B1G Tournament Forecasting Thread

[Greensboro]

for our B10 reg season chances and seeding who are you hoping wins tonight given what they have left. MSU or Iowa?

For seeding IA, if we lose to IA in the last game it probably doesn't matter much...but with the head to head tiebreaker records for tied teams with MSU in the mix we start off 0-2 before you throw other teams in the mix...if we beat IA then they are a 1-1 wash. If we are going to be tied with teams for seeding rooting for MI/RU/PU where we are 2-0 would help the most, then 1-0 records like WIS & PSU,

But let's just win out, that puts us ahead of IA & the loser of PSU / MSU &worst case locks us into a tiebreaker for 2-4 with WIS & winner of PSU/MSU, with a likely 2 seed if it is PSU & 4 seed if it is MSU. But Wisconsin still needs to win in Ann Arbor to stay in that tie-breaker & MSU would still needs to win at MD if they beat PSU...so an MSU loss should get us the 2 seed. A Wisconsin loss would would knock it to a 2 way tie for 2nd and a 2/3 seed... so back to just win out and this all likely just takes care of itself.

 

[doowink]

Iowa depends on if you think we can/will beat them. Split Iowa and we almost certainly finish top 4, assuming a 2-1 finish elsewise. Lose to them and we really have to go 3-0 in our remaining to be looking good in the top 4 (unless Iowa and msu really drop off). At the end of the day, our Iowa game is probably the most important for us in terms of seeding that we can control directly.

We want Iowa and MSU to lose as much as possible, and PU and (more importantly) Michigan to win as much as possible. Essentially, any team we've got a winning record over we should be rooting for.

Get's trickier if you think those teams could jump us in the standings (mainly for PSU). There's definitely a chance they claim the 2nd seed outright, though I don't think that's a crazy issue (I'm more than ok with 3/4).

Yea I think we want Iowa to win tonight....since MSU has beaten us twice already...giving them a seventh loss puts them behind us....with Iowa and Illini still tied but we have the home game against Iowa....so beat Iowa that game and they are behind us....this assuming that we continue to win of course....but I think a Sparty loss is more beneficial at this point than a Hawkeye loss

 

[The Dave]

Just looking at the other top teams schedules, we seem to easily have the softest path to the end of the conference season. Still gotta play the games but you have to feel pretty good about us getting one of those 4 double-byes.

eh...Maybe you don't consider them a "top team", but we are tied with Wisconsin. Their schedule is:

@ MICH
vs MN
vs NW
@ IND

I think that's a little easier than ours. We share 2 opponents which are reversed (who plays where) but I think their @MI and vsMN is easier than our vsIA and @OSU.

Haven't looked at avg NET or anything for them, but that just strikes me as SLIGHTLY easier than our schedule.

 

[Illini-Rule]

Yea I think we want Iowa to win tonight....since MSU has beaten us twice already...giving them a seventh loss puts them behind us....with Iowa and Illini still tied but we have the home game against Iowa....so beat Iowa that game and they are behind us....this assuming that we continue to win of course....but I think a Sparty loss is more beneficial at this point than a Hawkeye loss

I understand but I just can't make myself root for Iowa under any circumstances.

 

[LostinNebraska]

Iowa has the easier schedule after tonight (with the exception of our revenge game on March 8th), so I'd prefer a MSU win. They could easily lose all three remaining games on their schedule after tonight. Tiebreakers won't matter if we ain't tied. Iowa has an easier path to keep pace with us after the MSU game.

 

[Truffaut]

All four of MSUs remaining games are against ranked teams, including at MD and PSU. They are going to lose some games even if they beat Iowa. Let's see Iowa's traditional late season swoon start tonight.

 

[JIllini]

Still too early to be thinking about BTT matchups with the ridiculous number of possible scenarios. I think after the IU game is when we can really start talking about that.

 

[bert1991]

I agree with some others....as much as I hate to say it, I think we've got to be rooting for Iowa tonight....masters of our own destiny in mind (i.e. - we get separation from MSU and still have Iowa on the slate).

 

[SuperintendentChalmers]

I agree with some others....as much as I hate to say it, I think we've got to be rooting for Iowa tonight....masters of our own destiny in mind (i.e. - we get separation from MSU and still have Iowa on the slate).

If you say so, I’ll root for Iowa to win, but also for Fran McCaffrey to ruin his shoes stepping in dog poop outside the arena.

 

[LostinNebraska]

All four of MSUs remaining games are against ranked teams, including at MD and PSU. They are going to lose some games even if they beat Iowa. Let's see Iowa's traditional late season swoon start tonight.

That's my point. It's very possible for us to get separation from MSU even if they win tonight. If Iowa wins, they are sitting in much better position in their remaining matchups. We need them to pick up an extra L now.

