Kevin , tremendous job laying it all out in black and white with data to bolster the argument for the basketball people and the data nerds.
I want to take it a step further. We should never have been a bubble team and a 9 seed or even an 8 seed is where we should have landed.
No team was punished more from where we were viewed on February 4 to March 6 in 8 games. BAC was yelling at people doing bracketology too early in January but by early February brackets were coming out and the Conmittee’s reveal was 10 days away. Most projections had us as a 5/6 seed , most people said we were the second best team in the BIG 10, we were 16-7 and 8-4 in the BIG 10 already playing one of the toughest schedules in the conference.
To drop us 5-6 seed lines is almost criminal. No team has been treated like this ever unless there was a total collapse like losing 8 straight. Iowa State lost 4 in a row and got blown out in 2 of them and hardly moved from a 3/4 to a 4/5 and they have our record . Purdue lost 4of 6 and thoughts were to drop them from the 1 seed but because they win the BIG tourney they keep their 1 seed. Following this for years , teams in a rough patch not a collapse , get dinged a seed line or 2. We got hosed and the media and bracketologists ran with Rutgers should now be on the bubble. What horseshit and throwing history and precedent out the window.
The chair cites the 2- 6 final record and we didn’t look like the same team post MAG thru NW. No disagreement with that statement as he couldn’t be talking about the first 2 after injury , losing to Indiana by 6 on the road and to Illinois by 9 on the road in a game we led for the first 25 minutes , teams they seeded 4 and 9 So he was talking about the final 6 but he really wasn’t. If he was talking about losing to Nebraska , Michigan and Northwestern where in the last 2 we looked non functional on offense and it seems clear it is the only games they watched , you can get some agreement. If he was talking about Minnesota, the Committee could not have watched that game because we dominated the whole game leading by 7-14 points and were leading the entire game for 39 minutes and 59 and 1/2 seconds and blew a 10 point lead with 1:15 left where 12 things had to go wrong for the miracle buzzer beater to happen. Any Committee member watching should have said well Rutgers beat them by 35 at home but 2 guys were out including Garcia and now Minnesota was at full strength and Rutgers dominated the game and lost on a miracle. You say it is a bad loss but evaluating the game didn’t leave you the impression Minnesota was the better team just that they got incredibly lucky and needed a miracle to win and that Minnesota was better that day than when they got stomped by 35 earlier to Rutgers . But a bad loss maybe drop a seed line.
So analyzing those 4 , Nebraska , Michigan , NW and Minnesota we deserved to be dinged. If we were 5/6 seed on 2/4 then maybe a 6 after Indiana / Illinois . Now the 4 losses ding us 2-3 seeds to an 8/9 seed.
Incredibly , they also either did not watch nor give us credit for beating Wisconsin on the road without both Caleb and MAG , a team that was supposedly still in the field but trending towards the bubble and was desperate for the win. We also were leading almost the whole game except for 3-4 minutes in the second half.
They also did not give us credit for beating Penn State on the road , another team that was on the bubble and on the outside but absolutely desperate for the win. That second half with the insertion of Derek and holding them without a field goal for 11 minutes and shutting out Pickett was the start of the turnaround to what happened in the BIG 10 tourney.
Road wins was supposedly one of the best resume and seed boosters possible and we got not 1 but 2 during this “”so called terrible stretch didn’t look the same team “ and we did it against a team in the field at the time and one on the bubble just outside ( which flipped ) not some lower level team in the ACC.
So if you are on the Committee balancing the last 6 games , they drop us down to 8/9 and maybe back to a solid 8 with the 2 road wins.
Then the kicker comes . They literally do not watch the tourney. Pike makes the lineup change and inserts Derek into the starting lineup and we beat and pretty much easily handle Michigan by double digits , a team supposedly right there on the bubble on the outside needing to beat us to stay alive , a desperate team , and break a record by holding them to 1 fg for the first 19 minutes of the second half . Then we follow that up with leading Putdue early first 10-12 minutes , down 1 at the half , and go toe to toe with a team they seeded# 1 and lose by 5 to that team that we already beat and we get nothing but ousted from the NCAA. Madness.
Our offense looked functional again, Derek energized the offense and it flowed again and our defense was as elite as ever. If we weren’t exactly that Pre MAG team we were getting pretty close to looking like it again. BUT , BUT But. The Committee didn’t watch the tourney and decided to make up their minds at the end of the regular season after NW.
But if they watched and they were properly seeding us as an 8/9. , then we were a solid 8 after the tourney or a first 9. We won on the road to tourney and bubble teams , won on a neutral against a desperate bubble and took a # 1 seed to the wire and played for 40 minutes Rutgers Basketball. The basketball team that no one wanted to face in the tourney.
One last point too is really important . We lose by 13 points 2x as our worst loss of the year. We were never blown out . There was never a game that we did not have a chance to win in the second half . None.
This incredible stupid notion that now has surfaced that losing to a conference team or a Power 6 team by 25-30 points is not a bad loss but losing to your rival by 1 is a bad loss is absolutely crazy. People ‘s brains should be examined for CTE. NCState got blown out by Clemson not once but twice by 25 and 26 points. Pittsburgh got blown out by Michigan by 30 and stumbled mightily down the stretch. The madness has to stop and people that have the ability to use common sense has to return. We were utterly screwed by the media putting out the false narrative that we should have been a bubble team , when it was the furthest thing from the truth and the Committee not doing their job will not leave me forever.
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