Can we make the tournament?

[Spartanmack]

It's a long shot, but at this point, making the tournament and keeping the streak alive is all I care about or can hope for. A top 8 finish in the B1G and a decent B1G tournament is probably the minimum we need to make the tourney and keep the streak alive. Neither task looks particularly easy.

I can see IU finishing with 8 conference wins, but if we beat MD, they'll probably still win 10 games which means we either have to split with uofm and beat osu or sweep uofm if lose tonight on top of beating IU and MD. considering how badly we've lost to bad teams, we can't count on winning any of these 5 games and we'll need minor miracles to beat uofm or osu.

Then there's the problem of the BTT. Beating illinois was a real tease - without that we wouldn't even have this sliver of hope.

 

[Michchamp]

I'm not sure when Lunardi dropped you from his projected field, but he still has IU and MN (as a play-in).

Seems like if you beat MD on the road (I assume beating IU is a lock) and finish at least 2-2, you'll be in regardless of the outcome in the UM/MSU games. I don't know if the BTT will really matter at that point. It would only help you if you finished 1-3 and then made a deep run

MSU seems like a different team now than the one that got blown out by MN and Northwestern. Sagarin has MSU as a top 40 team, which is fair.

 

[gotime909]

Last night definitely helped.

Also our sos metrics are going to raise quite a bit these last few weeks lifting us in many of these computer rankings. 4 games against top 5 teams in 3 weeks. Plus the other games are against at least borderline tournament teams.

 

[SpartyNash]

I still think we need to go 3-1 in the last 4 games. 2-2 and then you need to win a couple of games in the BTT and/or hope there isn’t some massive upsets in other conference tourneys for 1 bid conferences to shrink the bubble.

I don’t understand the NET rankings and think they’re pretty stupid. But say we do go 2-2 here would be the resume:

Good to decent wins in my mind: OSU, Illinois, Rutgers, Indiana x2, Maryland, Duke (if they continue to play well and move onto the bubble line)
Bad losses: handled by Northwestern and OSU, absolutely blown out by Iowa, Rutgers, Minnesota

 

[Spartanmack]

I still think we need to go 3-1 in the last 4 games. 2-2 and then you need to win a couple of games in the BTT and/or hope there isn?t some massive upsets in other conference tourneys for 1 bid conferences to shrink the bubble.

I don?t understand the NET rankings and think they?re pretty stupid. But say we do go 2-2 here would be the resume:

Good to decent wins in my mind: OSU, Illinois, Rutgers, Indiana x2, Maryland, Duke (if they continue to play well and move onto the bubble line)
Bad losses: handled by Northwestern and OSU, absolutely blown out by Iowa, Rutgers, Minnesota

I agree, we need 10 B1G wins and like I said above, MD probably wins 10 so we need the head-to-head win, not to mention the fact that if we lose to them, the path to 10 games is nearly impossible with 2 of the last 3 against uofm.

Based on talent, this team should be 10-6, maybe 11-5 right now and this 20 day COVID break excuse is BS. They lost handily to NW, WI and MN all before little Steven got the COVID. If they don't make the tourney it will suck, but Izzo will have no excuses for it - this team is talented enough that they shouldn't be in this position worrying about making the tournament.

 

[Spartanmack]

I'm not sure when Lunardi dropped you from his projected field, but he still has IU and MN (as a play-in).

Seems like if you beat MD on the road (I assume beating IU is a lock) and finish at least 2-2, you'll be in regardless of the outcome in the UM/MSU games. I don't know if the BTT will really matter at that point. It would only help you if you finished 1-3 and then made a deep run

MSU seems like a different team now than the one that got blown out by MN and Northwestern. Sagarin has MSU as a top 40 team, which is fair.

don't really pay attention until the end and even then barely - but I dropped us out after the first Purdue loss then started worrying about the NIT after Rutgers curb stomped us.

 

[Spartanmack]

Last night definitely helped.

Also our sos metrics are going to raise quite a bit these last few weeks lifting us in many of these computer rankings. 4 games against top 5 teams in 3 weeks. Plus the other games are against at least borderline tournament teams.

If we finish B1G play 6-1 with this schedule down the stretch, we could end up being a top 25 team (23rd to 25th, maybe), that would be pretty funny actually. The loss would probably have to be at uofm though or one of the prior 2 games - a home loss to end the season would probably drop us out.

 

[Spartanmack]

Seems like if you beat MD on the road (I assume beating IU is a lock) and finish at least 2-2, you'll be in regardless of the outcome in the UM/MSU games. I don't know if the BTT will really matter at that point. It would only help you if you finished 1-3 and then made a deep run

MSU seems like a different team now than the one that got blown out by MN and Northwestern. Sagarin has MSU as a top 40 team, which is fair.

I don't see how going 2-2 gets us in (even if those 2 wins are an unlikely sweep of uofm) unless both MD and RU lose out from here - also unlikely given RU play Neb & MN (although both on the road) and MD's last 2 are NW and PSU. We would still be sub .500 and most likely 9th or 10th in the standings - and both IU and MN can still win 9 games. Don't lay an egg against the Hoosiers tomorrow or against Illinois! I'd rather not have to play them after a loss, unless the loss was against MSU on March 4th.