 

[Hoppy2105]

That's my point. It's very possible for us to get separation from MSU even if they win tonight. If Iowa wins, they are sitting in much better position in their remaining matchups. We need them to pick up an extra L now.

Plus it's so, so easy to root against Iowa.

 

[jrichisamazing]

I'm rooting for Iowa tonight. If all favorites win, except we lose to Iowa then we get the 6th seed. If all favorites win, except MSU loses to Iowa and we lose to Iowa then we get the 4th seed. Probably a dumb reason because it's almost guaranteed that all the favorites will not win.:noidea:

Another way to look at it is we want MSU to keep losing because we definitely don't want them in our tiebreaking group. Being tied with Iowa is ok as long as we can win our home game against them.

So go Hawkeyes (barf).

 

[BRucks]

I'm rooting for Iowa tonight.

So go Hawkeyes (barf).

Just turn in your Illini fan card.

 

[danielb927]

That is absolutely incredible. multiple ways to get to a 10 way tie for 1st? Who would've imagined such a thing.

Not to diminish that this is cool (which I agree, it totally is) — Nebraska and Northwestern still play each other, and that outcome won't matter, so that's at least two "scenarios" that aren't appreciably different.

Edit: same goes for Nebraska @ Minnesota, so make that 4 scenarios.

Edit Edit: I guess that's why he referenced multiple "25-game scenarios" — ignores the 2/27 games that don't matter. Fun stuff!

 

[danielb927]

Some more fun info. Scenarios where a tiebreak goes all the way to a coin flip are still in play — they happened about 1 in 10,000 times in my latest simulation. Tiebreakers going to non-conference are quite a bit more likely, showing up in around 1 in 400 simulations.

 

[miked4482]

Still too early to be thinking about BTT matchups with the ridiculous number of possible scenarios. I think after the IU game is when we can really start talking about that.

I have waited a few years to be able to do this I'm enjoying it.

 

[danielb927]

I just ran a million simulations. A 10-team tie happened... zero times. Here are the number of times N teams were tied:

Teams Tied	Total Occurrences	Odds of at least one of these
Untied	4,264,830	almost guaranteed*
2	2,011,772	4 in 5*
3	1,052,623	2 in 3*
4	437,720	1 in 3*
5	125,954	1 in 8
6	24,621	1 in 40
7	3284	1 in 300
8	280	1 in 3500
9	17	1 in 60,000
10	0	less than 1 in a million

* I don't have a good way to estimate likelihood for these cases — many no-tie, 2, 3, and 4-team ties will have happened in the same season, and I'm only recording the total occurrences — so these four are just educated guesses.

 

[danielb927]

So I re-ran this, but kept track of the number of seasons with each type of tie, rather than the total number of ties. I think this is a little more useful in comparing how likely a many-team tie is to something highly likely, like a 3-team tie. Also shows how noisy the estimates are for something really unlikely, like a 9-team tie: showed up almost twice as much in one run as the other, even though each consisted of a million simulations.

# Teams	# of Seasons	Chance of 1+ team with outcome	Chance of no team with outcome
Not tied	992,924	99%	1 in 150
2	899,407	9 in 10	1 in 10
3	721,339	3 in 4	1 in 4
4	404,482	2 in 5	3 in 5
5	126,004	1 in 8	7 in 8
6	24,643	1 in 40	97.5%
7	3359	1 in 300	99.6%
8	263	1 in 4000	99.97%
9	10	1 in 100,000	99.999%
10	0	<1 in 1,000,000	~100%

 

[danielb927]

So, if you're up for weird scenarios, a season with all teams in at least a 2-way tie is much more likely than the 10-team tie situation.

 

[Calvin]

I know everyone keeps saying this, and it's common knowledge at this point, but the B10 tournament is going to be absolutely brutal. No easy routes to the championship game.

The only 2 teams I think we stuggle with are Sparty and the turtle. Maryland has too many talented bigs. I wouldn't want another game with them.

 

[Dan]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1232503769927159810

 

[skyIdub]

I'll root for Iowa on one condition.....Bigfoot walks up and knocks on my door, hands me a picture of him, the Roswell aliens, and the Lochness Monster along with a bag containing $69,000,000 and the location of Jimmy Hoffa. And a free punch to Franny's face.

Ok that's two conditions.

 

[kyillinifan]

All I can say that it does not matter who wins or loses. What matters is we have to win. Beat NW, IU, O$U, and IA. Then let the chips fall. It really doesn't matter who wins or loses, but what matters most we have to win the next four games.

 

[danielb927]

Don't have time to format the full update, but in last night's run we were the 12 seed zero out of 1 million times — so we may have anti-clinched that seed in addition to 13 and 14!

 

[Calvin]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1232503769927159810

Why are we listed as the third place team here? I thought we were in bad shape on tie-breakers....