BIG Predictions

#151      

Calvin

C
Calvin
Obelix said:
The correct statement would have been that despite the win against Purdue, this team was nowhere near making the tournament. This team was nowhere near the bubble.

Still a lot of basketball to be played, and even in losses (not as much fun as wins) it is interesting to see player development, short spurts of good play etc.

But if people still have expectations of making post-season, they will be heavily disappointed.
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+1

I think there was an optimistic resurgence after the Purdue win, for obvious reasons --a great game where they shot it well (and Purdue played poorly on the road, making us look even better).

I don't think you can't blame people for imagining we'd turned the corner all of a sudden, and would win so many games they'd pull themselves back into contention.

Sadly, reality has reared it's ugly head with the loss to Nebraska, at home, no less. To me, the tOSU game (close and a good fight, but a loss none-the-less to a so-so team) was a bellwether game for the BIG season, not the Purdue game.
 
#152      

DudeAbides

D
DudeAbides
Calvin said:
+1

I think there was an optimistic resurgence after the Purdue win, for obvious reasons --a great game where they shot it well (and Purdue played poorly on the road, making us look even better).

I don't think you can't blame people for imagining we'd turned the corner all of a sudden, and would win so many games they'd pull themselves back into contention.

Sadly, reality has reared it's ugly head with the loss to Nebraska, at home, no less. To me, the tOSU game (close and a good fight, but a loss none-the-less to a so-so team) was a bellwether game for the BIG season, not the Purdue game.
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The primary thing the Purdue game showed me was that when our shots are falling we're a pretty good team. Unfortunately, our shots aren't always going to be falling. We shot 54% overall and 53% from 3 against Purdue. Our season averages are 44% and 36% respectively. If we shot our averages (and I know this isn't directly linked since the game would have played differently) we take away 15 points in a 14 point win and probably lose the game.
 
#153      

Hoppy2105

H
Little Rock, Arkansas
Hoppy2105
DudeAbides said:
The primary thing the Purdue game showed me was that when our shots are falling we're a pretty good team. Unfortunately, our shots aren't always going to be falling. We shot 54% overall and 53% from 3 against Purdue. Our season averages are 44% and 36% respectively. If we shot our averages (and I know this isn't directly linked since the game would have played differently) we take away 15 points in a 14 point win and probably lose the game.
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And when our shots aren't falling, we can always dump the ball into our stable of inside players to take high percentage shots...oh wait.

I hate wasted seasons but hopefully our injured guys get better, our young guys learn something, and the entire team gels for next season.
 
#154      

Obelix

Obelix
Obelix
DudeAbides said:
Thorne is the only "true" big under Groce at Illinois to average over 7ppg, and we have a small sample size for his production. I say "true" because guys like Griffey and Ekey took a large number of 3s as stretch 4s. I don't think Groce's coaching style involves a ton of post-feeding. More dribble drive and 3 chucking.
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You mean "post player" not "big." Finke is certainly a big, just not a post player, and he is averaging more than 7. But he is certainly not a C/post player and the mantra that we recruited a stretch PF and a C arrived on campus was simply a myth. We recruited a stretch PF and a stretch PF arrived on campus, but we simply have to play him out of position out of necessity (occasionally, because even without a C, Finke still plays as a stretch PF most of the time).
 
#155      

Hoppy2105

H
Little Rock, Arkansas
Hoppy2105
DudeAbides said:
Thorne is the only "true" big under Groce at Illinois to average over 7ppg, and we have a small sample size for his production. I say "true" because guys like Griffey and Ekey took a large number of 3s as stretch 4s. I don't think Groce's coaching style involves a ton of post-feeding. More dribble drive and 3 chucking.

I think we'd still be shooting a high number of jump shots even with a healthy Thorne and Black.
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I'd say we have fed the post a lot more this year even with Thorne and Black out. I mean, I've been seeing more passes into Mav then ever. Maybe that is more a product of having post players that can catch the ball.

Anyway, it seems from the eye test that if we have inside men that can score, we will get them the ball.
 
#157      

danielb927

danielb927
Orange Krush Class of 2013
Rochester, MN
danielb927
Sorry for the lack of recent updates! I try not to let a career get in the way of getting some work done, but recently I did have to make some progress on that degree I'm supposed to be getting. It also doesn't help that we haven't been moving up this chart during the past 3 sets of games...

Any rate, here's the overview after the weekday games this week (not including anything from the weekend):

2016.1.22Full.png

First thing to notice is that Iowa's now a 2:1 favorite to win the Big Ten (or get the 1st seed on a tiebreaker). MSU has dropped to below a 1-in-200 chance with their 3 consecutive losses. At this point, it appears to be a 3-team race between IU, Iowa, and Maryland.

We're now cruising solidly for a bottom-4 seed, and now outside 1-in-a-million to win the conference. Minny and Rutgers have laid solid claim to the basement, as there's not much overlap for the 13 and 14 seeds outside of those two teams.

Nebraska's the biggest upward mover - we've sort of switched outlooks with them since I posted last.

