ESPN B1G Bubble

[Otis]

Locks as of 21 Feb: Wisconsin and Purdue

Should be in: Maryland, MINNESOTA and Northwestern (I personally think Maryland should be in the lock category.)

Work left to do: Michigan, Michigan State and Indiana

Indiana in my opinion is toast and should drop from the list.

Michigan game is going to be HUGE. Gophers go to lock with a win on Sunday!

Go Gophers!

 

[SelectionSunday]

Locks as of 17 Feb: Wisconsin and Purdue

Should be in: Maryland, MINNESOTA and Northwestern (I personally think Maryland should be in the lock category.)

Work left to do: Michigan, Michigan and Indiana

Indiana in my opinion is toast and should drop from the list.

Michigan game is going to be HUGE. Gophers go to lock with a win on Sunday!

Go Gophers!

Agree on Maryland.

Only other thing I'd do is replace Indiana with Ohio State. Buckeyes have a decent chance to win out & get to 9-9. That would at least put Buckeyes in a position heading to Washington, D.C. where a semifinals appearance gets them in the mix.

 

[Otis]

Agree on Maryland.

Only other thing I'd do is replace Indiana with Ohio State. Buckeyes have a decent chance to win out & get to 9-9. That would at least put Buckeyes in a position heading to Washington, D.C. where a semifinals appearance gets them in the mix.

Agreed.

 

[Oregon Gopher]

Locks as of 17 Feb: Wisconsin and Purdue

Should be in: Maryland, MINNESOTA and Northwestern (I personally think Maryland should be in the lock category.)

Work left to do: Michigan, Michigan State and Indiana

Indiana in my opinion is toast and should drop from the list.

Michigan game is going to be HUGE. Gophers go to lock with a win on Sunday!

Go Gophers!

Wouldn't say lock- if the sh!t the bed Ewert style with 2 bad losses at home and end up 8-10 they'll be nervous

 

[Otis]

Gophers have reached the Belicheck portion of the season. Their next game is the most important game of the year the rest of the season!

 

[MNVCGUY]

Agree on Maryland.

Only other thing I'd do is replace Indiana with Ohio State. Buckeyes have a decent chance to win out & get to 9-9. That would at least put Buckeyes in a position heading to Washington, D.C. where a semifinals appearance gets them in the mix.

Not sure you need to replace Indiana but agree Ohio State should be in the work left to do column. I am also a little surprised Maryland is not listed as a lock because with their record they would seem like a lock for the tournament.

 

[mnhoopboy]

With such a high RPI and SOS, i think the Gophs might be in store for a higher seed (5 or 6) than most are projecting. Can't remember the last time, i felt 100% certain about our NCAA chances going into Selection Sunday. This could be the year!

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[37score]

With such a high RPI and SOS, i think the Gophs might be in store for a higher seed (5 or 6) than most are projecting. Can't remember the last time, i felt 100% certain about our NCAA chances going into Selection Sunday. This could be the year!

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The Gophers are kind of a flying under the radar team. After the committee ranks the top 20 teams, which usually seems to be averaged out by their RPI and their AP poll numbers, they'll start looking at the high RPI teams who weren't ranked, and the Gophers should be right there. So I agree, they could get seeded higher than many are thinking right now for an unranked team.

I just want to go into the BTT once without the fear of having to win their first game. That would be nice for once.

 

[KillmeNow]

All the teams we needed to win today, did. UT-A, Mount St Mary's, Vanderbilt & Arkansas. A couple good wins, too.

 

[JZsportswhiz]

I think the Gophers finish the regular season 4-1 and get at least 1 win in the tourney

To be a lock on Selection Sunday I think they need 2 more wins to close out the season whether that's in the regular season or B1G tourney I don't think matters.

 

[Cayman]

The Gophers are kind of a flying under the radar team. After the committee ranks the top 20 teams, which usually seems to be averaged out by their RPI and their AP poll numbers, they'll start looking at the high RPI teams who weren't ranked, and the Gophers should be right there. So I agree, they could get seeded higher than many are thinking right now for an unranked team.

