RaceToTheTop

Please no OT in Minnesota/Ohio State. I hate when television schedules exactly two hours between games when the average game is about two hours and five minutes.

I was there as well that year. If I remember correctly, they put a clown stomping on Illinois in the round of 8 before crapping the bed against Wisconsin in the semis. Friday is always the best day of the tournament. Four games with guarantees of the top four seeds each playing. I never go to the play in round, but besides that day the worst day of the tournament IMO is the Sunday championship day. It never really matters who wins that game in terms of seeding and instead of being home to watch the selection show, I'm usually stuck in traffic on my way home listening to the radio for it.

I'd still say that Franklin's minutes are trending down if anything. The Nebraska game was the only game in 2020 where he topped 15 minutes. His biggest minutes were coming in the first part of the year when Green and RP had some injury issues. Armaan's game seems pretty solid except offensively he simply doesn't shoot well. The fact that he is 4 of 32 on three pointers in Assembly Hall is troublesome to me.

Bloomington is a quite a drive for me.....I try to hit a football game or two because it's something the whole family enjoys, but usually don't get to many basketball games at Assembly Hall. I try to catch them at Northwestern when they play there since it's just a little over an hour drive and I hit the Big Ten tourney every year when it's in Chicago or Indianapolis. For those of you who haven't ever been to the BTT....if you are on the fence of deciding to take a day in, if it's in Chicago, don't, if it's in Indy, do. The United Center is horrible for taking in two sessions because there is literally nothing in the area to do between sessions and unless you enjoying walking for twenty-five minutes to wait in line at a place like Subway just to have to stand outside and eat, then it's just a pain. Indy has their **** together for it -- much better venue as it's in downtown and they even have individual restaurants 'designated' for fans of the different teams if you want to go and hang out with fans of your team.

I thought that the realtimerpi was an interesting take -- they are pretty high on IU. They also don't do a generic home and away split -- each team has a home court advantage/road disadvantage. They like our chances at home against Michigan State better than our home game against Maryland (although they favor us in both).

ESPN gives IU a 32% chance to win. RealtimeRPI gives IU a 69% chance to win. Sagarin has Michigan State as a 6 point favorite based on their predictor over the full year.....but if you use only their 'recent' ranking on Sagarin, it predicts a pick 'em.

I visited a couple of Kansas boards and they seem intent on blaming Kansas State somehow. Idiots.

Here is the sequence at the end of the Kansas/Kansas St game: Kansas up 81-59 and brings the ball across halfcourt with about 8 seconds left looking to just dribble the clock out. Kansas State player steals the ball and goes in for a layup....gets fouled very hard by a Kansas player (should have been flagrant IMO) who then proceeds to stand over him and talk ****. That's when hell broke loose. I couldn't tell from the film if the player who committed the hard foul to begin with was De Sousa. It was an incredibly stupid reaction to begin with......K State could have let the clock run out but Jesus Christ, he's under no obligation to. And it wasn't like he was taking swipes at the Kansas player trying to make unnecessary contact at the end....the Kansas player played loose with the ball, K State player stole it and was going to score a meaningless basket and Kansas for some reason thought it was somehow a big deal.

Another view of De Sousa at the end. https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1219803396686802944?s=20

With two minutes left and down 13, Purdue has attempted only 6 three pointers all game. That's not their normal offense.

Northwestern totally Northwesterning a game against Maryland. They have went from up 14 at half to now down 3 in just 12 minutes of play.

Two notes on the Illinois/Purdue game: Purdue has now played 70 minutes of basketball against Illinois and been outscored 120 to 80. Alan Griffin was ejected earlier for stepping on a Purdue player. No word whether the ejection was for stepping on the player or wiping the $hit off his shoes on the court afterwards.

If Purdue comes back and wins, I'm blaming you. Down 12, but still over 10 minutes left.

Saying we likely would have hung a banner when Sampson was here doesn't account for the fact that if he did, it also would likely be stripped later.

Guess I still don't understand your question....or misunderstand your logic. I don't see how Xavier, UNLV, Charlotte, Davidson and Mercer being good makes college basketball any better. I couldn't tell you how well any of those were last year or how well they are doing this year other than Xavier is usually pretty good.