On to the tiebreaker effects:

2016.1.22TB.png

Interesting the change that's happened at the top! Last time I posted, Iowa got help from the tiebreakers by virtue of their wins vs MSU and at Purdue. They actually expanded on that by beating MSU this week, but now the chance that either of those teams competes for the title is relatively small. Iowa plays IU twice, but they play Maryland only once, and it's in College Park. So, pretty clear that the 1.9% swing is coming from that.

You can see the same sort of thing going on with Illinois and PSU for the 11/12 seeds, I think, since we only play at PSU. Since that's the last game of the year, we won't get a chance to see how much the result of that game influences any long-term projections.

Minnesota continues to see the biggest influence of tiebreakers, with a 6.3% boost to their 13 seed odds mostly at the expense of the 12 and 14. They already lost their only game against PSU, hence the likelihood of losing that tiebreaker for the 12. I'm not sure why they're favored to win ties over Rutgers-- could be that it's scenarios where their only two wins are over Rutgers, and Rutgers finds 2 wins somewhere else, or it could be that Rutgers already lost their only games against IU, Iowa, and Maryland, who will likely be the top 3 teams (remember, record against top teams is the next tiebreaker after head-to-head).
 
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#158      

danielb927

danielb927
Orange Krush Class of 2013
Rochester, MN
danielb927
Updated after the weekend. Iowa's now winning the top seed in 4 of 5 cases, and our win at Minnesota has made the division between the bottom two teams in the conference and everyone else much stronger.

2016.1.25Full.png

Minnesota is fast getting isolated to the 13 seed due to tiebreakers. They're now unlikely to ever hold a tiebreaker over us, they won't over PSU (they already lost their only game vs. the Nittany Lions), and there are a lot of cases (about 5% of the total simulations) where a tie with Rutgers goes to non-conference winning percentage, which Minnesota wins.

2016.1.25TB.png
 
#159      

whovous

W
Washington, DC
whovous
A 57% chance we finish in the bottom four, and play another bottom dweller on the first day of the tourney. We need to win on five consecutive days if we want to Dance.
 
#160      

IlliniFaninHoosierLand

IlliniFaninHoosierLand
IlliniFaninHoosierLand
whovous said:
A 57% chance we finish in the bottom four, and play another bottom dweller on the first day of the tourney. We need to win on five consecutive days if we want to Dance.
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By danielb's calculations (and assuming the seeds hold to where they currently are), that would mean beating Rutgers, Michigan State, Maryland, Indiana, and Iowa.
 
#161      

danielb927

danielb927
Orange Krush Class of 2013
Rochester, MN
danielb927
IlliniFaninHoosierLand said:
By danielb's calculations (and assuming the seeds hold to where they currently are), that would mean beating Rutgers, Michigan State, Maryland, Indiana, and Iowa.
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That would be a tough road. Of course, any championship run is probably going to have to go through those last three teams.

Since it came up here's the full opponent forecast from that run (I'll list anything over 1%). The first round is as expected and everything else is basically wide open.

First Round:
Bye - 42%
Rutgers - 29%
Minny - 27%
PSU - 1%

Second Round (either straight up or after a first-round game):
OSU - 16%
MSU - 15%
Mich - 14%
Neb - 11%
Purdue - 11%
Wisc - 10%
NW - 10%
MD - 9%
IU - 4%
PSU - 1%

Third Round (a top 4 seed):
IU - 21%
Iowa - 20%
MD - 18%
Purdue - 16%
MSU - 12%
UM - 12%
OSU - 1%
 
#162      

IllinoisFan733

IllinoisFan733
Chicago
IllinoisFan733
Looking at the remaining B10 schedule, I see 8 more potential wins that the team could bank. There is a good chance for all of these games if Thorne is able to play. Finishing 10-8 in the conference would be impressive.

Ohio State
Wisconsin
@Rutgers
@Northwestern
Rutgers
@Wisconsin
Minnesota
@Penn State

Rutgers x2, Minnesota, Penn State are games that must be won.
@Northwestern, Wisconsin are winnable, but not sure things. Ohio State, @Wisky are tossups as well. They aren't bad losses, but aren't good wins either.

Illinois must win all of those easy games. Then, they need to win 3 out of 4 of those toss-up games to have a chance. From there, they just need an upset win against Indiana, Iowa, or Maryland,

The team has the ability... they just need to put everything together and play winning basketball!!!

Started drinking the Kool-Aid early today. :chief:
 
#163      

whovous

W
Washington, DC
whovous
I'd be happy if we won more than we lost from here on out. 6-5 and 1-1.
 
