I guess the Big Ten ain't so bad afterall

[blindzebra]

3 in the Elite 8.

[JugglingReferee]

Is NC State in there?

I heard they were up 9, then lost by 9.

I know the Heimlick.

[imaref]

ON WISCONSIN!!

wl

[JRutledge]

HEEEEEEYYYYY WISCONSIN, YOU SAID IT ALL!!!!



Peace

[blindzebra]

Half the final 4 and Wisconsin gave NC all they could handle.

[imaref]

Tough luck for the BADGERS....game was ugly....could see the "David & Goliath" story play out. No luck with a "lucky" stone hitting UNC! (Don't know many teams that mounted a 16 - 0 run on the likes of UNC. Gotta hope MSU or Illini can get the championship. (Look out for Louisville!!!)

wl

[Almost Always Right]

Big Ten RPI - 6th
Interesting?!?!?
AAR

[oatmealqueen]

Men's team in final four!!

Women's team in elite eight!!

It's a good time to be a Spartan fan.

[jbduke]

Using the NCAA Tournament as a metric for the strength of any conference is at best short-sighted and at worst meaningless.

Since at latest January, everybody who has followed college basketball has believed that Illinois was one of the two best teams in the country. During that period, I don't think that there was any confusion that Illinois was in the Big Televen. Illinois was rightly seeded tops in the entire tournament. They have ridden that seed to a well-deserved, but unsurprising place in the Final Four. That they have performed to seed should not change anyone's perception of the strength of Illinois's conference.


Michigan State's unexpected appearance in the Final Four has also sparked some people to question their assessment of that league. Again, I ask, why? Tom Izzo and his team deserve a tremendous amount of credit; they're the only team in the Final Four who had to go through the two highest seeds in the region other than themselves. However, that MSU is playing its best basketball right now does not change the strength of the Big Ten. Syracuse would have been a much, much worse match-up for State than Duke was, because the Spartans--contrary to their second-half performance against Kentucky--are not a very good perimeter shooting team. If Syracuse had beaten Vermont and Michigan State, no one would have been very surprised. If that had happened, we're likely looking at Syracuse, Kentucky, or Duke in the Final Four out of the South, and nobody is talking about how underrated the Big Ten was.

Again, to be clear, I'm not taking anything away from MSU. They deserve to be where they are. But they deserved to be a five-seed, too, according to Tom Izzo today on the Dan Patrick Show, because they did not acquit themselves overly well during the regular season.

Am I supposed to give the Big Ten a lot of credit because Wisconsin made the elight eight? Let's take another look at their path: first round, they beat eleventh seed Northern Iowa, one of the last two teams in the tournament. Second round, they benefit from the biggest upset of the tournament, Bucknell over Kansas. Third round, nice win, but over ten-seed NC State. So in four games, Wisconsin gets one quality win and beats two teams it was seeded above. Again, this shouldn't change anyone's perception of the strength of the Big Ten. And for those that want to talk about how well they played UNC, I propose a thought experiment. If 'Sconsin had been an eight or nine, and played Carolina tight before falling in the second round, would anyone be falling all over themselves talking about how much better the Big Ten was than the so-called experts had said? No way.

The NCAA's knock-out format is a wonderful spectacle. To see Duke and Bucknell win is why I watch. To see Duke lose is why others watch. But the Tournament shouldn't be made into something it's not. It's a very, very small sample of games, and there are too many variables at work in college basketball games to be able to paint anything close to a full picture using only sixty-four games as the data set. The tournament is designed to yield a national champion. There's no mention of 'best team.' We don't have to define that term, because it doesn't matter. What matters is who can win six (or seven) games to end the season.

Similarly, we should recognize the regular season for what it is: A long stretch of games that gives people a good idea of what they can expect, on average, from all of the teams. This is how conferences are evaluated going into the post-season, and this is more than reasonable. What's not reasonable is to look at a team's performances in a handful of games and decide because a team exceeded or fell short of their average expectation over a large sample, that your earlier assessment was in error.

