A 2-0 week for Michigan would look awful nice this week …
If we don’t beat them tonight, we’ll have to beat them in the conference tournament…
I feel like an 11-9 conference record would guarantee a BTT seed higher than 11th, and Wednesday off. 10-10 might be good enough, but might depend on tiebreakers. Illinois and Minnesota have already clinched the head to head tiebreaker over Michigan; unless we win in Columbus, OSU will have that one in hand, too.
Getting to 10 or 11 wins requires winning out at home, beating Northwestern, and then picking up one or two wins from the set {@Rutgers, @Purdue, @OSU, @Maryland}. Urgency is required from here on out.
Man Northwestern is bad, how much longer can Collins ride that one tournament birth?
10-10 would most likely put us in a tie with a handful of other teams. How do 3 or 4 team tiebreakers work?
This site is useful for figuring it all out… http://bball.notnothing.net/big10.php?sport=mbb
Still a lot of hoops left…
IMO this is surely a MUST WIN game. a loss to a one win last place conf team would be devastating at this point and would negate somewhat the win against Sparty. Just WIN the game. Go Blue!
Agreed on the importance of this one for NCAA purposes. Given the current team sheet and the remaining schedule, “no bad losses” will likely need to be a selling point to the committee.
Plus, if they go on a bit of a run from here, most of the losses would coincide with Livers absence, which could/should play a role with the committee.
We need a dub tonight! GO BLUE
Using the site mentioned above [LINK], in order for Michigan to avoid playing in 11/14 game on Wednesday it needs to finish with a 10-10 conference record. According to KenPom, the most likely way to get five more B1G wins are the three home games plus at Northwestern and at Rutgers (41% chance to win vs 34% at Purdue). Torvik actually sees Maryland as the second-likeliest road win (35% vs 34% for Rutgers).
Either way, Michigan needs two road wins coupled with sweeping the remaining home slate. If things play out as the percentages say other than Michigan stealing a road game, they would be the 10-seed facing 7-seed Minnesota and then would get #2 Penn State. Note that site uses Saragin’s rankings for predicting winners in future matchups.
Yeah, 10-10 is a good gauge but there’s also a lot that can happen (teams get hot, cold, etc.)
Interestingly enough, Michigan is still an 11 seed according the average projection if that second road win is at Maryland. Wins over OSU, Purdue or Rutgers basically send them to that 11 spot instead of Michigan, whereas the Maryland game does not do that.
Maybe this is naive but I actually don’t care about getting an 11 seed (ignoring that I guess it means we can’t pull off a road win). I’d love an extra B1G game (and even an early shot at PSU) to show the NCAA tourney selectors our stuff with a full lineup.
I’m more naive. I like the whole run-the-table idea and get a 3 seed with nothing left to prove to the committee.
Big Ten tournament will be wild. There’s not a single team in the conference I don’t think we could beat 5/10 times on a neutral court. And we might be the 11 seed!
If you are a six seed and draw Michigan on Thursday as an 11 … Not a great spot to be in.
The next three games should be huge for U-M’s conf tourney seeding. Beat NW, IU and Rutgers and would be in a very good spot.
10 seed would be huge. Winning a 3rd game in 3 days while the other team will be playing their first game would be a really tall order. And that’s assuming we win the round before that.
9pm tip off? C’mon
If Michigan is legitimately a top 15 team with Livers as many have said here, then a BTT title is on the table. Being in that 11 seed spot makes that infinitely harder.