Big Ten performances so far...

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

How do we knock off the Preseason #1 team in his rankings and still slip one spot? Was MS State supposed to be bad or are we being punished for not blowing out Binghamton?

Mississippi State lost 2 of their 3 games after beating us, including a home loss to Southern University.
They then went down to New Orleans and crushed a decent Tulane squad by 30. Their season opener was a 15 point win over our upcoming opponent Arizona State. They're pretty inconsistent, but I have them #33.

The Binghamton underperformance set NU back a bit, but the near debacle against Western Michigan was likely worse, depending on the methodology.

Our problem is really the relatively soft schedule. That can be somewhat overcome in conference play, but may make us a 6 or 7 seed when we could be a 4 or 5.... (No non-conference wins in the Top 30, maybe Top 50? Not impressive)

 

[UpsetAlert]

Mississippi State lost 2 of their 3 games after beating us, including a home loss to Southern University.
They then went down to New Orleans and crushed a decent Tulane squad by 30. Their season opener was a 15 point win over our upcoming opponent Arizona State. They're pretty inconsistent, but I have them #33.

The Binghamton loss set NU back a bit, but the near debacle against Western Michigan was likely worse, depending on the methodology.

Our problem is really the relatively soft schedule. That can be somewhat overcome in conference play, but may make us a 6 or 7 seed when we could be a 4 or 5.... (No non-conference wins in the Top 30, maybe Top 50? Not impressive)

Binghamton loss??

 

[CappyNU]

Binghamton loss??

It just felt like a loss.

 

[PURPLECAT88]

It just felt like a loss.

As the kids say, "Tell me you bet on NU to cover without telling me you bet on NU to cover."

 

[UpsetAlert]

It just felt like a loss.

That’s super odd to me. Wasn’t it like our first game? Hallmark of good teams is win ugly and move on.

 

[GatoLouco]

Bracketology at this time of the year is pretty useless. But the number of teams per conference is a good indicator of what we are up against. The B1G is far from the number of bids of recent years. Finishing in the top 1/2 might not grant you a 💃

Men's Bracketology: Gonzaga is a 1-seed again ... as you were

It's been one day of 2024-25 play and we already have a new 1-seed. The Zags aren't new to the top line, though.

www.espn.com

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

Binghamton loss??

OOPS!
I changed "loss" to "underperformance."
It was a loss for our rating - I can go game by game and view the impact of each game.
Thanks for pointing it out.

 

[combes]

Not a great out of conference day for the B1G today, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana all got beat convincingly.

Come on. Wisconsin and Indiana got the snot beat out of them on neutral courts. Illinois lost by 7 at Tennessee in a game they led at the half.

 

[CappyNU]

Come on. Wisconsin and Indiana got the snot beat out of them on neutral courts. Illinois lost by 7 at Tennessee in a game they led at the half.

Read the room, dude.

 

[EagerFan]

Come on. Wisconsin and Indiana got the snot beat out of them on neutral courts. Illinois lost by 7 at Tennessee in a game they led at the half.

I'm glad you agree with me.

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

What a difference a week makes. The loss to Chicago State was very damaging... and the win over DePaul didn't provide a ton of reassurance... Meanwhile, other Big Ten teams picked it up...

Team	Record	Torvik	Torvik200	Ken Pom	Evan Miya	PWB Sagarin
Purdue	10-1	2	2	2	2	2
Illinois	8-2	15	11	14	12	14
Wisconsin	8-3	27	17	17	29	22
Mich State	5-5	19	35	23	21	29
Ohio State	9-2	25	20	26	24	33
Michigan	6-5	49	75	45	38	43
Nebraska	9-2	38	57	42	56	48
Iowa	6-5	63	114	50	43	59
Minnesota	8-3	91	138	88	89	65
Northwestern	8-2	56	26	65	54	67
Indiana	7-3	66	60	79	70	76
Rutgers	7-3	74	131	77	76	80
Penn State	5-6	116	107	108	99	96
Maryland	6-4	80	265	72	65	113

Nebraska won 62-46 at Kansas State after beating Michigan State in Lincoln. The Cornhuskers are emerging as a threat to grab a spot in the NCAA field. At this point NU has fallen into a tier with Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State and Nebraska for 5th thru 9th in the Big Ten. In my opinion, of course.

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

Here's an update of the table thru Jan 1, 2024.... All of the Big Ten teams are comfortably in Torvik's top 150, so I also looked at the overall non-conference record against Top 150 teams only... Collectively the Big Ten sits at 43 wins and 45 losses against the Top 150. Against the Top 100 the Big Ten is 29-40. Against the Top 50, the Big Ten is 15-30.

Team	Record	Torvik	Torvik150	KenPom	Evan Miya	PWB Sagarin
Purdue	12-1	2	2	2	2	2
Mich St.	8-5	10	29	20	18	22
Illinois	10-2	18	10	10	10	8
Ohio St.	11-2	21	28	29	23	29
Wisconsin	9-3	26	23	14	29	18
Nebraska	11-2	50	61	53	68	67
Northwestern	10-2	53	3	58	45	62
Michigan	6-7	66	77	62	55	59
Iowa	8-5	70	118	54	46	57
Minnesota	10-3	82	122	81	87	88
Rutgers	8-4	92	142	93	86	80
Indiana	10-3	94	60	87	79	100
Penn St.	7-6	98	104	104	91	98
Maryland	9-4	100	183	74	64	105

Northwestern stands out with its #3 overall rating against Torvik's Top 150. We significantly outperformed expectations in blowing out Arizona State and beating Purdue. The other two games (Dayton and Mississippi State) essentially offset. Only Minnesota faced as few "Top 150" opponents as NU (4). By contrast, Purdue, Michigan State and Michigan played 9 such games.

The ratings flipside for NU is typified by the grim efforts against woeful Western Michigan and Chicago State, who are both somewhere near #300 nationally. Binghamton and Jackson State also detract because we were supposed to blow those teams out, but didn't. Our difficulties against teams that don't have a true center are problematic, but thankfully every team in the Big Ten has a center. In other words our Achilles heel is probably not going to kill us in the Big Ten.

 

[SmellyCat]

Big week. If NU goes 2-0, they'll have wins against the three best teams in the Big Ten to start the conference season and they'll certainly be considered in the upper echelon of the conference then. Go 0-2 (even if the computers expect it), and there will be all kinds of panic around here. NU needs to beat some good teams to feel better about March. Go Cats.

 

[Purple Pile Driver]

Big week. If NU goes 2-0, they'll have wins against the three best teams in the Big Ten to start the conference season and they'll certainly be considered in the upper echelon of the conference then. Go 0-2 (even if the computers expect it), and there will be all kinds of panic around here. NU needs to beat some good teams to feel better about March. Go Cats.

There will be panic here before the 4 minute time out tonight.

 

[IGNORE2]

Big week. If NU goes 2-0, they'll have wins against the three best teams in the Big Ten to start the conference season and they'll certainly be considered in the upper echelon of the conference then. Go 0-2 (even if the computers expect it), and there will be all kinds of panic around here. NU needs to beat some good teams to feel better about March. Go Cats.

If we go 2-0, we should be ranked and ranked high. I’ll take a win and another good, close game. While I would love to see the final four, I’m still looking to see dancing on a regular basis.