^ I'd agree. The short of it seems to be that...
- As of now, we are not on the Bubble. If the Tournament started today, we would be safely in and would get a decent but not amazing seed.
- If we lose to Northwestern, we would definitely slide back to the Bubble. That is a bad loss. We could still easily make the Tournament, and we'd likely get back off with two wins (wherever they came from), but we have to have this one.
- If we beat Northwestern, we are likely safe. Losing to Indiana at home wouldn't be ideal, but it wouldn't kill us. The other two losses wouldn't be bad ones at all, simply frustrating ones due to the fact that they'd ALSO be great wins.
Assuming we show up and can take care of Northwestern on Thursday, my totally uneducated opinion on our seed standing going into the Big Ten Tournament would be...
Lose vs. IU, at OSU and vs. Iowa: 8-10 seed, needing a BTT win or two to try to get out of that horrid 8/9 slot.
Win vs. IU, lose at OSU and at Iowa: 7-8 seed, needing a BTT win to forego the aforementioned scenario.
Win vs. IU and beat one of OSU or Iowa: 6-7 seed, with our BTT performance capable of lifting us up to a 5 or down to an 8/9.
Win vs. IU, at OSU and vs. Iowa: 4-5 seed, with the BTT being icing on the cake to play for something even better.
Not that rankings are that important for this, but there will be some sort of "eye test" component used ... and if we beat NU on Thursday and IU on Sunday, we likely slide into the 24th or 25th spot at worst and 20th to 21st spot at best in the rankings, IMO. It will depend on what other teams do. If we split with Iowa and OSU the following week, I think we hold serve or possibly even move up a tad. If we beat both of them to finish the year on a 6-game winning streak that includes three victories over ranked teams, two of which are on the road? We will EASILY be a top 20-ranked team, likely in the top 15. That is "theoretically" 3- or 4-seed territory. I know they use the NET and all of that, but we'll be in a very favorable position if that is the case (not to mention the double-bye in the BTT).
This NU game is crucial; we simply cannot lose.