How much does the Eastern Ill game affect us?
- Thread starter hawksense
- Start date
Have a long ways to go, but it'll be put into context by NET. Objective numbers/data from a season's worth of games mitigates the anomalies. And if we don't make it a habit to repeat bad losses, the "Iowa didn't have 2 starters" angle should (off the record) come into play.
Disagree. 8 is a lock with the NET ranking and weak Bubble. 7 would be Bubble, depending who we beat and how our out of conference wins look at end of the year (neutral Clemson, ISU, @ Seton Hall).
Think the Rutgers win balanced it out metrics wise but it’s still one less win. 9-5 should be enough though. Winning all 3 of these home games would be huge.
Realistically, that game is by far the biggest stain on our resume in years and probably drop us from a 6 or 7 seed down to a 8 or 9 seed. It happens, they don’t play the games on paper. We could still finish the year out strong and get back to 6 or 7 seed if all the pieces fall in to place.
The Bubble is always more weak than people realize. One thing I like to look at this time of year is just how many at-large bids are the power 6 conferences looking at getting? Mid-majors just have way less opportunities to pick up quality wins, so we can reasonably forecast the MM at-large contenders--a team could of course go on a run, but teams outside this list have a very small margin of error.
MM At-Large Bid Contenders (Ranked in order of likelihood):
American:
MM At-Large Bid Contenders (Ranked in order of likelihood):
American:
- Houston (Lock)
- Memphis
- UCF
- San Diego St (semi-lock)
- New Mexico
- Boise St
- Utah St
- Nevada
- Gonzaga (Lock)
- St. Mary's (semi-lock)
- Florida Atlantic (CUSA)
- Kent State (Mac)
Really early talk about who gets into the dance is funny. EI loss definitely makes the task harder, but right now we just need to beat MaryLand.
And since I'm already looking at this stuff, I may as well write up the actual tournament contenders for the power conference teams too. This is a bit shakier to project since there's lots of Q1 opportunities remaining for most P6 teams, so in theory lots of teams have a chances to make the field by getting hot and going on a run.
PAC12--My Projection: 3 bids
- UCLA (Lock)
- Arizona (Lock)
- Arizona St (Bubble)
- Utah (weak Bubble)
- USC (weak Bubble)
- UCONN (Lock)
- Xavier (Lock)
- Marquette (semi-lock)
- Providence (semi-lock)
- Creighton (Bubble)
- Virginia (Lock)
- Duke (Lock)
- Miami (Lock)
- UNC (Bubble)
- NC State (Bubble)
- Clemson (Bubble)
- Pitt (Bubble)
- VA Tech (weak Bubble)
- Wake Forest (weak Bubble)
- Tennessee (Lock)
- Alabama (Lock)
- Arkansas (semi-lock)
- Auburn (strong bubble)
- Missouri (bubble)
- Mississippi St (bubble)
- Kentucky (weak bubble)
- LSU (fringe bubble)
- Florida (fringe bubble)
- Kansas (lock)
- Texas (lock)
- Iowa St. (lock)
- Kansas St (semi-lock)
- Baylor (semi-lock)
- TCU (semi-lock)
- West Virginia (bubble)
- OK State (bubble)
- Oklahoma (bubble)
- Texas Tech (weak bubble)
- Purdue (lock)
- Rutgers (semi-lock)
- Wisconsin (semi-lock)
- Illinois (strong bubble)
- Ohio St (strong bubble)
- Michigan St (bubble)
- Iowa (bubble)
- Maryland (bubble)
- Penn State (bubble)
- Northwestern (bubble)
- Indiana (bubble)
- Michigan (weak bubble)
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I think the Eastern loss will have a negligible effect on our seed and only matter if we are on the 4 team last in-last out bubble. The overall NET is what they look at, one bad loss doesn’t move the needle much. The multiple good wins with no other bad losses is more crucial to our seeding. And it’s hard to have a truly bad loss in the Big.
If this team can grab a few more B10 road wins and hold serve at home, all will be forgiven.
Winning the Michigan game was a sneaky important win. A loss to Michigan would incredibly have been a Quad 3 loss, maybe Michigan improved that to quad 2 by the end of the season.
The trouble with the eastern Illinois loss is that erases our margin for error. Can’t really afford any more quad 3 or quad 4 losses or it will be a nervy March.
Pretty likely we’ll only have two more Q3/4 games (@ Minnesota, vs. Nebraska) before the B1G.
But your point still stands.
Eastern is simply a bad loss - nothing more.
