AD Josh Whitman open letter on the Big Ten regular season title

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#201      

JFGsCoffeeMug

JFGsCoffeeMug
BU:1 Trash cans:0
Chicago
JFGsCoffeeMug
nycillini said:
Now Ayo fires back at Dickinson with some comments of his own. Man if they meet in the B10 tourney that's going to be a war.
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I low-key love this. This is how rivalries are formed, and they make the games that much more exciting.

I also couldn't help but laugh at some of the twitter banter:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1369722349025648642

Just one dude's opinion, but this is college basketball at its best.
 
#202      

Calvin

C
Calvin
sbillini said:
great letter, and i agree with virtually everything he says. But, i hate to say it, there is one glaring issue (quote below). I didn't know this was agreed to beforehand. Not sure why you would agree that winning %age is the metric upfront. I think there was a reasonable enough chance that not all teams would play the same # of games that the scenario we're in right now was possible. Seems short-sighted to not object earlier.

To be clear, just because they were short-sighted then doesn't justify being short-sighted now. Given the world we've been in for the past year, i think it's entirely fair to be flexible and be willing to adjust to circumstances. But the quote below makes that argument more difficult to make.

Nonetheless, I agree with the sentiment, esp towards the end. just go out and prove them wrong on the court. :illinois:

"In November, the conference agreed that winning percentage would be used to determine the regular-season champion in basketball. At the time, we stared into an uncertain future, not knowing how many games teams would be able to play."
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I'm going to defend JW here. I think you go into these situations in good faith, assuming that the conference will adapt, especially in light of how they handled football. It's an unprecedented season.

That said, it played out against us, and there aren't the same dynamics around the bball conference championship that would allow him to lobby successfully for a reasonable accomodation. I doubt he'll make that mistake again, but under the circumstances, I won't fault him. He's gone to bat for the team, which is good to see.

Given the totality of the season, I think they deserve a banner, but just like the game on the court, sometimes it's close and you don't get a decent break.
 
#203      

IndyILL

I
IndyILL
Dan said:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1369716969730150405
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Risk / Reward Calculator

IMHO we (Illinois) risked more than Michigan by playing three additional games. Greater risk of injury to our players, greater fatigue, and Covid-19 exposure. There needs to be compensation for this additional risk.

My proposal is to weight each win according to # of games played. If you played the full 20 games, each win is worth one point. For every game that you didn't play each win is reduced by .05 since 20 games is the standard. By using this approach you're still using the percentage method to determine the champion. personally I believe this is as close to fair as you can actually get.
 
#204      

BobbbyB

B
BobbbyB
HoopCity said:
I agree that the Big Ten should, in my estimation, have stepped in and indicated either that games missed which could have been played should be deemed forfeits. Those teams with actual COVID outbreaks played at least 19 games. Michigan, which did not suffer any COVID outbreaks, only played 17. Why did Michigan have to go on voluntarily hiatus, they did not follow the rules as we did?
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It’s was a state mandated hiatus. Come on, this is easily verifiable information. You can criticize not making the games up. But they didn’t stop playing for no reason. They were the hottest team in the country when the shutdown occurred.
 
#208      

JFGsCoffeeMug

JFGsCoffeeMug
BU:1 Trash cans:0
Chicago
JFGsCoffeeMug
Ramrod2010 said:
I'm pretty sure that's not Ayo, or anyone on the team for that matter, but what a great response.
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Yeah, not Ayo. That's just a random tweet that I thought was funny. I couldn't find the tweet nycillini was referencing.
 
#209      

2qtslow

2qtslow
2qtslow
Michigan complained that a 20 game schedule would have required it to play 11 games in 22 days. Of course, that was after they failed to play their scheduled game against us, which would have left ten games in 22 days.
 
#212      

JFGsCoffeeMug

JFGsCoffeeMug
BU:1 Trash cans:0
Chicago
JFGsCoffeeMug
Really good summary of the discrepancies in purported timelines between Whitman's letter and Ryan's article on reddit (credit to yel_10):

It doesn't seem like both Whitman and Shannon Ryan's source can both be correct. I don't believe Whitman would raise concerns about winning percentage, and then vote for winning percentage immediately after that. Perhaps Whitman's definition of "mid-February" and "weeks ago" means "February 27th/28th" and "10/11 days ago." Or he didn't actually do any of the stuff he said in the letter.

