BTT probabilities

[CappyNU]

262,144 scenarios remain for the BTT seeding, and it looks like the best we can do is a tie for 12th. 3,072 scenarios have us ending up there, but it comes down to us and Washington winning both games this week, while Minnesota and USC lose both games. The worst we can finish is 17th, which requires us to lose both games, Oregon, Penn State and Maryland to win both games, and Rutgers to beat MSU.

The most likely scenario if everything goes according to Kenpom, is that we get 15th thanks to that Rutgers loss, giving us a (not-terrible) path of Penn State, Indiana, UCLA, Nebraska.

By the end of tonight we'll be down to 65,536 scenarios, I'll update accordingly.

 

[AdamOnFirst]

I'm curious what our odds of getting #14 or higher if we presume we beat Minnesota. KenPom would have us losing to them, so the assumption of #15 assumes a loss there. I would presume if we win that game we're pretty damn safe.

Actually... if I look at it we're in a lot of trouble. Assuming we don't upset Purdue, we can get to 6 wins, which puts us clear of the bottom 4, but we'd have to beat either Rutgers or Washington for the 14th spot and... that's tough. Washington already has 6 wins, beat us, and still gets to play crumbling USC and bad Oregon. Rutgers is tied with us at 5 wins but also beat us and gets to play Penn State at home. We lose any tiebreaker with Rutgers, Washington, or both. Unless there is some bizzarre situation where LOSING to MN and ending up in some crazy five way tiebreaker with Rutgers, Washington, Oregon, and Maryland is somehow BETTER for us and allows us to finish in the top two of those five (I guess that's POSSIBLE since we beat Oregon and Maryland) it seems like it comes down to needing to beat MN and needing Penn State to be Rutgers in New Jersey which is... not impossible but not that likely.

 

[hdhntr1]

I'm curious what our odds of getting #14 or higher if we presume we beat Minnesota. KenPom would have us losing to them, so the assumption of #15 assumes a loss there. I would presume if we win that game we're pretty damn safe.

Actually... if I look at it we're in a lot of trouble. Assuming we don't upset Purdue, we can get to 6 wins, which puts us clear of the bottom 4, but we'd have to beat either Rutgers or Washington for the 14th spot and... that's tough. Washington already has 6 wins, beat us, and still gets to play crumbling USC and bad Oregon. Rutgers is tied with us at 5 wins but also beat us and gets to play Penn State at home. We lose any tiebreaker with Rutgers, Washington, or both. Unless there is some bizzarre situation where LOSING to MN and ending up in some crazy five way tiebreaker with Rutgers, Washington, Oregon, and Maryland is somehow BETTER for us and allows us to finish in the top two of those five (I guess that's POSSIBLE since we beat Oregon and Maryland) it seems like it comes down to needing to beat MN and needing Penn State to be Rutgers in New Jersey which is... not impossible but not that likely.

Reality is that this team is not likely to get to championship game whether we play on Tues or not. But playing on Tues does give us the opportunity to get a couple more wins before we bow out

 

[phatcat_rivals223240]

Reality is that this team is not likely to get to championship game whether we play on Tues or not. But playing on Tues does give us the opportunity to get a couple more wins before we bow out

Given our hilarious BTT lifetime performance, I'd be happy with one win

 

[CappyNU]

I'm curious what our odds of getting #14 or higher if we presume we beat Minnesota. KenPom would have us losing to them, so the assumption of #15 assumes a loss there. I would presume if we win that game we're pretty damn safe.

Actually... if I look at it we're in a lot of trouble. Assuming we don't upset Purdue, we can get to 6 wins, which puts us clear of the bottom 4, but we'd have to beat either Rutgers or Washington for the 14th spot and... that's tough. Washington already has 6 wins, beat us, and still gets to play crumbling USC and bad Oregon. Rutgers is tied with us at 5 wins but also beat us and gets to play Penn State at home. We lose any tiebreaker with Rutgers, Washington, or both. Unless there is some bizzarre situation where LOSING to MN and ending up in some crazy five way tiebreaker with Rutgers, Washington, Oregon, and Maryland is somehow BETTER for us and allows us to finish in the top two of those five (I guess that's POSSIBLE since we beat Oregon and Maryland) it seems like it comes down to needing to beat MN and needing Penn State to be Rutgers in New Jersey which is... not impossible but not that likely.

14 is the highest we can get if we only win one game this week, and that only happens if Rutgers loses both games. Even if we win both games this week, we could still end up as the 15th seed if we end up tied with Washington, Minnesota and Rutgers. If we end up tied with Washington, Minnesota, Rutgers and USC though, we take 12th. If we end up tied with Minnesota, USC and Rutgers, we take 14th.

