Week of 2/2 Bracketology

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#226      
Fighter of the Nightman
Piotyr said:
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.
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Yeah, maybe the overall #1 seed might be unattainable if we have 3 losses in this unique season, but I do think that is sort of beyond the "scope" of our goal. For me, it's all about Chicago. Just for reference for those who haven't looked it up recently, here is our resume today:

Record: 20-3
NET: #4
Road Record: 6-0
vs. Quad 1A: 4-3
vs. Other Quad 1: 2-0
---> vs. Quad 1: 6-3
vs. Quad 2: 5-0
---> vs. Quad 1 and 2: 11-3
vs. Quad 3: 2-0
vs. Quad 4: 7-0

Just for sake of argument, our resume would look like this before the BTT if we won out the regular season, disregarding inevitable shifts in the NET Rankings that would affect some classifications.

Record: 28-3
NET: #4 (??) No lower...
Road Record: 10-0
vs. Quad 1A: 7-3
vs. Other Quad 1: 3-0
---> vs. Quad 1: 10-3
vs. Quad 2: 7-0
---> vs. Quad 1 and 2: 17-3
vs. Quad 3: 4-0
vs. Quad 4: 7-0

Looking at the MAIN #1 seed competition as of today...
- Arizona has 10 Quad 1 wins with 7 opportunities left. They're 22-0 right now.
- Duke has 9 Quad 1 wins with 4 opportunities left. They're 21-1 right now.
- Michigan has 7 Quad 1 wins with 6 opportunities left. They're 20-1 right now.
- Iowa State has 5 Quad 1 wins with 7 opportunities left. They're 20-2 right now.
- UConn has 5 Quad 1 wins with 3 opportunities left. They're 22-1 right now.
- Illinois has 6 Quad 1 wins with 4 opportunities left. They're 20-3 right now.

We'd need to dig into Quad 1A vs. Quad 1 in general, of course, and needless to say this isn't looking into potentially bad losses. We also could look at which team's Quad 1A wins were even more impressive and so on, and I didn't take into account things like strength of schedule or head-to-head results. I'm not up for an actual Bracketology exercise here, and I freely admit I am just having some fun conjecture. With that said, the following three things are my VERY strong gut feelings:

(1) Who cares about Duke or especially Arizona? Let them cruise to the finish line and get their #1 seeds far away from Chicago. Fretting about their losses doesn't seem worth it to me.

(2) With that said, I am eyeing Michigan pretty squarely as our competition ... we both want a #1 seed, we both want it in Chicago and we play each other once. It's us or them, and fretting about them losing IS worthwhile! Not to discount Iowa State or Nebraska, but the Wolverines seem to stand in our way more than those two.

(3) Our main obstacle seems to simply be the number of losses. We have the metrics, we have the wins, we have the strength of schedule, etc. I am optimistic that if we can equal some of these teams in overall record, the balance will suddenly and rather dramatically shift in our favor as far as tie breakers go.

TL;DR

As I eyeball the remaining games and current resumes, I feel the simplest thing to care about in a scenario where we ARE able to win out is for Duke to beat Michigan. I think we should feel good about a 28-3 Illini team getting the #1 in Chicago over a 28-3 Michigan team that we beat. So, I'll be paying extra attention to Michigan games and rooting extra hard for losses!
 
#227      
SkyysNotFalling
Fighter of the Nightman said:
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.
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Gonzaga has 2 losses.
 
#230      
Iloveorangekoolaid
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Yeah, maybe the overall #1 seed might be unattainable if we have 3 losses in this unique season, but I do think that is sort of beyond the "scope" of our goal. For me, it's all about Chicago. Just for reference for those who haven't looked it up recently, here is our resume today:

Record: 20-3
NET: #4
Road Record: 6-0
vs. Quad 1A: 4-3
vs. Other Quad 1: 2-0
---> vs. Quad 1: 6-3
vs. Quad 2: 5-0
---> vs. Quad 1 and 2: 11-3
vs. Quad 3: 2-0
vs. Quad 4: 7-0

Just for sake of argument, our resume would look like this before the BTT if we won out the regular season, disregarding inevitable shifts in the NET Rankings that would affect some classifications.

