The Great Iowa Basketball Mid-Season Reevaluation

1-3 or 2-3 against Minnesota and Northwestern. That would be 4-6 more wins in my opinion. I just can’t see us beating Illinois or Northwestern on the road. Nor can I see us beating Wisconsin again. Winning 7 conference games this season would be a building block for next year. But hey, winning 9 would kick ass.

Hopefully it will be 5-4 and they will get to the NIT. But I foresee major problems with NW and their cutting and three point shooting, Indiana with revenge on their mind, getting blasted in Champaign which is BAU and Nebraska being amped to take out Iowa in Lincoln.

Still, a remarkble turnaround.

Every remaining home game is winnable, although Wisconsin, Indiana, and Minnesota won’t be easy.

I’m heartened by Indiana’s struggles on the road (they’ve looked like a totally different team away from Assembly Hall, and hell – Minnesota was able to beat them there). Although they also look like the remaining team most capable of just pulverizing us a la OSU/MSU if their inside-outside game is clicking and their 3s are falling.

On the other hand Nebraska and Penn State have been very tricky on their home floors and jNW is a persistent bugaboo for Iowa. 5 wins seems doable (take 4/6 from PSU, jNW, and NEB, plus 1 of the remaining 5) and 6 seems possible (same, except take 2 of the remaining 5 perhaps).

and I will make no predictions on who those wins will be against. The BIG doesn’t make sense and of all the teams in it perhaps Iowa makes the least sense. Trying to predict what will happen just seems like the type of madness that is better left to articles written by hack journalists living in their mom’s basements. Somehow though, I think Iowa gets to 8 wins in the B1G this year, i hope I underestimate them as badly this time as I did last time.

.500 in this league would be remarkable considering the overall strength of the league and where this team was in early December. An NIT bid would be a big step in the right direction.

Also – we’re at 11 wins right now with 12 games left to play (including first round of the BTT). Last year’s team won 11 games total. Frantastic turnaround.

//mind asploded

Bloodpunch is the fucking bomb. Does he have any eligibility left?

So I went 9/10 because I’m a sucker and remain optimistic despite all the disappointment Iowa sports has provided recently.

If that continues, I expect 9 or 10 total conference wins.

Out of curiosity, I calculated our estimated Sagarin Predictor rating for the past 10 games by using our opponents Sagarin Predictor ratings, margin of victory, and adjusting for home court advantage. The rating I came up with is 83.18, compared with our actual Sagarin Predictor rating of 77.19. Which means our rating through the first 10 games was about 71. Obviously it is well known that we have improved from the first 10 games to the second 10 games, but to make it concrete a Sagarin rating of 71 corresponds to a ranking of 190-200 and a Sagarin rating of 83.18 corresponds to a ranking of about 40. We have improved our ranking 150 places from the first 10 games to the second 10 games. Pretty remarkable.

Here are the numbers I used:

pretty much solely on the idea that you’ll drop one to UN-L/PSU and get either us or Minnesota at home. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if you took us, and wouldn’t be surprised, either, if you managed to claim one more scalp along the way and finish 8-10 or even (in this wacky year) go 9-9.

I went 11+. I was also one of the 10% who had confidence in our brave young men during the first poll.

9-10 is probably more realistic, but fuck it. Go big or go home.

Maybe lose one they shouldn’t, win one they shoudn’t. At that point,a solid NIT team, probably a home first game, and a strong sign that we’re on the way back.

but I’ll be satisfied if we just win twice vs Nebby and twice vs PSU.

Yeah, it’d only be 7 conference wins, but then we can see what happens in the B10 Tourney.

that in this article Iowa is listed three times under bad loses? Kind of satisfying that we have beaten three “upper crust” teams.

Can you get in with a losing conference record if your overall record is at or above .500?

And if so, do you think Iowa gets in with an 8-10 Big 10 record?

BHGP should buy up a huge block of tickets for the Illinois game. Then we all go to the game dressed as Illinois fans and then midway into the first half we yank off our Illini camouflage and start cheering for the Hawkeyes. What do ya think? What do ya think?
Ahh the more I think about it, only a bunch of douche bags would do this. Forget I even suggested it.

It’s kinda like hitting 18 on the blackjack table with a four showing, fucking stupid but sometimes stepping out on the ledge and slipping off it sounds like a great idea.

But it’s still pretty weird that Iowa State has played THREE games since the last time Iowa played a game.

Let’s smear Nebrasketball for a second. They’ve have never won an NCAA tournament game. 0-for-forever in the tournament.

Remember to direct some hate their way tomorrow. You may resume your previously scheduled Wednesday afternoon/evening activities.

I’d like Iowa to just be one of those teams that plays really tough at home. I like that they can win on the road and there doesn’t seem to be a home-road split for the team (it bodes well if the staff does actually have a way to prepare the team well for road games), but if they can be a team that beats every team they are “better than” at home, while mixing in a few upsets, I’d be happy.

Basically:
-at home and on the road, beat the teams their better than: Nebraska, Penn State
-at home, beat the teams they’re even with; on the road, lose to the teams they’re even with: Minnesota, jNW, Purdue
-at home, lose to the teams they’re worse than; on the road, lose to the teams they’re worse than: tOSU, MSU, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan

Throw in a couple of upsets like Wiscy and Minnesota, and I’ll be able to suffer the losses to Nebraska and Penn State. At that point, it’s just a matter of getting the better talent and being the better team. What would really bother me is if they’re like the football team (that doesn’t win orange bowls): beats undefeated Spartans and good Wolverines, but lose to Gophers and Cyclones. That sort of inconsistency* is maddening to me.

So all that said, if I’ve grouped the teams right, I’d choose 5-6 more wins, or 8-9 wins total. That’s not a choice, so I took the smaller win total of 7-8.

*and even more-so because the football team is SUPPOSED to be all about consistency – or at least I thought so

I don’t see opponent being such a huge factor in our wins or loses. The way we played against MSU was basically the same as the way we played against Campbell – didn’t matter who we played, we were going to lose.

I think we have the ability to win the rest of the games on our schedule but it isn’t that much of a stretch to argue that each game in isolation is loseable. I doubt very much that would happen but consistency just isn’t there yet. The lsat 10 games has seen a significant up tick that hopefully will continue.