How our fate will be decided

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brucekaupa

brucekaupa

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Of the remaining Big Ten games (besides ours), these are the ones that decide our fate:

  • Iowa @ Wisconsin (tonight)
  • Michigan State @ Maryland (Saturday)
  • Penn State @ Iowa (Sunday)
  • Purdue @ Northwestern (Sunday)
  • Michigan @ Nebraska (Sunday)

Assuming we win tonight, that puts us out of reach of both Iowa and Michigan, which means only the following games would matter:

  • Iowa @ Wisconsin: Iowa beating Wisconsin gives us a chance to pass Wisconsin on Sunday
  • Michigan State @ Maryland: A loss by Michgan State puts them out of our concern. A win sets up the potential disaster scenario seeding wise.
  • Purdue @ Northwestern (Sunday): A loss by Northwestern puts them out of our concern.

If we can win out, then these two games will decide our seeding:

  • Iowa @ Wisconsin
  • Michigan State @ Maryland

Remember that we have the tiebreaker over Wisconsin (due to our records against Purdue) and Maryland (due to our records against Purdue), but we come out in the middle of a 3-way tiebreaker against Maryland and Wisconsin (due to their records against each other).

As a note, our worse-case scenario appears to be ending up in a 3-way tie for 6th place with Michigan and Iowa...in which case we get the 6 seed due to beating each of them.
 

So if we win out will be get the double bye?
 

Gopherbbdude said:
So if we win out will be get the double bye?
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Guaranteed. 12 conference wins will finish top 4.

The scenarios become a lot easier to map out after tonight. First thing's first - root for the Badgers to lose and the Gophers to win. If those happen between now and Sunday night we'll be sitting pretty.
 

If we win out we will be either a 2 or 3 seed (thanks to MSU losing last night).
 

The more I ponder it, the less concerned I become with the double bye. Playing on day two will afford us a good chance at another win, followed by a shot at one of the top 4. Would a win in the B1G tourney followed by a loss to a top 4 team be any worse than a loss to the 5th or 6th place team?

Examples of paths not in the top 4:

5 seed: Play winner of 12/13, then the 4 seed.
6 seed: Play winner of 11/14, then the 3 seed.
 


balds said:
The more I ponder it, the less concerned I become with the double bye. Playing on day two will afford us a good chance at another win, followed by a shot at one of the top 4. Would a win in the B1G tourney followed by a loss to a top 4 team be any worse than a loss to the 5th or 6th place team?

Examples of paths not in the top 4:

5 seed: Play winner of 12/13, then the 4 seed.
6 seed: Play winner of 11/14, then the 3 seed.
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I hear you.

IMO, I really want a top four seed because 1) a crappy win will do nothing for this team's NCAA resume, 2) heaven forbid, if we lose the game, it would damage that resume and 3) playing another game is another chance for a player to get injured. I'd rather skip the chance for 2) and 3), because in my mind 1) isn't worth it.
 

Well, at this point, NOT getting a double-bye means we have lost one of our remaining 2 games.

I'd rather go 2-0 and get the double-bye than go 1-1 and get an extra win in the BTT. Maybe it's just me, though.
 

brucekaupa said:
Well, at this point, NOT getting a double-bye means we have lost one of our remaining 2 games.

I'd rather go 2-0 and get the double-bye than go 1-1 and get an extra win in the BTT. Maybe it's just me, though.
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Especially because that loss would probably be to Wisconsin, and even if we had no shot at even making the NIT, I'd want to beat Wisconsin.
 

brucekaupa said:
Well, at this point, NOT getting a double-bye means we have lost one of our remaining 2 games.

I'd rather go 2-0 and get the double-bye than go 1-1 and get an extra win in the BTT. Maybe it's just me, though.
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It's you and me.
 



Cayman said:
Especially because that loss would probably be to Wisconsin, and even if we had no shot at even making the NIT, I'd want to beat Wisconsin.
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One of my worst Williams Arena memories was playing Wisconsin many years ago - we were at least considered a bubble team and this late season game would go a long ways to determine our fate. We lost rather badly and listening to the Bucky fans yelling N-I-T was very painful....

No mercy - take Wisky down
 

brucekaupa said:
Well, at this point, NOT getting a double-bye means we have lost one of our remaining 2 games.

I'd rather go 2-0 and get the double-bye than go 1-1 and get an extra win in the BTT. Maybe it's just me, though.
Click to expand...

Obviously. I'm not cheering for them not to get the double bye, just pointing out that it's certainly not fatal if they don't. People (myself included) have been focusing quite heavily on that line under the top 4. Simply pointing out that many good things can happen if we don't make the cut.
 

The only reason I don't want a double bye is I really enjoy this team and watching another game would be fun.
 

I will be cheering like crazy for the Hawkeyes tonight.

If we win tonight and lose to Wisconsin, then the best we can do it's 4th, right? That's if Maryland beats Michigan State?
 



gopher7 said:
I will be cheering like crazy for the Hawkeyes tonight.

If we win tonight and lose to Wisconsin, then the best we can do it's 4th, right? That's if Maryland beats Michigan State?
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Correct. If we win tonight and lose at Wisconsin, the best we can do is 4th (Maryland beats MSU), the worst we can do is 5th (MSU beats Maryland). If we win tonight and win at Wisconsin, the best we can do is 2nd (MSU beats Maryland), the worst we can do is 3rd (Maryland beats MSU).

The thing a Wisconsin loss to Iowa tonight does for us is remove the possibility of the 3rd seed should we win out.
 

Win tonight and win at UW. been a very long time since 12-6 big 10 record. Besides it goes a long way to creating a rivalry with UW because right now it is about Mich. ST. Keep the strong finish going.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
The only reason I don't want a double bye is I really enjoy this team and watching another game would be fun.
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I was just thinking the same thing going down the thread! Great minds think ... ah, never mind.
 


So let me see if I have this straight:

Assuming Wisconsin beats Iowa:

-If we beat Wisconsin and MSU beats Maryland we get the 2.
-If we beat Wisconsin and Maryland beats MSU we get the 3.
-If we lose to Wisconsin and Maryland beats MSU we get the 4.
-If we lose to Wisconsin and MSU beats Maryland we get the 5.

Assuming Wisconsin loses to Iowa:

-If we beat Wisconsin, we get the 2.
-If we lose to Wisconsin and Maryland beats MSU we get the 4.
-If we lose to Wisconsin and MSU beats Maryland we get the 5.

Did I get it?
 

My head hurts

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 

mnsportsgeek said:
So let me see if I have this straight:

Assuming Wisconsin beats Iowa:

-If we beat Wisconsin and MSU beats Maryland we get the 2.
-If we beat Wisconsin and Maryland beats MSU we get the 3.
-If we lose to Wisconsin and Maryland beats MSU we get the 4.
-If we lose to Wisconsin and MSU beats Maryland we get the 5.

Assuming Wisconsin loses to Iowa:

-If we beat Wisconsin, we get the 2.
-If we lose to Wisconsin and Maryland beats MSU we get the 4.
-If we lose to Wisconsin and MSU beats Maryland we get the 5.

Did I get it?
Click to expand...

That looks right. If we land in a tie with Maryland and Northwestern, we win that because of our identical tiebreak record but our better record against Purdue.
 

mnsportsgeek said:
So let me see if I have this straight:

Assuming Wisconsin beats Iowa:

-If we beat Wisconsin and MSU beats Maryland we get the 2.
-If we beat Wisconsin and Maryland beats MSU we get the 3.
-If we lose to Wisconsin and Maryland beats MSU we get the 4.
-If we lose to Wisconsin and MSU beats Maryland we get the 5.

Assuming Wisconsin loses to Iowa:

-If we beat Wisconsin, we get the 2.
-If we lose to Wisconsin and Maryland beats MSU we get the 4.
-If we lose to Wisconsin and MSU beats Maryland we get the 5.

Did I get it?
Click to expand...

We can ignore the stuff in red now.
 



LongLiveMilesTarver said:
It's kind of baffling we could still somehow end up the five seed after the run we've been on.
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We can end up a 2 or 3 seed. Of course we would have to win out and enter NCAAs with a 27-7 record, but still the way things are going between not just us being red hot but 1/2 of the conference seems to be fading down the stretch. It's amazing. We should be fading. We've got a 7.5 man rotation. I think IU played 11 against us. This is the kind of season that wipes the memory clean of the miserable memories....wait, what memories? I know the football program won 9 games and you're telling me the basketball team is 23-7 and 11-6 in conference. That's awesome! I've had a suspicion that maybe we were due to 'get ours'
 

Wisconsin can still finish as high as 2nd and as low as 6th. Crazy season.
 

