2/28 Polls & Bracketology - Illinois #20 in AP Poll

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#51      
WhiteHorseWings
LvilleILL said:
Right on that 3/4 seed line right now...it's close. We should go 2-0 this week which would guarantee a top 4 seed. I think the dream would be to get a 3 seed in the same region that providence has the 2. Would be an amazing matchup for us
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Except that would mean the Friars get to the second weekend
 
#52      
TheFameProtector
Drop to 20 seems harsh. Don't see how/why a St. Mary's team with 6 losses and the only real standout win being over Gonzaga is ahead of us. Whatever. I don't really care about weekly top 25 at this point. The number of remaining teams left along with us in March (or April) is what matters.
 
#53      
Illini 993
St. Mary's even being ranked is laughable. They have 1 win against a good team, Gonzaga, and they split with them. Their next best win was at Notre Dame. They lost to both decent teams they played - Wisconsin and Colorado State. They also lost to not so great teams in SDSU, Santa Clara, and BYU. If they played in the B1G, I don't think they'd be in the top 8, and probably would not make the Tourney.
 
#54      
hiberto
TheFameProtector said:
Drop to 20 seems harsh. Don't see how/why a St. Mary's team with 6 losses and the only real standout win being over Gonzaga is ahead of us. Whatever. I don't really care about weekly top 25 at this point. The number of remaining teams left along with us in March (or April) is what matters.
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Gonzaga loses to st Mary's which was barely ranked and stays #1? AZ loses to unranked Colorado and stays #2?? doesn't make much sense but the polls rarely do
 
#56      
727ill
Illini 993 said:
St. Mary's even being ranked is laughable. They have 1 win against a good team, Gonzaga, and they split with them. Their next best win was at Notre Dame. They lost to both decent teams they played - Wisconsin and Colorado State. They also lost to not so great teams in SDSU, Santa Clara, and BYU. If they played in the B1G, I don't think they'd be in the top 8, and probably would not make the Tourney.
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Some of ya'll don't watch CBB other than our beloved team and it shows.
 
#57      
TheFameProtector
hiberto said:
Gonzaga loses to st Mary's which was barely ranked and stays #1? AZ loses to unranked Colorado and stays #2?? doesn't make much sense but the polls rarely do
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That actually kinda makes sense to a certain degree. When everybody loses, nobody loses, ie, hard to move them down much (if at all) when the teams you’d move up also lost and the teams in the next tier don’t quite have the resume to jump up much.
 
#60      
the juiceman cometh
Illini 993 said:
St. Mary's even being ranked is laughable. They have 1 win against a good team, Gonzaga, and they split with them. Their next best win was at Notre Dame. They lost to both decent teams they played - Wisconsin and Colorado State. They also lost to not so great teams in SDSU, Santa Clara, and BYU. If they played in the B1G, I don't think they'd be in the top 8, and probably would not make the Tourney.
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St. Mary's is #17 in KenPom, #16 in Torvik, and #19 in NET.
 
#64      
Epsilon
Illini in Italy said:
Ummmmm . . . None? 🤣
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You sure about that?

Just eyeballing their conference records in the WCC I can already see several seasons in recent history where they were only beaten by Gonzaga. I’m just too lazy to count them all.

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#65      
SCMART Illini
Would be nice to get some easy wins in a conference like the WCC along the way rather than night in and night out playing the competition in the Big Ten. Although it would be kind of boring, just be nice if the rankings would take that into consideration.
 
#66      
the juiceman cometh
SCMART Illini said:
Would be nice to get some easy wins in a conference like the WCC along the way rather than night in and night out playing the competition in the Big Ten. Although it would be kind of boring, just be nice if the rankings would take that into consideration.
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It's no P5 schedule, but I think most on here aren't giving the WCC credit. There are some tough teams in that conference. In addition to Gonzaga and St. Mary's, San Francisco is #24 in Kenpom, BYU is #49, and Santa Clara is #72. Granted, the bottom half of the conference is very weak, but keeping in mind we have losses to to #75 (Rutgers), #82 (Maryland) and #100 (Cincinnati), it's not a gimme that we'd dominate the top half of the conference.
 
#68      
JFGsCoffeeMug
Seems like even with two wins to close out the conference slate, we're going to get stuck in the 13-15 range.
 
