Let’s just say that we by some miracle run the table the rest of the season, but get eliminated in the Big Ten Tournament Final. I compiled our would be 19-16 record using the NCAA NET Ranking (I know it’s not the best ranking tool, but maybe the Big gets one the committee will use) by grouping each win as they would stand today. I also added the three Big Ten Tournament wins in brackets next to their quadrants as who we would play if the season ended today (we are in 10th Place currently) so it would be neutral court victories over Minnesota (Q2), Purdue (Q1), and MSU (Q1), and a loss to Michigan (Q1).
Q1: 6-9 (8-10)
Q2: 6-4 (7-4)
Q3: 2-1
Q4: 2-1
Key Wins: vs Maryland, vs MSU, @ OSU, @ Wisconsin, @ Purdue, @ Penn State (yes Penn State would count as a quadrant 1 win as they are currently hanging on at 75th)
Bad Losses: vs FAU, vs Georgetown
With this resume we would get in pretty easily. I think if we are able to scrap together 5-6 Quadrant 1 wins while not taking any losses outside of quadrant 1 (which basically means win our home games) that we have a good chance of making it. My two realistic routes without the auto bid are either a 6-2/7-1 finish with those 1/2 losses being apart of the 4 remaining road games that are all currently quadrant 1 coupled with the run in the Big Ten Tournament or finishing 8-0 with a first round win in the BTT.
If it ends up we somehow burn off another 11 straight until we lose that may be good enough for a 7/8 seed. The first option I mention in the paragraph probably has us around a 9/10 while the last one would have us most likely closest to the bubble but still in.
Here is a link to a Sports Illustrated article (
https://www.si.com/college-basketball/2018/03/06/ncaa-tournament-bubble-watch-2018-teams-updates) about last years bubble. At the most there was 3-4 quadrant 1 wins and each team had at least 1 sub-100 loss (which we have one of, thanks FAU) so it is not as crazy as some may think if we get hot down the stretch to receive an at large. One thing is that we need at least a winning record as no team has ever been admitted with a .500 or lower without an auto bid so no matter how good our Resume is there has to at least be more W’s than L’s. Of course I don’t currently believe this will happen, but the way the guys have been playing have me drinking the orange kool-aid and I’m ready for anything to happen. Go Illini!