Tag: Big Ten Tournament

Notre Dame Opens Big Ten Tournament with Win

The Fighting Irish failed to convert on a five minute power play in the second period but did find a net via a Trevor Janicke put-back late in the period.

Quarterfinals for the 2020 Big Ten Hockey Tournament got underway Friday and can I start by just throwing a little praise to the Big Ten?

I know that’s not generally a popular view in these parts and I tend to lead that charge but in hockey the regular season conference champion gets a first round bye in the conference tournament while the other six qualifying schools play a best-of-three against their quarterfinal opponent to advance.

It’s not perfect as I wish it was a best-of-three in the next two rounds but hey, it’s at least a start.

Now to Friday’s game:

No. 5 Notre Dame dominated the first period Friday at No. 4 Minnesota outshooting the Gophers 12-2. However, no pucks found the net as the opening frame ended scoreless.

The Fighting Irish failed to convert on a five minute power play in the second period but did find a net via a Trevor Janicke put-back late in the period.

Taking a 1-0 lead to the final frame, the Notre Dame defense continued to dominate the evening as they allowed just 12 shots against all night long which resulted in Cale Morris’s 11th career shutout, the third such showing in a Big Ten Tournament game.

Notre Dame and Minnesota again battle Saturday night in Minneapolis with puck drop set for 7 p.m. ET. A win would send Notre Dame to the semi-finals while a loss would force a deciding game three which would be played Sunday night again at Minnesota.

Big Ten Tournament: seeding tiebreakers and scenarios

Big Ten Tournament scenarios

Are you wondering what the seeding scenarios are for the Big Ten Tournament next week? We are here to help. Let’s go directly to the Big Ten website and the multiple-team tiebreaker, which refers to three or more teams in a tie. (Two-team ties are easy, given the head-to-head matchups. Wisconsin, for instance, would obviously win a two-team tie with Maryland based on a win earlier this season.)

Here is the multiple-team tiebreaker procedure:

1. Results of head-to-head competition during the regular-season.
    a. When comparing records against the tied teams, teams will be seeded based on winning percentage among the group, even if the number of games played against the team or group are unequal (i.e., 2-0 is better than 3-1, but 2-0 is not better than 1-0). If all teams among the group are separated based on winning percentage, all ties are broken. If winning percentage among the group for any tied teams is equal, move to step b with those specific tied teams only (e.g. if there is a four-team tie, one team is 4-0, another is 3-1 and the last two are 2-2 among the group, the two teams that are 2-2 move to step b and the teams that are 4-0 and 3-1 assume the next two available highest seeds).
           Note: Teams can be separated from the top, middle or bottom.
   b. If a team or teams are separated from the group based on step a, seeding for remaining teams among the group is not determined by head-to-head record vs. the remaining teams, but rather by taking all remaining teams to next tie breaker.

2. If the remaining teams are still tied, then each tied team’s record shall be compared to the team occupying the highest position in the final regular-season standings, continuing down through the standings until one team gains an advantage.
   a. When arriving at another pair of tied teams while comparing records, use each team’s record against the collective tied teams as a group (prior to their own tie-breaking procedures), rather than the performance against the individual tied teams.
   b. When comparing records against a single team or group of teams, the higher winning percentage shall prevail, even if the number of games played against the team or group are unequal (i.e., 2-0 is better than 3-1, but 2-0 is not better than 1-0).

3. Won-loss percentage of Division I opponents.

4. Coin toss conducted by Commissioner or designee.

If we use this tiebreaker procedure, let’s consider the various groupings of results which would influence a tiebreaker result in a three- or four-team tie among the top six teams in the Big Ten:
Maryland went 0-1 vs. Wisconsin, 1-1 vs. Michigan State, 2-0 vs. Illinois, 0-1 vs. Penn State, and 1-1 vs. Iowa.
Wisconsin went 1-0 vs. Maryland, 1-1 vs. Michigan State, 0-1 vs. Illinois, 1-0 vs. Penn State, and 0-1 vs. Iowa.
Michigan State went 1-1 vs. Maryland, 1-1 vs. Wisconsin, 2-0 vs. Illinois, 0-1 vs. Penn State with another game coming vs. PSU, and 1-0 vs. Iowa.
Illinois went 0-2 vs. Maryland, 1-0 vs. Wisconsin, 0-2 vs. Michigan State, 1-0 vs. Penn State, and 0-1 vs. Iowa with another game coming vs. the Hawkeyes.
Penn State went 1-0 vs. Maryland, 0-1 vs. Wisconsin, 1-0 vs. Michigan State with another game vs. the Spartans, 0-1 vs. Illinois, and 1-1 vs. Iowa.
Iowa went 1-1 vs. Maryland, 1-0 vs. Wisconsin, 0-1 vs. Michigan State, 1-0 vs. Illinois with another game vs. the Illini, and 1-1 vs. Penn State.
From these results, you can see which three-team ties, four-team ties, or five-team ties will lead to certain seeding results. For example, a three-team tie involving Maryland, Illinois and Wisconsin would go like this:
Maryland 2-0 vs. Illinois, 0-1 vs. Wisconsin. Group record: 2-1.
Illinois 0-2 vs. Maryland, 1-0 vs. Wisconsin. Group record: 1-2.
Wisconsin 1-0 vs. Maryland, 0-1 vs. Illinois. Group record: 1-1.
Maryland would be seeded the highest, Wisconsin second, Illinois third.
Mix and match and add the group results for other combinations of teams above. You will get your tiebreaker results and seeding scenarios in most cases. If there is a tie, move to tiebreaker No. 2 in the above italicized tiebreaker procedure.
Have fun!

