Mea culpa, I hereby retract the phrase 'locked in'.
Right now, the way we are playing, I do not see, IMHO, YMMV, us as a 2 or 3 seed. That is all.
Bracketology
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Right now, the way we are playing, I do not see, IMHO, YMMV, us as a 2 or 3 seed. That is all.
socalini
- So Cali
For some reason YMMV always makes my mind go straight to "you make me vomit".
Is there anyway we can lock this in right now?
perhaps many us of see a highly likely path for a 2/3, yes we have tough games ahead, but we believe in our every day guys vs. the stars have to align. speaking of stars - there does happen to be a total solar eclipse on April 8
OrangeBlue98
- Des Moines, IA
Selfishly, I’d love Omaha. That’s just over two hours from Des Moines, so I’d be able to commute (albeit late on the first night) to see the Illini. But I don’t think that one’s happening.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
That's fair, as we have been somewhat all over the place. In my totally subjective "from a distance" opinion and also kind of just for fun, I would say we looked like...
A genuine #1 seed vs. FAU and Missouri.
A #2 seed at Tennessee (assuming Tennessee is a bona fide #1 seed contender). Or swap this with dominating Rutgers in Piscataway.
A #3 seed beating Michigan on the road and for most of the OSU victory on the road.
A #4 seed beating Rutgers at home (likely our "baseline" level of play right now?).
A #5 seed for much of the Nebraska game (the more distance I get from that one, the more I realize how crazy well they shot it, and we toughed it out).
A #6/7 seed beating Indiana.
A #8 seed losing to Maryland.
Even if that list is terribly off, it's undeniable that our level of play has experienced some real peaks and valleys. Let's hope a win in East Lansing really kickstarts us getting hot down the stretch!
DeonThomas
- South Carolina
This tells me that NEB is going to finish with a very good record --- and perhaps a very long regular season winning streak.
Based on what the committee has said over the years regarding the BTT and seeding, the Finals pretty much don't matter unless a non-tourney team wins it to become an automatic qualifier. I want to say I even heard them say at some point that even in one of the more extreme corner cases where 2 B10 teams have about the same resume and less half a seed line separates them (i.e. low 2, high 3) they still won't swap them even if the slightly lower seed wins because it's too much work to do so.I wanted to take a look back at some of our NCAA Tournament appearances to try to gauge just how much the BTT matters. Again, I just flatly reject that the Thursday and Friday results cannot sway anything ... if you want to say "the BTT doesn't matter," I would argue the earliest you could make that claim is for the semifinals on Saturday. It is of course relatively common knowledge that the finals on Sunday are NOT considered by the Committee (unless they have to hold a spot for a sub-.500 team or something). For simplicity's sake, I will look at our AP ranking, as I really don't feel like digging up old RPI metrics by week, if those are even available.
2000: We were 19-8 and ranked #21 going into the BTT. 2 wins vs. the top 25 on the year, both at home (#13 Ohio State and #16 Indiana). Realistically, I would have thought we'd be looking at a #7 or #6 seed or so with that resume, but I guess they did consider "how a team finished" back then, and we ended the regular season winning 8 of our last 9. In the BTT, we beat #13 Indiana, beat Penn State and lost to #5 Michigan State, giving us a 21-8 record on the morning of Selection Sunday. We earned a #4 seed in the Tournament. Even with that hot finish, I would think that getting another 2 wins in the BTT probably pushed us from a #5 to a #4.
2001: We beat a bad Purdue team and lost to an okay Indiana team in the BTT and still got a #1 seed, so I am guessing we indeed had that locked up before the BTT began.
2002: Going into the BTT, we were 23-7, ranked #10 and had just won 8 in a row to end the regular season. That seems like clearly a #3 seed to me. We beat a bad Minnesota team in the BTT before losing to #21 Ohio State on Saturday, to finish at 24-7 on Selection Sunday, earning us a #4 seed. I do not think it is a stretch to say another win over a top 25 OSU team on a neutral floor could have swapped us with the lowest #3 seed.
