Wisconsin lost to Iowa last night in Madison. It was an understandable loss. Iowa’s a good team. One of the best. But it came by fifteen points, which is a lot, and it came in a down-tempo game, so the gap was bigger than it looked, and playing at home’s worth about six or seven points compared to playing on the road, so it’s not helping Wisconsin in NET or KenPom.
What’s worst for the Badgers, though, is the absence of great wins it leaves in the Wisconsin résumé.
To date, Bucky’s best win is probably the road victory over Rutgers in January. Rutgers, a projected seven-seed in our updated bracketology this morning, is good, but they’re not Iowa good. Or Michigan good. Or Ohio State good. Or Illinois good. Or even Purdue good, to see the seed list tell it. With that as the crown achievement, Wisconsin doesn’t have much. They’ve beaten Louisville and Loyola (each a projected eight-seed) at home, but you’d expect that. They’ve beaten Maryland (projected eleven-seed) on the road, but the Terps might not make the tournament. The team that rose as high as 3rd in KenPom is now 15th, and their record against projected tournament teams is 6-6, with their other two losses coming on the road and therefore being somewhat excusable (neither should be lower than a second-quadrant loss).
That’s a lot of good wins. That’s a solid body of work. The Badgers can do without a great win if the goal is making the tournament. But that wasn’t the goal for the Badgers. The goal was title contention.
Looking ahead, Greg Gard’s team has a tough stretch the rest of the way: Northwestern on the road. Illinois at home. Purdue on the road. Iowa on the road. Then, the Big Ten Tournament. Our model, which relies on the median simulation for each team, expects them to split it from here out: Beat Northwestern, win one out of Illinois/Purdue, win one game in Indy before losing to someone in the top four in the quarterfinals. In other words, Wisconsin can lose three more games and still wind up as an eight-seed. But what if they lose four? What if they lose five? What if teams around them surge?
Wisconsin is not on the bubble. But they’re next to it. And if they don’t take care of business in Evanston, the panic button’s coming out.
Our other movement today (nobody entered or exited the field, so no moving in/moving out):
Moving Up: VCU
Saint Louis is still favored to win the A-10 tournament, but VCU’s gotten through the biggest risks facing them. They avoided a road loss to mediocre Dayton. They avoided home losses to bubbly St. Bonaventure and Richmond. Now, they get a comfortable one at home against George Mason followed by four low-downside affairs against the top half of the league (provided no scheduling changes happen). The Rams are in the driver’s seat for the A-10 regular season crown, and they’re likely to easily advance to the conference semifinals. They’re far from being out of the woods, but their median result’s a seven-seed, and there’s opportunity for them to climb another two or three lines if they stay hot.
Moving Down: Wisconsin, Minnesota
It could be worse, Wisconsin. Minnesota—who I believe was a projected four-seed back in December—has lost eight of twelve and is staring down a white-knuckle path to March. Our model does expect them to split these next four (in which they host Illinois, Northwestern, and Rutgers while visiting Penn State), and it still has them making up that game against Nebraska in Lincoln (I don’t personally know what will happen there—we’re looking this weekend for more information and we’ll use that to best update the model), so it really has them going 3-3 from here out, with a loss in their Big Ten Tournament opener against someone of Rutgers’s ilk. But that only gets them to being the projected second-to-last team in the field, which is not a spot at which our model has much confidence. Lose one more than expected, and it’s probably NIT-land for the Gophs. Lose two more, and there might not be a postseason. Heck, get that Nebraska game canceled and it might be off across the cut line.
Not a good situation for the Big Ten’s Paul Bunyan contingent.
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We’re going to stick with the thrice-weekly bracketology update for another week, I think, and we’ll be spending this weekend (and week), as was said, figuring out what the hell’s going on with every conference with postponed games and tournament formats. So stay tuned, and keep checking back in case we accelerate the updates, which might soon make the most sense.
Good luck.
