Big Ten Bracketology: The Shifting Sands of Eight Seeds

First, it’s a pretty consensus-y 11 teams in the NCAA Tournament this week. That sentence feels ridiculous to write, but this is a top-to-bottom maybe-decent conference, and apparently we’re going to see a lot of Big Ten teams bomb out of the Big Dance before the second weekend.

Fun!

Big Ten Bracketology

B1G Thoughts

• Maryland are consensus Top 10 and half this fanbase wants their coach fired. Meanwhile my team can’t switch a fucking pick against Zavier Simpson. I hate this fucking conference so much.
• Yes, that is Penn State on a 4-seed line. What is happening? But also, wouldn’t really want that New Mexico State matchup. The rest look fine, but I’d much rather a North Texas.
• As I was driving to Milwaukee and back on Tuesday/Wednesday, I had a thought: Put Michigan State record and Kenpom/Sagarin ratings up against other teams with rough conference records. Or something. It wasn’t a terribly fleshed-out idea.
• That’s because I turned in a 700+ page draft of my thesis and pulled an all-nighter to get it done in addition to driving to and from school, which is pretty exciting but also holy fucking shit imagine how much of my life I have wasted on this website that could’ve been spent not turning in a trainwreck of a paper.
• Which team’s seed will drop farther after the injuries this week: Iowa with the (high?) ankle sprain of C.J. Frederick, or Illinois with the gruesome knee injury to Ayo Dosunmu? Woof.

• Also, the possibility that Illinois could play Wichita State or Northern Iowa has really made me yearn for a return to true regional sites. I want to watch Iowa have to play Northern Iowa in the first round. DUCK THE PANTHERS AT YOUR OWN PERIL, FRANNY.
• Michigan: A comfortable, non-threatening 8-seed. They will beat Xavier, everyone will remind us breathlessly that “This is the Michigan team that thrashed Gonzaga in the Bahamas!” and then they’ll lose by 30 to Baylor. Like watching a Jeff Jackson Simpson car wreck in slow motion.
• I am still so busy not wasting my time trying to figure out this Kobe King thing that I totally forgot wisconsin are still having a decent season, somehow. You know now that this’ll turn into the season where Gard pulls an upset of the 2-seed out of his ass, Petrykus forgets that he was pretending to be a reporter, and business-as-usual carries right on in madison.
• But seriously, wisconsin apparently could be a 10-seed playing USC or a 7-seed playing Stanford, and that feels so gift-wrapped irregardless that there’s no fucking point. Would Northwestern or Nebraska just do their damn job and end this thing?
• Rutgers has finally cooled off a little, and that’s just fine, because they’re still a tourney team. And it’s gravy at this point. Good for them; you’re a good team.
• A good team.
• From the sounds of it, beating Iowa by a bazillion vaulted Purdue from the jaws of First Four Out and into a comfortable 9-ish seed slot?

• Hey Maryland fans: Indiana fans occasionally losing their shit over Archie Miller is actually cause for a coach being fired. Now I hope IU limps into the tourney as an 11-seed, gets a First Four beating in Dayton from Florida or something, and has to have a long off-season of conversations.
• Bob Knight came back, though.
• If “NFO Milk Dump” is confusing to you, Minnesota fans, go read a fucking book. And then enjoy the NIT.

Happy Valentine’s Day or whatever; midweek hoops recaps coming in the next couple hours if anyone tells me what happened in their games.