2024-2025 B1G Basketball Thread

[847badgerfan]

I figured as much. Can't imagine New Mexico State coming in for a B1G conference game. 

[medinabuckeye1]

That is going to make this thing more complicated to create and maintain.  I'm migrating it from excel to google sheets so if anybody has an interest and is reasonably well acquainted with spreadsheets, I'd be happy to share it and thus share the time inputting things. 

Hmm, no takers huh?

[847badgerfan]

I'm not really strong with that stuff.

[medinabuckeye1]

I'm posting some things here to open a discussion of the tier system and also to show  everyone how the spreadsheet works.  

History of the tier system:
A lot of us got annoyed with the way the "talking heads" seem to ignore SoS.  Ie, I noticed that if Ohio State won three or four games in a row they'd talk about how great Ohio State was with seemingly nobody pointing out that the Buckeyes had played three home games and a road game against the worst team in the league.  Conversely, if Ohio State lost three or four in a row they'd talk like the sky was calling in Columbus with seemingly nobody pointing out that the Buckeyes had played three road games against good teams in places like the Kohl Center, the Breslin Center, or Mackey and lost a home game to a Nationally top-5 opponent.  

We devised the tier system partially to give us a decent projection of final standings and also to better evaluate how teams were doing by starting with reasonable expectations.  Ie, you shouldn't get overly excited when your team wins three or four in a row if they are games that your team "should" win.  Conversely, you shouldn't get too concerned when your team loses three or four in a row if they are games that your team "should" lose.  

In order to incorporate Home Court Advantage our system works as follows:

• Teams should win ALL of their home games except those against teams two or more tiers above them, 
• Teams should lose ALL of their road games except those against teams two or more tiers below them.  

As an example (I'm just testing the sheet, this isn't an actual projection) I have made the first four (alphabetical) teams into tier-1, then the next five into tier-2, then the next four into tier-3, then the last five into tier-4, thus:

• IL, IU, IA, UMD
• M, MSU, MN, UNL, NU
• tOSU, OR, PSU, PU
• RU, UCLA, USC, WA, WI

From that we can come up with a projected record IF the league played a full 34-game double-round-robin schedule:

Illinois (tier-1) would be expected to win all 17 home games and also to beat the nine tier-3 and tier-4 teams on the road for a total of 26 wins and 8 losses (road games against the other three tier-1 teams and the five tier-2 teams).  

[medinabuckeye1]

Next we look at the games that are NOT played.  This has grown to 14 so I have split it into two groups, the seven road games not played for each team and their projected record (for this example) in those games IF they were played are:

Illinois, like all B1G teams will NOT visit seven of the other teams in the B1G.  Of those seven away games NOT played by the Illini, five would project as wins and two would project as losses if played:

• Loss at tier-1 Iowa, UMD
• Win at tier-3 tOSU, PSU, PU
• Win at tier-4 UCLA, USC

Then we look at the seven home games NOT played:

Illinois, like all teams in tier-1 and tier-2 is expected to win all of their home games so this is automatically 7-0 for those teams.  For a better example here, I'll use tier-4 Wisconsin:

• Loss vs tier-1:  UMD
• Loss vs tier-2:  MSU, NU
• Win vs tier-3:  PU
• Win vs tier-4:  RU, UCLA, USC

[medinabuckeye1]

Next, I'm adding the missed games together then subtracting them from the double-round-robin projection to get projected final standings (again, this is just an example and test of my spreadsheet, not an actual projection):

As you can see, Illinois' schedule in this hypothetical example is BRUTAL.  This miss 12 projected wins and only 2 projected losses and that drops their projected league winning % from .765 on a double-round-robin down to just .700 on the games scheduled.  Only Northwestern has a less favorable schedule in this example as their winning percentage drops from .647 to .550.  

The two LA schools have the most favorable schedules as their winning percentage jumps from .235 to .300.  

[medinabuckeye1]

Next are three columns for "upsets".  These are games that do NOT end with the expected result.  Just to test the spreadsheet I've entered what would happen if Illinois won at Indiana and then Indiana also lost at home to Iowa:

To the right of all of this I enter the schedule once it is released along with individual projections for each game.  Then I have columns that total the W's and L's from the individual game projections and finally a column that compares the two projections to check for errors.  