It looks like 16th is now the worst we can finish thanks to Illinois beating Oregon last night.

 

[AdamOnFirst]

Reality is that this team is not likely to get to championship game whether we play on Tues or not. But playing on Tues does give us the opportunity to get a couple more wins before we bow out

I'd simply rather avoid a bottom 4 finish. It's better to bye-out of the first round entirely by not finishing in the basement then being a basement dweller who beats another basement dweller.

 

[CappyNU]

Ok, actually did the probabilities based on Kenpom. It looks like we have a 3% chance to finish as #12, a 1.2% chance of finishing #13 and a 0.1% chance of finishing #16. Too many scenarios right now for me to calculate the likelihood of #14 or 15. Will get a lot more clear around 9:30 tonight.

 

[hdhntr1]

I'd simply rather avoid a bottom 4 finish. It's better to bye-out of the first round entirely by not finishing in the basement then being a basement dweller who beats another basement dweller.

And a lot of others would rather have an additional win and potentially two. That is not saying I want to lose either of that last two, But according to Cappy , we could win both and still end up int bottom 4. I am suggesting that,a at this point, that is not all that bad.

 

[AdamOnFirst]

And a lot of others would rather have an additional win and potentially two. That is not saying I want to lose either of that last two, But according to Cappy , we could win both and still end up int bottom 4. I am suggesting that,a at this point, that is not all that bad.

It's bad. A bottom four finish is bad. It would be really nice to avoid it.

 

[BosCat]

Here's where you can work out/test scenarios: https://bball.notnothing.net/big10.php?sport=mbb
(Unfortunately, you can also go back and change previous results for the ultimate "what if")

 

[hdhntr1]

It's bad. A bottom four finish is bad. It would be really nice to avoid it.

Sorry, but at this point, most of it is now out of our control and it does give us the best chance to get at least one win in the BTT,

 

[macarthur31]

Checking out the kenpom B1G page, and here's bottom 9 of the table:

Team	Overall Record	Conf Record	NetRtg (nat'l rank)	OffRtg (nat'l rank)	DefRtg (nat'l rank)
Indiana	17-12	8-10	+17.27 (43rd)	121.0 (40th)	103.7 (71st)
Minnesota	14-15	7-11	+12.71 (66th)	115.8 (81st)	103.1 (60th)
USC	18-11	7-11	+12.42 (67th)	114.4 (96th)	102.0 (45th)
Washington	14-15	6-12	+14.76 (54th)	116.5 (72nd)	101.8 (43rd)
Northwestern	13-16	5-13	+12.08 (70th)	116.5 (73rd)	104.4 (83rd)
Rutgers	12-17	5-13	+1.84 (144th)	110.3 (156th)	108.5 (155th)
Maryland	11-18	4-14	+3.49 (130th)	111.1 (139th)	107.6 (134th)
Oregon	11-19	4-15	+7.17 (101st)	111.3 (133rd)	104.1 (77th)
Penn State	12-17	3-15	+3.55 (129th)	115.8 (82nd)	112.2 (233rd)

To clarify - Northwestern would score 116.5 points per 100 possessions against an average D1 team; and it would give up 104.4 points per 100 possessions against an average D1 team - the difference between the two is the Net Rating (Cats are +12.08), and that indicates the team's "KenPom Ranking."

All this to say, it's interesting to see B1G teams 10th-14th (USC to NU) as pretty bunched together at +12 with UW being a bit of an outlier at +14.7. However, that is much closer than teams 15-18, which range from +7 to +1.

In terms of efficiency, it's been the best of times (highest Offensive Rating in the Collins era) - this year's 116.5 exceeds the Killer B's of 24 who netted a 115.9. However, it's also been the worst of times (worst Defensive Rating in the Collins era) - this year's 104.4 is the most since the 2015 squad gave up 103.2 per 100. For perspective:

Season	OffRtg	DefRtg	KP Rank	Significance
2026	116.5	104.4	70th	This Season ("Next Rebuild?")
2025	114.3	97.3	44th	Last Season
2024	115.9	99.5	41st	3rd Tourney Team
2023	109.9	94.3	38th	2nd Tourney Team
2020	104.9	101.3	132nd	Buie's 1st Year - the "Rebuild"
2017	111.3	95.5	38th	1st Tourney Team
2014	98.3	94.9	134th	Collins 1st Year

Next year's squad has much room to improve regarding defensive performance.