Big Ten Basketball 2020-21 Discussion (Part 1)

So the last part is to avoid the NW-MSU BTT final while the top teams opt outā€¦ well played NCAA.

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Good to know. Are the TV money implications perhaps more important here? Any insight into what Michigan and/or Illinois opting out (and maybe a few other teams) would mean for any agreement the Big Ten has withā€¦ Fox/ESPN/some other network?

Iā€™d be all about going to the Big 10 tournament and playing the KenPom time lineup to get some guys experience, take the L and begin the quarantine, resting and testing. Itā€™d totally backfire when our KenPom lineup goes to the conference tournament final on the back of 25ppg from Zeb Jackson.

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Iā€™d definitely want to win the first round game. But best case is we end up winning the regular season title so we have a banner, then in the semifinal we just use the bench more extensively than normal and probably lose and we take sunday off to get get ready for the tournament.

I mean, if you donā€™t have a full tournament you donā€™t have a full allotment of TV spots.

It seems unlikely to me that teams opt out at this point.

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I know Juwan implied he has some say on what the schedule will look like but if they force some kind of mandate on us, do you think we could forfeit a game or two? Not like the bracket gurus would count it against us, and as long as we are likely to at least share in the title, why bother heading out to Chicago? Letā€™s beat Illinois and then laugh at them when they hang a banner just because we didnā€™t bother to play NW.

if they hang a banner and we donā€™t, I wonā€™t be laughing

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No, if a team doesnā€™t agree to play a game it isnā€™t getting played. I generally think people here are taking a more adversarial tone to the whole thing than the actual situation though.

The Big Ten is going to do its best to get as many games in as possible. Thatā€™s what they want, thatā€™s what all the teams in the league want. Theyā€™ll figure out make up dates and the two schools involved will agree on the dates.

Really hard to imagine the team skipping the conference tourney or even obviously tanking it, though I think thatā€™s the obvious move IF the regular season is wrapped and IF seeding isnā€™t at risk.

Agreed that this isnā€™t going to be an adversarial process, even if Michigan WAS aggressive about using its own leverage to dictate to others. Itā€™s not going to ever behave like Texas does in the B12.

But Iā€™m also pretty sure that Gene Smith didnā€™t need to take it that far to ensure that his contender football team got to contend. I donā€™t know if that kind of polite behind-the-scenes application of gentle leverage is in Wardeā€™s toolkit or not, but it should be. We have a contender here, and just being passive about things has the potential to hurt its ability to contend.

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Thereā€™s COVID risk at the Big Ten Tournament and I get that argument that would say ā€œif you are in donā€™t both with a conference tournamentā€ ā€¦ That would also mean going almost two weeks without playing a gameā€¦ Mar 7 thru Mar 19 or 18ā€¦ and thatā€™s a pretty long time. Obviously, you can practice so it is different than this recent pause, but people made a huge deal about a gap like that before the NCAAT when the BTT was in NYC.

Does Michigan have a better chance to contend by playing more games or fewer games? What exactly is the argument here?

Conversely, are you going to give Warde credit for moving the Illinois game? Illini fans are up in arms about that game being moved and probably making all sorts of Warde/Gene Smith arguments.

And just to keep up: Gene Smithā€™s master political move was to have his undefeated team make the Big Ten title game over a team that it beat, right? These things usually become fairly obvious by the end of the year.

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I enjoy almost any and every B1G hoops game, but tonightā€™s is one that doesnā€™t seem to be necessary. I donā€™t see a point to it and I almost certainly wonā€™t watch it. Ok, so Iā€™d watch if Teddy Allen promised to launch 40 3-point shots. That would be fun.

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If Nebraska promises to win, Iā€™ll watch. But they canā€™t go back on their promise

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From what Howard and Livers said does not sound like they will play 20 games. They are not robots they said and making Nebraska play that brutal schedule to me is different just trieing to get through season with no real chance at tourney. Michigan is one of the best in Big Ten and donā€™t want them to have early exit in tourney due to tired legs because made them play 20 games when really probably should have only did 18. Or if they force them to play 20 games then I would just sit out of the big tourney and prepare and rest for the NCCA tourney. Playing 11 games in 22 days is to much with the potential of them making run in Big tourney and NCCA tourney.

Nebraska winning tonight would be one of the funniest B1G results in recent memory. It would be our chance to laugh at the 2013 Penn State game.

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I think if a team were running away with their regular season title they probably wouldnā€™t opt out of their conference tourney even if it made sense to do so for safety. But what they might do is put their best players in a hazmat suit on the sideline and save them for the big dance. I could see Michigan considering something like thatā€¦though they have five guys that are critical so you canā€™t really keep them all off the court.

(Though it would be fun to see a starting lineup of Jackson, Brown, WIlliams, Johns, and Davis take on MSU.)

If that game was moved and Warde gets credit, then thatā€™s fantastic. Iā€™d welcome more content on what is being done to maximize chances for on-the-court success. Not an expert; can only guess.

There are, however, some areas of this for which I do have relevant expertise. These include institutions, best practices, and reading John Baconā€™s books. Thatā€™s more enough for me to understand why it is appropriate to worry.

Me neither BigB.

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This one is for the true Big Ten sicko in all of us!

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