RaceToTheTop

and yet somehow, even with the 28 foot pullup, Green was the best player on the court in the last two minutes. Thank God for the 16-1 run to end the half. Have to say I don't understand Nebraska pushing tempo. They are getting back cuts and could run clock. They have seven players, for cris sakes, and maybe two with any talent.

Wow.

Establish early. Don't give them any reason to have any confidence at all.

Green dressed.

That really isn't a bad crowd for the Wednesday play in.

After simming the games on PC Stellar with Mack and Burke, I simmed them 12 times without them. The results: IU 62, Neb 46 IU 88, Neb 71 Neb 74, IU 71 IU 60, Neb 55 IU 71, Neb 50 IU 90, Neb 56 IU 64, Neb 60 Neb 80, IU 77 IU 83, Neb 59 IU 79, Neb 42 IU 66, Neb 59 IU won 10 of 12 with an average score of 74.5 to 58.7. With Mack and Burke, IU was +8.3 points per game against Nebraska. Without them, IU is +15.9 ppg.

Their game without Burke and Mack at Minnesota was just weird.....107-75. 146 shots between the two teams and Minnesota scored 100 points from the field. Nebraska scoring 75 points with the team they had seems impressive but they did it on 38% shooting and 23% from three.

Hoiberg said that Mack is 'attending to personal matters' in Texas. Hmmm.....considering he was suspended, either sounds like there are legal troubles there or Mack was basically told that he wouldn't be back on the roster and he just left school. Burke at least tweeted that he appreciated the Husker fans and the chance Hoiberg gave him and that he would be spending the rest of the year concentrating on graduating. I'd look for Burke to land on his feet somewhere next year. Not so sure about Mack, which is a shame because he's got some talent.

In a game that we must have, I'd hate to sit anybody that could potentially help.

I think they truly live in a bubble at ESPN. I'm willing to bet they don't know what the bracketmatrix is.

East Tennessee State up 44-38 over Wofford with 15 minutes left. Pulling for East Tennessee State to avoid a potential (not assured) bid steal.

The Big East is ranked lower than the Big Ten and 7 of their 10 members are in the conversation for getting in with 6 being locks already. Here is a question that I don't know the answer to: has any team beaten both an ACC and Big Ten regular season champion and not made the tournament? IU did it.

If we win the tournament, Ken Pom will probably put Purdue in the top 15.

Good article and research.

Better program, but I wouldn't say it's a better team next year. That offense was brutal last year and the receiving corps was epically bad.

Funny how Archie's rant against Joe Lunardi is still getting air play and twitter takes from Dan Dakich and Seth Davis. Get thicker skin already......if Lunardi wanted to keep it in the spotlight, he's more than capable of doing so himself. Dakich and Davis seem to be the kind of kids you remember from high school who tell their friend who isn't looking for a fight "are you going to let him get away with that?"

And those last minute baskets that have no bearing all of a sudden have a bearing on the ratings. For instance, IU hit a a couple of late meaningless threes at the end of the game at Ohio State and ended up losing at Ohio State by 9.....which isn't a good showing, but certainly better than a 15 point loss. Conversely, Minnesota hit a meaningless buzzer three against IU to lose by 5 instead of 8.

First 16 games, Hunter was 17 of 55 (31%) from the field including 4/28 from three (14%). Last 13 games, Hunter 18 of 45 from the field (40%) including 14/32 from three (44%) Effective shooting percentage in first 16 games was 35%. In the last 13, it's been 56%.

The NCAA committee has stated that they do not look at conference record. Last year Oklahoma was 7-11 in the Big 12 and was tied for seventh in a ten team conference and lost the opening of their conference tournament and were a 9 seed in the big dance. And you shouldn't be shocked this year if Rutgers and Indiana were to go out in the same round of the Big Ten tournament yet IU gets seeded higher than Rutgers despite Rutgers finishing two games ahead of IU in conference.

Whether or not it affects the game tomorrow, I'd be disappointed in a coach who suspended a player for a game and afterwards followed it up with a hit and run and then was back one game later.

But Ken Pom flat out states that the NCAA misuses his tool. It's not meant to be a tool used to pick teams for the tournament. Wins and losses don't matter in Pom's ratings other than the statistics that are used to produce them. It all basically comes down to net points scored in games.

bracketmatrix now has 122 brackets: IU's seeds in them: 8: 3 (2.5%) 9: 20 (8.2%) 10: 63 (51.6%) 11: 33 (27.3%) 12: 3 (2.5%) not in: 4 (3.2%)

The randomness I am referring to comes from how horribly rating teams are on the NET....which creates a double edged sword since it then a team rated incorrectly rewards/punishes their opponents as well. Simply put, I'm not going to be convinced that Minnesota should be at 42 on the NET, Washington at 55, and Indiana at 60.

The whole randomness (IMO) of what NET uses to do to determine what constitutes a Quad 1 win makes the term rather meaningless. I think it's like 1-30 at home, 1-50 on neutral, and 1-75 on the road. So Minnesota on a neutral court is a quad 1, UCLA at UCLA is not.....yet UCLA is a bubble team and Minnesota won't even be in the NIT.

bracketmatrix now has updated 115 brackets, up from 89 this morning. IU is listed in 111 of them and is the third #10 seed. 6 teams are below IU (Texas Tech, Xavier, Wichita St, Stanford, Richmond, Cincinnati). One positive thing is that there are very few reasonable options after those teams in. UCLA is first team out and appears in 43% of the brackets, Texas appears in 35%, and NC State appears in 21%. No other team appears in more than 10% of the brackets.