Per Underwood’s comments, it doesn’t matter if we win today; they would still be Big Ten champs, and outright at that, because they won more games than we did. Never mind that we played less and had a better winning percentage. By Underwood’s “reasoning,” they would have tied for the championship even if they had lost yesterday and we win today because they would have had the same number of wins as us. By that "reasoning, Kansas can claim a co-Big 12 championship with Baylor, because each won 12 games in conference (Kansas played 18, Baylor 13), and Creighton can claim to have won the Big East (Creighton won 14 and lost 6 in conference; Villanova only won 11, even though, with their 4 losses, they had the better conference record and will be seeded first in the conference tournament).
They can say anything they want. They can choose to believe it if they want. That doesn’t make it true.
Rooting hard for Iowa to win and remain the 3 seed. Would like to see a Iowa/ILL semi and a OSU/Purude winner is probably the best-case matchup for us with that pile of teams.
If Maryland beats Penn St. then that 8/9 matchup is Rutgers/MSU. I think that would be the preferred matchup as I’m just not sure how Rutgers and MSU can score enough to beat us. Maryland could at least catch fire and give themselves a shot.
Let me just say this argument is pathetically uninteresting to me. I come here to read stuff like what @JBmoney just posted, not the faulty, inconsistent logic of Illini folk. I know for a fact if the roles were reversed the opinions most loudly bantered about would reverse as well.
What Ayo said I don’t think is remotely reflective of any maturity level or lack thereof, it is extremely common bulletin board stuff. Every team concocts narratives of being underestimated, slighted, etc (hell we heard Livers allude to this when he said they played with a chip due to pre-season rankings). Ayo and the Illini are calling themselves champs because it’s a narrative that gives them motivation. That’s it.
It’s certainly not Underwood’s or Dosunmu’s role to validate how we feel about our title.
Let’s go win today and make sure there’s no question. I think Illinois is a great team (prone to lapses) who clearly kicked our butts. Their inability to think logically and speak critically about this is annoying.
If they came out and said “I wish Michigan were able to have played all 20 games so we could know for sure who the champs are. We are disappointed to have beaten them convincingly but not have a chance to settle it on the court.” And then acknowledge that they should have won more games.
I agree with you. I mostly posted because I’m pretty uncomfortable with the above characterization of Dosunmu, and would be if that was written about any player.
I may have been too harsh on Ayo. I see your point. I do think they are a very good team. I also see laddergoat’s point. The big ten could have done a better job making it more fair and that would come into focus if we lose today. I think Underwood could have done a better job of articulating a case against how the Big Ten handled it but I guess it is the job of UMHOOPs forum writers to articulate the case for him.
If we win today though I will feel perfectly secure about us being declared big ten champions. No external validation will be required. In that case I think the motivational ploy will sort of backfire on Illinois because it is too far removed from reality to feel authentic—even to themselves.
Anyway, I do not want to post about this subject anymore because others have expressed that they are uninterested. I appreciated the conversation though…
It’s all talk. Of course they’re going to be thinking that they were entitled to recognition after soundly beating us on our home court. The reality is that the B1G set the rules, not us, and we are B1G champs. UI needed help to win it because they lost to 4 teams they should have beaten and played poorly but prevailed against a couple of other bottom feeders. They are playing their best ball late in the season. But the whole season counts.
The final thing I wanted to say about this is that I was not trying to tear Ayo down. I actually have been rooting for his success for a few years. In this situation I was rooting for him to not go along with the co-champion narrative in large part because it is tone deaf to the reason we are in this situation: Covid.
Michigan was not able to play those games because we were trying to protect other players and the league from infection. I think everyone understands that context. I think in their bones the Illini players are aware of it too. So part of me wants them to reject the crazy stuff Underwood said because I think going along with his craziness will hurt their chances of success.
I think there is strong possibility one of 3 teams from the Big Ten could win a Title this year. If it is not Michigan I would be happy if Illinois won.
Is there a good site to look at the odds for each individual game? I was looking on barttorvik yesterday but couldn’t figure out how to get %s for games not in the schedule. All I know is Michigan has an 81% chance to beat MSU on the road today
Kind of crazy that Wisconsin may be 16-11 having lost 5 of their last 6 games and 8 of 12. Their last 5 wins are Northwestern, Maryland Penn State, Nebraska, Northwestern and their best Big Ten win this year is probably at Rutgers. If they lose by 10+ today they will have gone 0-8 against the top 5 teams in the conference with 6 of them by double digits (other 2 are by 8 against Michigan and by 5 against Illinois). Yet until tomorrow they will have a number next to their name.
And yet they are still 12th in KenPom and 25th in NET
Wisconsin is definitely mystifying to me. I think they’ve lost every game I’ve watched. They have never looked remotely like top 25 material to me, other than maybe the first half of our second game.