Auburn and USC are not signature wins
Week of 2/2 Bracketology
- Status
Illinois up to #4 in the NET.
Northwestern drops from #69 to #78.
Northwestern drops from #69 to #78.
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
Texas Tech was a home game. Still, a fantastic resume compared to peers, as of 2/5/26. Good news is we have time still to make ours pop compared to Mich.
Michigan could very easily have 4 more losses before the end of the season. @Purdue, Duke, @Illinois, and one of (@OSU, @Iowa, MSU). Not worried about being able to pass them for a 1 seed, especially since we play them at home which, no surprises before, should be the tie breaker for a 1 seed.
What will be dumb is probably not being able to pass UConn for the 3rd 1 seed to get Chicago (assuming Arizona doesn't crater with their tougher schedule coming up - Duke is going to cruise). I feel like even if UConn drops 2 more (maybe tomorrow and then another random one or in the conference tournament), they'll still get the nod over an Illinois team that wins out despite Illinois having a significantly better resume at that point just due to the early head to head.
Illinicpa14
- Chicago
The 2 teams whether we are a 1-3 seed I really don’t want to see on our side before the E8 is Florida or Kansas; whether or not they play to their ceiling both have top 5 game potentials.
Give me a Vanderbilt or Virginia type team in the S16.
Give me a Vanderbilt or Virginia type team in the S16.
Minnesota win moves from Q3 to Q2 to offset.
Last night's blowout basically moved Illinois even with Iowa State and Houston on efficiency metrics, while staying ahead of them on resume metrics (back half of B12 schedule will sort out a lot of that). Still behind Michigan, Arizona and Duke on efficiency in general (Torvik has them ahead of Duke, KP has them a good distance behind the 3). Behind Arizona, Michigan, Duke and UConn on resume with more opportunities to catch at least UConn if not Duke (UConn has 3 Q1 opportunities left, Duke 4, Illinois 5 at the moment, Michigan 6, Arizona 7).
Arizona's resume is and will be insane this year. Non-con wins: neutral wins vs Florida, UCLA, Alabama, and San Diego State, road win at UConn, home win vs Auburn. Beat TCU and BYU on the road so far in conference, and still have 2 games with Kansas, home vs BYU, Texas Tech and Iowa State, and road games at Houston and Baylor.
Arizona's resume is and will be insane this year. Non-con wins: neutral wins vs Florida, UCLA, Alabama, and San Diego State, road win at UConn, home win vs Auburn. Beat TCU and BYU on the road so far in conference, and still have 2 games with Kansas, home vs BYU, Texas Tech and Iowa State, and road games at Houston and Baylor.
Duke is 7-0 on the road, 9-1 in Q1 and 13-1 in Q1+2.
Illinois is 6-0 on the road, 6-3 in Q1 and 11-3 in Q1+2.
Duke's metrics are better and they've beaten Flordia, Kansas, MSU, Louisville 2x, and Arkansas.
If we beat MSU and Duke wins at UNC, I'm not sure we're in a better spot than them to the committee.
I think if we win out & UConn drops 1 more game there’s no way we don’t get a 1 over them. Our metrics, quad 1 wins, wins away from home, SOS, big ten champs.. outweigh a head to head at that point
good call - thanks for the correction.
ptgrd23
- orange county CA
After we beat them by 20 in Champaign they will not look as good.
As long as we keep winning it does not matter that we lost to Bama and Uconn in November.
#1 seed will be nice for fans but we still have to beat AZ, Duke Mich, UConn, Iowa State in tourney, to win Naty. For example if we bump UConn to #2 seed but we are the 4th #1 seed we will have them in our bracket anyway. If they get the 4th #1 seed and we are first #2 seed will be in their bracket.
As long as we keep winning it does not matter that we lost to Bama and Uconn in November.
#1 seed will be nice for fans but we still have to beat AZ, Duke Mich, UConn, Iowa State in tourney, to win Naty. For example if we bump UConn to #2 seed but we are the 4th #1 seed we will have them in our bracket anyway. If they get the 4th #1 seed and we are first #2 seed will be in their bracket.
If we win out, we would have a case for the #1 overall seed. I think that's Arizona's to lose. Winning out, though, would give us a 29-3 (19-1) record with at least 1 win over Michigan, as well as the big ten tournament and regular season championship.
Iowa State definitely has a much improved offense from the year we played in the tourney (my eye test). We do know they run a faster pace and Purdue's defense is porous. We will see how good they really are in this stretch.
I thought TT is home.
1m4tr
Cliffmas
Given the Underwood show this week where he told us that Fletch freshly squeezes juice for each of the players every day, your name stands out here. Are you Fletch? I mean we already have Tyler on here.
;-)
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
I think that's debatable, they just have fewer losses ... for now. These are the Quad 1A, other Quad 1 and Quad 2 wins for both Illinois and Michigan laid out in one list.
