Update: Muddled "Bubblers" of the Big Ten

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SelectionSunday

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Nice resume enhancer for Purdue over Illinois last night. How the muddled "bubblers" of the Big Ten (teams 6-9) are faring so far:

Potential B1G Bubblers Head to Head
#41 Minnesota (1-0)
#84 Purdue (1-1) -- includes road win @ Illinois
#50 Illinois (1-1)
#58 Indiana (0-1)

Record vs. the (Perceived) Top 5 in the Big Ten
Indiana (1-1)
Purdue (0-1)
Illinois (0-1)
Minnesota (0-2)

Record vs. RPI Top 50
Purdue (2-3)
Minnesota (1-3)
Indiana (1-4)
Illinois (0-2)

Record vs. RPI Top 100
Purdue (4-4)
Minnesota (3-4)
Illinois (2-3)
Indiana (2-4)

Road/Neutral Record (non-DI opponents excluded)
Illinois (4-4)
Purdue (3-4)
Minnesota (2-3)
Indiana (2-4)

Best 3 RPI Wins
Minnesota -- Florida State (22), @ Richmond (74), Purdue (84)
Purdue -- Eastern Michigan (48), @ Illinois (50), Nebraska (87)
Indiana -- Wisconsin (2), vs. Washington (79), @ Penn State (121)
Illinois -- vs. Missouri (51), Indiana (58), Penn State (121)
 

That's a great 'chart' SS. Thanks. Hope you keep it going.
 

We'll kick the bubble stuff into full fear in February. Also planning a RTSS column specifically about potential bubble teams (nation-wide) before the end of the month.
 

We better beat Ohio State or Wisconsin at home in this next 10 days, or we might be hearing about the "lack of a resume win" all the way up through Selection Sunday. This is our best shot. Sure, we can say "we took MSU to overtime at their place," but close losses don't seem to have any value to the selection committee.
 

Given those resumes, how would you rank those teams?
 


golfing18now said:
Given those resumes, how would you rank those teams?
Click to expand...

Wow, that's a tough one. There are other factors (to name one, strength of schedule), obviously, but right now I'd rank them:

1. Gophers -- most significant nonconference win of the 4 (FSU), along with a decent but not great road win (Richmond)
2. Purdue -- Boilers would like to see West Virginia hold its own in Big 12
3. Illinois -- was #1 of these 4 until the loss @ Northwestern
4. Indiana -- one big win doesn't get you into the tournament, but I'd sure like to have the win (Bucky) Hoosiers have

IU easily has the most significant win, but that's really about all they have, and it was at home. The Boilers (despite the worst RPI of the 4) and Illini could go either way, but I'd give the edge to Purdue because of the head to head win in Champaign.
 

WanderingGopher said:
We better beat Ohio State or Wisconsin at home in this next 10 days. ... this is our best shot.
Click to expand...

To this point the Gophers' resume isn't entirely bankrupt, but I agree if they don't win either of the next two home games they won't be able to afford another home loss. And that would be no easy task with Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa among those final 5 home games.
 

Bubbler.

Hodger, where do you think you're from, Wisconsin? :cool:

Nice work as always.
 

I'd say right now Indiana has a leg up on the others due to the Wisconsin win. That sort of win is big because most bubble teams don't have wins that good usually. Win another against a top B1G team and win the other games you're supposed to win and you're in if you're IU. I don't think any of the others truly have a win of that caliber yet.
 



OSUfan, do you post at all Big Ten forums as you as much as you post here or do you have some kind of connection to Minnesota? You are hear a lot, especially for a non-rival (ie Wisconsin/Iowa) fan.
 

I knew I'd look back at our home loss to Michigan and think, "what could have been", and after reading this thread I thought that for the first time since the night of the Michigan loss. But here we are, the only difference between Michigan and Minnesota, the only thing, imo, that has Michigan among the Big 5, and Minnesota among the middling bubblers and not the reverse, is the Gopher's loss AT HOME vs Michigan.

