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Scoreboard Watching - Whom to Root For?

AuroraHawk

AuroraHawk

HB Heisman
Dec 18, 2004
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So . . big weekend of B1G baseball. Lots of games of interest.

RPI be damned. I'm pulling for MSU to win at least one of three against Michigan, Illinois to take two of three against Maryland and for Rutgers to at least split against both Indiana and Nebraska.

Friday:
Indiana v. Rutgers (Indiana 8-3)
Michigan v. Michigan State (Michigan 5-1)
Maryland v. Illinois (Maryland 2-0)

Saturday:
Indiana v. Rutgers (Indiana 5-3 in 11)
Indiana v. Nebraska (Nebraska 7-6)
Michigan v. Michigan State (Michigan 3-1)
Maryland v. Illinois (G1) (Maryland 5-3)
Maryland v. Illinois (G2) (Maryland 12-4)

Sunday:
Indiana v. Nebraska (Indiana 4-2)
Rutgers v. Nebraska (Nebraska 15-5)
Michigan v. Michigan State (Michigan State 10-2)

Monday:
Rutgers v. Nebraska (Nebraska up 6-3 in T4)
 
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Rutgers went into T9 with one run lead over Indiana despite only having one hit.

Hoosiers tie it up in T9.

Hoosiers score 2 in T10.

Rutgers at bat …..

Rutgers ties in in B10.

Indiana scores 2 in T11.
 
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So Indiana has played two games and one went to extras. Now they turn around and play a well rested Nebraska team? Seems a bit unfair.
 
SWIowahawks said:
So Indiana has played two games and one went to extras. Now they turn around and play a well rested Nebraska team? Seems a bit unfair.
Click to expand...

More importantly, Indiana is starting their #3 starting pitcher against Nebraska while Nebraska is starting their #1 starting pitcher. Advantage: Nebraska.
 
AuroraHawk said:
So . . big weekend of B1G baseball. Lots of games of interest.

RPI be damned. I'm pulling for MSU to win at least one of three against Michigan, Illinois to take two of three against Maryland and for Rutgers to at least split against both Indiana and Nebraska.

Friday:
Indiana v. Rutgers (Indiana 8-3)
Michigan v. Michigan State (Michigan 5-1)
Maryland v. Illinois (Maryland 2-0)

Saturday:
Indiana v. Rutgers (Indiana 5-3 in 11)
Indiana v. Nebraska (Nebraska 7-6)
Michigan v. Michigan State (Michigan 3-1)
Maryland v. Illinois (G1) (Maryland 5-3)
Maryland v. Illinois (G2) (Maryland 12-4)

Sunday:
Indiana v. Nebraska (Indiana 4-2)
Rutgers v. Nebraska (Nebraska 15-5)
Michigan v. Michigan State (Michigan State 10-2)

Monday:
Rutgers v. Nebraska (Nebraska up 6-3 in T4)
Click to expand...

Well . . .
Michigan State grabbed one against Michigan.
Illinois only grabbed one against Maryland.
And, in the biggest disappointment of the weekend, Rutgers - AT HOME - drops both to Indiana, one to Nebraska and is currently down 6-3 in top of the 4th against Nebraska. Nebraska scored 6 in T1.

About the best I can say is that Michigan didn't gain any ground on Iowa, Maryland didn't sweep Illinois to go ahead of Iowa and Rutgers has effectively played itself out of any contention.

Iowa and Maryland sit at 21-14 (tied for 4th)
Ohio State is 17-14 in 6th place.

Is that true "separation" between 4th/5th and 6th places?

Also . . . I guess it is also important that in the race for 4th places, Iowa not only has won 3 of 4 against Maryland but here are the remaining schedules:

Iowa (3 versus Illinois (H), Northwestern (A) and Michigan State (A))
Maryland (3 versus Purdue (H); Michigan (A) and Indiana (H))

Iowa has (1) scheduling advantage over Maryland; (2) 3 wins to 1 win head-to-head advantage over Maryland and (3) is currently 194 RPI points ahead of Maryland.

For this weekend's games . . . Iowa and Maryland both host opponents. Maryland's opponent, Purdue, has a 173 RPI rating. Iowa's opponent, Illinois, has a 186 RPI rating. Thus, Iowa's wins/losses should "score" about the same as Maryland's wins/losses. So long as Iowa doesn't fare worse than Maryland in this weekend's games, there shouldn't be significant change vis-a-vis one another at the conclusion of next weekend. Once again, if Iowa can figure out a way to sweep Illinois, there will be tons of pressure on Maryland to try to keep up.

