Big Ten Teams in Tournament Discussion
- Thread starter Hungry Jack
- Start date
NotThat's because you are not as cool and hip as I am. So in touch with what the kids say. Ask my daughters, they will confirm this.
Why are you looking at their asses? You can see everything you need to see from their faces
PSU has pleanty of transfers. Including Picket who transferred fro Sienna I believe. Raw talent Illinois has an abundance but they are disfunctional. PSU has less talent (more than us but less than IL) but they play as a team
Game wasn’t over and my Purdue buddy was blaming the refs. He missed the travel short of half court gift from the refs too.
Penn State is hanging with the Longhorns. They play with a ton of heart.
They very well might. I think having two CA schools might open up recruiting for us a bit.
Are we rooting for Indiana tomorrow so that the B1G isn't shut out of the Sweet 16?
Nope
Nope
I forgot about Michigan State. I'll cheer for them. Just not IU.
I wasn’t that impressed by ucla to be honest. I think they’ll be a fine upper mid pack addition to B1G basketball. But at what was a home game for them, a day off after we played a reasonably competitive game and they played a cream puff, we were basically a layup short at the end.
I suspect they’ll be super strong at home and more mediocre on the road. Especially if they actually have to travel east of Minnesota.
I suspect they’ll be super strong at home and more mediocre on the road. Especially if they actually have to travel east of Minnesota.
No chance. MI, MSU will always field strong teams. IU, UoI and the rest of the traditionals will field big up years. And NU, Rutgers, even MN have shown they can show up. Hope UCLA shows up cocky. Should we return Boo and Chase, we beat them next year on neutral (not CA, maybe Kansas City or Iowa) next year!
I really think you’re underselling UCLA. They were far better than any one else we’ve played this year. Our guys just kicked ass in the second half and really pushed them.
It’s worth noting that, this season, only Purdue was seeded for a deep run. Frankly, I think everyone knew that a bunch of 12-8 teams probably aren’t going to reel off six straight.
The only errant seed was Purdue. I expect Indiana and MSU to both go down today. Maybe TJD and JHS can pull some magic. Miami didn’t look that great either.
The only errant seed was Purdue. I expect Indiana and MSU to both go down today. Maybe TJD and JHS can pull some magic. Miami didn’t look that great either.
UCLA was missing one of their best players.
Their starting center had a bad shoulder and was wearing a face mask.
So we didn't catch them at their best...
But Nicholson could have scored 30 points against them last night had we just tossed shots up around the basket for putbacks or lobbed him the ball near the hoop so that he could catch it and dunk it on the way down.
UCLA has a level of quickness that easily exceeds the Big Ten's norm, but this years Big Ten centers would have feasted on them... and probably gone home with losses.
Wisconsin trailed most of the game and shot only 1-15 from outside, but came back to beat Liberty. They’ll play in the NIT quarterfinals on Tuesday or Wednesday. Cute.
Last edited:
Sweet 16 is going to be wacky.
SEC will have 3
Big East has 2, with Creighton a big halftime lead
Big 12 has 2, may get 3 (TCU) or 4 (Baylor)
American likely to get 2, if FAU beats
Either the ACC and B1G get one each, or the ACC is shut out (MSU, MIA/IND)
Pac 10 gets UCLA
WCC is Gonzaga or bust
Mountain West 1
Ivy 1
I guess the NEC FDU might beat FAU
SEC will have 3
Big East has 2, with Creighton a big halftime lead
Big 12 has 2, may get 3 (TCU) or 4 (Baylor)
American likely to get 2, if FAU beats
Either the ACC and B1G get one each, or the ACC is shut out (MSU, MIA/IND)
Pac 10 gets UCLA
WCC is Gonzaga or bust
Mountain West 1
Ivy 1
I guess the NEC FDU might beat FAU
Every time I want to say Matt Painter or Micah Shrewsbury is the best coach in the Big Ten, Tom Izzo raises his cane and smacks me in the head.
CCC has won 3 out of his last 4 games against MSU. 😁
Before that, he was 0-11 against Izzo. Let’s just keep beating them now.
It's all about the matchups in the tourney.
