Man Oregon is starting to mimic us, excellent quad 1 wins but some bad losses mixed in..
Illinois #23 in 2/3 AP Poll
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The difference is our worst loss in the last 5 was Nebraska who is now firmly on the bubble. Oregon has lost to Minnesota (flat out can't happen) and also got blown out by UCLA. They are in complete free fall.
I feel like it's the B1G as a whole. MSU just lost to USC, Michigan lost to Minnesota then gets blown out by 30, Wisconsin lost to Maryland. All of these teams look like they're bipolar, but I feel like the answer is that there just aren't any bad teams in the conf. At least not bad enough they can't beat anyone.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Agreed, and I am frankly shocked they are not ranked today, lol. They've won 5 straight, including 2 top 25 wins and 2 wins away from home, and they now sit at 16-6 (7-4) overall. I guess the 4-game losing streak to start January is still really dragging them down, but I thought they'd sneak in.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Agreed on the bolded, but even THAT game is Quad 2! For all of our hiccups, this team is incredibly lucky that it currently has no bad losses and no (officially) bad potential losses left. Meanwhile, we have tons of Quad 1 and Quad 2 opportunities in front of us. Our biggest issue is that eventually we just need to start winning way more than we are losing for the metrics to continue to save us ... can't go 1-1 every week and move forward resume-wise. While we did have a 2-game losing streak after the Maryland loss, we have gone 1-1 each week for the last four weeks ... that ain't gonna cut it, obviously, but we have been fortunate to not truly stack losses like Oregon.
Absolutely need 2 wins this week to reestablish ourselves as "back on track."
theNewGuy
- Dallas, TX
I am Nostradamus... again
Am waiting for my weekly lottery numbers Mr.Nostradamus
.pruman91
- interviewing new NL's daily....I really really am
yep.......balanced out with our # 12 in NET..........That tells the tale , especially taking into account our losses when KJ and Tomi were out because of injuries.........I really think the rest of college basketball realizes how potent we are with a healthy roster.......
Certainly "fell like a brick" 
The product of making an opinion on our team without considering the rest of the field. Similarly when we used to talk about how going .500 in the conference was enough to make the tournament. Ahh, the old days of being a bubble team.Certainly "fell like a brick"
theNewGuy
- Dallas, TX
4 7 13 21 32 2Am waiting for my weekly lottery numbers Mr.Nostradamus
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Yeah, if we put on our most forgiving hat for a second, consider that these are our results without a full roster this season...
1/8 - Quad 2: W 91-52 vs. #54 Penn State (without KJ)
1/11 - Quad 2: L 72-82 vs. #68 USC (without KJ)
1/19 - Quad 1: L 78-80 at #20 Michigan State (KJ playing 8 minutes...)
1/23 - Quad 1: L 71-90 vs. #15 Maryland (without Ivisic)
1/26 - Quad 2: W 83-74 vs. #57 Northwestern (without Ivisic)
1/30 - Quad1: L 74-80 at #50 Nebraska in OT (without Ivisic)
So 4 of our 7 losses, with the remaining 3 being...
11/20 - Quad 1: L87-100 vs. #6 Alabama in Birmingham
12/6 - Quad 1: L 66-70 in OT at #57 Northwestern
12/14 - Quad 1: L 64-66 vs. #4 Tennessee
... it's kind of easy to craft a forgiving narrative, fair or not. Even if you count the MSU game as "our full team," these are the only results we have had at full strength in the last month:
1. 94-69 Quad 1 win at #65 Indiana
2. 78-80 Quad 1 loss at #20 Michigan State
3. 87-79 Quad 1 win vs. #26 Ohio State
So since losing the OT game to Northwestern in early December, our young team has lost just two games while at full strength - a buzzer beater loss to #4 Tennessee and a 2-point loss at #20 Michigan State where our star player played 8 minutes. In that same timespan, we have stacked up 5 Quad 1 wins.
TL;DR
It ONLY matters if we now turn some corner and go on a win streak, of course ... but if you are so inclined, you can definitely spin our season in a way that finds some pretty good excuses for our losses. Plenty of concerns remain like our poor shooting and WAY too many turnovers, but I am going to choose to be optimistic that the second half vs. OSU was a turning point. We haven't had our full team like that in a while, AND the twin factors of (A) the staff showing a willingness to shake up playing time and (B) our guys FINALLY showing the resolve to come back when shots aren't falling has me optimistic again.
The predictive metrics are still good while the result based metrics are pretty lousy. Need the result metrics to catch up to the predictive and not the other way.
How are they lousy?
Kenpom: 13th overall, 22nd offense, 11th defense, 12th SOS
Torvik: 7th overall, 17th offense, 8th defense
NET: 12th overall
I think auburn is the only team in the top 25 with more quad 1 games played than us (13.....we have 12)
Those are the predictive metrics.
Have to love Loyalty. After Neb loss, most of what we see on here is how bad we are and that team is in real trouble. Four days later, it is we should be ranked higher.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
You shouldn't confuse loyalty with immense frustration. There is not a fan here that, even after being dragged through the mud and witnessing a truly awful performance at Nebraska, isn't ready to be sucked back in as soon as there is even the smallest reason to be positive, haha. Flip around what you are suggesting and think of it this way ... how many fans here are so pessimistic that they are still taking a wait-and-see approach after the OSU win?? Instead, they're ready to be hurt again immediately.
How would predictive metrics not be based on results anyhow? That's the only data that is available, whatsoever, is data from the games that have been played.
Which result-based metrics are 'lousy'?
EDIT: Found my answer by doing my own research. Those are both result-based and predictive as they use past game results, strength of schedule, game location, among other factors to generate rankings/ratings that are designed to predict future performance.
So those ratings I listed are all absolutely 100 percent result-based (and also predictive in the vein that you can use the ratings to predict future outcomes).
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pruman91
- interviewing new NL's daily....I really really am
Feels like BU has to get out of the mindset of having concrete rotations.
We’ve got too many guys who can go off to limit them based on preset minutes.
You saw it on full display yesterday. KJ sat a looooong time towards the end of the second half. He rode a hot DGL and Boswell, sat White for a hot Riley, and played Ivisic and Johnson together.
If White/Ben/KJ were hot, they should’ve played but they weren’t. I’m not confident 3 or 4 games ago any of those three would’ve sat if they were slumping. Really hoping BU has embraced this.
I’m still not over subbing DGL for Ben at Nebraska, one of the worst coaching decisions I’ve seen BU make. Glad to see he’s back to his ways of allowing free flowing change in season. One of his best qualities.
We’ve got too many guys who can go off to limit them based on preset minutes.
You saw it on full display yesterday. KJ sat a looooong time towards the end of the second half. He rode a hot DGL and Boswell, sat White for a hot Riley, and played Ivisic and Johnson together.
If White/Ben/KJ were hot, they should’ve played but they weren’t. I’m not confident 3 or 4 games ago any of those three would’ve sat if they were slumping. Really hoping BU has embraced this.
I’m still not over subbing DGL for Ben at Nebraska, one of the worst coaching decisions I’ve seen BU make. Glad to see he’s back to his ways of allowing free flowing change in season. One of his best qualities.
I keep reminding myself we've only lost 4 games when we've had our whole team playing. That's including @MSU. Alabama whooped us. But the other 3 were last second or overtime losses.
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
I consider @MSU to be a game where we DIDN’T have the whole team together, given the ridiculous rapid fire fouls called on KJ.
The ranking we deserve based on recent performance. These next two games are opportunities to prove we're back but can't take them for granted. Neither team is a slouch when playing at home, especially concerned we'll overlook Minnesota.
- Status