Recent content by danielb927

Excited for the tourney this year. Our draw looks rough with Houston in Houston, but it's probably the best case scenario for making the Sweet Sixteen or Final Four -- just a tougher matchup to get to the E8. I built a tool that lets you check how likely a bracket is to win a given pool (size +...

Best 7 seed would mean it's up to the committee whether to keep us a bit closer in TN or 'Bama's pod, or send us to Providence with St John's. I'd guess the latter.

If I were buying two hotel rooms on spec they'd be in Milwaukee and Providence.

I actually think a 6 in Milwaukee is pretty likely. The 3 seed sites are looking likely to be Milwaukee x2, Wichita, and Denver. UCLA and BYU are other likely 6 seeds that would slot into Denver/Wichita even if higher on the seed list than us.

We could still technically get a double bye in the BTT :cool:

Yes, it's almost like any given game can have an outcome that differs from the expectation...

Might end up like the Houston team we lost to in 2022. Top 5 in the metrics but a 5 seed. That team only went something like 2-4 in Q1 though, we'll have a lot more Q1 games on our Team Sheet than they did on Selection Sunday (win or lose).

Pretty interesting! I'm guessing most Illini fans wouldn't guess either of those stats - at least, to me it feels like we underperform at home. So either we've underperformed mainly in big games, or it's just the natural tendency to remember the bad performances a bit more (especially having...

I'd be curious if there's any correlation with the spread itself. Are we slightly outperforming across all types of games, or are we blowing out cupcakes more than expected and otherwise underperforming in tough games?

It was also a hire that said to the fanbase, "We can hire a big name coach with a proven track record." Even though the end product was mediocre for 5 seasons, it was still a step up in both quality of play and program reputation, and IMO was a great tone-setting move on Whitman's part early in...

Most of these algorithms work by doing a mathematical regression to the full season's worth of data. When more data come in, the output changes for every team. A simple way to think about it is that while we didn't play, we learned a bit more about Kansas's, CMU's, Nebraska's, and Penn State's...

Well, if the highlight of the season ends up being beating the pants off Purdue to sweep them in their house, and earning a trip to the tournament in the process, I'm cool with that.

That's a fantastic idea, would love to see that.

Am I reading the list right that there are no SoCal teams in the championships this year? That seems like a good thing given the location - nobody's playing a home or "semi-home" course this year.

Shoot, yeah. That's kind of like moving up from a 10 to an 8 seed in the basketball tourney--technically an improvement, but practically maybe not when the Sweet Sixteen carries way more weight than making the Round of 32.