Yes sir.
That was my exact reasoning was short term.
Polls & Bracketology - Illinois #12 in AP Poll
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That was my exact reasoning was short term.
Chad Fleck
- Eureka, IL
I agree that it doesn't matter in the short term.
Long term exists as well, though.
Although, even in the short term, I enjoy it. Being ranked higher means that more podcasters talk about it, columnists write about it, etc. This gives me more entertainment. That's the entire reason I follow sports.
Half of our loses have been against teams ranked in the AP top 5. The other half have been on the road/neutral court.
Epsilon
M tipping over
- Pdx
Agree with this 100%. To play devil’s advocate though, I think the consternation comes more from long scoring droughts where we just can’t seem to be able to put some teams away that we should be able to. And I think that as a fan, that makes you feel like we’re vulnerable to losing to just about anyone if they’re having a good night at the same time we’re having a bad night, which seems to happen a lot come tourney time. But honestly, I think the fact that we still come away with wins is a testament to our defense, because our defense gets stops when they’re needed. The overall W-L record speaks for itself. An ugly win is still a win, and while we’re not perfect, if we can get stops when we need them, we should have hope that we can do some real damage come March (and hopefully April
).Rankings matter at the middle to the end of the season. I don’t think rankings matter when there is no resume to back it up. Early in the season it is about perception
Duke UNC UK KU will always be talked about because of their years of success
JFGsCoffeeMug
BU:1 Trash cans:0
- Chicago
This idea that AP ranking and the quality of a particular team are entirely independent of one another is wacky to me. Are they perfectly correlated? No. But a great team, set up well for tournament success, is probably not going to escape being ranked prior to tournament time. Cinderellas are the exception. They shouldn't be treated like they're somehow the rule.
frozenrope9190
- Aurora, IL
Understood, and that's valid. But it's the whole theory of not noticing when the wind is at your back as opposed to in your face. We still scored 73 points, despite the long drought. Meaning we scored a ton of points really fast in the 1st half. But because it felt easy and hit up against the 2nd half scoring drought, we don't give the recognition it deserves. Nor the defense that really held NU in check when they were getting transition buckets off of turnovers. That wasn't just NU sucking, that was us holding our ground when the offense had gone cold.Agree with this 100%. To play devil’s advocate though, I think the consternation comes more from long scoring droughts where we just can’t seem to be able to put some teams away that we should be able to. And I think that as a fan, that makes you feel like we’re vulnerable to losing to just about anyone if they’re having a good night at the same time we’re having a bad night, which seems to happen a lot come tourney time. But honestly, I think the fact that we still come away with wins is a testament to our defense, because our defense gets stops when they’re needed. The overall W-L record speaks for itself. An ugly win is still a win, and while we’re not perfect, if we can get stops when we need them, we should have hope that we can do some real damage come March (and hopefully April
What we don't have is a dude that can score from anywhere at any time. Like Ayo. He could get us out of funks on his own without a screen or a ball fed into him in the post. And even last year we had scoring droughts. The NU game last year at home was eerily similar.
NU is a tough team to put away in general. I'm just glad we put them away twice and don't have to play them again except potentially in the B10 Tourney. And if we do, we'll beat them again. Ugly.
InDaAZ
- Eugene, Oregon
Doesn’t the bolded portion describe every team in the Big Ten?Agree with this 100%. To play devil’s advocate though, I think the consternation comes more from long scoring droughts where we just can’t seem to be able to put some teams away that we should be able to. And I think that as a fan, that makes you feel like we’re vulnerable to losing to just about anyone if they’re having a good night at the same time we’re having a bad night, which seems to happen a lot come tourney time. But honestly, I think the fact that we still come away with wins is a testament to our defense, because our defense gets stops when they’re needed. The overall W-L record speaks for itself. An ugly win is still a win, and while we’re not perfect, if we can get stops when we need them, we should have hope that we can do some real damage come March (and hopefully April
Epsilon
M tipping over
- Pdx
100% it does. I think there is a fair amount of parity in the B1G this year, and even the teams not doing so well still have enough talent and/or solid coaching to compete. But I also feel like the B1G isn’t super strong this year either. I’ll be curious how we do in the tournament this year - hopefully better than last year. I think we’ll do well, and hopefully we don’t come across anyone that has “our number” like last year.
Listen, I’m not disagreeing with the original post, just trying to make sense of the other side of the argument.
Listening to the so called Bracketologist Lunardi and DeCourcey, how in the heck can Michigan be considered a bubble team, they were blown out by Arizona, North Carolina and UCF. 13-10, COME ON, are they basing their team on preseason rankings, they are mediocre at best. They will probably finish in the lower half of the conference. Another one is 7 teams in the Big 12?? [Iowa State]
Let's hope the Illini avoid the 4 line- has spelled disaster for many teams in the past.