Now this win over a ranked tOSU helps solidify our position as the #1 middling bubbler among B1G teams, gives us a potential signature win as long as OSU recovers and wins the games they are supposed to like their next 3 games, but its just as possible that this year's tOSU turns out to be much like last year's Illini. When we beat the Illini on the road, it was considered a big signature win at the time, but the Illini kept losing after that and dropped in the rankings and ended up not being a signature win. Some people see lots of issues with tOSU and its altogether possible that they could lose what would otherwise seem like a winnable game in the near future and could fall all the way out of the rankings. They might have enough on the resume to do like the Gophers did last season, win an occasional big game in the 2nd half of the conf season and get in on the strength of their early season performance, and its reasonable to assume they will do at least that much. But it seems far more likely right now that they will drop down out of the Big 5 and that gives Minnesota a chance to move up and replace them among the Big 5, but it won't be the win over tOSU that gets us up there since tOSU win might not be considered a signature win a few weeks from now. It would have to be a win over Iowa or Wisconsin for now. It wlll be exciting for the next week to imagine the possibilities.
 

Poor Illinois.. They will likely fall off of this list very fast having lost there in a row and now having to play in succession:

mich st
@ohio st
@indiana
Iowa
Wisconsin
 

topos said:
Poor Illinois.. They will likely fall off of this list very fast having lost there in a row and now having to play in succession:

mich st
@ohio st
@indiana
Iowa
Wisconsin
Click to expand...

Yep, every team will have those mini-stretches where you simply want to survive (like the 4-game stretch the Gophers are in now) or the ones where you have to make hay (like the one OSU has now, @ Nebraska, followed by Illinois and Penn State in Columbus) when the schedule "lightens up" some.
 



OSUfan said:
I'd say right now Indiana has a leg up on the others due to the Wisconsin win. That sort of win is big because most bubble teams don't have wins that good usually. Win another against a top B1G team and win the other games you're supposed to win and you're in if you're IU. I don't think any of the others truly have a win of that caliber yet.
Click to expand...

Which teams do you consider "top B1G teams"?
 

If we can somehow get through the next 2 games at 4-3 we are in really, really good shape. We will have done so without yet playing Northwestern or Nebraska, while we will have played all of the first tier teams. One of these days the Hollins boys are going to go off- it might as well be against Iowa or Wisky or both.
 

bga1 said:
If we can somehow get through the next 2 games at 4-3 we are in really, really good shape. We will have done so without yet playing Northwestern or Nebraska, while we will have played all of the first tier teams. One of these days the Hollins boys are going to go off- it might as well be against Iowa or Wisky or both.
Click to expand...

Dre Hollins is a badger killer. Westbrook 2.0. I have a good feeling about next week's game
 

I will be surprised if the Gophers aren't favored to beat Wisconsin. On a neutral court, yes, the Badgers are maybe a 3-point favorite, but not at Williams Arena.
 

SelectionSunday said:
I will be surprised if the Gophers aren't favored to beat Wisconsin. On a neutral court, yes, the Badgers are maybe a 3-point favorite, but not at Williams Arena.
Click to expand...

They have more shooters than I ever remember. I would be surprised to see us favored even with the Barn advantage.
 


OK, how about mildly surprised?:)

Certainly wouldn't expect the line to be any more than the OSU game was (Gophers +3).
 

MadtownGopher said:
OSUfan, do you post at all Big Ten forums as you as much as you post here or do you have some kind of connection to Minnesota? You are hear a lot, especially for a non-rival (ie Wisconsin/Iowa) fan.
Click to expand...

No, I rarely post on other teams' forums. I like this forum. :D
 

SelectionSunday said:
Which teams do you consider "top B1G teams"?
Click to expand...

I have long thought the top-4 this year was UW, MSU, OSU and Iowa. So those are the ones I thought were the top teams that a win over is most valuable. Maybe Michigan is better than I thought but I doubt it, I had them at #5 for a while - a win over them is likely a win over a tourney team, so a good, solid win although probably not as good in quality as the top 4. So now along with Indiana the Gophers have one of those wins, too, and are right there now maybe ahead of Indiana in the mid-tier teams. Still a shot to catch Michigan obviously.

OSU will still win their share of games (~25 overall), although this year they aren't quite as good as the past 4 years, they are probably going to be around a #5 seed in the end. They just struggle against the zone defense teams with Craft and Scott leading the team and being much more effective driving than shooting.
 

SelectionSunday said:
I will be surprised if the Gophers aren't favored to beat Wisconsin. On a neutral court, yes, the Badgers are maybe a 3-point favorite, but not at Williams Arena.
Click to expand...

It will probably come down to how we play against Iowa. The Gophers appear to be hitting their stride......but that 12 minute stretch of zero FG's against MSU has me worried. I'm hoping that these consistency issues have simply been due to the new coaching staff and the addition of several new players. If Austin can get back on track, we could be a very surprising team this year.
 

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