I just want to go into the BTT once without the fear of having to win their first game. That would be nice for once.

Last time we went to the NCAA tournament, we lost our first Big Ten tournament game and still got in.

 

[mnsportsgeek]

I think the Gophers finish the regular season 4-1 and get at least 1 win in the tourney

To be a lock on Selection Sunday I think they need 2 more wins to close out the season whether that's in the regular season or B1G tourney I don't think matters.

That would be our best season (on record) since 1989-1990, and we'd be like a 5 seed. That would be incredible.

 

[Otis]

Updated to ESPN's latest. Says we lock with a win at Maryland. No pressure.

 

[BarnBoy]

Selection, how we feeling about things?

 

[SelectionSunday]

Selection, how we feeling about things?

I think that (beating Maryland) sounds about right. I'll feel 100% comfortable at 10-8 heading to Washington, D.C., but in reality with this year's bubble 9-9 is going to be enough. Gophers' resume is so much better than a lot of the teams being discussed as bubble teams.

 

[Otis]

SI is talking about Vandy making it to the tourney!

 

[SelectionSunday]

SI is talking about Vandy making it to the tourney!

And that in a nutshell tells us what the bubble is like this year. And Clemson and Pitt (both 4-10 in the ACC) are considered on the fringes of the bubble.

 

[Gopher Teeth]

And that in a nutshell tells us what the bubble is like this year. And Clemson and Pitt (both 4-10 in the ACC) are considered on the fringes of the bubble.

I heard them saying this on espn last night. That's insane, if you won less than 30% of your games, no way should you be in.


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[Tim1406]

I heard them saying this on espn last night. That's insane, if you won less than 30% of your games, no way should you be in.


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Lunardi when talking about that yesterday during the West Virginia game floated the idea that you need to win 50% of your conference games to make the tourney. I would argue for 1 game below 50% being eligible but anything less should be excluded.

Updated to ESPN's latest. Says we lock with a win at Maryland. No pressure.

The winner of that game is a lock and the loser will need another game or 2 to become a lock.

 

[Holy Man]

Lunardi when talking about that yesterday during the West Virginia game floated the idea that you need to win 50% of your conference games to make the tourney. I would argue for 1 game below 50% being eligible but anything less should be excluded.



The winner of that game is a lock and the loser will need another game or 2 to become a lock.

Almost impossible to have those kinds of rules or rules of thumb in the era of super conferences and unbalanced schedules. I don't like the idea of a 4-10 team making it, but the math might do it for a 6/7-10 team in a bad bubble year. Records and conference championships are going to need asterisks soon enough since it is going to be impossible to compare from year to year. Yuk.

 

[GopherRock]

Hodger, when was the last time the tournament bubble has been really tight? It seems that in the last few years, especially since the expansion to 68, the bubble has been softer than Charmin.

 

[SelectionSunday]

Hodger, when was the last time the tournament bubble has been really tight? It seems that in the last few years, especially since the expansion to 68, the bubble has been softer than Charmin.

I would say at least 4-5 years. This year seems the worst. Going to be quite a few at-large teams with records of 19-13, 18-14, 18-15, maybe even some teams that are only 2 games above .500. Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Wake Forest, Marquette, Seton Hall, Providence, Georgetown, Michigan, Michigan State, Kansas State, TCU, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, and Georgia all already have double-digit losses, and I expect a decent number of those teams to receive at-large bids.

 

[WoodburyTim]

This is where I feel like strength of schedule just becomes too important. Take Pitt or Clemson. They are in consideration because their schedules are very tough, but it almost seems like it matters little that they aren't winning many of these games.

I do think they are probably better teams than some mid-majors or lower, but I don't think it is a very good trend to have teams get into the tournament with records 2 or 3 games below .500 in their conference. I know they probably have a better chance of advancing further than Monmouth or Illinois State, but do people really want watch that come tourney time? I can watch these major conference bubble teams pretty much all season via wall to wall coverage on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, FS1, BTN, and SECN. The NCAA tourney is fun because you get to see some fresh story lines.