2003: We were 21-6, ranked #13 and finished the year winning 6 of 8. That looks like a #4 seed on merit (possibly a high #5), but we then proceeded to win three in Chicago and hang a BTT Championship banner ... and still got a #4 seed. So, nothing overly conclusive I guess, but it's worth noting that due to how the bracket played out in the BTT, our three wins (Northwestern, Indiana and Ohio State) were not very impressive. Still, those extra two wins before Selection Sunday likely didn't move the needle.
2004: The Committee must have REALLY not thought much of the Big Ten this year, because we were 24-5, ranked #12 and had just won 12 games in a row on Selection Sunday ... and we got a #5 seed. So clearly, the BTT did not matter this year.
2005: We likely had a #1 seed locked up in February.However, we went and won the BTT just for the fun of it.
2006: I firmly believe a bad BTT performance cost us a #3 seed this year. Going into the BTT, we were 25-5, ranked #9 and won 6 of our final 7 games (including two top 25 wins, one on the road). However, we lost our first BTT game to MSU, and Iowa (who won the BTT that year) got a #3 seed while being ranked #20 (!!) and we got a #4 seed. It seems patently obvious that a BTT win or two would have mattered here.
2007: Given that we were literally a #12 seed this year (ridiculous as a Power Five team), it seems plausible that our two wins in the BTT to get to Saturday likely snuck us into the field at all...
2013: I believe they had the removed "last 12 games" as a factor by this point due to unbalanced conference schedules. Man, this was a really weird year. We were 21-11 going into the BTT, and it seems clear that big wins earlier in the year (#10 Gonzaga, #8 OSU, #1 Indiana at #8 Minnesota) were carrying us big time. We ended up getting a #7 seed (which seemed really high to me that year, but what do I know??), but it is unclear if our one BTT win vs. Minnesota kept us off that #8 line.
2021: I think we pretty clearly had a #1 seed before the BTT, but beating a Tournament team in Rutgers and a top 10 Iowa team likely removed any and all doubt.
2022: This one is tough and requires speculation. We were 22-8 and #15 in the NET before the BTT, so we likely had a #4 seed already. However, it is unclear if getting two more Quad 1 wins (Indiana and Iowa on neutral floors) could have given us a shot at a #3 seed?
2023: Similarly to 2013, we were coasting on wins we got months ago. Going into the BTT, we were 20-11 and ranked #35 in the NET rankings, so that indicates a #9 seed (which we got). However, if we would have gotten past Penn State and Northwestern, we would have doubled our Quad 1 wins. That maybe only gets us up to a #8 seed (i.e., no difference), but if we then beat Indiana on the Saturday, I think that very well might have snuck us off the 8/9 line ... but impossible to say.
Anyway, I think my takeaway is that whether or not the BTT can fundamentally change your seed really depends on a few factors. The wins you get there need to be Quad 1 or Quad 2, and you need to have already been on the border between two seed lines for it to move the needle. I think we likely cost ourselves a better potential seed in both 2002 and 2006, and it's possible we did in 2022. I also think our good performance in the BTT clearly made a Selection Sunday difference in 2007. For other years, it seems to have been totally immaterial.
As for the BTT semifinals, the statements have been mixed between those results either having a very slight effect on the bracket or no effect at all unless you're a bubble team clinching a last 4 in, or bumping up from a last 4 in to the field. There may be instances here where a semifinal win bumps a team up a seed line over a team that lost earlier in their conference tourney, but it's questionable for sure.
All Quarterfinal and 1st round games though are definitely considered by the panel. I think you can consider this as similar to any other game on the resume, and perhaps even a little bit more important, especially when recent play was a key factor, and recency bias when competing for seed against similar competition.
TLDR Overall, I think that the panel looks at the BTT as follows:
Finals: Doesn't matter unless a double digit seed automatically qualifies
Semis: Doesn't matter unless you're a last four out last four in bubble team
Quarters: Matters for everyone
1st Round(s): Extremely important for everyone.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I think I would agree with this, with the caveat that I have a sneaking suspicion that the semifinals do indeed still matter if a team is really close to another seed. However, I think they would only reserve a relatively simple decision for those results. For example, if Illinois and Wisconsin have VERY similar resumes for the final #3 seed and both are playing a Quad 1 game in their Saturday BTT semifinals game, they might give the team that wins a #3 seed and the team that loses a #4 seed.