The Big Ten had a weak league this year. They didn't deserve many teams. And if the teams they got in had had slightly different draws, maybe they're not playing anymore. What if Michigan State and Louisville had been 5-4 in the same region? Anybody shocked if Louisville wins that second-round game? Of course not. Should that change your assessment of the Big Ten? Of course not.

Let's all enjoy the wonderful tournament that's going on. Let's just be content to be drunk on fun basketball, and not go nuts on revising history.

[blindzebra]

Originally posted by jbduke
Using the NCAA Tournament as a metric for the strength of any conference is at best short-sighted and at worst meaningless.

Since at latest January, everybody who has followed college basketball has believed that Illinois was one of the two best teams in the country. During that period, I don't think that there was any confusion that Illinois was in the Big Televen. Illinois was rightly seeded tops in the entire tournament. They have ridden that seed to a well-deserved, but unsurprising place in the Final Four. That they have performed to seed should not change anyone's perception of the strength of Illinois's conference.


Michigan State's unexpected appearance in the Final Four has also sparked some people to question their assessment of that league. Again, I ask, why? Tom Izzo and his team deserve a tremendous amount of credit; they're the only team in the Final Four who had to go through the two highest seeds in the region other than themselves. However, that MSU is playing its best basketball right now does not change the strength of the Big Ten. Syracuse would have been a much, much worse match-up for State than Duke was, because the Spartans--contrary to their second-half performance against Kentucky--are not a very good perimeter shooting team. If Syracuse had beaten Vermont and Michigan State, no one would have been very surprised. If that had happened, we're likely looking at Syracuse, Kentucky, or Duke in the Final Four out of the South, and nobody is talking about how underrated the Big Ten was.

Again, to be clear, I'm not taking anything away from MSU. They deserve to be where they are. But they deserved to be a five-seed, too, according to Tom Izzo today on the Dan Patrick Show, because they did not acquit themselves overly well during the regular season.

Am I supposed to give the Big Ten a lot of credit because Wisconsin made the elight eight? Let's take another look at their path: first round, they beat eleventh seed Northern Iowa, one of the last two teams in the tournament. Second round, they benefit from the biggest upset of the tournament, Bucknell over Kansas. Third round, nice win, but over ten-seed NC State. So in four games, Wisconsin gets one quality win and beats two teams it was seeded above. Again, this shouldn't change anyone's perception of the strength of the Big Ten. And for those that want to talk about how well they played UNC, I propose a thought experiment. If 'Sconsin had been an eight or nine, and played Carolina tight before falling in the second round, would anyone be falling all over themselves talking about how much better the Big Ten was than the so-called experts had said? No way.

The NCAA's knock-out format is a wonderful spectacle. To see Duke and Bucknell win is why I watch. To see Duke lose is why others watch. But the Tournament shouldn't be made into something it's not. It's a very, very small sample of games, and there are too many variables at work in college basketball games to be able to paint anything close to a full picture using only sixty-four games as the data set. The tournament is designed to yield a national champion. There's no mention of 'best team.' We don't have to define that term, because it doesn't matter. What matters is who can win six (or seven) games to end the season.

Similarly, we should recognize the regular season for what it is: A long stretch of games that gives people a good idea of what they can expect, on average, from all of the teams. This is how conferences are evaluated going into the post-season, and this is more than reasonable. What's not reasonable is to look at a team's performances in a handful of games and decide because a team exceeded or fell short of their average expectation over a large sample, that your earlier assessment was in error.

The Big Ten had a weak league this year. They didn't deserve many teams. And if the teams they got in had had slightly different draws, maybe they're not playing anymore. What if Michigan State and Louisville had been 5-4 in the same region? Anybody shocked if Louisville wins that second-round game? Of course not. Should that change your assessment of the Big Ten? Of course not.

Let's all enjoy the wonderful tournament that's going on. Let's just be content to be drunk on fun basketball, and not go nuts on revising history.

