Bracketology
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Can’t speak for @NarrowJ but I will gladly take ANYBODY besides the Cougars. We don’t match up with them at all.
I'm with you. I'm trying to think of teams that would be considered a great draw for. What do they look like?
Trying to find teams that lack a speedy PG or big, physical bigs is doable in round 1 against a 14 seed. If we win that one, #6's are top 25 caliber teams that finished in the top 4 in their conference (outside of the Big 12). If we have to tee it up with any SEC team, we get right to our athleticism concerns.
Thar said, our strengths are extremely difficult to play against as well....when playing at a high level. For us to truly be a "tough out", the key to the operation is Tomi. He's a legitimate matchup problems for every team in the tournament, when he's shooting the three at a good clip. They also need to force feed the ball. He has the skills to make life miserable, as does Mirk.
Brad is fully aware of his critical to our success Tomi is. He is desperately trying to get him and his confidence going.
Purdue has the same issue with Loyer. When he's going right, they are incredibly tough to beat. He adds a whole different element. He was awful for 2/3 of the Big Ten season and Purdue's results suffered. Now, he's back to being Loyer and Purdue is starting to elevate. Painter knows he's a key and stuck with it, despite the fans calling for their heads. It's why you don't just pull the plug.
Is it feasible for the shooting stroke to arrive at the perfect time? Can he match that with his capabilities in the post? It's in there, we have all seen it.
If so, we're as tough as anyone and can beat anyone. If not, we have a tendency to go on our scoring droughts. The give it to Keaton and everyone get out of the way had to stop. He needs you be a part of the offense and not the face of it.
The key to our success is Tomi, he knows it, we know it, he's taken heat....there a lot of pressure. I, personally, believe he's the key.
Houston in East is obviously way better than Houston in Houston, but yeah they have two quick guards so it’d be a very tough game for us either way
Any two other than Houston would be great… UConn not playing well, MSU isn’t too scary, I guess Iowa St would be the other two I’d like to avoid
Based on the most recent resume and eye test I just can't see it. It is trending as closer to a 4 than a 2. I mean in just 2 weeks they have gone from a composite of 2.03 to 2.98. End of the day 2/3 is like 6/7 to the kids.
They should. I mean if anything how you are playing closer to the tournament should carry more weight..
I'll see if I have time to do one more metrics bracket before the selection show, just to see how much it differs from the committee's actual choices.
And if I really have enough time, I'll try to actually make a bracket prediction for myself, so everyone can just mock it when the actual bracket comes out.
And if I really have enough time, I'll try to actually make a bracket prediction for myself, so everyone can just mock it when the actual bracket comes out.
I personally think the committee should award seeding based on just average height and offense efficiency
I don’t see how Purdue jumps us (assuming they don’t beat Michigan today). Us-Purdue-Sparty have almost identical resumés. You’re splitting hairs between them. By that point, it should go to H2H where it would be Sparty with the 2, then us to St. Louis, and Purdue behind us.
Good thing the season started before February 1st I guess?
We are definitely playing like a 4 or 5 right now. 1 and 5 against the top 5 seeds in conference and 5-5 in the last 10.
LouHenson
- Naples Florida
I don’t think we can complain much on our seeding or draw as we put ourselves in this position. That said, to be honest with this years team I am mostly just looking at what the 3/6 game matchup would look like? I just don’t think we beat any of the 2 seeds (outside maybe MSU and they would be the least likely we would have been paired with). We just don’t have the defensive ability to stop the better teams much at all. So I agree avoiding Houston and really ISU would be best, still it would all be on how good we shot in any game past the S16.
Getting out of the first weekend would be very good for the team, fans everyone associated with BU and Illinois.
Getting out of the first weekend would be very good for the team, fans everyone associated with BU and Illinois.
absolutely, although the metrics and as asinine as they are still having Illinois 6th in the last 9 games. That is how foolish the analytics are.
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
I really feel like many fans just look at our previous 9 games in a vacuum. Almost all of the teams in the 2/3 seed range have had some rough stretches since Feb 1--Houston lost 4 times (albeit to very good teams), UCONN lost 4 times (twice to St John's and bad losses to Creighton and Marquette), Iowa State lost 5 times, and Michigan State has lost 5 times since Jan 30th.
It is not just us. Reality is that if we close out our double digit leads to Wisconsin and UCLA, we are looking at 9-2 since Feb 1. Instead, we have Quad 1 blemishes like the other teams seeded around us.
Coaches Especially! Some players have done this to me. Exhausted. 4 seed, Virginia is better and tougher than us. We've Ended Miserably! " Hi, I'm J and I'm a Fighting Illini fan". "Its been 2 days since I broke my TV!". Woof, coaches, players, and referees all year.
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Fairly confident this would be the top 10 in whichever order:
Duke, Michigan, Arizona, Florida, UCONN, Houston, Iowa State, MSU, Purdue, Illinois.
Duke, Michigan, Arizona, Florida, UCONN, Houston, Iowa State, MSU, Purdue, Illinois.
We will get what we get and not throw a fit. Lol.
As a 3 seed, we SHOULD advance to the S16 by playing to seed. But I cat get worked up about drawing Houston in Houston based on how we've been playing coming down the stretch.
As a 3 seed, we SHOULD advance to the S16 by playing to seed. But I cat get worked up about drawing Houston in Houston based on how we've been playing coming down the stretch.
Would be good for us I am just not sure that is a fair representation of how good a team is.
I remember someone here last year started a poll about what seed we would get. 5/6/7/8 were the choices.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
They used to consider how you finished (I think last 10?) in an effort to get objectively good teams that just took a while to figure it out. IIRC, they didn’t dump this metric because of some desire to totally discount trends in performance but rather because every team played conference-only games in their last 10 and an unbalanced schedule could unfairly skew a team’s record in the last 10 (e.g., if Illini finished 4-6 in 8 Quad 1/2 games often on the road and MSU finished 7-3 beating up on the bottom 4 of the league simply due to how the Big Ten balanced schedules).
You’d think there would be a way to not throw the baby out with the bath water and incorporate strength of schedule into at least some weighting of recent performance. Obviously results in November and December should matter just as much as a BTT game in isolation (i.e., each as an equal data point), but then there could indeed be a separate weighting to how a team is playing lately. This would technically double count recent results, so ideally the weight would be minimal?
Basically, you want to avoid a scenario that doesn’t properly “look at the entire body of work” but also maybe subjectively give a team like Ohio State the edge over Indiana this year in the event they HAD finished with similar resumes when it’s just so obvious that OSU is so much better right now.
PizzaHutParkingLot
- Vodice, Croatia
If we go beat Wisconsin handily or even at all, you can make that argument. However, we lost the exact same way we did last time with two guys gone. I get that each game is different, but we really didn't prove we were any better. Same mistakes and same blown lead.
We beat UCLA and we are on the other side of the bracket with a much easier path.
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