BIG to do well in NCAA

[pgsailor]

Some teams have vastly improved during the season. Some have not. Most of the games have been very close or OT. As a whole the conference is much better than earlier in the season with no game an easy win. Down year for sure but top to bottom the BIG is extremely competitive this year. This should show in the tourney. I hope I'm right!

PS we could stink up the tourney!

 

[HawkAttackDial911]

The B1G will do about as well as their seeding. Half win their first game and maybe one team in the sweet 16.

 

[SDHawkDoc]

The B1G being more competitive has as much, or more, to do with the weakness at the top as it does improvement in the middle and lower rungs.
While that has the potential to make for an interesting BTT, it doesn't bode well for conference performance in the NCAA tourney.
As it stands now, purdue appears to be the only team with a chance at a 4 seed. A loss in the BTT and that could drop them to a 5.
Agree with HawkAttack, getting one team into the sweet 16 looks to be where the conference is at on the national landscape this year.

 

[HawkLogic]

The B1G being more competitive has as much, or more, to do with the weakness at the top as it does improvement in the middle and lower rungs.
While that has the potential to make for an interesting BTT, it doesn't bode well for conference performance in the NCAA tourney.
As it stands now, purdue appears to be the only team with a chance at a 4 seed. A loss in the BTT and that could drop them to a 5.
Agree with HawkAttack, getting one team into the sweet 16 looks to be where the conference is at on the national landscape this year.

I would guess a couple teams would make Sweet16 from B1G just from having 7 bids there are bound to be a couple teams that get good matchups.

 

[DanL53]

I'll make a guess. The Big Ten was full of young teams this year, got better, and surprises in the first couple of rounds. We get three teams into the Sweet Sixteen and one in the final eight, at least.

 

[hawkipucker]

Let's put it this way. Many years I have an all BIG Final Four. I'm only going to have two BIG in the Final Four this year.

 

[Iafootballfan]

I think we will see a couple surprises and exceed expectations based on a sub-par regular season.

 

[DodgerHawki]

I'll make a guess. The Big Ten was full of young teams this year, got better, and surprises in the first couple of rounds. We get three teams into the Sweet Sixteen and one in the final eight, at least.

Will depend on matchups. If conference gets a bunch of 8, 9 and 10 seeds then I would say chances of getting 3 in the Sweet 16 are slim and none. There were some young teams, but most of them in the tournament aren't all that young.

Purdue - not young
Wisconsin - not young, 4 seniors and a sophomore start
Maryland - young, yes
Michigan - no freshman contributors other than Xavier Simpson, who played 9 minutes a game.
Northwestern - not young. Very experienced team
Michigan State - mix. Best players (Winston, Bridges and Ward) are freshmen
Minnesota - Coffey is young, but very, very good. Rest of their contributors are experienced.
Illinois (if it makes it) - very old
Iowa - extreme youth.

I wouldn't be surprised at 3 teams making it to the Sweet 16 or none making it.

 

[hexumhawk]

Think this year might be the opposite of last year.

Last year had a bunch of highly rated teams that people thought could go far; they had a bad tournament as a conference and as front runners.

This year: a bunch of teams that nobody is really talking about or taking seriously but tons of experience on a lot of teams. They might surprise.

 

[AuroraHawk]

While I understand that projections are not an accurate barometer of how seedings will actually play out, IF the projections prove to be prescient and the B1G ends up with a lot of 7,8,9 or 10 seeds, that will not bode well for B1G teams making it to the Sweet 16.

Here is how Lunardi is projecting (simply as an illustration):

Purdue - 4
Minnesota - 6
Wisconsin - 6
Maryland - 7
Michigan - 8
Northwestern - 9
Michigan State - 10

Under that scenario only Purdue would be seeded higher than an opponent if they all win game number 1.

Wisconsin and Minnesota would have to knock off a #3 seed. (Arizona, UCLA, Butler, Florida State)
Michigan State and Maryland would have to beat a #2 seed. (Louisville, Baylor, Oregon, Kentucky)
Michigan and Northwestern would have to get past a #1 seed (Kansas, Villanova, Gonzaga, UNC)

I think that this is definitely a year where the teams in the top 10 are noticeably better than the rest of the pack.

I'm all for the B1G doing well in the tournament but I'll admit that I'm not particularly hopeful for how things play out in the first weekend.

I'll also admit hoping that Iowa can somehow sneak into the above group and add an 8th team to the mix. And, quite frankly, I'd rather see them seeded as a #12 or #13 slot to start as opposed to a #7, #8, #9 or #10. While the first game would be tough, I like their chances better over the weekend.

 

[Myvue]

Last year I compared Lunardi's final bracketology list to what the actual NCAA tournament bracket looked like. He got a pretty good percentage of teams that made the tournament but he got a few surprises as did some schools.

The cities where the games will be played is a known in advance but even if Lunardi and the committee choose all of the same #1 seeds if they don't agree on the overall #1 seed the cities where the games will be held can fluctuate from one region to another. For example Lunardi has Kansas as his pick for the overall #1 seed playing in Tulsa. If the committee has Kansas as a #1 seed but not the overall #1 seed Tulsa will probably follow Kansas to whatever bracket the committee puts Kansas in which can start a multitude of changes.

 

[MeetTheFerentz]

Although I'd love to see the B1G do well in the NCAA's, there's really no good reason to think that they will. A bunch of inexperienced teams (either Tourney-wise or overall) seeded 7-10. Gonna be tough coming up with just a couple Sweet 16ers.

 

[HoustonREDHawk]

Tourney is about match ups, so it it hard to make predictions. B1G will do well in the first round, winning maybe 6 of 7. I will be surprised if more than 2 teams make the sweet 16, and 1 the elite 8. I don't think a B1G team will be in the final 4.

 

[TC4THREE]

Purdue - not young

We start either 4 juniors and a sophomore OR 3 juniors, a sophomore, and a freshman. We may not be young with 3/4 juniors but we don't start any seniors and Spike Albrecht is the only senior to have any sort of role at all and it is minimal. If by some miracle Swanigan decided to come back next season we would have basically the same team.

 

[DodgerHawki]

We start either 4 juniors and a sophomore OR 3 juniors, a sophomore, and a freshman. We may not be young with 3/4 juniors but we don't start any seniors and Spike Albrecht is the only senior to have any sort of role at all and it is minimal. If by some miracle Swanigan decided to come back next season we would have basically the same team.

Agreed no seniors. But most all of the team had played significant minutes before (Haas, Swanigan, Edwards, Matthias, Kline, PJ Thompson had all played a lot in years prior). That's what I was getting at.

 

[LuteHawk]

Purdue and Minnesota are interesting teams that
have the potential to get to the Sweet 16. With
some luck in the tournament seeds, they could
go further into the Final Four. The other Big 10
teams will need to demonstrate some defense
against teams like Kansas and UCLA.

 

[Hawk_4shur]

With all due respect to Iowa, the Hawks have defeated PU, MD and Wisky, and should have beaten Minny. This doesn't bode well for a deep run by those teams.
But, I will be rooting for all of them.