Record: 28-3
NET: #4 (??) No lower...
Road Record: 10-0
vs. Quad 1A: 7-3
vs. Other Quad 1: 3-0
---> vs. Quad 1: 10-3
vs. Quad 2: 7-0
---> vs. Quad 1 and 2: 17-3
vs. Quad 3: 4-0
vs. Quad 4: 7-0

Looking at the MAIN #1 seed competition as of today...
- Arizona has 10 Quad 1 wins with 7 opportunities left. They're 22-0 right now.
- Duke has 9 Quad 1 wins with 4 opportunities left. They're 21-1 right now.
- Michigan has 7 Quad 1 wins with 6 opportunities left. They're 20-1 right now.
- Iowa State has 5 Quad 1 wins with 7 opportunities left. They're 20-2 right now.
- UConn has 5 Quad 1 wins with 3 opportunities left. They're 22-1 right now.
- Illinois has 6 Quad 1 wins with 4 opportunities left. They're 20-3 right now.

We'd need to dig into Quad 1A vs. Quad 1 in general, of course, and needless to say this isn't looking into potentially bad losses. We also could look at which team's Quad 1A wins were even more impressive and so on, and I didn't take into account things like strength of schedule or head-to-head results. I'm not up for an actual Bracketology exercise here, and I freely admit I am just having some fun conjecture. With that said, the following three things are my VERY strong gut feelings:

(1) Who cares about Duke or especially Arizona? Let them cruise to the finish line and get their #1 seeds far away from Chicago. Fretting about their losses doesn't seem worth it to me.

(2) With that said, I am eyeing Michigan pretty squarely as our competition ... we both want a #1 seed, we both want it in Chicago and we play each other once. It's us or them, and fretting about them losing IS worthwhile! Not to discount Iowa State or Nebraska, but the Wolverines seem to stand in our way more than those two.

(3) Our main obstacle seems to simply be the number of losses. We have the metrics, we have the wins, we have the strength of schedule, etc. I am optimistic that if we can equal some of these teams in overall record, the balance will suddenly and rather dramatically shift in our favor as far as tie breakers go.

TL;DR

As I eyeball the remaining games and current resumes, I feel the simplest thing to care about in a scenario where we ARE able to win out is for Duke to beat Michigan. I think we should feel good about a 28-3 Illini team getting the #1 in Chicago over a 28-3 Michigan team that we beat. So, I'll be paying extra attention to Michigan games and rooting extra hard for losses!
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Arizona can win out but we definitely should be cheering for at least one of the east coast schools (UConn/Duke) to star taking losses. We are very similar in resumes to both schools currently and it would sting to get the 4th one seed in Houston while one of them gets DC and the other gets Chicago. Hopefully UNC and St. John’s both can get a win this weekend. It helps take away a potential Q1 win and catches us closer in the loss column. In this same sense, Iowa St is the team we should want to lose any of the upper echelon B12 games.
 
#231      
GoodePodzMelendez
Unless AZ, Duke or UConn falter badly, the only number 1 slot would be taking it from Michigan. Beat them and win the BTT and it’s ours. If we are a 2 seed, we will most likely be in Duke’s region. Winning solves any questions on seeding.
 
