The most important game of the year

[jayschool]

Yep. It's Tuesday at home against Penn State.

 

My argument is premised on a few things:

1) the need for Nebraska to finish ahead of at least four teams in the final standings and earn a 10th seed or better for the B1G Tournament.

2) that Nebraska is capable of beating any team in the B1G, and that any victory doesn't require anything extraordinary to happen.

3) that winning four games in four days is difficult but do-able.

4) that winning five games in five days — and more specifically, winning a third game in three days against a fully rested team — is nearly impossible.

5) that Nebraska's only hope for post-season is to win the B1G Tournament, though a six-game win streak at the end of the season would give them an NIT look.

 

If Indiana loses to Michigan today, and they're down by double-digits late in the first half, the bottom half of the B1G standings will look like this:

Iowa 6-7

Penn State 6-7

Indiana 5-8

Ohio State 5-8

Nebraska 4-8

Illinois 4-9

Rutgers 2-11

 

If Nebraska wins the games it should down the stretch (Penn State, Illinois and Michigan at home), we'll finish 7-11 in the conference with a tiebreak advantage over Penn State, Illinois and Indiana.

 

We need to finish ahead of four teams in the final standings.

 

We'd almost certainly finish ahead of Rutgers in the standings (the Knights would have to win out to finish 7-11), so that leaves the Huskers needing to finish tied with the three teams over which they have that tiebreaker.

Indiana's schedule shapes up as a 1-4 finish, according to RealTimeRPI's predictor (at Minnesota and Iowa, vs. Northwestern, at Purdue and Ohio State) for 6-12 or 7-11 if they come back to win today at home against Michigan. We can and should finish ahead of Indiana.

Illinois' schedule shapes up as a 2-3 finish (at Iowa, Northwestern, at Nebraska, Michigan State and Rutgers). Personally, I don't agree with RTRPI's suggestion that Illinois will win two more games, but even if they do and finish 6-12, we should finish ahead of Illinois provided we beat them on Feb. 26.

Penn State's schedule shapes up as a 1-4 finish (at Nebraska, vs. Purdue, at Minnesota, vs. Ohio State, at Iowa). That would put PSU at 7-11 and tied with Nebraska, but we'd finish ahead of Penn State based on the head-to-head win.

 

That's why Tuesday's game is the most important game of the year. It preserves the something-to-play-for narrative and extends it through the other two home games, Feb. 21 vs. Illinois and March 5 vs. Illinois.

 

Could we finish higher than 10th with that same 7-11 record?

 

Ohio State is 5-8, but is slated to finish 3-2 with a win over Nebraska to go 8-10. However, if Nebraska wins its three home games and also beats OSU in Columbus, NU finishes 8-10 and OSU 7-11, so Nebraska bumps up to a 9 seed. If Nebraska loses that game at OSU but OSU loses its next home game against Wisconsin (currently a W in the RealTimeRPI predictor), then both teams would be at 7-11, and it could go to a tiebreaker with multiple teams involved. If its NU, OSU and PSU, Penn State will have won OSU-PSU game on Feb. 28, giving PSU the three-way tiebreaker, so that's not good. OSU will be tough to overcome, and mostly because of that killer inbounds play.

 

Could we surpass Michigan? If Michigan hangs onto its 10-point halftime lead at Indiana, they're at 6-6 with home games remaining against Wisconsin and Purdue, as well as road games at Minnesota, Rutgers, Northwestern and Nebraska. A 7-11 finish is possible for Michigan, especially if they lose those two home games. I wouldn't count on that one, plus the best we can hope for head-to-head with Michigan is a split, same as OSU.

 

How about Iowa? At 6-7, the Hawkeyes are playing better, and with home games coming up against Illinois, Indiana and Penn State, they have a great shot to finish 9-9, likely out of NU's reach.

 

So I'm looking at Rutgers, Illinois, Indiana and Penn State as the teams Nebraska has a reasonable chance of finishing ahead of and/or winning a tiebreaker with to get that 10th seed.

 

Of course, a 10-game winning streak starting Tuesday would be best, but in the grand tradition of Nebrasketball fandom, I'm playing the what-if game.

Edited February 12, 2017 by jayschool

[hal9000]

Nicely done jayschool.  Now I need to go lie down.  

[jayschool]

Just now, hal9000 said:

Nicely done jayschool.  Now I need to go lie down.  

And root for Michigan. (Did I just type that?)

[hal9000]

12 minutes ago, jayschool said:

And root for Michigan. (Did I just type that?)

[colhusker]

That was as close to math as I want to get on here but well done!

[HuskerBB]

Thanks for really going into detail in analyzing the Big 10 race.   I think you can come to the same conclusion in a simpler way.  I think this game (and the remaining home games) are critically important because if we lose vs Penn St. (or Illinois in particular) - the chances that Miles is gone increase significantly - which personally I think will be a big setback to the progress we have been making in the program.

.

 

[Huskerpapa]

At a minimum, we need to win five out of the next six.  It begins with the next game, we need a win versus PSU.

[Handy Johnson]

I remember when I was at "the U" and would get all fired up when the Big 8 tournament started. I was always certain we would get hot and win that thing while my friends (sane people) would roll their eyes and look on me sympathetically. I guess some things never change...

[Cazzie22]

Any win will be nice!