1/31 Polls & Bracketology - Illinois #18 in AP Poll

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#101      

Calvin

C
Calvin
21ChampaignSt said:
Not trying to turn this into a debate. There is no debate here.

You said, "March Madness has more appeal to the casual fan...That said, winning the conference means more for actual basketball fans."

It almost seems like you're saying that March Madness is more appealing to casual fans and winning conference means more to actual fans. 🤔

Whether that's what you actually believe or not, doesn't matter to me. I simply responded and said that success in the tournament is more important than regular season success TO ME. And it sounds like you agree with me, so I'm confused what we're even talking about.
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I find that pedantic.

My point is simply what I said --that the conference championship means something (actually a lot), and it means the most to the people who follow the program through-out the season. If you've been on this forum for any length of time, you've seen a ton of posts arguing about the title last year (Michigan's fewer wins with higher win pct), which proves the point as far as I'm concerned. YMMV, that's fine.
 
#102      

STL Illini

S
STL Illini
Every year the committee (or the chairman) is interviewed - typically during the selection show.
They consistently reference numerous metrics and factors that influence seeding.
Regular season records, conference records, competitive non-conference wins, road wins, how well they finish their season, conference placement, conference tourney wins, health of team and players returning to health, quad 1 record, quad 2 record, bad losses, losses without key players, etc, etc.
Having an argument regarding single, or even a few of the metrics is far too simplistic.
The number of factors used for seeding is very complex. That’s why they’re locked in a room for 48-72 hours hashing this out.
The outcome of our next 11-14 games will be the greatest indicator of our seed, with far, far greater weight than the first 20.
 
#103      

Illini Farmer

I
Illini Farmer
danielb927 said:
The selection committee does not use raw NET or KenPom rankings for seeding. Wisconsin’s resume (read: Team Sheet and Quad 1 / Quad 2 record) is really really good right now, much better than ours. I assume that’s the rationale behind these seeds.

Take a look at the team sheets:
Illinois (Q1: 2-3; Q1+2: 7-5)
Wisconsin (Q1: 7-3; Q1+2: 10-3)
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I agree that Wisconsin has a better resume and should be seeded higher than us. My point was that I don’t believe they are 5 seed lines better. Do you think they are 5 seed lines better? If so, they should be favored tomorrow night then.
 
#104      

Illini Farmer

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Illini Farmer
the juiceman cometh said:
Yeah, I think the main purpose of NET is to establish Q1/Q2/Q3/Q4 for the purpose of judging teams' resumes.
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So if the Net rankings can’t be trusted as a system for looking at a team’s resume against another such as Illinois at 14 vs wish at 20 something why do we trust It to divide teams into quadrants?
 
#105      

the juiceman cometh

T
the juiceman cometh
Illini Farmer said:
So if the Net rankings can’t be trusted as a system for looking at a team’s resume against another such as Illinois at 14 vs wish at 20 something why do we trust It to divide teams into quadrants?
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It's not that it can't be trusted, it's that it wasn't created for that purpose. The committee has chosen to evaluate teams on a "resume," a major part of which is based on good wins and bad losses. They needed a way to determine what good wins and bad losses meant, and that's where NET comes in.
 
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#106      

pruman91

pruman91
Paducah, Ky
pruman91
trtl said:
Every man wants to be him and every woman wants to be with him.
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#107      

danielb927

danielb927
Orange Krush Class of 2013
Rochester, MN
danielb927
Illini Farmer said:
I agree that Wisconsin has a better resume and should be seeded higher than us. My point was that I don’t believe they are 5 seed lines better. Do you think they are 5 seed lines better? If so, they should be favored tomorrow night then.
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I do actually believe both things. Wisconsin is 4 or 5 seed lines better than us. Also, we should be favored tomorrow.

Seeding is about resume. To the selection committee, that means wins and losses opponents grouped by some ranking method of opponents (currently NET + location).

Being favored is about actual quality of team. This is impossible to know, but systems like NET, KenPom, and T-Rank are pretty good on average. We are a bit better than Wisconsin by consensus of those systems, PLUS we’re at home, which is generally worth 3-4 points over a neutral site.

So, as best I can tell, Wisconsin is a slightly worse team than us with a much better resume. It follows that they are 4/5 seed lines better, but 5-6 point dogs on the road.
 
#108      

Calvin

C
Calvin
Illini Farmer said:
So if the Net rankings can’t be trusted as a system for looking at a team’s resume against another such as Illinois at 14 vs wish at 20 something why do we trust It to divide teams into quadrants?
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I don't think it is trusted, even by the committee. They use a bunch of tools to try and triangulate where exactly a team should be on the S-Curve, and then drill down to individual team sheets to look at the details. They're not relying on any one tool or person.
 
#109      

HensonHall71

H
HensonHall71
Calvin said:
I find that pedantic.

My point is simply what I said --that the conference championship means something (actually a lot), and it means the most to the people who follow the program through-out the season. If you've been on this forum for any length of time, you've seen a ton of posts arguing about the title last year (Michigan's fewer wins with higher win pct), which proves the point as far as I'm concerned. YMMV, that's fine.
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My original point FWIW was related to the “we have to go 2-1 in the next three to have a chance at the Conference title” and my point was getting everyone healthy and playing well is much more important, for me personally. For example - making sure Belo is 100% before playing him and giving Trent some rest so he’s not playing 40 min every game and letting his offense suffer. Play the freshman a bit more so they will be ready for the tournament, etc

Of course I want to win every game and win a big ten title, but not at all cost this time of year. The best Illini team in history didn’t win the big ten title and do you think that spoils the memory of the Flyin’ Illini season? Not one iota
 
#110      

Calvin

C
Calvin
HensonHall71 said:
Of course I want to win every game and win a big ten title, but not at all cost this time of year. The best Illini team in history didn’t win the big ten title and do you think that spoils the memory of the Flyin’ Illini season? Not one iota
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This goes right back to repeating the argument I didn't make. If we're trading FFs for conference titles, I think we're all on board with taking as many FFs as we can get.
 
