3pt shooting has been MIA since the Michigan game (31.6% against MSU? Not going to win like that).
Even worse, it seems like in addition to trending down offensively, their defense has suffered. I think part of this is by opponent design, trying to spread the floor as much as possible to negate the paint presence of Haas/Haarms. But Purdue was top 5 in defensive efficiency prior to the 2nd Michigan game, and they've dropped to 13th. They had been as low as 16th I think after the Maryland/Rutgers game, so maybe they're trending back in the right direction, and held both MSU and OSU under 70, but still they don't look like they did a month ago.
The team of a month ago should blow out every remaining team on the schedule. The team of the last 5 games will be lucky to escape that run 4-0. 

[medinabuckeye1]

FWIW:

Ohio State has clinched a top-4 seed and double-bye in the BTT at MSG in NYC.  The math:

• The worst Ohio State could do is 13-5.  That could be behind MSU, PU, and UNL and tied with Michigan for 4th/5th.  
• Assuming that happened, Ohio State and Michigan would be 1-1 against each other so the tiebreaker would be record against the best team(s) in the conference, then the next, etc until the tie is broken.  
• The Buckeyes and Wolverines are both 1-0 against MSU.  
• The Buckeyes are 1-0 and the Wolverines 0-2 against Purdue.  
• The Buckeyes are 1-0 and the Wolverines 0-1 against Nebraska.  
• Penn State is 8-6.  In this scenario they would beat Ohio State and lose to Michigan which means at least nine wins and seven losses.  Michigan would have a better record against PSU (1-0 vs 0-2) but Penn State couldn't catch Purdue so the tOSU/M tie would be broken based on record against either PU or UNL and Ohio State wins that either way.  

[ELA]

If Purdue doesn't get out of their funk, I could see them dropping the @Illinois or vPSU games.
It feels for Purdue like that 2nd half of the Michigan was them firing their whole wad. They haven't been the same since. They struggled in the Indiana, Maryland, and Rutgers games, and then seemed to start strong against OSU and MSU but fade late in the games. They had a double-digit lead over OSU with 10 to play and lost, and seemed to control the flow of the game against MSU for 30+ minutes but lost. Their 3pt shooting has been MIA since the Michigan game (31.6% against MSU? Not going to win like that).
Even worse, it seems like in addition to trending down offensively, their defense has suffered. I think part of this is by opponent design, trying to spread the floor as much as possible to negate the paint presence of Haas/Haarms. But Purdue was top 5 in defensive efficiency prior to the 2nd Michigan game, and they've dropped to 13th. They had been as low as 16th I think after the Maryland/Rutgers game, so maybe they're trending back in the right direction, and held both MSU and OSU under 70, but still they don't look like they did a month ago.
The team of a month ago should blow out every remaining team on the schedule. The team of the last 5 games will be lucky to escape that run 4-0.

I wouldn't read too much into their shooting Saturday afternoon.  MSU sold out against the three point shooters, and was willing to let Haas have whatever he wanted inside.  As good a day as he had, he really needed to be better to force MSU to come out of that defense.  He had 25 points, but on 22 shots, and only had 5 rebounds and 1 block, with 2 turnovers.  His 54% from the field was in worst in Big Ten play when he had more than 5 attempts.  So that equals 24 possessions that ended with the ball in Haas' hands, and Purdue averaged 1.04 PPP on those.  That's about 0.12 PPP below their average.  May not sound like much, but Purdue is 5th in the nation in PPP, and 1.04 would be good for #123.  It's rare that Purdue's offense is LESS efficient when it ends in Haas.  For comparison, on Wednesday he scored only 18, but scored 1.2 PPP on possessions ending with him, actually above their season average.  So while he had a big day, he was taking 2s, not 3s, and not shooting at anywhere near his typical efficiency.
That said, as I've mentioned here many times, I'm not sure I can think of a team in a long time with as much interior depth as MSU has.  They rotated Jackson, Ward, Schilling, Tillman and Goins all on him, fresh defensive bodies just cycling in, and most teams cannot do that.  Anyone else tries that, they'll get in foul trouble, or they'll get just as tired as he does.  Or it'll render them useless offensively.  I came out of that game MORE confident in Purdue's ability to make a run.  I think what Painter might try to do is buy Haas one additional rest period, I think that would have gone a long way.  The first time he went Haas on the bench for an extended period, MSU abused Haarms, and I think it scared him off, but Haarms did much better the second time.

[betarhoalphadelta]

I wouldn't read too much into their shooting Saturday afternoon.  MSU sold out against the three point shooters, and was willing to let Haas have whatever he wanted inside.  As good a day as he had, he really needed to be better to force MSU to come out of that defense.  He had 25 points, but on 22 shots, and only had 5 rebounds and 1 block, with 2 turnovers.  His 54% from the field was in worst in Big Ten play when he had more than 5 attempts.  So that equals 24 possessions that ended with the ball in Haas' hands, and Purdue averaged 1.04 PPP on those.  That's about 0.12 PPP below their average.  May not sound like much, but Purdue is 5th in the nation in PPP, and 1.04 would be good for #123.  It's rare that Purdue's offense is LESS efficient when it ends in Haas.  For comparison, on Wednesday he scored only 18, but scored 1.2 PPP on possessions ending with him, actually above their season average.  So while he had a big day, he was taking 2s, not 3s, and not shooting at anywhere near his typical efficiency.

I would agree. I'm not sure if it was MSU's defense, or Haas just not fighting for position, but one thing I noticed is that he was consistently kept off the low block. He was setting up in the high post more often than not.
Haas is basically unstoppable (>60%) if he gets the ball on the low block. He did pretty well to still shoot 54% from the high post, and as the game wore on--and MSU proved they weren't going to double him--he started backing his man down off the dribble. But he is not as effective in the high post. Especially given the massive weight difference between Haas and the MSU defenders, I don't understand why he wasn't forcing his way down low.
That said, I honestly think it's more than just MSU's defense on the Purdue 3pt shooters. This has been a 5-game malaise. The whole team has stopped shooting at the level they're capable of, even with a lot of open looks.