bubble watch

Harbaugh gonna Harbaugh. I'd be more surprised if this story ended up involving anyone else:

To the surprise of Ofc Cooper, the good Samaritan was @CoachJim4UM who wanted to help clear the road. Ofc Cooper then gave Coach a pair of work gloves and the two of them went to work. (2/3)

— Ann Arbor Police (@A2Police) February 23, 2023

I went to Home Depot once and the first person I saw was Harbaugh, wandering around looking for something like he was just a person, a normal person.

Your new punching bag. The NCAA has a new president. Here he is not saying "absolutely not" to a thing:

Asked if SEC football players should be paid—a question that his predecessors would have answered with a resounding “No”—Baker took a different tack. He paused, then said it was something he planned to address with his member schools and conferences. Pressed on what those conversations might entail, he remained vague.

“I guess what I would say is that I’m planning to have a conversation with the membership about change,” he said, adding that he preferred to have those talks before saying more. “We’ll see what that kind of change can look like. But I certainly believe there will be change.”

This may be more about the writing on the wall than any genuine change of heart from Generic Suit in Charge Of NCAA. But at least that's something? Baker also says you "don't have to treat everyone the same… and probably shouldn't," which is sensible enough.

[After THE JUMP: we are willing to compromise on toe length.]

PROGRAMMING NOTE: We are planning to do a watch-along on Thursday night during Michigan vs. Illinois! We did one such event for the Michigan/MSU hockey game a few weeks back and got good reviews on it, so we're trying it out for basketball, with the added bonus of being a national game on ESPN, so everyone should be able to watch-along if they so choose. I'll advertise it again a couple more times before Thursday just to give everyone notice, and the link to the stream will be posted on the site on Thursday before we go live at 7 pm EST. Join us if you want! 

After being buried by this very site just 5.5 weeks ago, your Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team is back in the NCAA Tournament hunt after three straight big wins, beating MSU and Wisconsin at home and Rutgers on the road last Thursday. The NCAA Tournament, while still not likely yet, is very much in the conversation as we enter the final week of the regular season. The Big Ten Tournament picture is also extremely unsettled, with a pile up of teams from the two through ten spot in the conference, Michigan included. Today we'll be looking at where Michigan sits in terms of their hopes of making the NCAA Tournament, what they need to do to get in and who to cheer for/against nationally, as well as a quick look at the final week of jostling for BTT seeding, with a brief rooting guide there too: 

Michigan's Bubble Profile 

The Wolverines enter this week as one of the most bubbly teams in the country (bubblicious??), either one of the very last teams in or the very first teams out, depending on who you look at. Among the big brand bracketologists, Jerry Palm of CBS has Michigan the first team out and Joe Lunardi of ESPN has Michigan the fourth team out. 1-3-1 Sports, one of the Bracket Matrix's best bracketologists over the last four seasons, has Michigan as the third team out. In the Matrix's most recent bracket update, Michigan appeared in six of 97 brackets, indicating that the team still has work to do to be in the tournament field, but they are within striking distance of doing so. 

As for Michigan's credentials, Torvik presents their team sheet as the following: 55th in NET, 48th in KPI and 53rd in strength of record (SOR) for an average of 50.5 among the resume metrics, and 54th in BPI, 41st in KenPom, and 31st in Sagarin for an average of 42nd among the efficiency metrics. In terms of their wins, Michigan is 3-10 in Q1 games (1-4 in Q1A), 6-1 in Q2 games, 4-0 in Q3 games, and 4-1 in Q4 games. The biggest impediment to Michigan's resume at this point in time may well be that anchor of a loss to Central Michigan in late December, as the Chips are a dreadful team that no good MAC team should be losing to, let alone an at-large tournament contender. CMU is 10-19 on the season and 5-11 in MAC play, tied for 3rd worst in the league. They rank 318th in NET and 326th in KenPom. It was a disastrous loss no matter how you slice it. 

Among the eight teams in CBS' last four in/first four out bucket, Michigan and ASU are the only teams with a Q4 loss (ASU lost to Texas Southern on the road). It's something that seriously hurts bubble teams and it's a major issue right now. On the flip side, though, the Wolverines can argue that they are tied for 2nd in the B1G, a conference poised to put up to nine teams in the NCAA Tournament. If that spot in the conference can be maintained when the regular season is over, it will be hard to keep the Maize & Blue out. Of course, the flip side of this argument is that while Michigan has been good in B1G play (second best in net efficiency in conference games!), their non-conference showing was a big fat goose egg. In some ways it reminds me of the 2019 and 2020 Michigan Hockey teams under Mel Pearson who would play terribly the first few months of the season and then catch fire in conference play in January/February, but would still be a fringe bubble team because they're having to dig themselves out of a giant hole created in the first half of the season. 

This one still hurts [Bill Rapai]

Michigan's Q1 record of 3-10 is not good, but playing 13 Q1 games does show how competitive Michigan's schedule was and how deep the B1G is. When you consider the 6-1 record against Q2, a 9-11 record in Q1/Q2 games isn't too shabby and not far off from other bubble squads (Wisconsin = 10-11, OKST = 8-13, WVU = 10-13, Boise St. = 9-5, ASU = 9-8, UNC = 7-11). At this point you can say that Michigan can shore themselves up if they can add a couple more Q1 wins to that bucket, so that their Q1/Q2 record isn't just off the backs of Q2 wins. Thankfully, the schedule sets up rather favorably for that the rest of the way, with two Q1-A road games this week and then the BTT looming. 

Looking at the remaining schedule, Michigan would feel good about itself if it can win one of those two games this week. Doing so would add another "signature" win to the resume, bump all the metrics up further, and keep your Q1/Q2 record in check, as opposed to sliding to 9-13. Winning none of the games this week puts the Wolverines in a brutal spot entering the BTT, with Torvik's Teamcast at that point giving them 3% odds of making it in as an at-large. Winning one of the two bumps the odds up to 45.8% if the win is against Illinois, and 56.4% if it's against Indiana. Make-it-or-break-it time.

Let's say they beat Illinois and lose to Indiana. In that case the first BTT opponent is likely someone like Iowa. What if you win that game? At that point Torvik has it at 66% for an at-large bid and you're feeling pretty decent going into Selection Sunday. In other words, that's the formula: go at least 1-1 this week, win your first BTT game, and the odds are more likely than not that Michigan can make it in. It'd also be nice to get some help... 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Rooting and seeding scenarios that will make your head spin!]

Well… we're saying there's a chance? Michigan picked up its first marquee victory of the year by stomping a Purdue team that had suffered its other three losses by a collective total of ten points. This Michigan team looks like a tourney lock. Penn State Michigan looks like an NIT team. The travails of youth.