#111      

DeonThomas

DeonThomas
South Carolina
DeonThomas
As of today (Thursday morning), I would argue that the top 8 teams are pretty solid --- and deserving of all the #1 and #2 seeds, at least based upon their current resumes.

Auburn
Baylor
Gonzaga
Arizona
Purdue
Kentucky
UCLA
Houston

Beyond that, I think everything is "in play" over the next 10 days. If we can run the table and go 3-0 over that period, I think we should be ranked at/near #10 and a solid 3-seed (by all the Bracketologists) on Monday morning, February 14th.

BEAT THE HOOSIERS!!
 
#113      

WizardBill

WizardBill
WizardBill
DeonThomas said:
As of today (Thursday morning), I would argue that the top 8 teams are pretty solid --- and deserving of all the #1 and #2 seeds, at least based upon their current resumes.

Auburn
Baylor
Gonzaga
Arizona
Purdue
Kentucky
UCLA
Houston

Beyond that, I think everything is "in play" over the next 10 days. If we can run the table and go 3-0 over that period, I think we should be ranked at/near #10 and a solid 3-seed (by all the Bracketologists) on Monday morning, February 14th.

BEAT THE HOOSIERS!!
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Houston? Really? Who have they played?

Wisconsin? (They lost)
Alabama? (They lost)
Tulane? (So?)
Tulsa? (So?)

They are still totally interested, and both early tests they failed.
 
#115      

IllinoisssssssVarsity

I
IllinoisssssssVarsity
WizardBill said:
Houston? Really? Who have they played?

Wisconsin? (They lost)
Alabama? (They lost)
Tulane? (So?)
Tulsa? (So?)

They are still totally interested, and both early tests they failed.
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They’re a final four team that returned enough to be good again and filled in gaps with talented players.

They defend like crazy, are super athletic, and play with a big ten level of physicality not often seen outside the conference. They are a problem.
 
#117      

Piotyr

P
Piotyr
Taking a detailed look at the state of the bracket right now, just over the halfway point in the season:

- Are there any locks yet? Depends on how you define "lock". If a lock is a team that has a good enough resume to make the bracket even if they lose out going into the tournament, then there's really only one stone-cold lock right now: Auburn. Gonzaga is close, but losing out would probably provide too many bad losses with the teams left on their schedule.
- If you define lock as "statistically certain to make it", since losing out is basically statistically irrelevant for teams of that quality, then there are an additional 18 teams that are statistical locks: Arizona, Baylor, Duke, Gonzaga, Houston, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, LSU, Michigan State, Providence, Purdue, Tennessee, Texas Tech, UCLA, Villanova, Wisconsin, and Xavier
- Another 17 teams aren't quite locks, but they should be safely in at this point in their schedules (80% likely or better): Alabama, Arkansas, Boise State, BYU, Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Iowa State, Marquette, Murray State, North Carolina, Ohio State, San Diego State, St. Mary's, TCU, Texas, USC
- 20 conferences don't have an at-large shot, and will be one bid leagues for sure, with an additional 2 conferences that have bubble teams that could steal a bid (MVC (Loyola) and A-10 (Davidson) ).
- That leaves 10 to 12 bids for bubble teams, with 20 teams currently having a 5% or better chance to make the tournament: Belmont, Colorado State, Creighton, Davidson, Dayton, Florida, Loyola Chicago, Miami-FL, Michigan, Mississippi State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oregon, San Francisco, Seton Hall, SMU, St. Louis, UAB, Wake Forest, Wyoming

Beyond that, there are other teams out there who can play themselves into at large contention, like West Virginia or Virginia Tech, but it's a huge uphill climb at this point.

For the B1G, that likely means 8 bids max unless one of Rutgers-NW-Maryland-PSU gets really hot and takes that automatic bid, which could inadvertently hurt Michigan's bid chances anyway.

As to where that leaves Illinois at this point, their metrics have them as a 4 seed, and their results profile also has them at a 4 seed at this point, so they seem safely lodged there for the time being as long as they remain on their current trajectory.
 
#118      

OskeeWowWow2012

O
OskeeWowWow2012
Looking at the NET.....why is Wisconsin ranked lower than us? I'm not mad about it of course, but just curious when they seem to have a better quad wins/losses record than us? Does it have to do with the size of the loss? I've heard that it matters if someone wins/loses by less than 10 vs more than 10. Is this true?

Also seems very weird that LSU is higher in the NET than Wisconsin. LSU is 4-4 in Q1, 4-1 in Q2 and 4-1 in Q3. Wisconsin is 7-4 in Q1 with no Q2,Q3 or Q4 losses.

(long post short - what else do they use to calculate NET?)
 
#122      

BWA

B
BWA
I don't think five losses gets it done in the Big10 this year. Gotta keep winning.
 
#123      

Point-Illinois

P
Point-Illinois
GallopingGhost said:
So found this post on Reddit for probabilities of places in the BTT. Illinois with 31% chance to get 1 seed, and 30% chance to get 2 seed. We look like a shoe- in for playing Friday.

View attachment 14982

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com www.reddit.com
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Will you keep posting this regularly? I love to see the probabilities as we get closer to the end of the season.

I know @danielb927 used to have his own but I think he’s working on another project right now.
 
#125      

IlliniFaninHoosierLand

IlliniFaninHoosierLand
IlliniFaninHoosierLand
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