Wisconsin, believe it or not, has great chance for Big Ten double bye

Wisconsin hoops has a bright outlook

After the Purdue and Iowa losses, did you think this was possible? After the Brad Davison suspension heading into the Michigan State game, did you think this was possible? After the embarrassing loss at Minnesota, did you think this was possible? By “this,” I am referring to the goal of every Wisconsin basketball team before a season begins: getting a top-four seed at the Big Ten Tournament, which carries a double bye.

Wisconsin, believe it or not, has a very good chance of hunting down this prize.

Don’t look now, but Michigan State has lost four out of its last five games and still has to make road trips to the two best teams in the Big Ten, Maryland and Penn State.

Don’t look now, but Illinois has lost four in a row, and star Ayo Dosunmu is injured.

Don’t look now, but Iowa is dealing with even more injuries and was down to six scholarship players this past Thursday against Indiana.

Don’t look now, but Rutgers still has just one win away from home and will likely have to win a few roadies to get a top-four seed at the Big Ten Tournament.

Wisconsin — with a schedule heavily tilted to home games the next few weeks (four out of the next five at the Kohl Center) — is in great position to get a top-four seed at the Big Ten Tournament. The Badgers are tied in the loss column for third place, and given the struggles of the other teams tied with UW in the loss column, the Badgers have the best circumstances (fewest injuries) and the most favorable path (home games).

Who would have thought that a few weeks ago? Life might not be perfect, but it certainly isn’t bad, in spite of all the disruptions and controversies which have surrounded the 2020 basketball Badgers. It could all be so much worse than it is now… and Wisconsin has a great chance to improve its situation in the next three weeks.

Will Rutgers and Illinois be top-4 seeds at the Big Ten Tournament?

Rutgers and Illinois are fresh faces

Remember October of 2019? The 2019-2020 college basketball season had not yet begun. Did we know how good the Wisconsin Badgers were going to be? No, especially with Micah Potter being prevented from playing by the stupid NCAA. Did we know how well the Badgers were going to play in their first 10 games? No. This team was a mystery. There were lots of mysteries going into the season.

Yet, if you could reliably count on a few things to happen in Big Ten basketball, where would you start? What prediction, more than anything else in Big Ten basketball, would most likely be true?

If you said, “Rutgers won’t make the NCAA Tournament,” you would have given a perfectly logical answer backed by 29 years of history. It has been 29 years, after all, since the Scarlet Knights last made the NCAA Tournament, in 1991.

Rutgers being mediocre (not necessarily bad, but certainly not good enough to reach the Big Dance in March) has been one of the most constant truths in college basketball for decades, right there with Michigan State and Tom Izzo being very good, at the other end of the spectrum of relevance in the sport.

Rutgers not being good enough, and Michigan State being a top team, were the two most reliable predictions one could make about Big Ten hoops this season. If you said that Northwestern would struggle, that’s fair and will be accepted. If you said Nebraska would struggle in a rebuild under Fred Hoiberg, that’s fair as well.

Rutgers being good has been one of the biggest surprises of the season — not necessarily because the Scarlet Knights weren’t developing their players (there WAS progress last season), but because Rutgers has evolved so rapidly and substantially under new coach Steve Pikiell. Rutgers isn’t a bubble team; Rutgers is, at the moment, a solid NCAA Tournament seed, good enough to wear home whites in round one as a higher-seeded team (No. 8 or better). The Scarlet Knights will have to lose four games in a row to become an uncertain NCAA team, riding the bubble near the cut line. Right now, they have margin for error. They are well inside the ropes.

Pick another Big Ten team entering this season. If you were asked to address Illinois — which lost 21 games last season — it would have been reasonable to say the Illini could not get any worse. They were likely to be better if only because the first two seasons for Brad Underwood were so bad. Yet, that kind of reality does not generally point to an NCAA Tournament.

Surprise! Illinois is also an NCAA Tournament team and would need to slide for the bubble to become an unnerving prospect.

Here is the shocking fact of all facts on Tuesday, January 21, before Big Ten games are played in the conference: If the season ended on Tuesday afternoon, Rutgers and Illinois would be top-four seeds at the 2020 Big Ten Tournament. That’s right: Rutgers and Illinois would get double-byes. You would not see them on the court on Big Ten Tournament Wednesday or Big Ten Tournament Thursday. They would debut on Friday and have great chances to make the tournament semifinals on Saturday and CBS national television.

“Where will Rutgers and Illinois be seeded in the Big Ten Tournament?” That question has probably been asked before, but if so, it has been asked because people want to make sure they don’t have to watch TV (or a game in person) when the Big Ten Tournament begins its five-day run on Wednesday. Right now, that same question is a question with NCAA Tournament implications. If Rutgers and Illinois both get a top-four seed, they won’t have to play nearly as many games before the NCAA Tournament begins. They will get tested by other top Big Ten teams if they can win one game and reach the semifinals. Getting that top-four seed means a lot, as Wisconsin fans know. The Badgers come to the NCAA Tournament relatively rested because they have rarely had to play more than two or three games in the Big Ten Tournament this century. Now, Illinois and Rutgers can derive the same benefit.

Will Rutgers and Illinois get a top-four seed in the Big Ten Tournament? It is surprising enough that we are even asking this question. It is more surprising how meaningful the question actually is.

We will see how meaningful the question is in a month. The rest of the Big Ten will try to restore order, but in a wacky year, who knows how it will all shake out?