Most amazing thing about this team
- Thread starter eastbaycat99
- Start date
has the conference been tougher top to bottom from a kenpom standpoint in any other year?
indiana being talked about for making the tourney with a losing record in B1G (and only 2 road wins all year) but 5 tier 1 wins.
most years that wouldn't even be considered with under .500 in conference.
Probably not. Here are the top 3 and bottom 3 in Barat Torvik's model for the last several years, plus NU's rank if not in the bottom 3:
2019: 4, 7, 8....55, 68, 79(NU)
2018: 4, 7, 9...75(NU).....88, 108, 127
2017: 13, 16, 19..39(NU)..92, 98, 131
2016: 6, 10, 15...71(NU)...147, 200, 270
2015: 3, 12, 18....110, 115(NU), 183
2014: 5, 8, 9....76, 86, 121(NU)
2013: 3, 6, 9...113, 115(NU), 131
2012: 2, 3, 7...61(NU)....80, 129, 150
http://barttorvik.com/trank.php?year=2012&sort=&top=0&conlimit=B10&venue=All&type=All&lastx=0#
the strength of the conference was he worst possible year to lose both ball handling options before the year started.
super tough schedule this year. this team would be a top 8 team in many years if the B1G was "normal" even with out their top 2 primary ball handlers
Kenpom rankings:
Fresno - 70
lasalle - 217
utah -116
GT - 111
@ IU - 48
UM - 6
DePaul - 110 (win)
chicago st - 351
OK - 40
columbia - 220
@ msu - 4
ill - 64
iowa - 39
@ um - 6
@ rut - 68
IU - 48
@ wisc - 12
@ mary - 19
psu - 43
@ iowa - 39
rut - 68
neb - 45
@ osu - 37
wisc - 12
minn - 46
@ ill - 64
osu - 37
pur - 9
agree but with either lathon or ash, or a normal conference year - i think the cats are not in last pace. this year they caught both
Agreed. We are not close and there's no blaming the schedule for that. We have 1 win against a kenpom Top 50 opponent (Indiana @ 47). To be any kind of contender (in any year) you need plenty of top 50 wins and a few top 25 wins.
Here are the number of good wins from other B1G teams that will miss the NCAA Tournament--from the bottom of the standings (after us) and up:
* Nebraska has 5 kenpom Top 50 wins
* PSU has 4 kenpom Top 50 kenpom wins, including #6 Michigan, #11 Va Tech and #19 Maryland
* Indiana has 6 Top 50 kenpom wins, including #4 MSU twice, #12 Wisconsin and #23 Louisville
* Rutgers has 6 Top 50 kenpom wins
* Illinois has 6 Top 50 kenpom wins, including #4 MSU and #19 Maryland
Again, these are all teams that will miss the NCAA Tournament. Maybe some of them can gripe about the strength of league and argue that they might have been good enough in a down-year for the league...but we cannot.
no moral victories, but of the losses:
IU - 2 (48)
UM - 1 (6)
OK - OT (40)
psu - 7 (43)
and the iowa home game come to mind
its not like the cats were not competitive at all - and with the surmounting losses the confidence crashed. wins early on could of, and i think would of, changed the season for sure
so i think to say we are not close is not true in my opinion
Do you have the nos. for 2009, 2010 and 2011?
The B1G won the B1G-ACC challenge those years (as well as for 2014 and 2015).
2011 1,7,9......48(NU)....57, 78, 81
2010 5, 9, 10.....85(NU)....97, 169, 197
2009 9, 17, 25....63(NU), 84, 199
They would be nowhere near the top though. That’s what’s important to me. Nobody remembers what place you finished if you didn’t win the title. The rest doesn’t matter much.
Yeah but didn’t you get the memo that UTEP has this incredible frosh who would have led us to the postseason this year?
This train of thought about how tough our conference is reminds of the Big Ten East in Football. Bottom line is no one cares outside of us. It will probably creep in to the football board as Brohm, Frost, and PJ improve their teams. Guess what, this is what they were hired to do. We’ll see How the Big Ten does in the tourney. Personally, I like a mid-lower teams compared to other major conferences, but I am not wild about our top teams being Natty contenders. Will be interesting.
NU hasn’t had a top 50 win with seems close to an impossibility when we started the season with opportunity after opportunity to get one. The other have nots, Rutgers, Illinois, PSU have multiple such wins. Yes, the BT is unusually strong this year, but NU has done zero to get most of us excited about next year with either a few upsets or any type of real improvements throughout the season. We better win tonight or this conference losing streak could be really really ugly.
NU hasn’t had a top 50 win with seems close to an impossibility when we started the season with opportunity after opportunity to get one. The other have nots, Rutgers, Illinois, PSU have multiple such wins. Yes, the BT is unusually strong this year, but NU has done zero to get most of us excited about next year with either a few upsets or any type of real improvements throughout the season. We better win tonight or this conference losing streak could be really really ugly.