And then Purdue is somehow the anti-Wisconsin. What is that, three games they’ve lost at the buzzer? Four?
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Jokes aside, I feel like it’s pretty much Big Ten Tournament Title + Sweet 16, a Final 4 trip, or bust for Purdue. I would’ve bet my car that they’d win the Big Ten after the schedules got released.
Also, I’m forever calling Wisconsin “Wisconsini” from now on. Greatest typo ever.
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Never go full Boutros!
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They remind me so much of the Trey Burke Michigan team that went to the Natty. Elite offense, not as good defense (though better than Purdue). Huge preseason expectations, rose to number 1, then started taking some losses. Lost at the buzzer to Wisconsin, lost in the last seconds at Indiana for a share of the Big Ten title. That’s kind of Purdue’s season so far isn’t it? Can even make the Burke/Ivey comparisons
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I know what you’re doing here, and I still can’t stomach it 
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The only silver lining of Wisconsin banking in the championship is Illinois will not win the regular season championship despite having a generational pair of teams last year and this year. Maybe they will hang a banner because Wisconsin was too lucky.
At least we won something last year even if we are struggling this year.
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They’re about to retire 2 jerseys from an era with 0 big ten titles or second weekend appearances
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Had to jump on here just to say how much I hate Wisconsin this year. I have never seen a team like this that doesn’t seem particularly good or efficient or talented but wins every frigging game by five points of less. Two unintentional banked in long shots to win? Come on…
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This forum will be rocking when a lower seed with all kinds of athletes runs circles around Wisky in the tourney.
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Don’t look now, but Michigan has a punchers chance at the 4 seed if they win out
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Was just looking at that. I think if it’s a 3-way tie at 12-8 with Iowa and OSU, then we’d win the tiebreaker with a 3-1 H2H record against those two?
If we tie only OSU at 12-8 then they’d win the tiebreaker because they’d have the better win% against the first place team (Wisconsin).
If we tie only Iowa at 12-8 then we win H2H over them.
In other words root for against OSU on Thursday against MSU and for Iowa to beat Illinois if OSU loses
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong
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Well, I was already rooting for a meteor in the OSU/MSU game but not sure how that factors into tie breakers.
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I posted this in the open thread but:
So using this tool to play around, the 4 seed is in play but only barely. Key things to happen for us to get it:
- Obviously we need to win out. That puts us at 12-8, while also giving OSU and Iowa their 8th losses. That would leave us, Rutgers, Iowa, MSU and OSU as potential 8 loss teams. We could end with as many as 4 8 loss teams, since OSU and MSU play each other guaranteeing one of them a 9th loss.
- Rutgers pretty much has to lose. In a 2-way tie with them, we lose the 4 seed since they have a win over Wisconsin. In any multi-team tie with them, they have the best head to head record amongst that group and get the 4 seed while we get the 5 (and this is true in every 3 or 4 way tie iteration involving Rutgers and us, that they get the 4 and we get the 5).
The only exception is if it’s us, Rutgers and Iowa in which case we get the 4 and Rutgers gets the 5. This is incredibly unlikely however, as it would involve MSU winning @ OSU, Iowa winning @ Illinois, and MSU losing @ Maryland. - Once Rutgers loses, we need Iowa to beat Illinois. Any 3 way tie with Iowa and we get the 4, but in any 2 way tie (except Iowa of course) we get the 5 since Rutgers, MSU and OSU all beat Wisconsin.
TLDR; Root for Rutgers to lose one more time, Iowa to beat Illinois, and Maryland to beat MSU.
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TLDR: If Michigan wins again, it is probably playing on Thursday night 
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Haven’t dug too far into the scenarios but even if U-M doesn’t get the 4 seed… I think the 5 could be in play if U-M wins out which would mean playing in half of the bracket that only has Wisconsin and Rutgers as higher seeded teams. 
Downside is Rutgers probably needs to win that game to make the tourney I’d imagine.
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Illinois is the only team I want to avoid because of how we matchup. No one else scares me more than any other team and I think we can win on any given night.
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How are the defensive numbers across the conference compare to seasons past? Maybe this is an offseason post, but to me it seems like defenses have dropped off in the Big Ten compared to past years. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but that’s what it seems like.
Yeah, I really don’t trust us in the Tournament because it seems like we really haven’t played any decent defenses and the ones we did play beat us handily (Indiana doesn’t count). The B1G is garbage this year. Someone compared us to last year’s LSU, but we’re actually worse because although we’re good at offense we’re not quite as good and unlike them we’re physically incapable of playing good defense.
Michigan’s defense is about 50 spots on better than last year’s LSU team was on KenPom.
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