B1G Conference Title to be awarded based upon winning %

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#1      

JFGsCoffeeMug

JFGsCoffeeMug
BU:1 Trash cans:0
Chicago
JFGsCoffeeMug
Just saw this.

apnews.com

Big Ten confirms winning percentage to determine title

The Big Ten has confirmed that its regular-season basketball championship will be determined based on winning percentage.
apnews.com apnews.com

I am upset. This means that the only way Illinois can win the conference title is if we beat OSU on Sat and Michigan is swept by MSU. A scenario of us beating OSU and Michigan splitting their series with MSU would result in us being 0.5 a game ahead of them in the standings but slightly behind them in winning percentage, despite having the single head-to-head win over them. Under those circumstances, the B1G would award Michigan with the regular season title.

This unquestionably rewards Michigan for not playing the full 20 games. They avoided three potential opportunities to pick up additional losses, unilaterally delayed their return to play, and were able to play an overall significantly easier schedule than everyone else in terms of both travel and time between games.

In summary, MUCK FICHIGAN.

That is all.
 
#3      

Goode-for-3

Goode-for-3
Goode-for-3
If Illinois beats OSU and Michigan loses 1 more then Illinois is 16-4 (80%) and Michigan is 14-3 (82%) which puts Illinois ahead 1/2 game in the standings.
If Illinois loses to OSU and Michigan loses 2 more then Illinois is 15-5 (75%) and Michigan is 13-4 (76%) which puts Illinois ahead 1/2 game in the standings.

Does it make sense to anyone else that Illinois could finish a half game ahead of Michigan, have the head-to-head victory, and still not be the Regular Season Champs? I thought that the language was pretty clear that whichever teams are at the top of the standings won the Regular Season. Why would they go and change the rules at the last minute?

Hopefully Illinois beats OSU and this conversation becomes actually relevant - I'd really like to hear from the Big Ten why they went and changed the rules this late in the season. Or if it was always winning percentage and not standings then I'd like to hear justification for allowing Michigan to skip out on games when they were cleared to play.

If Illinois beats OSU and Michigan wins out then Illinois is 16-4 (80%) and Michigan is 15-2 (88%) and that would put Michigan 1/2 game ahead of Illinois. Even in that situation I'd think the head-to-head over Michigan and having more total wins in conference play should be enough to split the title with Michigan (if not outright win it for Illinois).
 
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#6      

SuperMetroid

SuperMetroid
Evanston
SuperMetroid
Live shot of the Big Ten office

Clowns GIF by memecandy
 
#15      

FollowMeDontFollowMe

F
FollowMeDontFollowMe
Someone should FOIA all of the emails regarding determination of a champion during covid.

Also, I think Michigan does not qualify for the championship unless they play one more game. I believe they need to play at 2 fewer games than the average of games by the other teams. I believe this is in the current rules.

Michigan : 17 games
IU, NW, PSU : 19 games
10 teams : 20 games

Average is either 19.6 or 19.8 depending if MI is included in average or not. Rounded up as per the rules is 20. That means MI needs 18 games to qualify for championship. Then win% is used to determine champion among qualified teams.

Edit: BTW I believe this is in Agreement 18 of the Big Ten Handbook which is held in every campus library and can be requested for free via FOIA from any B10 school.
 
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#16      

2qtslow

2qtslow
2qtslow
SuperMetroid said:
Penalize the team that ducked competition. Nebraska played 10 games in what, 20 days? No excuse for SCUM to end up only having played 17 games.
Click to expand...
the one thing you can never do, nay even pretend to do, is penalize a team for following COVID protocol. If that means a team gets away with gaming that protocol, then so be it.
 
#17      

Deleted member 747802

D
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Deleted member 747802
bootsy said:
Mine is more like never was a fan. He's terrible and has made numerous bad decisions.
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And his non-decisions may be worse than any of his terrible actual decisions.
 
#19      

JFGsCoffeeMug

JFGsCoffeeMug
BU:1 Trash cans:0
Chicago
JFGsCoffeeMug
FollowMeDontFollowMe said:
I think Michigan does not qualify for the championship unless they play one more game. I believe they need to play at 2 fewer games than the average of games by the other teams. I believe this is in the current rules.

Michigan : 17 games
IU, NW, PSU : 19 games
10 teams : 20 games

Average is either 19.6 or 19.8 depending if MI is included in average or not. Rounded up as per the rules is 20. That means MI needs 18 games to qualify for championship. Then win% is used to determine champion among qualified teams.

