2018-2019 B1G Basketball Thread

[Anonymous Coward]

People clearly like the tournament. In that sense, it overwhelmingly succeeds as an event. It only fails for those who may or may not like the entertainment but certainly disprefer that this is what crowns a champion. 

Usually this perspective comes from the "purist" or "theoretical champion" corner. Because if your theoretical definition of a champion is "Truly the best team that season, with zero mistakes in crowning that team acceptable," then the 64-bit bracket inevitably makes those people into curmudgeons.

But there is also no obvious solution to this "problem," because if this system were traded for a MNC poll to finish the regular season or a 10x smaller tournament, then - sure - the theoreticians would be happier but the more populous entertainment junkies would be bitter.

TLDR - the MBB championship is far from a pure championship. Sometimes quite average teams ostensibly knock out the most deserving champs or - triplegasp - an average team goes on an anomalous run to become the actual champion. But it's entertaining so most people don't care.

[Brutus Buckeye]

I strongly disagree with you @Brutus Buckeye for the reason stated by @FearlessF but I want to expand on it a bit.  
First, the NCAA Tournament already favors teams from crappy conferences because all they have to do is to win their crappy conference tournament.  In many cases that is substantially easier than compiling a decent record in a conference like ours.  
I'll use Gonzaga's West Coast Conference as an example.  Per the net rankings, the WCC members are ranked:

• #2 Gonzaga
• #34 St. Mary's
• #72 San Francisco
• #85 BYU
• #99 San Diego
• #142 Loyola Marymount
• #167 Peperdine
• #183 Santa Clara
• #213 Pacific
• #326 Portland

Going .500 in that conference would be easy even for a bad B1G team.  

Here are the NET rankings for the B1G:

• #8 MSU
• #10 M
• #12 PU
• #15 UW
• #26 UMD
• #42 IA
• #49 PSU
• #51 IU
• #52 UNL
• #55 tOSU
• #56 MN
• #88 NU
• #100 RU
• #105 IL

It would be ridiculously unfair to major conference teams to require them to achieve a .500 ranking in a gauntlet like the B1G.  Note that half of the WCC's teams would be the worst team in the B1G by far.  Five of the B1G's 14 teams would be at least the second best team in the WCC.  

One can criticize MSU's two losses to #51 IU, but realize that in their entire conference slate Gonzaga only played three games against teams as good as Indiana, their three games against Saint Mary's.  Gonzaga went 2-1.  In games against teams at least that good the Spartans went:

• 2-0 against #10 M
• 1-1 against #12 PU
• 1-0 against #15 UW
• 1-0 against #26 UMD
• 2-0 against #42 IA
• 1-0 against #49 PSU
• 0-2 against #42 IU

Another reason is unbalanced schedules.  In the B1G, of course, we play 20 games against 13 teams meaning that we play:

• Three on the road only
• Three at home only, and
• Seven both home and road.  

This can be a humongous difference.  Consider two hypothetical league schedules that Ohio State could have been assigned:
Hypothetical Schedule #1:

• MSU, M, and PU at home only
• UW, UMD, and IA on the road only
• The rest (PSU, IU, UNL, MN, NU, RU, and IL) twice each

Hypothetical Schedule #2:

• NU, RU, and IL on the road only
• MN, UNL, and IU at home only
• The rest (MSU, M, PU, UW, UMD, IA, PSU) twice each

A team that goes .500 on hypothetical schedule #2 should absolutely be in the tournament.  A team that goes .500 against hypothetical schedule #1 is a different thing entirely.  

A team should absolutely not be excluded from the tournament based on having a tougher league schedule.  The teams in the tournament should be the auto-qualifiers (I only reluctantly accept that) and the best remaining teams in the country as at-large representatives.  

Finally, for anyone who thinks the NCAA does not favor crappy conference teams, please note that major conference teams have won six of the last seven tournaments played to determine the best team left out of the NCAA.  That includes two B1G teams (PSU in 2018 and MN in 2014).  Prior to that minor conferences won a couple and then we are right back to major conference teams again.  

