MBB Regular Season & Seeding

Northwestern Sports Basketball
1

Rutgers hung with Wisconsin for 3/4 of the game last night. It was tied at 49 with 11:00 to go, then the Badgers went on a 23-8 run and never looked back. So NU’s job is simple: Beat the Gophers Saturday night. That’s all we can control. Unfortunately, that still doesn’t assure us the double-bye, so root for Michigan and Purdue Sunday afternoon.

Possible outcomes:

  1. NU wins, Badgers and Huskers lose: We finish alone in 3rd

  2. NU wins; one, but not both, of Wisconsin and Nebraska lose: We finish tied for 3rd, but get the 4-seed in the B1G tournament (This, specifically Nebraska winning and Wisconsin losing, is the predicted outcome.)

  3. NU wins, but so do UW and UNL: We finish in a 3-way for 3rd, but drop to the 5-seed on the tiebreaker

  4. NU loses: Lots of permutations, ranging from us being alone in 5th to a 5-way tie for 3rd, but they all end up with us having the 5- or 6- seed. The only team that could be involved in an 11-9 tie that we beat on tiebreakers is Michigan State.

-Michael

2

For anyone trying to plan their B1G tournament watching, good luck. The only thing we know right now is that we’ll be the second game of whatever session we play in. The 3-seed plays in the last game on Friday, the 4-seed in the second game of the afternoon session on Friday. The 6-seed is the last Thursday game and the 5-seed is the last Thursday afternoon game. We win tonight and all we know is that we’re not staying up late on Thursday.

-Michael