The Pac12 was awesome in the tourney last year but reverted back to its poor regular season form this year landing just 3 in the tourney
Big ten
- Thread starter Mikemarc
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This is a fair statement.
It’s a very very deep conference in the sense that you have a lot of teams that can make the tournament, BUT it doesn’t have the heavy hitters at the top.
Who knows, maybe Purdue or Illinois compete for a title this year, but the B1G hasn’t won one in forever. So it’s fair to say the conference disappoints come tournament time
Seriously man - you just like to say controversial things.
It’s safe to say the MWC was overrated. All 4 of their teams went down. That’s about it at this point.
It’s safe to say the MWC was overrated. All 4 of their teams went down. That’s about it at this point.
The Indiana dilemma was another disgrace on the NCAA.
Played in Dayton in the 1st four game, defeated Wyoming. . .scheduled to leave Dayton at 1AM ET, could not depart Dayton due to a plane issue until 430AM ET......fly to Portland Oregon and arrive at 9AM.
No sleep in reality and no practice or preparation for your opponent who sat for 8 days.
I always pick against a team who wins their conference tournament in a major conference, especially if they have 3 games in 3 days and absolutely if someone had 4 games in 4 days. Iowa was flat, missed shots and Richmond was just better, but not great in the same scenario of winning their tournament.
I could argue that Iowa and their 4 games were more taxing than Richmond and land in the same place.
I know fans are absurd placing all of the emphasis on a random tournament as the end all, be all.....but if you want to believe the SEC isn't good because Kentucky somehow lost to St Peters, good luck with that.
Maybe the ACC is number 1, because North Carolina finally decided to play to their 4 and 5* talent, 4 months into the season, and ignoring their entire body of work. They destroyed Big East Marquette by 98 points and ND won a double OT game with a couple of favorable non calls and some calls that went against RU.
The bottom line is when you play and who your opponent is, matters as much as anything. Indiana had nothing in the tank yesterday and Michigan got to take a very comfortable bus to Indianapolis to play Colorado State. No one who follows CBB closely, is going to say 5 seed St Mary's is close to 6 seed Colorado State.
CSU should have been seeded around a 9 or 10....and whenever a 6 seed is an underdog to a 11 seed, it probably tells you the NCAA sets teams up to succeed and others, not so much.
RU playing a double OT game in Dayton, would have been hard-pressed to play today against an already quicker, and more talented Alabama.
The stain on Indiana losing by a ton of points, is a bad look for the NCAA......they need to keep the First Four and they need to go back to the 4 games on Tuesday and any of the Tuesday winners, should be playing only on Friday/Sunday.
There should be no Wednesday NCAA First Four games.
Played in Dayton in the 1st four game, defeated Wyoming. . .scheduled to leave Dayton at 1AM ET, could not depart Dayton due to a plane issue until 430AM ET......fly to Portland Oregon and arrive at 9AM.
No sleep in reality and no practice or preparation for your opponent who sat for 8 days.
I always pick against a team who wins their conference tournament in a major conference, especially if they have 3 games in 3 days and absolutely if someone had 4 games in 4 days. Iowa was flat, missed shots and Richmond was just better, but not great in the same scenario of winning their tournament.
I could argue that Iowa and their 4 games were more taxing than Richmond and land in the same place.
I know fans are absurd placing all of the emphasis on a random tournament as the end all, be all.....but if you want to believe the SEC isn't good because Kentucky somehow lost to St Peters, good luck with that.
Maybe the ACC is number 1, because North Carolina finally decided to play to their 4 and 5* talent, 4 months into the season, and ignoring their entire body of work. They destroyed Big East Marquette by 98 points and ND won a double OT game with a couple of favorable non calls and some calls that went against RU.
The bottom line is when you play and who your opponent is, matters as much as anything. Indiana had nothing in the tank yesterday and Michigan got to take a very comfortable bus to Indianapolis to play Colorado State. No one who follows CBB closely, is going to say 5 seed St Mary's is close to 6 seed Colorado State.