NIT winners:

• PSU in 2018
• TCU in 2017
• George Washington in 2016
• Stanford in 2015
• Minnesota in 2014
• Baylor in 2013
• Stanford in 2012
• Wichita State in 2011
• Dayton in 2010
• PSU in 2009
• tOSU in 2008
• WVU in 2007
• USCe in 2006
• USCe in 2005
• Michigan in 2004

Note that the best team left out of the NCAA tournament has been from our league five times in the last 15 years.  There is no reason whatsoever to make this disparity even worse such that it favors teams from crappy conferences more than it already does.  

Yeah, I am sure that the idea would be an assault upon your statistical brain, and I'm not trying to make an "all conferences are created equal" argument. But for the sake of the integrity of both the Tournament and the Regular Season there has to be a line drawn somewhere. Loading up the field with a bunch of teams that were not even remotely competitive in Conference play is just not a good look, imo.  

[RestingB!tchFace]

People clearly like the tournament. In that sense, it overwhelmingly succeeds as an event. It only fails for those who may or may not like the entertainment but certainly disprefer that this is what crowns a champion.

Usually this perspective comes from the "purist" or "theoretical champion" corner. Because if your theoretical definition of a champion is "Truly the best team that season, with zero mistakes in crowning that team acceptable," then the 64-bit bracket inevitably makes those people into curmudgeons.

But there is also no obvious solution to this "problem," because if this system were traded for a MNC poll to finish the regular season or a 10x smaller tournament, then - sure - the theoreticians would be happier but the more populous entertainment junkies would be bitter.

TLDR - the MBB championship is far from a pure championship. Sometimes quite average teams ostensibly knock out the most deserving champs or - triplegasp - an average team goes on an anomalous run to become the actual champion. But it's entertaining so most people don't care.

The problem is.....how do you truly determine WHO the best team is?  In the pros.....NBA, NHL, and MLB specifically.....multi-game series imo do a pretty good job of determining the "best" team and crowning a true champion.  The NFL not as much since one game can go the wrong way or be decided based on a fluke.  Same goes for the NCAA Tournament.  But what would be a better system?  There are too many teams that could make a claim to be in a multi-game tournament bracket if the NCAA were to go to something similar to the NBA.

[847badgerfan]

Welcome back, my friend.

[RestingB!tchFace]

Welcome back, my friend.

Boy...I was sweating out that game on Sunday.  I was getting worried that the Badgers were going to let me down by losing...which I don't think has ever been the case.

[847badgerfan]

Boy...I was sweating out that game on Sunday.  I was getting worried that the Badgers were going to let me down by losing...which I don't think has ever been the case.

I didn't see it. I was on a boat in Palm Beach. In hindsight, I'm really glad about both.   

[RestingB!tchFace]

I didn't see it. I was on a boat in Palm Beach. In hindsight, I'm really glad about both.  

Nice!  And still came away with the win.  Everyone wins except for the Bucks.

[bayareabadger]

I was thinking about Medina arguing " the NCAA Tournament already favors teams from crappy conferences."

It's an interesting phrasing because it's this weird brand of half truth.

It favors them in the sense that they simply do not have to be as good.

But of course, it doesn't actually favor them. They don't have any leeway. They have the conference tournament. They lack the funds, the stature to do anything but play long-odds games, and if they're good enough to win those, they might just get blackballed from doing so. They're not pulled into exempt tournaments where they can build resumes.

It's such a strightline approach. it favors them as an idea, but of course, Penn State in any given year has ample opportunity to go to the dance compared to most anyone else. I suppose if it favored them individually, Penn State would try to find a way to play in a bad league rather than teams trying to move to better ones.

Anyway, this event isn't about quality. College basketball isn't really to be honest. Quality is in the NBA.I'm here for stories and moments, and the Tournament (plus the other tournaments) are just fine on that front.

[847badgerfan]

Bucks? Milwaukee?

[RestingB!tchFace]

Bucks? Milwaukee?

Buckeyes.

[847badgerfan]

Buckeyes.

Correction needed. 

Buckasswipes.

[RestingB!tchFace]

Correction needed.

Buckasswipes.

Fair.

[847badgerfan]

Bed time for this old fart. 






Go, U Northwestern, Fight for Vic-Tor-EEEEE. 






For Marcel, of course.

[MarqHusker]

Danny Nee and I think Miles taking a digger after a triumph over Rutger was hilarious.