B1G title

[Sbee]

Starting to see a path for msu. Iowa losing to Wisconsin helped a lot. We need Indiana to lose 2 games, Iowa 1 and MD 1. Indiana plays at Iowa so I'd assume they lose there. Hopefully Illinois or Maryland beat IU, MD loses @ Purdue and we win out for a 3 way tie.

Illinois up 8 on IU now

 

[Sbee]

Also need Iowa to lose @ OSU or @ Michigan

 

[Spartan23MSU]

3 losses to inferior teams by 1 point, really annoying. Valetine went out I knew we had a 10% chance at that point

 

[MSUMatt28]

We could have:


Maryland loses at Purdue
Indiana loses at Iowa and home to Maryland
Iowa loses at UM
we win out


4 way tie.


Amazingly Wisconsin could conceivably make it 5. I'd think they would lose at Purdue, but they've just won at Maryland and Iowa in the past 2 weeks.

 

[Sbee]

Pretty bad 2nd half by IL last night, they're terrible. I wonder how they feel about firing Bruce webber at this point?

 

[Spartanmack]

Maryland is a very beatable team - i don't see them winning at IU and Iowa seems to be reeling right now as well. We have a shot - if we win out I don't think Maryland is a problem as I expect them to lose at least one if not two games, we lose the tiebreaker to Iowa but they could lose their last 2 if they don't right the ship. Personally, I just don't see IU dropping two games - they're playing better than MD and Iowa right now. I think a 3 (or more)-way tie like the scenario that MSUMatt talked about is one of the more likely outcomes - it could very easily be a 3 way tie of 4 loss teams leaving us out in the cold.

 

[Spartanmack]

It would be nice to hang another banner, but at this point I don't really care that much - we blew it in the 2nd half of January. If we win out and tie or finish 1 game outside of a tie they can still get a 1 seed, 2 at least by winning the BTT - making the BTT semi-final should get us at least a 3, no?

 

[LuciousGameWinner]

Does it really matter? Big Ten title would be nice, but a final four or better yet a national championship would be much better. If we win out and win the big ten tournament I think we have a decent shot at a 1 seed. I really want to play Iowa in the BTT, they're due for a beating after absolutely crushing us twice this season.

 

[LuciousGameWinner]

It would be nice to hang another banner, but at this point I don't really care that much - we blew it in the 2nd half of January. If we win out and tie or finish 1 game outside of a tie they can still get a 1 seed, 2 at least by winning the BTT - making the BTT semi-final should get us at least a 3, no?

Beat me to it by a few seconds! Well said.

 

[Spartanmack]

Pretty bad 2nd half by IL last night, they're terrible. I wonder how they feel about firing Bruce webber at this point?

based on what he's done at K-State (has exact same conf record at Groce this year) I'd say it's 6 of one, half dozen of the other. If Self had a big buyout, maybe they wish they'd waited until his contract expired before replacing him with someone who also stinks.

 

[Spartanmack]

Beat me to it by a few seconds! Well said.

I've often thought we're the two smartest people on this board - now we have proof!

 

[Sbee]

Does it really matter? Big Ten title would be nice, but a final four or better yet a national championship would be much better. If we win out and win the big ten tournament I think we have a decent shot at a 1 seed. I really want to play Iowa in the BTT, they're due for a beating after absolutely crushing us twice this season.

Agree on all counts, I'd love to win the big ten in fb and bb in the same academic year but it's not like fb where you need to win the big ten in order to compete for bigger things.

 

[MSUMatt28]

It would be nice to hang another banner, but at this point I don't really care that much - we blew it in the 2nd half of January. If we win out and tie or finish 1 game outside of a tie they can still get a 1 seed, 2 at least by winning the BTT - making the BTT semi-final should get us at least a 3, no?

I think if we win out including the BTT we're a 1. If we win out in the regular season and make the BTT semi's we're a 2, maybe even if we lose early in the BTT depending on what happens elsewhere.

Only way I see us falling to a 3 now is if we lose one in the regular season and also fall early in the BTT.

 

[LuciousGameWinner]

What's hurting us a bit in terms of our resume is the total collapse of Providence. They went from a top 10 team to unranked. It's still a nice win but not what it once was. Still beating Kansas, Lousville and Florida out of conference is impressive.

 

[Spartanmack]

What's hurting us a bit in terms of our resume is the total collapse of Providence. They went from a top 10 team to unranked. It's still a nice win but not what it once was. Still beating Kansas, Lousville and Florida out of conference is impressive.

yeah, how 'bout that - they looked so good in the first half of the season and improving but they have totally thrown their season in the toilet.

 

[MSUMatt28]

I don't think anything involving Providence is hurting that much. It's still a win vs a top 25-30 opponent. Plus the Big East is one of the most highly rated conferences so teams are going to lose some games in there. Louisville has proven to be better than initially expected to kind of balance that out.

MSU still has one of the better non-conference resumes out there. I think the lack of depth in the Big Ten this year, and the fact that we've managed to lose 5 games in it, could prove more damaging.

All in all they still stand a very good chance of being a 2 seed and fairly decent chance at landing a 1 the way Top 10 teams keep losing this year.

 

[Sbee]

Stars are aligning here, still need some help. Basically we need IU to lose out, they play @ Iowa and vs Maryland. I was feeling good about Iowa beating them but they are clearly in a free fall right now. I'd say our chances are about 25% with a second place tie w Iowa as the most likely result.

 

[johnny2x2x]

Stars are aligning here, still need some help. Basically we need IU to lose out, they play @ Iowa and vs Maryland. I was feeling good about Iowa beating them but they are clearly in a free fall right now. I'd say our chances are about 25% with a second place tie w Iowa as the most likely result.

Iowa already has 5 losses, they lose to IU and we will be ahead of them. We're technically in 5th place right now because of the way the tie breakers work, but we have a 100% chance of getting the double bye should we win out because of the teams we are tied with playing each other.

Nobody in the conference wants to see MSU in their half of the bracket right now.

 

[MSUMatt28]

So much for that. IU gets it done last night. Still with a good chance to grab the 2 or 3 seed in the BTT.

 

[johnny2x2x]

So much for that. IU gets it done last night. Still with a good chance to grab the 2 or 3 seed in the BTT.

Win our last 2 and we are guaranteed the 2 seed. We hold the tie breaker with MD and Wisky. We will play at 6:30 Friday evening vs the winner of the 7-10 game. Wisky will likely be the 3 seed on our side of the bracket. The 6 seed could be Purdue or Iowa.

UM is almost locked into the 8 seed on the other side of the bracket, darnit, would really like to hand those chumps another beat down.