In March, the committee is not going to focus on one bad loss during Christmas break with 2 starters missing.
In March, the committee is not going to focus on one bad loss during Christmas break with 2 starters missing.
I’ve been saying to my friends, some of whom think that it hangs like a cloud, that if we take care of business in conference, the EI game does not matter. They disagreed, but I don’t listen to dolts.
If the hawks continue to play like they have the past 3 games, you’re right - it won’t matter. Maybe a minor impact in terms of seeding but it shouldn’t affect making the tourney.
At the time, when they followed that game up with two other losses; and it looked like we’d maybe get to 17 or 18 wins? I think it would have mattered more.
I doubt they’d have remembered we were down 2 starters.
It should but I’m not sure they look at stuff like that necessarily. It also shouldn’t have mattered, eastern illinoisn ranked something like the 5th worst team in all college hoops at the time.
It would be nice if we knew stuff like missing players, the odd circumstances around that game, etc were taken into consideration but idk if they do.
EIU is a bad team, that was a bad loss, and it will always be a bad loss.
This is Iowa BBall in the BIG- There isn't a team they can't beat, there isn't a team they cant't lose to.
Sit back and be infuriated when they lose a game they shouldn't and be elated when they beat a team they shouldn't.
This is Iowa BBall in the BIG- There isn't a team they can't beat, there isn't a team they cant't lose to.
Sit back and be infuriated when they lose a game they shouldn't and be elated when they beat a team they shouldn't.
Our NET is around 20 right now without it and we are probably a 6 or 7 seed projection currently.
Doubt it... Ohio St has a Quad 4 loss and they're ranked 21st.
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I think the committee would look at Iowa’s injury situation for that bad loss and factor it in.
tough bubble you have there in the ACC.
Clemson is 15-3 and 7-0 in the league. Beat Duke last night
Clemson is 15-3 and 7-0 in the league. Beat Duke last night
I would think no Murray or CMac would play into the equation.
A 9/10 seed in mid-January is the very definition of a bubble team. Iowa also sits as a 9/10 seed in a lot of projections right now. Do you not classify them as a bubble team?
If Clemson was sitting as a 9 seed projection heading into the ACC tournament than I would take them off the bubble list. The bubble shrinks as we go along in the season, but right now the bubble is quite large because we are only 60ish% of the way through the regular season.
The other reason why the ACC in particular has a lot of bubble teams is there's a lot of landmines. Clemson still has 6! Q3 & 4 games on the schedule. Compare that to Iowa who has 2 Q3 game remaining. Clemson cannot afford to lose more than 1 of those.
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We just need to beat Minnesota on road & Nebraska at home to avoid anymore bad losses& finish 10-10 or 11-9 in conf. play we will be in.
I'm jealous, you clearly have a bigger bubble than me. I don't consider 9 seeds bubble teams at all, especially with the play-in games. They are the top 9 seed right now (one spot ahead of Iowa) per bracket matrix, I would not consider them a bubble team at all.
Rutgers had a similar resume last year, in that it had a lot of quality wins but also a few bad losses. They were one of the last 4 in. While the bubble is different every year, Iowa's resume looks very favorable compared to Rutgers' resume last year.
Rutgers 2021-2022:
Iowa 2022-2023 (projected pre-Big 10 Tournament):
Rutgers 2021-2022:
- 18-13 (12-8) overall
- #80 NET
- #77 KenPom
- Quad 1: 5-5
- Quad 2: 4-2
- Quad 3: 3-5
- Quad 4: 6-1
- 12-6 (4-3) overall
- #35 NET
- #32 KenPom
- Quad 1: 4-3
- Quad 2: 3-2
- Quad 3: 1-0
- Quad 4: 4-1
Iowa 2022-2023 (projected pre-Big 10 Tournament):
- 19-12 (11-9) overall
- #35? NET
- #32? KenPom
- Quad 1: 7-9
- Quad 2: 4-2
- Quad 3: 4-0
- Quad 4: 4-1
- Northwestern - W
- @Ohio State - L
- @Michigan State - L
- Rutgers - W
- Illinois - W
- @Purdue - L
- Minnesota - W
- Ohio State - W
- @Northwestern - L
- @Wisconsin - L
- Michigan State - W
- @Indiana - L
- Nebraska - W
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As things stand now, I certainly think they’re in, just need to avoid another bad stretch.
Win tomorrow, split at Sparty/at buckeye games for example. Losing 2 of the next three wouldn’t be ideal.
