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.