Purdue was screwed from the get-go because teams figured out late in the season how to beat them, and you aren't winning anything in the tourney with two unheralded freshmen guards. Did I expect them to lose to FDU? Absolutely not, but they were not getting past either FAU or Memphis.
IU did better than I thought, knocking off a good Kent State team but just absolutely went mentally soft in the 2nd half last night against Miami and got their asses kicked.
We did as good as we could have expected, UCLA is an absolutely legit champ contender even without Clark and was bigger, stronger and more athletic than us.
Izzo remains the King of March in this conference, and got a great draw against a Marquette team that, like Purdue, vastly overperformed expectations and got a higher seed than deserved. Also, Shaka Smart has been riding on his reputation from the one year when he took VCU from First Four to Final 4. Since then he is 3-9 in the tourney and has underperformed their seed each time.
Maryland, Illinois and Iowa were not going to beat their respective #1 seeds even if they had made it out of the first round. MD played much better than expected against WV, but all three got smoked by their SEC opponents.
PSU overperformed their seed and had the 2nd or 3rd best performance of all of the B1G teams, putting a real scare and having a small lead late over another legit champ contender in Texas. Per Torvik, over the last five weeks PSU was 9-3, at #21 in the country with the 6th-best offense in the nation (aside, we were #17 by performance metrics, tops in the conference, but only 4-5 overall with the tight losses to IL, PSUx2 and UCLA).
Purdue was screwed from the get-go because teams figured out late in the season how to beat them, and you aren't winning anything in the tourney with two unheralded freshmen guards. Did I expect them to lose to FDU? Absolutely not, but they were not getting past either FAU or Memphis.
IU did better than I thought, knocking off a good Kent State team but just absolutely went mentally soft in the 2nd half last night against Miami and got their asses kicked.
We did as good as we could have expected, UCLA is an absolutely legit champ contender even without Clark and was bigger, stronger and more athletic than us.
Izzo remains the King of March in this conference, and got a great draw against a Marquette team that, like Purdue, vastly overperformed expectations and got a higher seed than deserved. Also, Shaka Smart has been riding on his reputation from the one year when he took VCU from First Four to Final 4. Since then he is 3-9 in the tourney and has underperformed their seed each time.
Maryland, Illinois and Iowa were not going to beat their respective #1 seeds even if they had made it out of the first round. MD played much better than expected against WV, but all three got smoked by their SEC opponents.
PSU overperformed their seed and had the 2nd or 3rd best performance of all of the B1G teams, putting a real scare and having a small lead late over another legit champ contender in Texas. Per Torvik, over the last five weeks PSU was 9-3, at #21 in the country with the 6th-best offense in the nation (aside, we were #17 by performance metrics, tops in the conference, but only 4-5 overall with the tight losses to IL, PSUx2 and UCLA).
That’s frustrating about our loss despite how great it was to make it to that point. We were better than MSU this season but they are going deeper into the tournament. Call it tough luck of the draw with UCLA but perhaps it’s also due to Izzo being used to going to the dance regularly.
Another interesting thing about the tourney that probably relates to this: preseason AP ranking correlates with tournament success almost as much as actual tournament seed does. In other words, games in the resume from the first 2-3 months of the season may or may not really mean a lot for a team’s March condition and talent wins out in the end.
And then Princeton shows up and says f- you to all the experts.
I was listening to Jon Crispin, on Sirius, this morning. The gist of his thesis was that the B1G performance in the tournament is really an indictment of the style of play in the league’s regular season. He thinks the style of game that the B1G is antiquated and it shows, year in and year out, as less than stellar performance in the NCAA tournament. He feels the coaches should get together and try to rework the overall league style (I am not really sure I understood how that gets done). He also went on to opine that the college game is being ruined by being defense first, choppy, start stop type play, lack of fundamental offensive skills that translate to prettier basketball. This is his opinion. However, he has forgotten more basketball than certainly I will ever know.
I actually saw that tweet, remembered 538’s work on this, and came here and wrote that comment haha
Before Rutgers lost one of their main players, I think they could have given UCLA a run.
On purpose, or as some sort of self-flagellation? No god wants you to harm yourself.
Last edited:
