This was a heck of a game to get Penn into the dance:
NCAA Tournament Bracket
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I thought about this some more, and here are my totally subjective, numbered and color-coded rankings in terms of fandom and appreciation for each B1G team:
1. Illinois – I may consider donating a non-vestigial organ to see this team win a Championship
.....
2. Nebraska – Scrappy team, players are fun. They kind of remind me of Sandlot. Reminds me as much of a true March Cinderella as it can get for a P5, especially considering they haven’t won a tournament game ever.
3. OSU – An underdog I’d root for, OSU has a bad connotation in my brain, but their players are dogs. The perfect team you’d like to see upset Duke.
4. Iowa – Ben McCollum has done a good/great job with the pieces given, Bennett Stirtz is fun to watch when he’s not going nuclear against Illinois
5. Purdue – They have no underdog alure so you inherently want to see them upset. They have guys you don’t want to root for, like TKR, but you gotta respect Braden Smith. I also appreciate the way Matt Painter approaches the game.
6. UCLA – They can be electric at times but I cannot bring myself to root for Mick Cronin.
7. Wisconsin – The wig thing put a sour taste in my mouth and Nick Boyd is clearly arrogant. Hate to see arrogance paired with success (but I do see @TheChief4Life 's point).
8. MSU – Gross play style, ugly wins that are accompanied by foul-baiting and Izzo complaining and lobbying the refs all game. Jeremy Fears, enough said.
9. Michigan – Even if I wasn’t an Illinois fan I would root against this team probably more than any other team. They’ve put so much into trying to make a very unlikeable guy (Yaxel) likeable, and Dusty May seems like a slimy guy. He kind of reminds me of the Harvey Dent of college basketball. Something (the obvious tampering but also intuition) about him really rubs me the wrong way.
The way I feel about our draw is that we got the easiest path to the S16 of all the 3 seeds.
Absolutely hate getting Houston in Houston. The ceiling is sweet 16 barring houston losing to saint mary's.
And no I do not buy the "all 2 seeds are good" narrative. Sure they can be good, but you don't have to play them in essentially a home game. Just awful.
Basically sums up the luck for this team this year.
Absolutely hate getting Houston in Houston. The ceiling is sweet 16 barring houston losing to saint mary's.
And no I do not buy the "all 2 seeds are good" narrative. Sure they can be good, but you don't have to play them in essentially a home game. Just awful.
Basically sums up the luck for this team this year.
I think these are all fair points - in close games in regulation (one possession game under a minute) we’re 3-2 (beat TT, OSU, PU) lost to Neb, AL
Obviously we lost all 4 OT games, but also of note we had to make a play to get all 4 of those to overtime when we were losing in the last minute of the game in regulation. So it took some execution down the stretch
so I don’t think it’s fair to say we don’t execute down the stretch in close games given we have. If you separate out end of regulation situations from end of OT- we’ve had 7 times we executed to win or send the game to OT, 6 times we lost
shouldn't this piss off florida just as much as us?
I think we play well on the road and also think saying St Mary’s can beat them but Illinois has no chance is kind of far fetched
Tha said it’s hilarious they get to play at home… thought the NCAA said they were done doing that long ago
Tournament records over that span
UConn (13-3)
Houston (16-5)
Gonzaga (12-5)
Alabama (11-5)
Kansas (9-4)
Tennessee (9-5)
Purdue (9-5)
MSU (7-5)
Illinois (6-5)
Texas (6-5)
I agree with this. We've performed better against common opponents (Tennessee and Texas Tech) and Illinois has two independent, higher-quality wins than Houston (Nebraska and Purdue, both on the road, within the last 2 months).
Yeah Baby!
This guy is dialed in - great find.
I never said i think St Mary's can beat them.
That’s right- the way the math works is we are a heavy favorite to get to the S16, then a coin flip against Houston and Florida. In the other regions, every team is a decided underdog to the one seed
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Couldn't have said it better myself for this year, specifically. From an "all-time" perspective, I would hate Iowa a lot more than the teams below them ... but this year, the bottom three are just so easy to root against.
Or Vegas knows the huge Illini fan base will bet them, this lowering the odds.
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
I am not sure about this at all. The Illini have only lost twice this year where the team never really looked like they had a chance (UCONN and Mich). Every other loss was winnable down to the last minute (Nebraska buzzer beater loss, Wisconsin twice we missed shot at buzzer to tie or win in OT, MSU missed 3 in last 3 seconds to tie in OT, UCLA buzzer beater loss, and Alabama down a bucket in last minute). Some of these losses have deflated the fanbase's expectations, but the Illini are still a very dangerous team.
Can Illini beat Houston -- absolutely. They would be an underdog of probably 3-5 points, but it is not a certain loss as this makes it appear. If the Illini come out on fire this week, I expect that the Illini will be a very dangerous out in the S16 or E8.
According to FanDuel, we have a 75% chance of reaching the S16, and a 36% chance of reaching the E8, which implies that if we reach the S16, we have a 47% chance of winning that game (that would change once our opponent is known). Houston has a 76% chance of reaching the S16, and a 50% chance of reaching the E8, meaning a 65% of winning the S16 game. So they would be picked to beat us, but we'd have reasonable odds, say 40%.
Yup, I wasn't thinking we would be favored at all... just not 'zero chance'
texasbestillini
- Austin
Purdue game was an exception. If we can't think of others at the moment, it's certainly not six close wins.
texasbestillini
- Austin
And there ya have it.Tournament records over that span
UConn (13-3)
Houston (16-5)
Gonzaga (12-5)
Alabama (11-5)
Kansas (9-4)
Tennessee (9-5)
Purdue (9-5)
MSU (7-5)
Illinois (6-5)
Texas (6-5)
I assume by "lowering" you mean giving us a higher implied chance (and lower/better rank)
If so, I'm not seeing this at Fanduel. Our first game has a typical vig (some games are slightly higher), and summing up the futures odds of the other teams vying for the same spots in the S16 and E8 shows a similar vig to the other parts of the bracket.
The groups with the most elevated vig are:
S16:
- Vandy / Texas Tech group
- UVA / Tennessee group (maybe because the play-in game means more teams are involved, esp interest in Miami OH)
- Kansas / St Johns group
E8:
- UConn / MSU group
- Purdue / Gonzaga group (the play-in game seems related here as well)
I think there are real discussions about results in close/losses that are meaningful - personally, I think a slower pace of play doesn't favor you in OT if you're the better team. No downhill elite driver id also consider a real discussion.
But, would you really feel better about this team if those 4 OT losses and the Nebraska game were 10-15 point losses? Ofcourse you wouldn't. So I don't see the need to go overboard making yourself extra gloomy about the team's chances in the tournament going forward, just because the losses were close.
Extra frustrating to lose? Totally. Indicative of a problem worse than you getting soundly beaten? No.
But, would you really feel better about this team if those 4 OT losses and the Nebraska game were 10-15 point losses? Ofcourse you wouldn't. So I don't see the need to go overboard making yourself extra gloomy about the team's chances in the tournament going forward, just because the losses were close.
Extra frustrating to lose? Totally. Indicative of a problem worse than you getting soundly beaten? No.
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