And yeah, I have read that the BTT Championship is just impossible for them to consider. Using 2008 as an example, the only thing they will do is identify the "last team in" and pretty much swap a sub-.500 Illini team into that spot if we managed to knock off Wisconsin in the Championship that year.
Yeah, I'm in agreement. I think there are some corner cases in the semis that could result in a single line seed change, and I'd say that would probably be more likely if it's a relatively easy pod swap, like say a 3 seed midwest venue team for a 2 seed midwest venue team. If you start having to move teams out of pods though, with less than 24hours to finalize the bracket, I'm guessing they'd likely just go with what they have as is.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Right, I think the sheer lateness is an underrated factor.
You didn't mention 2010 in your original post because obviously we didn't make the tournament, but it would have been interesting to see what would have happened with the committee if we got that double overtime win over Ohio State in the BTT semis. We were a 1 seed in the NIT so a win over the #5 team in the country may have bumped us into the tourney.
Minnesota likely snagged our NCAA spot after the semis because they beat a top ten team in Purdue to advance to the finals, while we missed out on our shot against the Buckeyes. They ended up getting in as an 11 seed even after losing by 29 to OSU in the championship. That would also have obviously been a very winnable BTT final game for the Illini if we had made it.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Very, very good point. I remember watching our victory over Wisconsin the day before in a random sports bar in Philadelphia because we missed our flight to the Caribbean and had to spend the night there with zero luggage, lol ... a funny and strange memory. I was so crushed when we lost to OSU the next day, even though I still thought we would hear our name called on Selection Sunday.
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
Looks like Nebraska is going to have to start winning B1G road games if they want a chance at sniffing the tourney...
The game in Evanston tonight is, I think, a must win for Nebraska, as there will not be many other opportunities for resume building wins.
Can't stand Northwestern but I'm totally fine with them obliterating Nebraska too. It's a meteor scenario tbh.
Joey Brackets still has Wisky ahead of Illinois after that horrible loss to Michigan last night. That seems crazy to me.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
They have the @Northwestern win we didn't get, the @MSU win we don't have yet, their home win over Marquette at least equals our FAU win, and their N-Virginia win is miles better than anything else on our resume.
Not sure that's a better basketball team, but it's a better resume. Outside of FAU we have beaten nobody.
You’re not wrong, but in my mind all this is recency bias when it comes to seeding in the middle of the season and with losing 3 straight with one of those being to the worst team in the B1G, just seems like it could easily be flipped.
But oh well. Win at MSU this weekend and it’ll change.
Wisconsin does not play at Northwestern this year.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Shoot you're right that was at home. Nevermind on that part.
The moral of the story is our competitive losses to Marquette, @Tennessee and @Purdue do a lot more for our Kenpom than our NCAA resume.
(As it should be IMO. Show me who you've beaten. In most years the Big Ten will give us endless chances to impress, this is just a weird down year)
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Correct. As of now, Wisconsin still has the better resume in the eyes of the committee.
They’re 6-5 in Q1 games. We’re 3-4. They’re 4-2 in Q2 games. We’re 4-0. So they’re 10-7 in Q1/2 games and we’re 7-4.
Those 3 extra Q1 wins matter a lot.
They do have the loss to Michigan on their resume, but it was on the road. So it was just a Q2 loss. Our Maryland loss was Q3.
So they have 3 extra Q1 wins and no bad losses.
Wisconsin has definitely accomplished more. I’d love to be around to hear the committee talk about seeding teams in terms of who deserves to be where vs. who they think will actually succeed. Like Auburn deserves nothing but sheesh that could be a landmine of a second round matchup. (Like Houston 2022.)
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Overall, I believe the committee seeds teams based on actual resume, not theoretical resume.
Meaning, who did you beat, where you did you beat them, who did you lose to, and where did you lose?
Looking at last year’s end of season KenPom stats, for example:
UConn finished 1 in KenPom, they were a 4 seed. Tennessee finished 6 in KenPom, they were a 4 seed. Creighton finished 12 in KenPom, they were a 6 seed. St Mary’s finished 13 in KenPom, they were a 5 seed. West Virginia finished 19 in KenPom, they were a 9 seed. This goes on & on.
So I don’t think the committee tries to figure out who the best teams are. They simply look at resume.
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