CSU should have been seeded around a 9 or 10....and whenever a 6 seed is an underdog to a 11 seed, it probably tells you the NCAA sets teams up to succeed and others, not so much.
RU playing a double OT game in Dayton, would have been hard-pressed to play today against an already quicker, and more talented Alabama.
The stain on Indiana losing by a ton of points, is a bad look for the NCAA......they need to keep the First Four and they need to go back to the 4 games on Tuesday and any of the Tuesday winners, should be playing only on Friday/Sunday.
There should be no Wednesday NCAA First Four games.
Take into consideration that CSU has travel issues as the NCAA waited late to schedule a plane for them.
I already posted the scam artists NCAA hosing Longwood and Colorado State with their travel "issues "....Colorado State was already fighting am uphill battle playing Michigan, why delay or fail to provide adequate travel??
Longwood wasn't going to defeat Tennessee anyway, but it's a sad state of affairs to have teams traveling 5 hours in the air and asking them go play with 36 hours of landing in a new city.
If you want to be somewhat fair, anyone that plays in Dayton, could have easily been placed in a pod in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh or somewhere reasonably close to Dayton. I understand not placing Indiana in Indianapolis would have been fair, but to send them to Portland and send ND/RU to San Diego, is a scam.
Imagine if St Peters was seeded as a 16 seed playing on Tuesday vs Texas Southern and had to fly 5 hours to take on Kentucky....does anyone think that's a fair way to assess a team?? We would have not had the "March Madness" scenario of a fresh St Peters playing the Blue-blood Kentucky.....
If RU somehow snuck past ND and then got boat-raced by Alabama by 20+, the narrative would have been what exactly?
"RU outclassed by Bama....."
Pike gets blown out in 1st round of NCAAs after signing massive contract extension".
The NCAA continues to butcher things left and right....
Play the First Four in Dayton....or move it out of Dayton and play the 1st four in Indianapolis. If you win, your next game should be in Indianapolis or somewhere reasonably close.
You can seed the Dayton or Indianapolis winners nearby but you should get a full 2 days between games.....
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Agree with most of your points Hawk but the Iowa loss was more stunning given their season and the expectations. Some pundits even had them in the FF. I guess you could argue Iowa had a tougher road with stiffer competition in their tournament, but Richmond had to go the distance just to get in so not like they were well rested. They are both well coached teams, but with the difference in talent and the tougher schedule, still surprised Iowa lost.
So explain Iowa to me. The Murray brothers aren’t athletic? What about Johnnie Davis at Wisconsin? I get the B1G hasn’t won a National Title in forever, but it’s not because they are not athletic. Instead, I think it’s because the conference is so deep and rugged it wears out a lot of these kids by March.
But you can't say the conference is "overrated" if teams are playing as expected relative to their seed. The NCAA Tournament seeding is how the teams are "rated". So RU as an 11 seed lost in double OT to another 11 seed. That sounds like spot on seeding and rating to me.
Iowa lost to a lower seed. Michigan beat a higher seed. Indiana lost to a higher seed.
Seems like the committee got it right so far, and the only thing that was overrated was the fans of Big Ten teams assuming that our name brand schools would beat the likes of higher seeded teams just because the Big Ten is great and we know better than the committee.
To make the argument that the Big Ten was overrated we'd need a lot of our teams getting upset by lower seeds. That may yet happen. But it hasn't happened yet.
Newsflash. It’s called March Madness for a reason. We have decades of history showing that all sorts of weird things happen in this tournament. It’s why we all love it.
If you’re trying to point fingers at conference performance (which is a silly exercise to begin with, especially since half the teams haven’t played a game yet), then maybe start with the SEC and Big East.
If you’re trying to point fingers at conference performance (which is a silly exercise to begin with, especially since half the teams haven’t played a game yet), then maybe start with the SEC and Big East.
Basketball tournaments exhibit a high variance.
Q: If Kentucky and Saint Peters played 100 games.. how many would Saint Peters win?
A: It does not matter, they won the one that counted yesterday.
Such is life. It does not mean anything so sit back and enjoy March Madness.