Let's hope the Illini avoid the 4 line- has spelled disaster for many teams in the past.
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
FIFY!
Thanks! Here's the link without that problematic S for people who don't like to edit their URLs:
http://bracketodds.cs.illinois.edu/seedadv.html
In terms of years, we ARE approaching that "next" generation, though. Ah, hope springs eternal.
Interesting that Rutgers is the only team that is shown to have a better chance of moving up a spot than finishing in their current position. They are definitely on a roll. Hopefully we come to the game prepared for battle. Also, its pretty impressive that only Nebraska is outside of the top 100. Pretty impressive evidence of the strenth of the conference.
Zorak
- Naperville
I wonder how many of these scenarios Illinois finishes 2/3 but still wins a share of the Big Ten regular season title.Odds seem to be moving up for us getting 1st place. Here’s a breakdown I found on reddit. 2 weeks ago we were 30/30 % or something like that.
Edit: sorry I didn’t see this posted before!
View attachment 15349
Reddit - Dive into anything
www.reddit.com
And Purdue…unfortunately.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Yessir!
Any bracketology experts want to break down what we probably have to do to get in the Chicago regional?? I would love for this team to play at least close enough to the state that we would have a large following cheering them on. It looks like these are the NCAA locations this year:
FIRST ROUND AND SECOND ROUND (2 groups of 4 teams/"pods")
Indianapolis, IN
Milwaukee, WI
Pittsburgh, PA
San Diego, CA
Fort Worth, TX
Greenville, SC
Buffalo, NY
Portland, OR
SWEET SIXTEEN AND ELITE EIGHT (Regionals)
Chicago, IL
San Francisco, CA
Philadelphia, PA
San Antonio, TX
My worry, of course, is that they will give a 1-seed Purdue or Kansas the Chicago Regional and would not want to "penalize" them with having to potentially get past an orange-clad United Center to get to the Final Four as a 1-seed. Do people think we would need a 1-seed (likely winning out and possibly winning the BTT?) to get Chicago? If so, I think playing for the first two rounds in Milwaukee is perfectly reasonable and a great get anyway!
Odds seem to be moving up for us getting 1st place. Here’s a breakdown I found on reddit. 2 weeks ago we were 30/30 % or something like that.
Edit: sorry I didn’t see this posted before!
View attachment 15349
Reddit - Dive into anything
Illinois' odds now up to 97.2% to get top 4 seed and double bye in BTT.
Since these odds were last posted in here, the Illini's odds for a top 2 seed have increased. A week and a half ago, they were at 31.8% for the 1 seed and at 29.9% for the 2 seed.
chrisRunner7
- Spokane, WA
I am not an "expert," but Illinois wouldn't be in the same region as Purdue or Wisconsin if the tournament started tomorrow. Per Wikipedia, which is never wrong:
Teams are spread out according to conference. The first three teams within the top 4 seeded lines selected from each conference must be placed in different regions (with a slight exception in 2014, when 11th seed play-in team Tennessee was placed in the Midwest Region with conference foe 8th seed Kentucky).
NCAA basketball tournament selection process - Wikipedia
Illini in Indiana
- Indiana
I think a 3 seed is where we'll end up, and that's damn good (IMO - not much difference between 2 & 3, but 4 is not good). We need to win 4 of the next 6 in league, for at least a share of the B10. If we win the BTT too, then we can get the 1 or 2.
sacraig
- The desert
Barring an epic collapse by several teams in front of us, I think a 1 is out of the question. I think 2 is our ceiling and what we should be target. 3 is more likely.
I am not an "expert," but Illinois wouldn't be in the same region as Purdue or Wisconsin if the tournament started tomorrow. Per Wikipedia, which is never wrong:
Teams are spread out according to conference. The first three teams within the top 4 seeded lines selected from each conference must be placed in different regions (with a slight exception in 2014, when 11th seed play-in team Tennessee was placed in the Midwest Region with conference foe 8th seed Kentucky).
NCAA basketball tournament selection process - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
If 8 B1G teams get in, they will have to put 2 teams in each regional, right? The way I understand it is they don't want teams to meet before the elite 8 if possible. So if we are a 1 and Purdue is a 2 then we could be in the same regional. If we were a 1 and Purdue is a 4 then they would split us up. In that case, they could put us with Wisconsin if they were a 3.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong please. It is very weird to me that the committee is so secretive about the way they do things. Why not put it all out in the open? What are they hiding?
They also do not put top 4 seeds in the same regional. So you see a 2 and an 8, for example, but not a 2 and a 4.
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