Projecting Our Chances of Making the NCAA Tournament

Submitted by VCavman24 on
We're 12-7 now, 5-2 in conference. 19 wins could get us in the Tournament being from the Big Ten, so if we win 6 more (in 11 games) plus a game in the BTT we could make the Big Dance. It'll be hard, but I have faith in Beilien. If we can get a marquee win or two, that plus the Big Ten factor and the recent success of the program could earn us a bid. And I wouldn't be surprised if this team makes a run in the BTT when other teams might not care less. It's optimistic, but why the hell settle for optimism being the NIT?

michfanisbacka…

January 20th, 2015 at 11:07 PM ^

If Beilien pulls that off he is the greatest coach ever. It's going to be damn near impossible to reach the necessary win total and then our bad losses are going to really hurt us if we are on the bubble.

Tater

January 20th, 2015 at 11:54 PM ^

It may appear that the NIT is the "ceiling" for this year's team, but I am not giving up.  JB is capable of pullling off some incredible coaching jobs from time to time.  This team is having so much trouble that I think we may see Beilein slow the tempo down, "shorten" games and hope for the best.

The odds are against MIchigan, but it isn't the first time that has happened.

BursleyHall82

January 20th, 2015 at 11:08 PM ^

Nebraska made it last year with 19 wins - the fewest of any at-large team. So we can assume we'd make it with 19 - if we can beat Wisconsin at home. With NJIT and EMU on our resume, we need a marquee win.

lilpenny1316

January 20th, 2015 at 11:12 PM ^

I know it's a current snapshot, but I can't believe that beating Indiana and Iowa is good enough to earn an 8 seed in most projections.  If that's the case, we should be a couple home upsets (Wisc, OSU or MSU) away from being on the bubble.

BTW, NJIT has a winning record and EMU is two 1-point losses away from being 14-3.  If our "bad" losses start to look better, that may boost our profile if we pull those upsets.

Tater

January 20th, 2015 at 11:47 PM ^

Sparty is always going to be "in" unless they finish under .500 becasue of the media's continuous Tom Izzo slurpfest.  Even though he has shown himself to be a very good coach but not deserving of "legendary" status the media have bestowed upon him, he is still going to get every benefit of the doubt at every possible opportunity.

Gucci Mane

January 20th, 2015 at 11:12 PM ^

If other teams "might not care less" then might we care less than them ? If so I don't see how that helps us.

VCavman24

January 20th, 2015 at 11:16 PM ^

If the other teams might not care less than means in the future (during the BTT) they could not care less, meaning they are apathetic towards the tournament since they know they have a spot (Iowa, Maryland, Wiscy, etc.) Michigan will care though since the tournament has meaning to us.

AnthonyThomas

January 20th, 2015 at 11:21 PM ^

Yes, it's the attitude the team should have, but we have two absolutely horrible home losses, something 19-win bubble teams rarely have, and our conference schedule so far has been weaker than probably anyone's. 

Gisele

January 20th, 2015 at 11:22 PM ^

We'll see what happens, but I'm just going to enjoy 1 game at a time.  Watching a team that is coached well and seeing young talent improve is so different than watching the football team.

They could easily go on a 5-6 game losing streak while still playing well.

wile_e8

January 20th, 2015 at 11:23 PM ^

In Beilein we trust and all, but I'm just not seeing it without the offense improving massively in the very near future. Right now I'm filing this in the same bin as the "What happens to Hoke if we win out" question from early October: technically it's possible, but not really.

Franz Schubert

January 20th, 2015 at 11:50 PM ^

Michigan has 2 conference road wins already. If you follow Big Ten hoops, you should know any win on the road is a good win. Michigan is now playing pretty good defense since switching to mostly zone and one of these games Zak is going to go off from downtown leading to a nice upset.

LSAClassOf2000

January 21st, 2015 at 6:51 AM ^

Taking into consideration that not all of the brackets tracked by BracketMatrix are kept current in a manner that makes me wholly comfortable reporting the data sometimes (also, the realiability of various models is an issue sometimes), there is one bracket prediction for the NCAA Tournament that does involve us - TNBracketProject has Michigan as a 10-seed in their prediction. That would be about it over there for now barring updates. 

BradP

January 21st, 2015 at 7:37 AM ^

This year's B1G is not nearly the resume booster as last year's, and I have serious doubts whether a 19-13 team makes the tournament from the B1G. Regardless, I don't see a remotely likely path to six additional wins in the next 11 games.

Yeoman

January 21st, 2015 at 3:36 PM ^

...there's a lot of work to be done.

Michigan's record against (using Massey):

  • top 50: 0-4
  • 51-100: 4-1
  • 101-200: 4-1
  • 201-500: 2-1
  • 501+: 2-0

The last time Michigan played a top-50 team and didn't lose by double digits was last November.

The best road win is @ #110 Penn State.

They're #95 at KenPom, looking up at such luminaries as N.C. Central, Eastern Ky and Toledo.

That's not a good resume.