Edit: BTW I believe this is in Agreement 18 of the Big Ten Handbook which is held in every campus library and can be requested for free via FOIA from any B10 school.
Click to expand...
Minor correction. The list actually looks like this:

Michigan: 17 games
IU, NW, PSU, Neb, Pur: 19 games
8 teams: 20 games

Nebraska played a heroic schedule but was unable to make up a game against Purdue, so they're also both in the 19 games bucket.

That would make the average including Michigan 19.42. Does the handbook literally say they always round up? Because I could imagine them rounding that down to 19, which would place Michigan at exactly the 2 games under cutoff. That doesn't necessarily surprise me. When Michigan was considering how many games to reschedule, I'm sure they decided to play as few games as possible to still qualify for the title. Everyone else is playing as many games as possible. And here's Michigan playing the bare minimum to still qualify for regular season titles.

No matter how you slice it, Michigan has acted selfishly in ignoring its responsibilities to its fellow members within the B1G. They didn't care about whether other teams wanted to make up those games. They didn't care about playing by the same rules as everyone else. Michigan fans might want to deny it, but BU was right when he says this boils down to a character issue. Kudos to BU for telling it like it is.
 
#20      

Goode-for-3

Goode-for-3
Goode-for-3
BretMyBeachHouse said:
We'd literally get sanctioned by the B1G.

But a banner with the standings and the score of this game might be a fun reminder of just how ridiculous this was.
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Can they sanction us if we hang a banner with a giant Covid virus that looks like an asterisk and the statement "Most Conference Wins in Regular Season 2020-21" (with small text under that saying "and didn't duck a game")
 
#22      

Goode-for-3

Goode-for-3
Goode-for-3
FollowMeDontFollowMe said:
Someone should FOIA all of the emails regarding determination of a champion during covid.

Also, I think Michigan does not qualify for the championship unless they play one more game. I believe they need to play at 2 fewer games than the average of games by the other teams. I believe this is in the current rules.

Michigan : 17 games
IU, NW, PSU : 19 games
10 teams : 20 games

Average is either 19.6 or 19.8 depending if MI is included in average or not. Rounded up as per the rules is 20. That means MI needs 18 games to qualify for championship. Then win% is used to determine champion among qualified teams.

Edit: BTW I believe this is in Agreement 18 of the Big Ten Handbook which is held in every campus library and can be requested for free via FOIA from any B10 school.
Click to expand...
For those curious, here is the Conference handbook from 2017-18: https://iuhoosiers.com/documents/2018/4/5//2017_18_Big_Ten_Conference_Handbook.pdf?id=27323

Text for those that don't want to click:

AGREEMENT 18. DETERMINATION OF CONFERENCE CHAMPION AND NCAA AUTOMATIC QUALIFIER
18.3 DETERMINATION OF CONFERENCE CHAMPION. A sport is considered a Conference sport in which a champion is declared when six or more Conference universities sponsor varsity teams in that sport. The Conference Championships Manual provides specific information on the governance of championships for these sports. The Conference champion shall be determined as follows:
...
B. Conference Win/Loss Record or Point Total. The Conference champion for the following sports shall be the team with the best win/loss record (or point total where applicable) in the regular season Conference schedule:
Baseball
Men’s Basketball
...


Note that I do not see any requirement for being within 2 games of the conference average. (But this is an old handbook so that may be in there for this year?)
 
#23      

JFGsCoffeeMug

JFGsCoffeeMug
BU:1 Trash cans:0
Chicago
JFGsCoffeeMug
I like seeing these excerpts from the handbook, but there's basically nothing stopping the B1G from hand-waving all of that away and just saying "COVID season" and setting up entirely different rules for just this one year. The way this conference operates from a leadership standpoint is consistently unimpressive. So no surprise here.
 
#25      

EyeoftheIllini

EyeoftheIllini
EyeoftheIllini
It sucks because Illini have had a great season and done what that was asked of them, but winning percentage seems like the logical way to do it. For those that say Illini are a game in front or half a game in front with different scenarios, I’ve always looked at that “measurement” as a way to compare teams during the course of a season when teams haven’t played the same amount of games but will end up playing the same amount. At the end of the season, it comes down to winning percentage.

In reality, even if UM had played the Illini game when originally, how many more games would they have gotten in without pushing back the BTT — which I don’t think is even possible? One more? Never going to play quicker than every other day and not fair to UM opponent to schedule a game between end of the season and start of BTT. It sucks but it is what it is. With the BTT or better yet it and national championship. That’s enough hardware for the year.
 
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