#69      
Spokane Illini
the juiceman cometh said:
It's no P5 schedule, but I think most on here aren't giving the WCC credit. There are some tough teams in that conference. In addition to Gonzaga and St. Mary's, San Francisco is #24 in Kenpom, BYU is #49, and Santa Clara is #72. Granted, the bottom half of the conference is very weak, but keeping in mind we have losses to to #75 (Rutgers), #82 (Maryland) and #100 (Cincinnati), it's not a gimme that we'd dominate the top half of the conference.
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I agree with you. I live out in Spokane and have watched Gonzaga and the WCC for years. The WCC is starting to produce some quality teams. I also agree that the lower half of the WCC is still abysmal. It's just that Gonzaga has been so good with recruiting that there is still a big gap between GU and the next best WCC team. If you have spent anytime watching Gonzaga, they do run an incredibly efficient offensive scheme. Even with the best defenses, it is hard to keep them under 80 pts (i.e games against Virgina last year and Texas Tech this year). St Mary's did an excellent job disrupting their offensive flow by shutting down Timme and Holmgren. I doubt they will be able to repeat that in the WCC tournament. St Mary's absolutely should be in the NCAA selection. They are very similar to Wisconsin and only lost by a few points earlier to Wisconsin in a neutral site game. Wisconsin holds a pretty good chance of winning the Big Ten outright. San Francisco is also a legit NCAA team. I would say BYU is a bubble team and performed very badly against Gonzaga. Still, they have a pretty legit offense with bigger gaps in their defense.
 
#70      
Spokane Illini
Spokane Illini said:
I agree with you. I live out in Spokane and have watched Gonzaga and the WCC for years. The WCC is starting to produce some quality teams. I also agree that the lower half of the WCC is still abysmal. It's just that Gonzaga has been so good with recruiting that there is still a big gap between GU and the next best WCC team. If you have spent anytime watching Gonzaga, they do run an incredibly efficient offensive scheme. Even with the best defenses, it is hard to keep them under 80 pts (i.e games against Virgina last year and Texas Tech this year). St Mary's did an excellent job disrupting their offensive flow by shutting down Timme and Holmgren. I doubt they will be able to repeat that in the WCC tournament. St Mary's absolutely should be in the NCAA selection. They are very similar to Wisconsin and only lost by a few points earlier to Wisconsin in a neutral site game. Wisconsin holds a pretty good chance of winning the Big Ten outright. San Francisco is also a legit NCAA team. I would say BYU is a bubble team and performed very badly against Gonzaga. Still, they have a pretty legit offense with bigger gaps in their defense.
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btw, I was at the Kennel when the 2012 Illini team came in and thrashed Gonzaga 84-73. Brandon Paul went off for 35 pts. It was an amazing game for Illinois. We then went on to go 9-9 in the Big Ten and Gonzaga was a #1 seed - go figure. :)
 
#73      
Fighter of the Nightman
Looks like as of today, we still have 5 Quad 1 wins and 6 Quad 2 wins. Cincinnati CLINGS to life, saving us from a Quad 3 loss. Rutgers and Michigan are really close to giving us one more Quad 1 win and Quad 2 win, respectively. We are #14 in the NET, implying a hypothetical 4-seed, but we WERE a 3-seed in the mock thing, and we have gone 2-1 in Quad 1 games since then...

Avoiding a home loss to PSU is obviously necessary to avoid disaster, but man would a home win vs. (NET) #18 Iowa, followed by some great chances in the BTT help out!

EDIT: According to Wikipedia, the following seed possibilities are already set in stone:

1. Wisconsin/Illinois (we could only get it if NEBRASKETBALL wins in Madison and we finish 2-0)
2. Wisconsin/Illinois/Purdue (obviously)

10. Indiana/Penn State/Maryland (very relevant if we expect to be the 2-seed!)

12. Maryland/Northwestern/Minnesota
13. Minnesota/Northwestern/Nebraska
14. Nebraska/Minnesota
 
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#74      
NJJ871
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Looks like as of today, we still have 5 Quad 1 wins and 6 Quad 2 wins. Cincinnati CLINGS to life, saving us from a Quad 3 loss. Rutgers and Michigan are really close to giving us one more Quad 1 win and Quad 2 win, respectively. We are #14 in the NET, implying a hypothetical 4-seed, but we WERE a 3-seed in the mock thing, and we have gone 2-1 in Quad 1 games since then...

Avoiding a home loss to PSU is obviously necessary to avoid disaster, but man would a home win vs. (NET) #18 Iowa, followed by some great chances in the BTT help out!

EDIT: According to Wikipedia, the following seed possibilities are already set in stone:

1. Wisconsin/Illinois (we could only get it if NEBRASKETBALL wins in Madison and we finish 2-0)
2. Wisconsin/Illinois/Purdue (obviously)

10. Indiana/Penn State/Maryland (very relevant if we expect to be the 2-seed!)

12. Maryland/Northwestern/Minnesota
13. Minnesota/Northwestern/Nebraska
14. Nebraska/Minnesota
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I’m just funnin’ with you, and I appreciate the information, but I got a kick out of all those possibilities being “set in stone”. That would seem to be a colossal waste of time for the poor mason who had to carve it. 🤡
 
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