Conference BTT Seedings

Submitted by joeyb on

Alright, I think everyone is intimately familiar with what is happening at the top of the conference in terms of seeding in the tournament. So, what I want to do is talk about seeding for the rest of the conference and what that means for the first and second round matchups.

Known Seeds

  • Indiana #1 - I think everyone knows this
  • Neb #10 - A win and Purdue loss still puts them a game behind
  • NW #11 - At 4 wins, there is the potential for NW to tie Neb, but Neb beat them head-to-head.
  • PSU #12 - I think everyone knows this as well with them at 2 wins

Win/Lose last game and seed is known

  • Iowa #6 - Iowa has tiebreakers over the other teams, so win and they are the 6-seed.
  • Purdue #9 - If Purdue loses, they will be the only team with 7 wins and will be the 9-seed.

 

What I'm really interested in is the second round matchups if Michigan wins against Indiana. If Michigan loses, it's pretty boring. The 5-seed plays PSU in the first round and the 4-seed in the second. So, all of the following scenarios include Michigan winning and won't include the 4 or 5 seeds.

 

OSU beats Illinois, Iowa beats Nebraska (Most likely scenario)

  • #3 Michigan plays winner of #6 Iowa and #11 NW. Iowa has already beaten  NW twice, so this likely results in Michigan vs. Iowa.
  • #10 Nebraska will play the winner of the Minn/Purdue game. The winner of that matchup will play #2 OSU
  • #8 Illinois will play the loser of the Minn/Purdue game. The winner of that matchup will play #1 Indiana

Illinois beats OSU, Iowa beats Nebraska

  • #3 MSU (or OSU if MSU and Wisconsin) plays #6 Iowa/#11 NW.
  • If Minn beats Purdue, #7 Minn will play #10 Nebraska, otherwise Illinois will play Nebraska. The winner of that matchup will play #2 Michigan
  • The loser of the Minn/Purdue game will be #9 and will play #8 Illinois or Minnesota. The winner of that game will play #1 Indiana

OSU beats Illinois, Nebraska beats Iowa

  • The winner of Minn/Purdue will be #6 and will play #11 NW. The winner of that matchup will play #3 Michigan.
  • #2 OSU will play the winner of #7 Iowa vs. #10 Nebraska.
  • The loser of Purdue/Minn will play Illinois in the 8/9 game. The winner of that matchup will play #1 Indiana.

Illinois beats OSU, Nebraska beats Iowa

  • #8 Iowa plays the loser of Minn/Purdue. The winner plays #1 Indiana.
  • ORGANIZED CHAOS!
  • If Purdue beats Minnesota, they will be the #7 seed. If Minnesota beats Purdue, they will be the #6 seed unless Wisconsin and MSU both lose, in which case Minnesota will be the #7 seed. Illinois is the other 6/7 in all of those cases.
  • #7 plays #10 Nebraska. The winner of that matchup plays #3 MSU (OSU if MSU and Wisc lose)
  • #6 plays #11 NW. The winner of that matchup plays #2 Michigan.

 

Below is a graphical summary of what I just told you. At the bottom of it, I have removed the possibility of upsets over MSU and Wisconsin just to condense the data a bit.

 

Edit: Here's a link to a larger version of this so that you can actually read it.:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8516/8540447516_7e4c104664_b.jpg

joeyb

March 8th, 2013 at 4:43 PM ^

I'm sorry that I don't meet your arbitrary standards. I'll try to remember that next time that I need to decide whether to share information that I put together for myself with the rest of the board. It took time to type up the summary these scenarios and I'm not going to waste that time only to post it in a dead thread where only a handful of people are going to see it.

justingoblue

March 8th, 2013 at 5:57 PM ^

the content of a post outweighs how recently some of the material was covered. Reading the post in its entirety for the first time, the content joeyb put together was worth a thread. With good information in both, the board can handle two posts on a similar topic.

Soulfire21

March 8th, 2013 at 5:21 PM ^

Vote for Diary.  Since we're getting all meta-y right now, I'll defend the OP.  The other threads about the BTT are specifically focused on Michigan, and seeding possibilities for Michigan.  This thread is devoted to the other seeds (6-12) scenarios and who Michigan would face in the BTT.

It's a subtle, yet important distinction.  Originally I was about to come in here and post links to the other threads but this is of a different nature than them, and the OP put a lot of time and effort into it, so, while not the deciding factor, that helps things out as well.

willywill9

March 8th, 2013 at 4:13 PM ^

So the graphical representation of the text roughly comes out to the Maryland state flag?

Seriously though, if Michigan beats Indiana, does Indiana deserve #1 seed outright?  (Just asking- i think they actually have had the best season in the B1G).

joeyb

March 8th, 2013 at 4:52 PM ^

It just depends on what criteria you set out to determine who the best team is. They have more wins against top tier teams, but that comes at the expense of an additional loss to a lower tier team. They won more games on the road than Michigan, but that comes at the expense of more home losses.

I think you could pick Indiana, OSU, or MSU and make an argument for them to be the #1 seed. Indiana beat MSU twice. OSU has only one loss in the lower tier and that was against a team that could be the #6 seed. MSU was the only team without a loss the the next best team in the conference and they played them twice. Michigan is the hardest to make a case for because of the loss to PSU, but also because they have the largest loss to a top tier team and they haven't won a game that wasn't close against a team in the top 5 of the conference. To make a case for them, you have to go back to the OOC schedule.

It's all subjective and it just depends on what criteria you set out to begin with.

LSAClassOf2000

March 8th, 2013 at 8:34 PM ^

It took a while to expand to the whole Big Ten, but using the Massey estimated probabilities for the whole conference, the most probable scenario, if we won on Sunday, would be this one:

1 - Indiana

2 - Ohio State

3 - Michigan

4 - Michigan State

5 - Wisconsin

6 - Iowa

7 - Minnesota

8 - Illinois

9 - Purdue

10 - Nebraska

11 - Nowrthwestern

12 - Penn State

The most likely seeding for a loss would almost be the same, except 3, 4 and 5 would be Michigan State, Wisconsin and Michigan respectively.