Conversations on B1G Officiating

Nov 23, 2015
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That’s not the issue!! It’s the entire tourney in general.

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22 years without a championship. 67 tourney games a year. Thousands of league games. 20 game schedules. Most time zone changes? Just maybe it might be the officiating or maybe the date of championship when parity is so close. Is that beyond the realm of possibility?
When Big Ten teams have held their own at every other stage of the tournament, I'd say it is beyond the realm of possibility...if we saw that Big Ten teams struggle with the first weekend of the tournament, maybe there would be some factor involving being tired or being unable to adjust to the officiating (even though it's many of the same officials). But when Big Ten teams have overall had good performances in the first round, 2nd round, 2nd weekend, Final 4, but haven't closed the deal on the title game, I'd think that variance/small sample size is a much better explanation for none of those 7 teams winning the title game (and/or having a truly elite team that is such a strong favorite to overcome anything else, though we've rarely seen that anywhere as of late).