Q: If Kentucky and Saint Peters played 100 games.. how many would Saint Peters win?
A: It does not matter, they won the one that counted yesterday.
Such is life. It does not mean anything so sit back and enjoy March Madness.
Still, no excuses for all the B1G losses in the early rounds. The only time you hear about some of these little schools is now. Lots of good players in this country., We need to get a larger share. Any of these St Pete’s guys want to move down to move up? They have the moxie we need to replace.
The gap between the bluebloods and the mid-majors has been closing for a while. Basketball is more popular worldwide than it has ever been. There is a lot more talent out there than there's ever been. The one and done phenomenon at the elite programs has produced impressive collections of highly rated recruits, but not great teams. Add in the transfer portal and you have a recipe for upsets and chaos.
Saint Mary's was better than Indiana. Richmond is a solid program. Iowa wasn't that much better than them.
St Marys is very good, they were suppose to win that game. Did you see that Indiana didnt get any sleep after their win and the plane was delayed and they got to CA after 930 am
Smart money would bet against Virginia Tech and Notre Dame today.
I agree on Iowa but when you get caught up in the moment, you'll likely agree that 3 weeks or less than a week ago, a matchup vs Iowa was deemed as more ideal than any other B1G team in the tournament. I would have signed up for Iowa over Wisconsin, Purdue, Illinois and even Michigan....my choices of NCAA locks would have been Iowa or Michigan State to play on Friday in the B1G tournament, once the seeding came out....keep in mind, the same clueless people were propping up red hot Nebraska as "doomsday" for RU as a matchup.
I’m not taking anything away from Richmond, but come on. Iowa is immeasurably better than Richmond over 25+ games. They also have a first team all American and lottery pick. We all know any team can beat another team in one game (heck even doormat programs win a few games), but yesterday was about Iowa failing yet again in the tournament as the better team.
Richmond is a hot team. They have hunger. Iowa's appetite was satisfied when they won the Big 10 tournament
If Iowa isn’t hitting 3s they become very pedestrian. See our game against them at The RAC, Jersey Mikes.
A scatterplot of your perception of a team's "hunger" vs their performance in the most recent game would be a straight line
Again with the hot takes. Where would this board be without them?
I like to look at expected wins by seeding.
#1 seeds: projected to win 4x, possibly more depending on the Final Four matchup.
#2 seeds: three wins
#3, 4 seeds: two wins
#5-8 seeds: one win
#9-16 seeds: zero wins
*First Four teams: 0.5 wins as theoretically, these should be toss-up games. You could argue the 8/9 game is close to a toss-up, too, but that is irrelevant this year because we don't have a B1G team in those games.
Big Ten seeds this year:
#12 Indiana in First Four. Expected 0.5 wins, earned 1.
#11 Rutgers in First Four. Expected 0.5 wins, earned 0.
#11 Michigan. Expected 0 wins, earned 1 thus far.
#7 Ohio State. Expected 1 win
#7 Michigan State. Expected 1 win
#5 Iowa. Expected 1 win, earned 0.
#4 Illinois. Expected 2 wins
#3 Wisconsin. Expected 2 wins
#3 Purdue. Expected 2 wins
As a conference, we are right on the expected # of wins through Thursday, except it was Michigan instead of Iowa advancing. It is silly to say the league stinks when we lost a 50-50 game in double OT basically at the buzzer, and Indiana (the last B1G team to get in) was crushed by a better team after a nightmare travel and rest scenario. I bet Notre Dame will get slapped around today, too.
The B1G is supposed to go 5-0 today by the seeding. We are supposed to have three teams alive after Sunday. (I'm sure if that happens, someone will still say, "Only three teams made it to the Sweet 16, the conference is overrated!") Let's see what happens.
I like to look at expected wins by seeding.
#1 seeds: projected to win 4x, possibly more depending on the Final Four matchup.