No other conference in the country plays 20 conference games except the Big Ten. The most anyone else plays is 18. This ends up bumping teams SOS, but it's overkill. And throw in the ACC/Big Ten challenge to boot and there are 21 games dictated by the conference + the Big Ten tournament that follows. It's why non-conference strength of schedule should be taken with a grain of salt in the Big Ten, IMO. The other power conferences have will play two more non-con games and two less conference than the Big Ten. It's like the overall SOS doesn't include non-conference SOS. Let's say team A has a non-con SOS of 200 and an overall SOS of 20 and goes 20-10. Team B has a non-con of 10 and an overall SOS of 25 and has the same 20-10 record. Which team is more deserving? It's incredibly idiotic logic to say team B because 'they chose to play a tougher non-conference schedule'. When non-conference SOS is included in overall SOS, the non-conference SOS is completely meaningless.

Don't know if any of you follow the Bracket Project's Bracket Matrix, but they are usually pretty accurate. They accumulate all of the pundits brackets and give an accumulated prediction. http://bracketmatrix.com/ Here is what the have for the Big Ten through 1/19 using 79 brackets posted by different sites: Michigan State: 3rd seed, 9th overall, in all 79 brackets Maryland: 4th seed, 15th overall, in all 79 brackets Ohio State: 5th seed, 20th overall, in all 79 brackets Michigan: 6th seed, 21st overall, in 78 brackets Iowa: 6th seed, 23rd overall, in all 79 brackets Wisconsin: 7th seed, 26th overall, in 77 brackets Penn State: 8th seed, 30th overall, in 76 brackets Rutgers: 8th seed, 31st overall, in 75 brackets Illinois: 9th seed, 33rd overall, in 75 brackets Indiana: 9th seed, 34th overall, in 78 brackets Purdue: 10th seed, 40th overall, in 70 brackets Minnesota: 11th seed (play in game), in 44 brackets

Minnesota is my pick for the team most likely to fall off the pace. Brutal non-con, but they didn't beat anyone of note.....they beat Clemson and Oklahoma State at Minnesota, but both of those teams are 9-8 and likely to finish with losing records. Minnesota is currently sitting at 10-8 and I could see them losing their next three: at Ohio State, home to Michigan State, and at Illinois. Do that and they are 10-11 and in scramble mode.

No. I can't find those. I can find IU's Big Ten only stats, but not their rankings. Positives in conference: Taking 25.7 free throws per game +8.2 rebounds per game +7.1 free throws per game. Neutral: Opponents shooting 43% and 32% from three. Negatives in conference: Turning it over 14.1 times per game Shooting 41% overall and 26% from three 67% free throws

I am unable to find the Big Ten only numbers. All of the websites I'm finding are for the whole season. FWIW, though, we have shot 180 free throws in 7 conference games....or 25.7 per game. My guess is that leads the conference. Our opponents have shot 130, or 18.6 per game.

With the possible exception of Northwestern, we could see that there isn't a single team this year that has a losing record at home in conference this year. I would venture to say that Nebraska will win 3 of its last 6 at home.

Here are some league numbers.....I know sometimes our eyes deceive us. I know mine do. Note this is total statistics for the year. Defense Big Ten ranking: Opponent shooting percentage: 7th Opponent three point shooting percentage: 8th Blocks/game: 7th Turnovers caused: 5th Points give up: 8th Offensive Big Ten ranking: Shooting percentage: 7th Three point shooting percentage: 14th FT%: 11th FT taken: 1st Points/possession: 7th Turnover percentage: 12th Offensive rebound %: 2nd

Think the tweet goes pretty damn overboard. He was 5 of 21 from the floor in his last seven games and then goes 3 of 4 and now he's a 'big part of a March run'? Not strange that the same tweet wasn't put up after his last game when he went 0 of 5 from the field. I certainly like Brooks and would like to have had him for two to three years, but I don't see how he really goes very far in solving our current issues. Last three point shot he made was on December 7th. Everything that Brooks is best at are items that our team does decently: athletic, good defense, rebounds well. I'd love to have him because he's certainly another option and better than our bench wings, but calling him a big part of a March run after a pretty good game is hyperbole IMO.

Yeah, his Boilers are 10-8 now.

Remember that when Green is shooting.