In Reply to: There are advantages to the double bye. posted by mh on February 12, 2025 at 19:52:54
I'm not like some delusional folks here who that think we can be a Final Four team. I doubt we are of Elite Eight quality. Sure, we could make a run like we did in 2021, but this team is nowhere as good on offense as that one. Winning the Big-10 tournament in our first year in the conference would be a tremendous achievement and better than a Sweet Sixteen which Steve Lavin was derided for making most years. In the last seven Big-10 tournaments I cited, two #5's and one #8 seed won it so anything is possible. Yes, I'd like to have the double bye, but sometimes a team that already played a game and is more used to the large arena has an advantage. We've already shown we can beat most conference teams at home and few on the road. So the chances of winning on a neutral court are up in the air.
Also, unlike you, I'm not hung up on NCAA seeding. A conference tournament game carries no more weight than any game in the season for NCAA seeding. There are many paths to success in the tournament and do not necessarily depend on where you are seeded or where you play. There is much randomness involved. For example, say we are a #5 seed. That means we would play a #4 seed in the second round. There are four #4 seeded teams and it's safe to say that our chances of beating any of them are not equal. So the one placed at random in our region might be the easiest to beat or the hardest, something we have no control over.
Let's focus on the conference tournament first and then play some teams in the NCAA tournament which nobody can predict who they will be and hope for the best.