Oregon State is pretty much Oregon without the Nike money. But I think that’s kept their fanbase grounded. Oregon fans have become impossible to deal with. 
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Oklahoma State accepts their postseason ban.
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Wayne Tinkle 4 IU.
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Illinois got Krutwiged.
Braden Norris made the right decision transferring from Greg Kampe to Porter Moser.
Thoughts on the Big Ten:
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I tend to agree with the idea that Kenpom’s rankings this year might be a bit off due to the small non-conference sample size - our main evidence for the league being strong was the Big Ten-ACC Challenge, and the ACC is really down this year.
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That said, the B1G has also had crummy luck in this tournament, going 0-3 in overtime, and then Rutgers lost yesterday after leading for 90% of the second half. If the league goes 2-2 in those games, there would be less talk that it’s overrated.
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But then again, you look at the B1G coaches and outside of Izzo (who’s become very feast/famine in recent years) where’s the good NCAA tournament experience? Holtmann, Underwood, McCaffery and Gard haven’t done much in the tournament in their careers. Painter’s been about average. Juwan’s in his first tournament. Maybe this crop of B1G coaches isn’t quite as strong as say, a decade ago when we had Matta, Ryan, Weber, Crean, Tubby Smith - or just less experienced, anyway.
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Very interesting commentary on the metrics vs postseason success and I can’t help but think that a lot of this talk is influenced by a fan base that is already assuming a Michigan loss tonight or next week. If Michigan hangs on after an important injury (or Iowa powers through Gonzaga), this wouldn’t be an ideal year for the B1G but it also wouldn’t be shattering. Before we conclude anything as to the metrics and how this postseason has gone, let’s get to April.
The conversation here stayed pretty rational last night, I see.
I guess I’m just confused by this argument that lots of early-round upsets mean that KenPom was wrong all year. Wasn’t KenPom what told us that Loyola was underseeded by a lot and could potentially knock off Illinois? Does Illinois losing that game mean it wasn’t good?
Obviously, it means its season is a disappointment but I don’t see how it really says anything about Illinois as a team.
Was Oral Roberts misranked by KenPom when they were 11-10 (8-5 in the Summit)? Or did they just start to figure things out and play the best basketball of their lives at the right time?
I just have a hard time taking what has happened and making it say something about the entire conference.
I might have miscounted but here’s the list of upsets by conference… it isn’t like this is just a B10 thing.
B10: 3
B12: 3
SEC: 2
MWC: 2
ACC: 2
MWC: 1
WCC: 1
If anything, the lower seeded teams from the Big Ten punching their weight (Rutgers, Maryland) really backs up what we thought about the league all season. It was incredibly deep and the games against the bottom half were significantly more difficult than in any other league.
There were really only two teams from the league that had a chance to win it all and Illinois lost, it happens. Michigan lost one of its best players, it happens.
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Went over to the Illinois hoops website, Hang the Banner Anyway, and everyone seems to be taking it pretty well. Decades of irrelevance in college sports have conditioned fans there,and there’s none of the 'hang ‘em high’ mentality that OSU fans vented after their exit (except banners). In Champaign, Brand Underpants is still REAL Coach of the Year, the team is still Big Ten Asterisk Champion, and Ayo is not a guard anyway (about which latter there may be some truth). They’re constructing an Indian corn effigy to the team and will have a very big bonfire Friday.
Won’t be surprised if they’re pretty good, equally annoying, next year.
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BQ said on the podcast that the NCAA would hate for Will Wade to beat Michigan. I don’t believe in the officiating conspiracies (or at least I like to pretend and say that I don’t), but may we finally get a friendly whistle for this game?
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Waking up to this debate I share your thoughts Dylan. I also feel compelled to point out that young college kids (Wisconsin excluded since they arent young) have been dealing with an incredibly weird season that isn’t going to fit into historical statistical models. They lost months of basketball, they had a short preseason, they played few min conference games, many programs went through Covid pauses and had players infected.
And now they are bubbled in random hotels around central Indiana for the entire tournament without their usual routine, schedule, facilities, scouting reports, etc. That’s a recipe for more chaos and less predictability.
At least that’s the excuse I am giving for why my bracket picks are all covered in red ink.
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Kenpom tells itself that is was wrong all year after every game. Over the last few days games were played. Kenpom adjusted the Big Ten teams down as a result of the games played. Hopefully the Big Ten is adjusted up after more games are played.
He adjusted everyone down. Everyone got inflated for whatever reason
Individual Big Ten teams were adjusted down in terms of relative rank. I just glanced at the top 50 Big Ten teams. I think only Maryland improved their ranking.
A bit of talking past each other a little bit: Every team got deflated before the tournament (supposedly every team was about 2 points too high for some reason). And also the Big Ten relatively went down due to the results of the past 3 days. Both true
I’m not sure “adjusted” is the right term as much as they played games and they moved up and down based on results. Same as what happens all season.
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I can see how my word choice might cause confusion. I was not trying to say anything controversial. I was just trying to say that our relative rankings seemed to have dropped across the board as a result of the tournament games played.
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When Illinois played Loyola, there was one coach in the game with Final Four experience - and it wasn’t UI’s. Brad Underwood is now 3-5 in the tournament, and that’s counting some games at Stephen F Austin that were later vacated.
I think the Big Ten is a good conference but outside of Juwan, whom we have high hopes for of course, where is the elite coaching?
Holtmann gets lots of praise but he’s 6-6 in the tournament and has never won a conference title anywhere. I don’t think he’s as good as Matta was in his prime.
Gard seems like a downgrade from Ryan.
Painter is pretty good but it feels like his program has a ceiling.
McCaffery doesn’t care much about defense.
Miller obviously was a disaster for IU. Who knows if they’ll get it right next time.
Izzo is still probably the standard-bearer but seems to only make a run in the tourney every 4-5 years.
Turgeon? Pikiel? Eh. Minnesota’s new coach will probably be someone forgettable.
Michigan might be carrying the league torch for the foreseeable future.
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We’ve had this discussion before, but I think that top to bottom, the conference has great coaching. Maybe the best in college basketball. But we do not have elite programs. The only blue blood is Indiana and they’ve been d1cking around since Knight was canned (and weren’t doing much his last half decade there anyways).
But this past year, who are the bad coaches? Pitino, Miller and I guess Ferry (though I give him a break as an interim). Every other coach is at least solid. Big 12 has good coaches up and down as well, but also fewer teams.
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Porter Moser should join the B1G coaching ranks, is what you’re saying
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