#233      
EmeraldCityIllini
www.cbssports.com

Bracketology 2026 - NCAA Tournament Predictions

CBS Sports is helping you get ready for March Madness with the latest news, picks, and predictions for the 2026 NCAA Basketball Tournament Bracket.
www.cbssports.com www.cbssports.com

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#237      
Fighter of the Nightman
Iloveorangekoolaid said:
Arizona can win out but we definitely should be cheering for at least one of the east coast schools (UConn/Duke) to star taking losses. We are very similar in resumes to both schools currently and it would sting to get the 4th one seed in Houston while one of them gets DC and the other gets Chicago. Hopefully UNC and St. John’s both can get a win this weekend. It helps take away a potential Q1 win and catches us closer in the loss column. In this same sense, Iowa St is the team we should want to lose any of the upper echelon B12 games.
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So to simplify this even further, would it be accurate at a high level to say that if we are looking like we can be a #1 seed...

1) We really want to at least be the third #1 seed.
2) We absolutely want to be in front of Michigan or Iowa State.

If we assume Arizona gets San Jose (West) and either Duke or UConn get DC (East), we need to either be third (and thus in front of Michigan/ISU) or have the third team prefer Houston (South) over Chicago (Midwest). Since neither Duke nor UConn would prefer Houston over Chicago and Michigan/ISU definitely wouldn't ... we pretty much need to be the third #1 seed or have a less likely scenario where we are the fourth #1 seed but the third one ends up being Houston.
 
#239      
Iloveorangekoolaid
Fighter of the Nightman said:
So to simplify this even further, would it be accurate at a high level to say that if we are looking like we can be a #1 seed...

1) We really want to at least be the third #1 seed.
2) We absolutely want to be in front of Michigan or Iowa State.

If we assume Arizona gets San Jose (West) and either Duke or UConn get DC (East), we need to either be third (and thus in front of Michigan/ISU) or have the third team prefer Houston (South) over Chicago (Midwest). Since neither Duke nor UConn would prefer Houston over Chicago and Michigan/ISU definitely wouldn't ... we pretty much need to be the third #1 seed or have a less likely scenario where we are the fourth #1 seed but the third one ends up being Houston.
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That’s exactly correct.
 
#240      
Fighter of the Nightman
IlliniHardwood said:
Ah yes, discussion about a potential #1 seed in the NCAA tournament -- right where Illinois should be. Carry on.
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It indeed feels so great to even talk about this again!!

Somewhat OT, but I was curious to look at how many #1 seeds each current Big Ten team has had since the NCAA Tournament expanded to its current format in 1985. FWIW, I do consider getting a #1 seed to be a great accomplishment worth commemorating regardless of how your March Madness campaign ends ... it means you had an objectively incredible regular season.

5 Times
Purdue (1988, 1994, 1996, 2023, 2024)
Michigan State (1990, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2012)

4 Times
Illinois (1989, 2001, 2005, 2021)
Ohio State (1991, 1992, 2007, 2011)
3 Times
Michigan (1985, 1993, 2021)
Indiana (1987, 1993, 2013)
UCLA (1992, 1995, 2008)

1 Time
Oregon (2016)
Wisconsin (2015)
Washington (2005)
Maryland (2002)
Minnesota (1997)

Never
Iowa (high of #2 in 1987 and 2021)
USC (high of #2 in 1992)
Nebraska (high of #3 in 1991)
Penn State (high of #5 in 1996)
Northwestern (high of #7 in 2023)
Rutgers (high of #9 in 1991)
 
#241      
Illiniforlife
I think someone already posted this, but if we get matched up with St. Louis as a 7 seed and us as a 2 seed, that’s basically 2021 Loyola all over again. At that point, it really does feel like the NCAA truly hates us
 
#243      
Dee_4_Three_83
As it currently stands, it seems like it would be to our advantage if either Duke or Uconn fall off the 1 line conversation and we beat Michigan outright and in the conference champ race. Michigan beating Duke and us beating Michigan might play in our favor.
 
#244      
rdk573
https://fivestarbracketology.com/20...8-2025-26-college-basketball-archetype-board/

Gonzaga wins the award for biggest drop off, while Nebraska wins for biggest climber, not too surprising there. I do find it interesting 2 of our Elite teams have fallen off a bit with Michigan and Iowa St. dropping. Also of note are the risers Illinois, Houston and Florida. All are highly ranked and surging, with Houston cracking into Elite for the first time this week.