As for "sweeping" opponents, I'd just point out that Michigan couldn't sweep Michigan State and Maryland couldn't sweep Illinois this weekend.

Iowa's remaining opponents and how they've fared against B1G's best:

Illinois:
0-2 v. Indiana (last game postponed)
1-1 v. Michigan
1-2 v. Nebraska
1-2 v. Maryland
(NOTE: Illinois is 11-10 on the road this year but that includes games played against opponents which were not true "HOME" games for the opponent (i.e. playing Ohio State in South Carolina to start the season and playing MSU in Ann Arbor as part of a pod weekend)

Northwestern (currently sitting on 6 straight COVID cancelled games):
1-2 v. Indiana
1-1 v. Michigan (2 games cancelled because of COVID)
0-0 v. Nebraska (3 games scheduled this weekend)
0-2 v. Iowa
0-2 v. Maryland
(NOTE: Northwestern has only played 6 games at home this year and has gone 2-4)

Michigan State:
1-2 v. Indiana
2-3 v. Michigan
1-2 v. Nebraska
1-3 v. Maryland
(NOTE: MSU is 5-8 at home this year)

Bottom line, NONE of Iowa's last three opponents have been swept in a 3 game series by any of the top 5 teams. Tall hill to climb. Very tall.

I still think that, by finishing either 6-3 or 7-2, Iowa can either climb in the standings or be part of a "clump" at the top of the B1G. Here's hoping that Iowa can re-find their bats and can pitch similarly as this past weekend. Illinois scored very little against Maryland. If Iowa can hold Illinois to 2 runs, 4 runs and 3 runs, I like Iowa's chances to win the series . . .
 
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From reading the tea leaves, blogs and some great stuff on here by Auger, Frannie, Aurora and Kyle H, I think the RPI metric given the COVID situation and scheduling will have much less empahsis, plus the fact no Tournament in Omaha. DO NOT get me started on that, being in Omaha I very much look forward to this....and a few weeks after that TDA will have 11,000 people in the seats..GRRRRR...

Don't think I've EVER seen this high of B10 RPI's for Top 4 teams in the conf and those four all projected in the tourney, which tells me the committee will have to lessen the effect of it on resumes for the B10. And PSU acting that way after the game on Sunday? BAU for that school with no hope of the posteason, the series is all that mattered but would've been nice to have another AB there and hold Sher, he was barely to 3B when the LF got the ball.
 
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With respect to RPI standings . . . .

Rutgers has scrambled back to crawl even with Nebraska. They are in T10 with the game knotted at 6.

Regardless of the outcome, Iowa will drop to #55 in the RPI.
 
BigOHawk said:
And PSU acting that way after the game on Sunday? BAU for that school with no hope of the posteason, the series is all that mattered
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, given that PSU was 2-11 against Indiana (0-4) , Michigan (1-2), Nebraska (0-3) and Maryland (1-2), the Iowa series was PSU's last chance to play spoiler this year.

Illinois, Northwestern and Michigan State are all relegated to somewhat comparable status (if Northwestern gets out of COVID jail, they have Nebraska next weekend). Without a tournament, these are the last chance for these teams to make a "statement."
 
AuroraHawk said:
With respect to RPI standings . . . .

Rutgers has scrambled back to crawl even with Nebraska. They are in T10 with the game knotted at 6.

Regardless of the outcome, Iowa will drop to #55 in the RPI.
Click to expand...

Holy crap.
Both Nebraska and Rutgers had baserunners thrown out at home with 2 outs in the 12th inning . . . . they are advancing to T13 . . . still 6-6.
 
Alum-Ni said:
Nebraska survives and wins 7-6 in 13 innings.

I don't want to play Rutgers ever again. Yikes.
Click to expand...

A certain team based in Piscataway apparently couldn't handle the pressure of being identified as one of the "last five teams out" last week. Totally spit the bit. At home, dropping all four games. Goes from 17-13 and coming off of a sweep in Lincoln to being swept.

Blah. Thanks for nothing.
 
Actually not a bad weekend for results for Iowa. They are still within range of the top three. Rutgers essentially played themselves out. Ideally if Rutgers had won today, and Maryland lose the Illinois series and/or Iowa sweep PSU then everything we wanted to happen would.

The national media was really starting to hype Rutgers. It would not have been good had they went say 4-0 or 3-1 this weekend as they probably leap frog Iowa just based on “perception”.
 