Quad 1A | 4 for Illinois & 3 for Michigan
W 88-82 at #8 Purdue
W 101-61 vs. #9 Gonzaga (Las Vegas, NV)
W 78-69 at #10 Nebraska
W 75-72 vs. #10 Nebraska
W 83-71 at #13 Michigan State
W 75-69 at #19 Iowa
W 75-62 vs. #20 Tennessee (Nashville, TN)
Quad 1 | 4 for Michigan & 2 for Illinois ... 7 total for Michigan & 6 total for Illinois
W 81-77 vs. #21 Texas Tech
W 102-72 vs. #30 Auburn (Las Vegas, NV)
W 88-80 at #41 Ohio State
W 94-54 vs. #44 San Diego State (Las Vegas, NV)
W 82-72 at #49 Washington
W 67-63 at #53 TCU
Quad 2 | 8 for Michigan & 5 for Illinois ... 15 total for Michigan & 11 total for Illinois
W 89-61 vs. #32 Villanova
W 86-72 vs. #33 Indiana
W 74-62 vs. #41 Ohio State
W 96-66 vs. #47 USC
W 75-66 vs. #49 Washington
W 112-71 vs. #62 McNeese
W 91-48 vs. #68 Missouri (St. Louis, MO)
W 85-84 in OT vs. #70 Wake Forest (Detroit, MI)
W 77-67 vs. #72 Minnesota
W 79-68 at #78 Northwestern
W 81-71 at #118 Oregon
W 73-65 at #129 Penn State (Philadelphia, PA)
W 74-72 at #129 Penn State
I suppose it would depend on how you define "signature wins," but we have more Quad 1A wins than them and the single best Quad 1A win of the whole list from a NET perspective (at Purdue). We are also REALLY close to our road win at #41 Ohio State being Quad 1A if they were in the top 40, which would make it 5 to 3 Illini.
I think laying it out like this does a good job of showing that it isn't until you get into that big chunk of lower-tier Quad 1 games and especially Quad 2 games that Michigan supposedly "passes" us as far as a resume. Neither of us has a bad loss, and we actually have more top tier wins if you use Quad 1A as the cutoff. However, they have played a lot more Quad 2 games than we have ... in fact, we actually have a BETTER Quad 2 record (5-0 vs. their 8-1), we just haven't played as many of those games. Over our next 5 games, we will get 2 Quad 1A, 1 other Quad 1 and 2 Quad 2 opportunities - so potentially 5 additions to that list above, and what's even crazier is we might be favored in all of them!
On another note, our 3 losses compared to Michigan's 1 seems like less of a gap with each passing day and each subsequent Illini win. Michigan has some very tough games coming up, including Duke at a neutral site, Purdue on the road, Illinois on the road and Iowa on the road. Knock on wood and all, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them drop 2 or more of those and have us pass them in overall record if we keep playing this well.
Just a fun convo because there’s a long way to go. But if we win out, we’d have beaten:
MSU on the road,
UCLA on the road
Michigan at home,
Probably would have beaten again a combo of Nebraska, Michigan, MSU, Purdue.
Obviously have only 4 spots on the 1 line, but at that point, not getting a 1 would be nuts - even if UCONN won out.
And that would also assume Duke and Michigan don’t move off that line either - and they still have to play each other.
If we win out, Michigan would no longer be a 1 seed as we would have the pseudo-tie breaker over them. All the other stuff: metrics, quad wins, etc etc would be similar, but us beating them would put us ahead I would imagine. Similar to the situation we're in with UConn right now.
What is this "pseudo-tie breaker"? Tournament pairings are based upon a complete body of work, not on a single head-to-head meeting. If we beat them but they have a better body of work, they still get the 1 seed. As of right now, at least, they are quite a ways ahead of us. Beating would definitely lessen the gap, but it would not, by itself, guarantee a 1 seed.
To be fair if Michigan beats Duke, losses to us, but wins the rest of their games, they are still a 1 seed clearly. If we win out, we likely get ranked ahead of them as a 1 seed if we win the big ten I would think.
I want to say that if Illinois somehow wins out, they'll be the #1 overall seed, which would be true in a normal year, but this year (like last year), there are a large group of really great teams that will make this another top heavy tournament, I would expect.
6 teams (Arizona, Michigan, Duke, Iowa State, Illinois, Houston) have a KenPom rating over 32 right now. That's absurd. Last year there were 4 (and all 4 made the F4), and before that there were 4 in 2015 (3 made F4, that was the Kentucky-Wisconsin-Duke year), but beyond that most years there was at most 1, if not zero, teams on that level.