[medinabuckeye1]

To my knowledge, the conference has not yet announced the location or dates/times for the 2025 B1G Basketball Tournament but based on historical trends and the announced 15-team format, I assume that it will be:
Wednesday, March 12:

• #10 vs #15, 4pm Peacock
• #11 vs #14, 9pm Peacock
• #12 vs #13, 6:30pm Peacock

Thursday, March 13:

• #5 vs 12/13, 2:30pm BTN
• #6 vs 11/14, 9pm BTN
• #7 vs 10/15, 6:30pm BTN
• #8 vs #9, noon BTN

Friday, March 14:

• #1 vs 8/9, noon BTN
• #2 vs 7/10/15, 6:30pm, BTN
• #3 vs 6/11/14, 9pm, BTN
• #4 vs 5/12/13, 2:30pm, BTN

Saturday, March 15:

• #1/8/9 vs #4/5/12/13, 1pm CBS
• #2/7/10/15 vs #3/6/11/14, 3:30pm CBS

Sunday, March 16:

• #1/8/9/4/5/12/13 vs #2/7/10/15/3/6/11/14, 3:30pm CBS

[ELA]

I don't get why 15, and not 16.

Seems odd that of the top 4 seeds, the only one guaranteed to play (1) a top 9 team and (2) a team that hasn't had to already play 2 games, is the #1 seed.

I think being the 2 seed is preferable to being the 1 seed under this format.  Your first game might be against the #15 team, having already played 2 games, and worst case, you essentially have the same draw as the 1 seed.  So you could be a lot better off, and at worst, you are basically the same

[medinabuckeye1]

I don't get why 15, and not 16.

Seems odd that of the top 4 seeds, the only one guaranteed to play (1) a top 9 team and (2) a team that hasn't had to already play 2 games, is the #1 seed.

I think being the 2 seed is preferable to being the 1 seed under this format.  Your first game might be against the #15 team, having already played 2 games, and worst case, you essentially have the same draw as the 1 seed.  So you could be a lot better off, and at worst, you are basically the same

This is obviously pure speculation but my best guess is that it has to do with arena availability.  I *THINK* they are concerned that if the arena has an NBA game or other event on Tuesday night they will not be ready for noon games on Wednesday.  Thus, my GUESS is that the three Wednesday games will be sold as a single session.  That is why I projected them at:

• 4pm, then 25 minutes after that one ends
• 6:30pm, then 25 minutes after that one ends
• 9pm

Otherwise, I completely agree with you, why not add #9 vs #16, only exclude two teams, and give the #1 seed the same situation as the #2?  

[medinabuckeye1]

If that's the case, having games a few days apart is likely BETTER for me to see my team at least once, because there's probably a higher chance that one of those days will fall on a weekend.

I thought of something else on this:
It might be to facilitate/encourage travel.  

I don't think that an appreciable number of fans from the midwest (or East Coast since we now stretch from Sea to Shining Sea) are going to fly to LA or the Pac-NW just for a BB game BUT if you already had a reason to go . . .

Lets say my brother lived in LA.  If the Buckeyes played two games in LA every other year, I just might time my visit with my brother to coincide with those games so that he and I could go see them play USC and UCLA while I was there for a long weekend.  

[medinabuckeye1]

I *THINK* that the rosters are more-or-less set so does anyone want to take a crack at tiers in this new-and-improved 18-team behemoth of a league?  

There has been so much turnover that I barely even know where to start.  My school will likely be trotting out as starters:

• 2 returning players from last year's team.  
• 2 completely new former 5* guys who are now sophomores.  They went to blue blood programs (Dook and Kentucky) as freshman then transferred in.  
• 1 guy who played for tOSU before transferring to USCe who is now back for a second and final stint in Columbus.  

If it all works out, this could be a REALLY good team.  OTOH, if the pieces don't fit together well, this could be a catastrophe.  Looking at it from the perspective of the B1G Tournament which expands to . . . 15 teams, I could plausibly see the Buckeyes landing anywhere from:

• Playing on Wednesday (#10-15 in the league) and needing a miracle to make the NCAA to
• Starting on Friday (#1-4 in the league), being an absolute lock for the NCAA, and playing for a high NCAA seed.  

[847badgerfan]

I think we need to see some games first.

[bayareabadger]

This is a weird thing, but it popped to mind when I was looking at the UW roster.

Basically, I’m not the biggest fan of when Wisconsin is “deep.” Like they played 11 guys last year, in part because the bottom 4-5 weren’t consistent or well-rounded enough to really lock down jobs. Sort of like you’d prefer one guy who can do lots of things compared to specialists. It seems like if you play five guys off the bench, in some ways it means you don’t trust a few, as compared to just three guys you know you can rely on.

I have some examples, but was wondering if I’m alone in this (just preferring a tight, really competent rotation of like 8 or so guys). The counterpoint would be Izzo, and I’d be interested in how @ELA saw it. It seems like Tom always wants to test out three centers per half, plus some other folks.