1770402035439.png
 
#245      
Piotyr
Boy, the scale and divisions in that chart are completely arbitrary and nonsensically rectangular when the chart is demonstrating diagonal advancement.

Such that a team with a historically great offense and very good defense is considered "solid", and effectively the same defense and average offense is also considered "solid".
 
#246      
lstewart53x3
rdk573 said:
https://fivestarbracketology.com/20...8-2025-26-college-basketball-archetype-board/

Gonzaga wins the award for biggest drop off, while Nebraska wins for biggest climber, not too surprising there. I do find it interesting 2 of our Elite teams have fallen off a bit with Michigan and Iowa St. dropping. Also of note are the risers Illinois, Houston and Florida. All are highly ranked and surging, with Houston cracking into Elite for the first time this week.

View attachment 47267
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Haven’t read the full article, so might be missing important context, but the segmenting seems arbitrary.

If I’m reading the chart right, it’s saying that our offense could be 10 points worse (from 128-118) but our offense could be one point better (from 83-82), which would make us a much worse team, yet the chart would move us from Solid to Great.

To move from solid to elite, we could be 7 points worse on offense and just 2.5 points better on defense. So again, our net efficiency would be worse, yet we’d move up two tiers on the chart.
 
#247      
rdk573
lstewart53x3 said:
Haven’t read the full article, so might be missing important context, but the segmenting seems arbitrary.

If I’m reading the chart right, it’s saying that our offense could be 10 points worse (from 128-118) but our offense could be one point better (from 83-82), which would make us a much worse team, yet the chart would move us from Solid to Great.

To move from solid to elite, we could be 7 points worse on offense and just 2.5 points better on defense. So again, our net efficiency would be worse, yet we’d move up two tiers on the chart.
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I think you've identified a potential flaw in the chart... Of course, at the end of the day, if you score more than your opponent, you win regardless what your offense/defense metrics are... If we win the rest of our BIG games beating both Mich and MSU in the process and aren't considered elite by this analysis, then you know this chart is bogus..
 
#248      
rdk573
This is the analysis this guy uses and the reasons....

https://fivestarbracketology.com/20...1-2025-26-college-basketball-archetype-board/

Welcome to the place where we have set out to use historical March Madness results to try and identify the characteristics that most often lead to success in the big dance. Or simply, to define what true Championship DNA looks like. I understand many will scoff at the idea of basketball being reduced to numbers on a screen, and trust me I can sympathize with that, but what I’ve done is accept the reality that my own eyeballs cannot consistently make correct predictions in March. Data can do a much better job than my eyeballs, and most likely yours as well. I’m here to show you that you in fact can reliably start to sort the top teams in the country and recognize which teams are going to have the best shot at the Final 4 and ultimately winning a national title. Many have tried, often saying something like “no team outside of x or outside of y that also hasn’t done z has won it all”, but I’m going to try and make it more about reliability than elimination. Allow me to explain.
 
#249      
FreshlySqueezed
lstewart53x3 said:
Haven’t read the full article, so might be missing important context, but the segmenting seems arbitrary.

If I’m reading the chart right, it’s saying that our offense could be 10 points worse (from 128-118) but our offense could be one point better (from 83-82), which would make us a much worse team, yet the chart would move us from Solid to Great.

To move from solid to elite, we could be 7 points worse on offense and just 2.5 points better on defense. So again, our net efficiency would be worse, yet we’d move up two tiers on the chart.
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It looks like it's based on historical NCAA tournament performance of teams of a similar efficiency profile?

They basically say our defense is a problem for ANY team but there's never been a team with our defense and our offense.

So it just lends itself to same size issues for any teams near the extremes (like our offense this year).

I could be wrong. I just gave the bottom of the link a brief look.
 
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