#2 seeds: three wins
#3, 4 seeds: two wins
#5-8 seeds: one win
#9-16 seeds: zero wins
*First Four teams: 0.5 wins as theoretically, these should be toss-up games. You could argue the 8/9 game is close to a toss-up, too, but that is irrelevant this year because we don't have a B1G team in those games.
Big Ten seeds this year:
#12 Indiana in First Four. Expected 0.5 wins, earned 1.
#11 Rutgers in First Four. Expected 0.5 wins, earned 0.
#11 Michigan. Expected 0 wins, earned 1 thus far.
#7 Ohio State. Expected 1 win
#7 Michigan State. Expected 1 win
#5 Iowa. Expected 1 win, earned 0.
#4 Illinois. Expected 2 wins
#3 Wisconsin. Expected 2 wins
#3 Purdue. Expected 2 wins
As a conference, we are right on the expected # of wins through Thursday, except it was Michigan instead of Iowa advancing. It is silly to say the league stinks when we lost a 50-50 game in double OT basically at the buzzer, and Indiana (the last B1G team to get in) was crushed by a better team after a nightmare travel and rest scenario. I bet Notre Dame will get slapped around today, too.
The B1G is supposed to go 5-0 today by the seeding. We are supposed to have three teams alive after Sunday. (I'm sure if that happens, someone will still say, "Only three teams made it to the Sweet 16, the conference is overrated!") Let's see what happens.
Iowa wins that game 8 out of 10 period
Thought I read Richmond had 6 graduates on the roster as well. Iowa was due for a stinker and isn’t quite athletic enough to overcome one.
I watched their run in the A10 tourney..same blueprint every game. Quite impressive. They earned their way into the tournament and that experience is paying off. Their guard is just the type that can excel in the post season.
Meanwhile i saw pics of Iowa especially Bohannon carrassing that Big 10 trophy. A great acheivement for them but they lost the war.
It is interesting to see Underwood's comments after they lost in the B1G tournament this year. He said he felt that winning it last year took a lot out of his team's ability to compete in the NCAA tournament. Will any coach feel that way next season after seeing the last two champions go out earlier than expected in the NCAA tournament? If so, would someone with expectations of a deep run in the Big Dance take a different approach in the B1G dance?
Doing it this way will cause you to over-estimate expected wins for high seeds and underestimate them for low seeds. Using pretournament odds from Bart
Indiana expected 1.1 wins
Rutgers expected 0.6 wins
Michigan expected 0.9 wins
Ohio St expected 0.8 wins
Michigan St expected 0.8 wins
Iowa expected 2.1 wins
Illinois expected 1.3 wins
Wisconsin expected 1.5 wins
Purdue expected 2.0 wins
Expected number of Big Ten teams in:
R64: 8.1
R32: 5.4
S16: 2.6
E8: 1.2
F4: 0.5
F2: 0.2
Champ: 0.1
With results so far, this has changed to:
R64: 8
R32: 4.5
S16: 1.8
E8: 0.9
F4: 0.3
F2: 0.1
Champ: 0.05
Seems to happen a lot right that grind and exhilaration of achieving something amazing and then you’re right back into it against a hot veteran team that wants to take your lunch money. Tough to handle.
I hope they didn’t bust my bracket indirectly. I took Michigan State to win 2 games based on their draw. I decided that Davidson was garbage based on that game. It may be that Richmond’s defense is just excellent.
If you use your method, does it add up to 67 expected wins in the tournament? (Or at least 64 before the Final Four, because my simplified approach did not account for 0.75 more wins per #1 seed in the Final Four, assuming a #1 vs a #1 is a 50-50 game.)
I took probability and understand where you're coming from. I don't like using only metrics to rank teams or predict outcomes. I don't want to go too off-topic in this thread, so I will leave it at that.
Good start for the Big Ten today with a solid Ohio State win and Purdue looking good in the first half.
It added up to like 66.95 which I attributed to rounding error.
I used the metrics because it's the most convenient, but you could do some sort of historical percentage that was based only on seed. Either way my point is you shouldn't give 100/0.
Jinx invoked. Chattanooga says hold my beer.Insert Mark Twain meme for Big 10:
