2020-21 nebraska wbb
It's been quite a stretch for Michigan, which overcame a number of COVID-19 related absences over the last three games—including star forward Leigha Brown last night against Nebraska—to go 3-0 to open conference play and move up to 11th in the NET rankings. Brown's absence was felt in the two-point win over the Huskers, which required a historic night from Naz Hillmon to pull off, but prior to that the Wolverines recorded two blowouts, including a nationally televised stomping of a then-ranked Northwestern team.
Some notable Big Ten results since the last post (home team listed second):
- Northwestern 63, Nebraska 65
- Wisconsin 49, Michigan 92
- Rutgers 84, Iowa 90
- Michigan 84, Northwestern 63
- MSU 71, Purdue 64
- Rutgers 50, Nebraska 53
- Indiana 80, Maryland 84
- Minnesota 79, Iowa 92
- Nebraska 62, Michigan 64
- Maryland 93, MSU 87
Last night's Purdue-Rutgers game was postponed because of COVID-19 issues.
The Standings
We're working with the results-oriented RPI instead of projection-oriented KenPom/Torvik numbers, though Warren Nolan's site has predicted standings and RPI projections I'm using here despite a lack of explanation about the methodology beyond "based on this season's previous results." Per-100-possession efficiency numbers, which I've now limited to Big Ten games (small sample size caveats abound but it's more informative than including unadjusted numbers from non-conference games), are pulled from Her Hoop Stats. I've added NET rankings this week, as well.
| Record | Proj. Rec. | RPI | Ranks | Efficiency (B1G Only) |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Ovr. | B1G | Ovr. | B1G | Current | Proj. | AP | Coach | NET | OE | DE | EM | ||||
| UMD | 8-1 | 4-0 | 23-1 | 19-0 | 3rd | 5th | 14th | 14th | 12th | 117.4 | 107.0 | +10.4 | ||||
| U-M | 8-0 | 3-0 | 20-3 | 15-3 | 14th | 19th | 15th | 14th | 11th | 114.8 | 82.9 | +32.0 | ||||
| OSU | 6-0 | 2-0 | 19-3 | 15-3 | 32nd | 10th | 16th | 16th | 7th | 100.6 | 77.0 | +23.6 | ||||
| IND | 6-3 | 4-1 | 19-4 | 17-2 | 50th | 21st | 19th | 18th | 15th | 109.0 | 81.9 | +27.1 | ||||
| IOWA | 8-1 | 4-1 | 14-8 | 10-8 | 28th | 100th | 29th | 28th | 27th | 120.0 | 101.8 | +18.2 | ||||
| MSU | 8-1 | 3-1 | 16-8 | 11-8 | 19th | 87th | 23rd | 24th | 31st | 102.8 | 98.6 | +4.1 | ||||
| NWern | 5-2 | 3-2 | 11-10 | 9-10 | 58th | 152nd | 22nd | 23rd | 45th | 103.5 | 88.8 | +14.7 | ||||
| NEB | 5-4 | 3-3 | 10-12 | 8-11 | 67th | 177th | 108th | 88.2 | 96.5 | -8.3 | ||||||
| PUR | 5-3 | 2-2 | 10-13 | 7-12 | 62nd | 146th | 103rd | 97.7 | 100.0 | -2.3 | ||||||
| RUT | 5-3 | 1-3 | 17-6 | 13-6 | 153rd | 56th | 19th | 100.0 | 103.1 | -3.1 | ||||||
| MIN | 2-5 | 1-4 | 4-17 | 3-16 | 161st | 248th | 234th | 90.2 | 110.8 | -20.6 | ||||||
| PSU | 3-5 | 0-4 | 8-15 | 5-14 | 126th | 204th | 81st | 94.4 | 113.5 | -19.1 | ||||||
| ILL | 2-5 | 0-4 | 2-20 | 0-18 | 174th | 303rd | 185th | 80.7 | 111.0 | -30.3 | ||||||
| WIS | 3-5 | 0-5 | 4-18 | 1-18 | 218th | 274th | 162nd | 88.9 | 112.8 | -23.8 | ||||||
Yes, Michigan has the best efficiency margin in the conference—though they've played a relatively easy schedule—and first-place Maryland has been in some surprisingly close games. (Though, again, schedule strength comes into play; the Terps had to fight off a late run against a very good Indiana team this week.)
The Wolverines are behind only Ohio State among B1G teams in the NET rankings, which have finally been introduced on the women's side to replace RPI (I might delete the RPI column next week, the projections I hoped would be useful are extremely volatile). The Buckeyes recently self-imposed an NCAA Tournament ban for possible rules infractions.
THIRTY-FIVE AND TWENTY-TWO
basically moses malone [JD Scott]
OKAY SO I MAY HAVE BURIED THE LEDE A BIT.
Naz Hillmon posted the second 30-20 game in program history last night, tying a career-high with 35 points and pulling down a career-best 22 rebounds, 13(!) of them on offense, to all but single-handedly pull Michigan past an upset-minded Nebraska squad coming off unexpected wins over Northwestern and Rutgers.
[Hit THE JUMP for a lot of Naz GIFs, how Michigan overloaded NW, and more.]
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