#164      

QCChief

Q
QCChief
This team reminds me a little of the 2008 Georgia team. I think we're a little better but that Georgia team was also ravaged by injuries if i remember correctly. They put it together at the end and won the SEC tourney. If Thorne can get healthy and Mav can keep playing with confidence, who knows...we've got the talent. Just a matter of it all clicking at the right time, and with this young team i could definitely see something like a deep B1G tourney run happening. :thumb:
 
#165      

frozenrope9190

frozenrope9190
Aurora, IL
frozenrope9190
QCChief said:
This team reminds me a little of the 2008 Georgia team. I think we're a little better but that Georgia team was also ravaged by injuries if i remember correctly. They put it together at the end and won the SEC tourney. If Thorne can get healthy and Mav can keep playing with confidence, who knows...we've got the talent. Just a matter of it all clicking at the right time, and with this young team i could definitely see something like a deep B1G tourney run happening. :thumb:
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That 2008 Georgia team won the SEC in a very weird fashion, having to play twice on the same day due to the tornado that hit the arena and might have killed spectators in the parking lot had a guy not hit a buzzer beating 3 pointer that sent a game into overtime and caused them to stick around. I'll always remember that vividly.
 
#166      

FeelYourPaign

FeelYourPaign
So Cal
FeelYourPaign
So, we are currently more likely to end up in the bottom 4 and need to play on Wednesday than we are to get to 10th or better and defer until Thursday. Roughly 60/40 between the two. Need to find at least one surprise W to avoid that. Time to get to work.
 
#168      

haasi

haasi
New York
haasi
danielb927 said:
Updated outlook after this weekend's games:

So basically

1: Iowa
2: Maryland
3-5: IU, MSU, Purdue
6: Michigan
7-8: OSU, Wisconsin
9-10: Nebraska, Northwestern
11-12: Illinois, PSU
13: Minnesota
14: Rutgers

Oy.

As an 11 or 12 seed, we'd be looking at 5 wins in a row to make the tourney. Starting with Rutgers or Minnesota on Wednesday of the BTT, then needing four wins probably against top 6 teams on Thursday-Sunday, with our Thursday/Friday opponents coming off bye and doublebye.
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#170      

Vermilion Slim

V
Vermilion Slim
Looking at the remaining schedules of Nebraska, Northwestern, Illinois, and Penn State, it really looks like it will be a mad dash to stay out of the bottom four.

I put together a quick table and, not surprisingly, those toss-up games that the four will play against each other should decide who has to play on the first day of the BIG tourney.

The bad news is that if you assume the home team wins the toss up games, then Illinois looks like they’ll finish 12th. The good news is if we somehow win games @NW and @PSU, then we should have a really good shot at 9th.

It also appears that the final games on March 6th at 11:00 (Ill@PSU) and 12:00 (Neb@NW) will have a lot on the line.
 

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#171      

Dan

Dan
Admin
Dan
Looks like Illinois' sublime 4-year streak of playing in the 8/9 game is about to come to an end. Hard to find the proper emotion/emoticon/emoji to convey what that means.
 
#172      

FeelYourPaign

FeelYourPaign
So Cal
FeelYourPaign
Vermilion Slim said:
Looking at the remaining schedules of Nebraska, Northwestern, Illinois, and Penn State, it really looks like it will be a mad dash to stay out of the bottom four.

I put together a quick table and, not surprisingly, those toss-up games that the four will play against each other should decide who has to play on the first day of the BIG tourney.

The bad news is that if you assume the home team wins the toss up games, then Illinois looks like they’ll finish 12th. The good news is if we somehow win games @NW and @PSU, then we should have a really good shot at 9th.

It also appears that the final games on March 6th at 11:00 (Ill@PSU) and 12:00 (Neb@NW) will have a lot on the line.
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Interesting. Not appealing, but interesting :(
 
#174      

Calvin

C
Calvin
QCChief said:
This team reminds me a little of the 2008 Georgia team. I think we're a little better but that Georgia team was also ravaged by injuries if i remember correctly. They put it together at the end and won the SEC tourney. If Thorne can get healthy and Mav can keep playing with confidence, who knows...we've got the talent. Just a matter of it all clicking at the right time, and with this young team i could definitely see something like a deep B1G tourney run happening. :thumb:
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This team has one of the worst defenses I've seen in my time watching Illini basketball, which is not a recipe for getting hot, like, ever.

So unless by "deep" you mean playing on Wednesday, or possibly Thursday....
 
#175      

danielb927

danielb927
Orange Krush Class of 2013
Rochester, MN
danielb927
haasi said:
danielb927 said:
Updated outlook after this weekend's games:

So basically

1: Iowa
2: Maryland
3-5: IU, MSU, Purdue
6: Michigan
7-8: OSU, Wisconsin
9-10: Nebraska, Northwestern
11-12: Illinois, PSU
13: Minnesota
14: Rutgers

Oy.

As an 11 or 12 seed, we'd be looking at 5 wins in a row to make the tourney. Starting with Rutgers or Minnesota on Wednesday of the BTT, then needing four wins probably against top 6 teams on Thursday-Sunday, with our Thursday/Friday opponents coming off bye and doublebye.
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I'd still put 3-6 all in a big clump, maybe even with the 2 seed. There's still a 40% shot the 2 seed isn't Maryland or Iowa.

It would be interesting to have a hard metric for when to "officially" block teams into sections like this. For instance, the Illinois-PSU on the 11-12 line box is pretty clear cut, but not as much as the Minny-Rutgers box. One measure might be a box like that with only single digit percentages neighboring it.
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