I think RU finishes 11-9, and MD prob 10-10 which means we have to beat MD, IU and split w/ uofm to finish 8th. If RU drops one and finishes 10-10 w/ MSU and MD and one of those teams gets left out, it won't be MSU.

 

[gotime909]

Curious why you think msu wouldn't make it with a 9-11 conference record this year. This conference is as strong as its ever been top to bottom and the entire country knows it.

 

[Mitchrapp]

Curious why you think msu wouldn't make it with a 9-11 conference record this year. This conference is as strong as its ever been top to bottom and the entire country knows it.

It might depend where 9-11 ends up 8th or 9th. Will they take 9 teams?

 

[byco42]

Maybe this is when the pedigree of MSU offers an advantage. And that 12 of the top 20 team-SOS are from the B1G in one poll and that MSU SOS is #9 in ESPN’s?

 

[Michchamp]

Maybe this is when the pedigree of MSU offers an advantage. And that 12 of the top 20 team-SOS are from the B1G in one poll and that MSU SOS is #9 in ESPN?s?

I assume MSU gets a bump from being a "college basketball blueblood" like Kentucky and Duke.

MSU will get the nod for an at-large bid over a program with the same or slightly better record from the Big Ten or another major conference... like Stanford or Mizzou

 

[tinselwolverine]

I assume MSU gets a bump from being a "college basketball blueblood" like Kentucky and Duke.

MSU will get the nod for an at-large bid over a program with the same or slightly better record from the Big Ten or another major conference... like Stanford or Mizzou

Is that what Jemele Hill says?

Damn, it is hard to find a clip of anything dumb she has said that isn?t too political for anywhere other than the politics board.

 

[Michchamp]

Is that what Jemele Hill says?

Damn, it is hard to find a clip of anything dumb she has said that isn?t too political for anywhere other than the politics board.

you and Jemele should just get a room already

 

[tinselwolverine]

you and Jemele should just get a room already

Ain?t gon? lie; I do like da black girl wit da fine big bootie.

Give her something worthwhile to do with that mouth of hers.

 

[Spartanmack]

Curious why you think msu wouldn't make it with a 9-11 conference record this year. This conference is as strong as its ever been top to bottom and the entire country knows it.

I'd be happy to be wrong about this - time may tell but I think 9-11 probably lands us 9th or worse in the league and leaves us out of the tournament.

As far as the conference is concerned, I don't think it is as strong as people say - I think Iowa is way overrated, wisco isn't as good as they've been, we're clearly not as good as we've been lately. Illinois and uofm are definitely better but uofm looks like the only complete team in the conference at this point. I think people are confusing parody, which I do think the B1G has, with strength. But if they want to let us in because they think league is so strong, I'm not going to try to convince them otherwise.

I think the same for college basketball in general - there doesn't seem to be a handful of dangerous elite teams, seems like there is a lot more parody and it's a wide open year. You have 3 B1G teams that rarely compete for conference titles in the top 5 teams in the country w/ dook, unc, ku, ky nowhere to be seen. If Gonzaga is ever gonna win the NC, this may be their best chance to do it.

 

[Spartanmack]

I assume MSU gets a bump from being a "college basketball blueblood" like Kentucky and Duke.

MSU will get the nod for an at-large bid over a program with the same or slightly better record from the Big Ten or another major conference... like Stanford or Mizzou

what if that team beat us by 30 the last time we played, like Rutgers? I could see us leapfrogging a Maryland team if we have the same conf record or possibly if we have one less win assuming in either case that we beat them.

 

[tinselwolverine]

while we're on the subject, why did the league add another uofm game to our schedule instead of rescheduling their game with NW?

Only one rea$on make$ $en$e.

 

[Spartanmack]

Only one rea$on make$ $en$e.

I misspoke, they didn't "add" an extra uofm game, they rescheduled it. Doing that makes it tougher for both of us, but uofm appears to be a lock for the B1G title as well as a one seed even if we manage to win one of those games. Still, they cancelled 3 games for you guys - NW and PSU twice, which I assume are 3 easier wins than the games they chose to reschedule.

It would have been nice for us if they rescheduled your NW game or one of the postponed PSU games and cut ours instead - or even better, let us have a second crack at NW or one of your PSU games to help us get off the bubble!

But you're right, whatever makes the league the most money.

 

[Sbee]

2-2 finish should get us in comfortably, assuming we avoided a horrible loss in the BTT like Nebraska or someone like that.

We will get a bump based on prestige, eyeballs matter and we'd get in over a lesser known program.

One thing to keep in mind with the bubble is covid pauses, there could be 3 or more teams that have to pause activities in the next few weeks that would have been at large bids. if a team like Iowa, louisville, florida, etc, has a covid pause now, they're likely out for the tournament. i have a feeling this will happen. if we go 2-2 the rest of the way we'd be in with a full field and no pauses, but that will allow some teams to sneak in.