Interesting how somebody that used WHAT IF several times is talking about revising history.

By the way how many ACC teams in the Final Four.

[jbduke]

BZ,

If Shaq hits 16 of his next 20 free throws, are you going to change your opinion of how good a free throw shooter he is?

If so, why? If not, why not?

This is exactly the same idea.

[blindzebra]

Originally posted by jbduke
BZ,

If Shaq hits 16 of his next 20 free throws, are you going to change your opinion of how good a free throw shooter he is?

If so, why? If not, why not?

This is exactly the same idea.

Still more IFs.

You are what you are, not what you'd be if...

Pretty simple the top of the Big Ten was as, and is as good as, any conference in the country. Unfortunately the media couldn't see anything past the Big East, ACC, and SEC to notice.

[jbduke]

Nobody saw this because it wasn't there. My Shaq example is not so much of an 'if' as you think. There have been plenty of instances in his career when he's had good streaks. The full sample size, however, demonstrates that he is, on the whole, a poor free throw shooter. This doesn't mean, though, that the shots he hits during streaks are worth less, or that his team never benefits from them when he's on such a streak.

Similarly, nobody's saying that Michigan State and Wisconsin didn't help themselves by playing well during the NCAA Tournament. The point is that Michigan State's performance has been exceptional, as in "an exception." Illinois, Wisconsin and Duke were the only teams State played during the regular season that rated better than an eight seed. They were 0-3 against those schools. Playing great last weekend against Duke and Kentucky doesn't change their regular season.

Your argument seems to be that the post-season paints a full picture. That is akin to looking at the results of twenty free throws for Shaq and assessing his overall performance based on that tiny sample. You get burned when your sample happens to be exceptional.

I don't understand why Michigan State, Illinois and Wisconsin fans can't simply be thrilled with their performances and stop there. They're insulting the public when they say that the last two weeks mean that everybody else's eyes were lying to them all year.

[drothamel]

Just because 3 Big 10 teams go to the elite 8 doesn't make it better than the ACC. I mean, those 3 teams are the only Big 10 teams that even had a chance and doing it. Top to bottom, the ACC is a much better league. How about this example: the Miami Heat may be the best team in the NBA, but no one would argue that the Eastern Conference is a better conference. In the case of the Big 10 vs. the ACC, three teams does not a conference make.

[LDUB]

Originally posted by jbduke
Since at latest January, everybody who has followed college basketball has believed that Illinois was one of the two best teams in the country. During that period, I don't think that there was any confusion that Illinois was in the Big Televen.

Top 2? Yeah, with all those unanimous #1 rankings and being #1 for the last 15 weeks, there were plenty of people who thought they were second best.

Originally posted by jbduke
Am I supposed to give the Big Ten a lot of credit because Wisconsin made the elight eight? Let's take another look at their path: first round, they beat eleventh seed Northern Iowa, one of the last two teams in the tournament. Second round, they benefit from the biggest upset of the tournament, Bucknell over Kansas. Third round, nice win, but over ten-seed NC State.

One of the last two teams in the tournament? They were an 11 seed not 16.

And UNC had to play a really tough schedule, far harder than Wisconsin's, don't forget that. Oakland was a tough game.

Originally posted by jbduke
Again, this shouldn't change anyone's perception of the strength of the Big Ten. And for those that want to talk about how well they played UNC, I propose a thought experiment. If 'Sconsin had been an eight or nine, and played Carolina tight before falling in the second round, would anyone be falling all over themselves talking about how much better the Big Ten was than the so-called experts had said? No way.

I think being down by 3 with under two minutes to go is a lot more than "playing tight". UNC only won by 6.

Why are you switching around the seedings? That makes no sense. What is UNC was a 4 seed and...

Originally posted by jbduke
I don't understand why Michigan State, Illinois and Wisconsin fans can't simply be thrilled with their performances and stop there. They're insulting the public when they say that the last two weeks mean that everybody else's eyes were lying to them all year.

I don't understand why the east coast thinks they are superior to everyone else.