Big Ten basketball: Bracketology breakdown for the conference (v.2)
Big Ten Teams Who Have Work Left to Do:
Penn State Nittany Lions: 18-9 (8-6)
We have already seen our first victim fall out of the bubble watch in February. It was probably common thought that the Penn State Nittany Lions were going to follow. Well here they are, sitting at an RPI of 86, overall record of 18-9 and sixth in the Big ten with an 8-6 record.
It’s very highly unlikely that Penn State receives an at-large bid, but for the sake of talking about teams I’m going to include those that are under an RPI of 100.
When they picked up their win over Ohio State, that put Penn State back into conversation. There are four teams outside the top-100, but they’re all Big Ten opponents. Rider isn’t great, but they’re 70th.
The Nittany Lions took care of business against Illinois and avoided elimination of NCAA Tournament discussion. Penn State’s overall numbers aren’t quite getting them over the hump. They thought with the Maryland win, it was going to push them farther into the bubble discussion, but it didn’t quite do the trick. Certainly beating Ohio State though Thursday night for a sweep will improve things a lot.
Maryland Terrapins 16-11 (6-9)
The Maryland Terrapins thought things were headed for the worse when they fell to the Penn State Nittany Lions. Their RPI started to suffer as it now sits at 62. Their KenPom and BPI ratings though are still inside the top-40.
The win against Butler has been talked about all season because that’s their only good win all season. The only other non-conference win inside the top-100 has been to Bucknell. Indiana, Penn State and Nebraska have been their worst losses. The fact of a matter is though Maryland lost to a few bubble teams in non-conference making it difficult to move them ahead.
There was a nice bounce back win over Northwestern that killed the cats. The Terps have been getting those types of rebound victories all season. Then on Tuesday Maryland fell to Nebraska. The Terrapins only had the Cornhuskers once on their schedule and they blew it. Even though two ratings have them under 40, losing to two bubble teams in three games will hurt them.
Nebraska Cornhuskers 20-8 (11-4)
The Nebraska Cornhuskers are on a roll and have now won six-straight games. 20 wins, fourth in the Big Ten with an 11-4 record should translate to better than 53rd in the RPI. They’re even behind Maryland in the KenPom at 52.
There’s no doubt these Cornhuskers are going to start appearing on everyone’s bubble list. They aren’t quite in the field, but it will be very difficult to leave them out if they end the season with 23 wins.
The reason they aren’t there yet is because their best win has come to Michigan on Jan. 18. A loss to Penn State really tripped things up, but it could’ve been worse. Team’s winning games over bottom half opponents in the Big Ten is just as important as the top teams. They have to avoid bad losses. That’s what Nebraska has done and they need to continue to do so moving forward.