6 teams (Arizona, Michigan, Duke, Iowa State, Illinois, Houston) have a KenPom rating over 32 right now. That's absurd. Last year there were 4 (and all 4 made the F4), and before that there were 4 in 2015 (3 made F4, that was the Kentucky-Wisconsin-Duke year), but beyond that most years there was at most 1, if not zero, teams on that level.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
RE: A comment I made in my last post about our 3 losses becoming less of a big deal, it has been interesting to look at the makeup of the top 10 (plus us in weeks where we were not in it) slowly catch up with us. In Week 6, we were ranked #13 and lost to #23 Nebraska at home. That was our third loss of the season, and we haven't lost since. The visual below is an interesting illustration of this "catching up to us" thing we've gotten to enjoy since we have been on this heater!
The following is a list of how many losses the teams in the top 10 had by week. Illinois is always included no matter where we are.
Week 7
- 4 teams with 0 losses
- 6 teams with 1 loss
- Illini are #18 with 3 losses
Week 8
- 3 teams with 0 losses
- 7 teams with 1 loss
- Illini are #20 with 3 losses
Week 9
- 3 teams with 0 losses
- 7 teams with 1 loss
- Illini are #19 with 3 losses
Week 10
- 4 teams with 0 losses (Nebraska enters the top 10 at 14-0)
- 6 teams with 1 loss
- Illini are #16 with 3 losses
Week 11
- 4 teams with 0 losses
- 6 teams with 1 loss
- Illini are #13 with 3 losses
Week 12
- 2 teams with 0 losses
- 6 teams with 1 loss
- 2 teams with 2 losses
- Illini are #11 with 3 losses
Week 13
- 2 teams with 0 losses
- 4 teams with 1 loss
- 3 teams with 2 losses
- 1 team with 3 losses (the Illini at #9)
Week 14 (Beginning of Week)
- 2 teams with 0 losses
- 3 teams with 1 loss
- 4 teams with 2 losses
- 1 team with 3 losses (the Illini at #5)
Week 14 (As of Today)
- 1 team with 0 losses
- 4 teams with 1 loss
- 3 teams with 2 losses
- 2 teams with 3 losses (including the Illini at #5)
And we have 1-loss UConn playing at #22 St. John's on Friday, 1-loss Duke playing at #14 North Carolina on Saturday, 1-loss Gonzaga playing another road game on Saturday, 1-loss Michigan playing at rival Ohio State on Sunday and 2-loss Houston playing at #16 BYU on Saturday. With every week that we keep winning, this perceived "wall" that schools like Michigan, UConn, Duke, etc. had above us continues to come closer to shattering.
In a world where we win at Sparty and any of Duke, Michigan or UConn lose this weekend, we effectively level the playing field for the fight for a #1 seed and we are no longer at a material disadvantage. That is how good our metrics are, IMO ... it obviously all rests on us continuing to win, but we are reaching the final act of the battle to overwrite our 3 early losses.
The following is a list of how many losses the teams in the top 10 had by week. Illinois is always included no matter where we are.
Week 7
- 4 teams with 0 losses
- 6 teams with 1 loss
- Illini are #18 with 3 losses
Week 8
- 3 teams with 0 losses
- 7 teams with 1 loss
- Illini are #20 with 3 losses
Week 9
- 3 teams with 0 losses
- 7 teams with 1 loss
- Illini are #19 with 3 losses
Week 10
- 4 teams with 0 losses (Nebraska enters the top 10 at 14-0)
- 6 teams with 1 loss
- Illini are #16 with 3 losses
Week 11
- 4 teams with 0 losses
- 6 teams with 1 loss
- Illini are #13 with 3 losses
Week 12
- 2 teams with 0 losses
- 6 teams with 1 loss
- 2 teams with 2 losses
- Illini are #11 with 3 losses
Week 13
- 2 teams with 0 losses
- 4 teams with 1 loss
- 3 teams with 2 losses
- 1 team with 3 losses (the Illini at #9)
Week 14 (Beginning of Week)
- 2 teams with 0 losses
- 3 teams with 1 loss
- 4 teams with 2 losses
- 1 team with 3 losses (the Illini at #5)
Week 14 (As of Today)
- 1 team with 0 losses
- 4 teams with 1 loss
- 3 teams with 2 losses
- 2 teams with 3 losses (including the Illini at #5)
And we have 1-loss UConn playing at #22 St. John's on Friday, 1-loss Duke playing at #14 North Carolina on Saturday, 1-loss Gonzaga playing another road game on Saturday, 1-loss Michigan playing at rival Ohio State on Sunday and 2-loss Houston playing at #16 BYU on Saturday. With every week that we keep winning, this perceived "wall" that schools like Michigan, UConn, Duke, etc. had above us continues to come closer to shattering.
In a world where we win at Sparty and any of Duke, Michigan or UConn lose this weekend, we effectively level the playing field for the fight for a #1 seed and we are no longer at a material disadvantage. That is how good our metrics are, IMO ... it obviously all rests on us continuing to win, but we are reaching the final act of the battle to overwrite our 3 early losses.
- Status