Pretty easy weekend:
-I’m pulling for Northwestern v. Nebraska
-I’m pulling for Purdue v. Maryland
-Because of games played and loss column, I’m pulling for Michigan v. Indiana
-Finally, I’ll be pulling for Illini to shake off their 5 game losing streak by winning Tuesday’s game against Indiana 😉

EDIT: If you are a regular listener of the Big Baseball Podcast but haven’t listened this week, the hosts devote some time to their perception that Iowa may sneak in to conference championship contention as the leaders beat up on one another. They like Indiana’s chances best and highlight that Michigan’s schedule is brutal .... the hosts of the podcast are Purdue’s baseball announcers. At the beginning of the season, one of them was really high on Iowa. The other was the opposite. It’s become somewhat of a recurring joke about how wrong one of them was. The guy who was high on Iowa at start of season went so far as to say that it is “highly likely” Iowa finishes 7-2 to finish season. I think that’s an overstatement but I sure hope that he nails that prediction. They interview the IU baseball coach who predicts the B1G will be a four team NCAA invite league.
 
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AuroraHawk said:
For this weekend's games . . . Iowa and Maryland both host opponents. Maryland's opponent, Purdue, has a 173 RPI rating. Iowa's opponent, Illinois, has a 186 RPI rating. Thus, Iowa's wins/losses should "score" about the same as Maryland's wins/losses. So long as Iowa doesn't fare worse than Maryland in this weekend's games, there shouldn't be significant change vis-a-vis one another at the conclusion of next weekend.
Click to expand...

Following up on this for anyone interested in monitoring RPI.

With the caveat that RPI points for the weekend’s games will fluctuate slightly to reflect tonight’s results, Iowa will gain 9 RPI points if it wins tonight and will lose 66 RPI points if it loses. Maryland will gain 3 RPI points if it wins tonight and lose 71 RPI points if it loses.

Thus, as predicted, if Iowa and Maryland win/lose same number of games this weekend, Iowa will maintain a significant RPI point advantage over Maryland heading into final two weeks (where Maryland can “juice” its RPI numbers)
 
There's been some speculation in d1 Baseball and Baseball America that "separation" or "stratification" in the final B1G standings may help get the B1G up to 5 teams in the NCAA tournament.

To that end, I appreciate Rutgers' apparent effort to join the "have nots" by losing its fifth straight game to fall one game under .500.

As of now, there is a definite top 5.
An "in the middle" 17-14 OSU team. (How screwed over do you think that they feel in light of the fact that they were deprived of playing Minnesota 3 times last weekend). If they had the chance to play Minnesota, they'd likely be 20-14 with a closing schedule not too dissimilar to Iowa's. They play MSU and Northwestern three times but also have two games against Nebbie and Indiana.
And then there are 7 teams below .500.
 
AuroraHawk said:
There's been some speculation in d1 Baseball and Baseball America that "separation" or "stratification" in the final B1G standings may help get the B1G up to 5 teams in the NCAA tournament.

To that end, I appreciate Rutgers' apparent effort to join the "have nots" by losing its fifth straight game to fall one game under .500.

As of now, there is a definite top 5.
An "in the middle" 17-14 OSU team. (How screwed over do you think that they feel in light of the fact that they were deprived of playing Minnesota 3 times last weekend). If they had the chance to play Minnesota, they'd likely be 20-14 with a closing schedule not too dissimilar to Iowa's. They play MSU and Northwestern three times but also have two games against Nebbie and Indiana.
And then there are 7 teams below .500.
Click to expand...
Indeed, if roles were reversed and Iowa was in Maryland's shoes, we wouldn't be happy campers! Assuming those games aren't be made up?
 
Rutgers losing to Penn State literally shows you how fluid things are. They’ve now lost five in a row. They go from nationally talked about, first five out. To essentially no way they get in now in a matter of seven days.
 
From a “separation” standpoint, kudos to MSU and PSU. Tough losses for both Rutgers and Ohio State.

Kudos to Michigan for adding to IU’s loss column.

Sneers to Purdue and Northwestern for NOT SHOWING UP.

What a freaking race. Makes me forget that I’m a Pirates fan. There is nothing - LITERALLY NOTHING - better than a title race in baseball.
 
AuroraHawk said:
From a “separation” standpoint, kudos to MSU and PSU. Tough losses for both Rutgers and Ohio State.

Kudos to Michigan for adding to IU’s loss column.

Sneers to Purdue and Northwestern for NOT SHOWING UP.

What a freaking race. Makes me forget that I’m a Pirates fan. There is nothing - LITERALLY NOTHING - better than a title race in baseball.
Click to expand...

I expected Northwestern to be rusty.
 
Sounds like Northwestern only has 19 guys available this weekend, and playing with a skeleton crew. So naturally they’ll be back at 100% next weekend.
 
Northwestern has used four pitchers today, two yesterday. Sounds like they have none left. Already talk of no game tomorrow possibly.
 
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