BillyGopher said:
We can end up a 2 or 3 seed. Of course we would have to win out and enter NCAAs with a 27-7 record, but still the way things are going between not just us being red hot but 1/2 of the conference seems to be fading down the stretch. It's amazing. We should be fading. We've got a 7.5 man rotation. I think IU played 11 against us. This is the kind of season that wipes the memory clean of the miserable memories....wait, what memories? I know the football program won 9 games and you're telling me the basketball team is 23-7 and 11-6 in conference. That's awesome! I've had a suspicion that maybe we were due to 'get ours'
Click to expand...

There is unfortunately no way on earth we could get a #2 seed, and it would be very very unlikely that we will even get a #3 seed.

A week or two it seemed possible, but in the last 2 weeks, all of the big wins we could have added to our resume are no longer big wins. Wisconsin fading like they are, is robbing our Gophers of a chance to get another Top 25 rpi signature win. Purdue losing another won't help us, Maryland losing to Iowa took the shine off of our win vs them, and now when we enter the B1G Conf tourney, there will only be one Top 25 opponent that we can beat. And beating the likes of NW or MSU or Michigan could drop them out of the Top 50? The best we can hope for is for NW and Michigan and MSU and the Illini to all win a game, and then or the Illini to win a 2nd game, hopefully not against us, so we might gain another Top 50 road win if they get up that high?

But the lack of opportunities to add Top 25 wins to our resume has made it virtually impossible to climb any higher than a #4 seed in the tourney, partly because even before Maryland and Wisconsin and Purdue lost, the Selection Committee wasn't very high on the B1G. Now that opinion is only going to get worse.

I'm still hoping we can slip into the last #3 spot, but we'd need everything to go exactly right for us, including 4 straight wins, @Wisconsin, then vs MSU/Michigan, then vs Wisconsin/Maryland, then vs Purdue, with Illinois winning out until the Semis where they lose to Purdue and end up in the Top 50 of the rpi.

And then, all of that happening, we might still only get a #4 seed?
 

KillmeNow said:
But the lack of opportunities to add Top 25 wins to our resume has made it virtually impossible to climb any higher than a #4 seed in the tourney, partly because even before Maryland and Wisconsin and Purdue lost, the Selection Committee wasn't very high on the B1G. Now that opinion is only going to get worse.
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I think the point the committee was sending out was that they put a lot of value into quality wins. Last I checked Wisconsin's SOS was 109. Nobody had quality wins in the conference outside of IU who became irrelevant over night.

You're right, I think a 2 seed is out of play. A 12 game win streak(definitely speaks to committee)/27 wins/BTT champions/being in the upper 10% of quality wins gets us a 3 seed. It's all for bragging rights anyway. A two seed would suck because we would probably win first game in blow out and than face a 7/10 seeds that's essentially as good as a 4/5 seed. I want drama so I would be thrilled with a 6 seed, giving us a chance to win a tight game in round of 64 and then getting our first legit test in round of 32. I just want a piece of the ACC. The defensive tenacity of the Gophers is something they've never been tested with. I'm not going to predict a FF but I have no problem admitting I believe that we are good enough to beat any team. Not saying we would be favorites, but we could beat anyone. There's maybe 20 other teams who can compete like these '17 GOPHERS
 

27-7, BTT Champs and a 12-6 conference record where we would have beaten every team in our conference except MSU(unless we beat them in tourney) would only lock us in for a 4 seed and might get us a 3 seed.

Hard to say if that is our current zenith with the committee because sooner or later they would recognize we have the most official wins in school history. Including a 19 win increase over last year! Everyone loves an underdog getting back up off the mat and who knows how far this could push us up.

We would also have the longest winning streak of Power 6 schools, right?

Fricking amazing considering what we went through last year!
 

BillyGopher said:
We can end up a 2 or 3 seed. Of course we would have to win out and enter NCAAs with a 27-7 record, but still the way things are going between not just us being red hot but 1/2 of the conference seems to be fading down the stretch. It's amazing. We should be fading. We've got a 7.5 man rotation. I think IU played 11 against us. This is the kind of season that wipes the memory clean of the miserable memories....wait, what memories? I know the football program won 9 games and you're telling me the basketball team is 23-7 and 11-6 in conference. That's awesome! I've had a suspicion that maybe we were due to 'get ours'
Click to expand...

Would have agreed about the 7.5 man rotation a few weeks ago but Hurt has gotten more minutes last two games almost like Pitino is getting ready for having to play 5 games in a long weekend and understands he may need some more horses. So we have 7 solid and some contribution from Konate and Hurt. Konate's minutes are down based mostly on Lynch not getting in foul trouble the last few games.
 

Remember that time you needed like 10 things to happen exactly right and they all happened?
 

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