Maryland isn’t even putting up a fight. With 8:38 to go, the Badgers have more than doubled up on the Terps, 85-35.
Just gassed. The cost of not having any byes
Harry
Sorry, typo, it was 75-35.
Maryland “came back” and only lost by 31.
Will Wisconsin be a bit gassed tomorrow?
Could northwestern get knocked out of a dance invitation if Wisky takes the conference title?
Harry
The update they gave on CBS a few minutes ago had Northwestern in the ‘last 4 in’ group (which often means a play-in game), so who knows what the committee will do, could be a tense hour tomorrow. Nebraska leading Illinois by 11 at the half, a Husker championship probably has the same impact as a Wisconsin one on the Cats.
Mike Nolan
Harry,
To answer your question, no, if Wisconsin wins the conference tournament, it will not have any effect on Northwestern getting a bid. Wisconsin has been a lock for the NCAA tournament for weeks, and was projected to have a higher seed than Northwestern before the conference tournament even started.
There will, however, be bid “thiefs” in some other conferences, i.e., potential conference tournament champs who wouldn’t have otherwise been in the tournament. For example, the finalists in the Atlantic 10 conference tournament were not otherwise projected to be in the tournament, so the winner there will steal what would have been an at large bid (Dayton, in the same conference, is a lock for an at-large bid, but lost in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament).
With that said, the consensus at this point is that Northwestern is a lock for a bid. As Mike noted, CBS is projecting that Northwestern will be among the last four in, meaning we would have to play in the first four. But other sources still project that we’ll have an 8 seed. The lowest 8 seed is only 7 spots away from the “last-four in” so there’s certainly a chance we could fall into that category, but I think we’ll land an 8 or 9 seed.
Nebraska winning the Big Ten tournament would potentially have a bigger impact on our seeding because we were projected to be seeded higher than Nebraska, and in theory, they might swap places with us if they win the tournament (in any case, if they move up, it would push us down—but Wisconsin was ahead of us anyway).
John
Well, Illinois just blew past Nebraska in the 2nd half, so it’ll be Illinois vs Wisconsin for the trophy.
Joe Lunardi is still projecting Northwestern as an 8 seed, Nebraska now as a 7, MSU a 10. Neither Iowa nor Ohio State make the cut.
I think we’re safe, but there have been a bunch of bid “thieves” today including North Carolina State, who just beat North Carolina to win the ACC tournament and get an automatic bid. They had to win five games in five days and wouldn’t have been in the tournament had they not won their tournament.
But the teams getting bumped off the bubble aren’t Northwestern, and I don’t think we’ll get bumped down to last four. Most projections have us safely in the field (not in either the last four or the last four byes).
For what it’s worth, The Athletic has NU locked into the tourney without specifying a seed. They consider MSU to be “waiting” pending the outcome of all games although they think a bid is more than likely. This is after Saturdays action and the bid thieves like NC State, the AAC champion (could be Temple who is subject to a gambling investigation) and the A-10 champion. Three of the four projected number one seeds lost on Saturday leaving them in place.
Lunardi has Nebraska and Northwestern as 8 seeds today, OSU is in next 4 out group so they’re probably not going to make the field. MSU is in a 10-10 play-in game.
CBS Sports (Jerry Palm), which was an outlier yesterday by having us in the “First Four” (last four in), now has us as a 9 seed. So every major projection I’ve seen (CBS, ESPN, Athletic, BTN) has us solidly in the field as either an 8 or 9 seed.