Maybe the vote was not unanimous? Remember the wildly conflicting reports of the football votes this fall? Or maybe the vote was actually earlier than the 26th, Whitman voted for it, and then realized the problems afterwards?

www.reddit.com

r/CollegeBasketball - Comment by u/yel_10 on ”Illinois AD reaffirmed vote to go with winning percentage to decide championship after Michigan's pause”

98 votes and 105 comments so far on Reddit
www.reddit.com www.reddit.com
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To me, the easiest discrepancy to resolve is the assertion that there was a unanimous vote to reaffirm the use of winning percentage on Feb. 26. Either that vote didn't happen or it wasn't unanimous. I suspect Ryan's source is just wrong on that particular point.

Whitman put out an open letter criticizing Warren and the B1G. Ryan's article reads like Warren wanted to respond via a surrogate. Might as well plug in Kevin Warren as a placeholder for Ryan's anonymous source. And if Warren was involved in this Ryan article in any capacity, that just further cements my opinion of him. Whitman had the courage to attach his name to something he wrote. That means something to me.
 
#213      

jrmarcus

J
jrmarcus
BobbbyB said:
It’s was a state mandated hiatus. Come on, this is easily verifiable information. You can criticize not making the games up. But they didn’t stop playing for no reason. They were the hottest team in the country when the shutdown occurred.
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The didn't start playing when cleared. Also, they decided against packing their schedule to make up games at end the season. This is also easily verifiable information.
 
#214      

alaskaillini

A
alaskaillini
JW may have said OK to the % method, but added a qualifier at the time that it would be reviewed if the facts required it. I mean what other simple standard could you adopt that would be applicable to the present situation?

Why don't we just say "Muck Fichigan" and get on with the season. If we want to put up some banner, then that can be decided when cooler heads prevail after the season.
 
#215      

Double ACL

D
Double ACL
I respect Michigan's season. They are B1G champs. Any ideas that they were ducking us are ignorant and immature.
 
#217      

JJB

JJB
Chicago, IL
JJB
Double ACL said:
I respect Michigan's season. They are B1G champs. Any ideas that they were ducking us are ignorant and immature.
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They didn't duck Illinois. They ducked the inconvenience of making the effort to schedule and play all of their league games.
 
#219      

texillwek

texillwek
🔶🔹🔸🔷
texillwek
Still talking about this, eh?

Cool Cool Cool GIF by Brooklyn Nine-Nine
 
#221      

Deleted member 747802

D
Guest
Deleted member 747802
Another supportive article from the Chicago media :rolleyes: Maybe Shannon should go cover her beloved Fighting Irish. I'm sure she thinks they can do no wrong. She seems to be speaking out of both sides of her mouth: "Should Michigan be punished for being shut down by the state health department for a COVID-19 issue and not fitting in all of its regular-season games? No. Should Illinois be punished for managing to play all of its games, including a win against Michigan in their only meeting? Of course not.

A co-championship does sound fair, and Illinois was right to appeal for a change...His legitimate arguments lost some heft by leaning on dramatics in his letter, which surely will play well in Champaign but might come off as sour grapes nationally. Instead of a lengthy letter focused on how it was victimized, Illinois should be saying, “Who cares? Bring them on.”"

Really confused what her point is. It seems like everything she suggests is what has been said from the IL perspective. But not so from the Big Ten.
 
#222      

phats22

P
phats22
definintely time to move on but.......one thing i haven't seen highlighted is that Michigan played 1 more home game than we did and 4 less away games.
it's a Covid year and home advantage wasn't as strong but still...........

will be fun to watch the team come out swinging this weekend!!
 
#224      

BretMyBeachHouse

B
BretMyBeachHouse
BobbbyB said:
It’s was a state mandated hiatus. Come on, this is easily verifiable information. You can criticize not making the games up. But they didn’t stop playing for no reason. They were the hottest team in the country when the shutdown occurred.
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Michigan announces Illinois postponement

The entire Michigan athletic department shut down on Jan. 23 for an announced period of two weeks due to concerns over a specific variant of COVID-19. The pause wiped out four games for the men’s basketball team, which is 13-1 overall and 8-1 in the Big Ten. The Illinois game marks the fifth postponement.

How much self-loathing does an Illini fan need to have to make excuses for Michigan? It's very simple. They could have played starting February 6. In fact, not only could they have played a makeup game against Penn State on February 9 and us on February 11. They chose not to.
 
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