BTT Prognostications
Interesting BTT this year - predictions?
(1) Which round does UM reach? Personally, I think if they get by Purdue, they win it.
(2) What round does UM need to reach to get off the 8/9 game in the NCAAT? I think the championship game, with how soft the field is, might do it.
(3) Who wins? Again, if Michigan beats Purdue, I think they win the thing. If they don't, Minnesota (I know they played an awful second half against Wisky today, but that was at the Kohl Center where no one seems to play well, and they are the most balanced team in the conference in my opinion)
...is Purdue. Swanigan is damn good. It will boil down to whether Wagner is hitting the outside shots like did last week when we beat 'em by 12. If he does Walton can drive the lane and we win.
I agree with your thought. Michigan has been arguably the best team in the conference for the last 8 or so, and I think that they have a good shot to win the whole thing. Purdue scares me a bit, just because they could be pretty mad about us smoking them a few games ago. There are really no other teams that scare me (Minnesota game was won with decent reffing or even average free throw shooting). I just really, really want another shot at OSU at some point in the tourney!
I think that's enough to get to a 7. The committee weights late season performance highly and we are strong in that area. Win the tourney and we could be a 5.
we are 9-0 in our first games of BTTs under Beilien, so it is not at all what JB's team's have ever done in the BTT.
Never let facts get in the way of a moran and his rant! He wants to believe.
I can think of 3-9 jokes I could bring up about calling someone a "MORON" and spelling it wrong. But thats just me s/
Whoosh.....
You watch basketball, right? I am old, so I assume I'm just missing sarcasm here.
I love criticizing JB as much as the next guy but at least be accurate
Carolina has a lot down low and offensively in general, but they don't play a whole lot of defense. We would have open shots and if we shoot like we did last night there is not much any team, including North Carolina, could do about it.
Don't see us getting past Purdue. Hope I am wrong.
Even our best teams with loads of NBA players have struggled on day 3 as we are a jump shooting team whose legs go dead that day. Also we traditionally get our big men with 2 fouls in the first 6 minutes in the 1st half of said games. But yeah it's tough for a team so dependent on good legs, with a 8 man rotation to go day after day without even a rest day in between. UM almost always will need a top 4 seed and the double bye IMO to go all the way with it's reliance on the 3.
I could see almost anyone beat anyone in the top 7 seeds this year. A lot of parity.
Iowa in 2001 is still the only team to win the BTT after playing on Thursday.
Purdue leads the Big Ten in three-point percentage, and are sixth in the country. Michigan leads the Big Ten in two-point percentage, and are twelfth in the country.
38.3% of Purdue's field goal attempts are 3s; 45.3% of Michigan's are 3s -- that translates to approximately 3-4 more 3s attempted per game. That's it.
Did you see the number of cuts to the basket Michigan made today? The number of fast-break layups? Michigan's offense is designed to create mismatches and get open shots by spreading the floor, and it worked beautifully tonight.
Michigan will go as far in the Big Ten Tournament as their defense can take them. That's where tired legs may come into play.
I think they make the championship game, but that's a lot of miles on the legs of these guys for relatively little payoff. Even if UM won the BTT, they'd probably only be a 6 seed at best, and most likely a 7. I'd rather they save their legs for the tourney than try to win a conference tournament title given how short the bench is.
it's a big payoff... The drop from a 1 seed to a 2 seed is huge
Projected 1 seeds based on Top 25 right now - Kansas, Villanova, UCLA, Gonzaga
Projected 2 seeds based on Top 25 right now - UNC, Oregon, Arizona, Kentucky
It is all a matter of the draw, not necessarily the seed.
The only difference to me is that the 15 seeds tend to be more competitive teams than the 16 seeds, and you sometimes see a 15 knock off a 2 which could create a much more favorable second round matchup for a 7(or a 10 for that matter).
I don't care about the seed really, I care about the bracket.
Don't want to play....... UCLA, North Carolina, Kentucky
Take it or leave it...... Villanova, Kansas, Arizona
Bring on..... Oregon, Gonzaga
Yep the more I think about it, I agree. It's less about the ranking and more about who we draw. If we get paired with run and guns I'd say we've got a good chance at winning.
If we get paired up with a team who beats you by out-muscling you in the paint and just plans to overpower you, welp, good luck with that.
Today's team beats anyone and everyone several days in a row. The one that stuggled against Rutgers goes home day one. We're playing really good basketball right now. We can win out
I'm hopeful, but I think it will be tough to beat Purdue again.
I think they need to win two games to get to the 7 line.
I think there are at least four teams -- UM, UW, Minny, Maryland -- with decent odds to win it. That said, there are teams in conference now that seem to be trending up (UM/Minn/Iowa) and some that are trending down (NW, MSU), so there is not too much that is going to surprise me next week.
(2) they gotta win it all
(3) Wisconsin
Heh heh.
It is pretty clear what is about to happen—WE ARE GOING ALL THE WAY!!!
Really tough to say on questions 1 and 3 because the conference is so down compared to recent years. You've got 2-3 good teams, a few average to good teams, and the rest is smoldering garbage. Almost everyone can beat everyone else. Honestly it wouldn't shock me to see MSU win it this year because their teams always seem to put it all together at this point. But I'm going with Wisconsin.
I think we need to win at least 2 to get out of that 8/9 seeding. Which would involve us beating Purdue again, the #1 overall seed, which the committee would really like. I think getting to the semis gets us up to a 7 seed. If we somehow manage to win the tournament, we could go up to a 6 seed. But I don't think we can get any higher than that unless a lot of chaos happens elsewhere.
This year's B1G is impossible to predict, any team can beat any other team, hell even Rutgers almost beat us and took Wisconsin to overtime.