Game of the Year (so far)

Wisconsin plays Illinois at the Kohl Center tomorrow. It is one of those games that appears to be a "must win" for both teams.

In truth, it's a must-win only for Wisconsin. Wisconsin is entering an extremely difficult 11-game stretch, perhaps even 12 games if you count at Northwestern as a test (personally I don't—not this year, without Crawford). As it stands, Wisconsin will probably be a significant underdog in 7 of those 11 games.  Other than the home game against Iowa, this will be Wisconsin's best chance for a win. Which means they really need it if they want to make the tournament.

Illinois, on the other hand, has a home game against Northwestern and a road game against Nebraska coming up next. So even if they lose to Wisconsin and fall to 1-3, there's a great chance they'll right the ship and get back to 3-3 in short order. After that they'll have six very winnable games remaining and a decent shot to get to 9-9, making them a certain NCAA tournament qualifier. (Though I'd still predict 8-10—which probably still gets them in.)

In football, the more desperate team nearly always wins. This isn't necessarily true in college basketball. College basketball has a simpler formula: the home team almost always wins.

As you know, I think Illinois is overrated and most smart people agree with me. Though the polls have Illinois ranked as high as 12th, both Kenpom and the Sagarin predictor have them ranked 37th. And Illinois hasn't won a Big Ten road game in over a year. Most recently, they lost an ugly game at Purdue. But, to be fair they do have one of the season's most impressive road wins, at Gonzaga.

Wisconsin has looked far from invincible at home, where they've lost to mediocre Virginia and won a war of attrition against lowly Penn State. Wisconsin is ranked 17 in Kenpom and 25th in the predictor; the humans have Wisconsin in the land of no votes.

Many people are jumping off the Badgers bandwagon after the lackluster wins over Penn State and Nebraska. (These people tend to overlook other teams' "bad wins," though—Illinois, for example, needed buzzer beaters to defeat both Hawaii and Gardner Webb.) As Chorlton explained, the outcomes against Nebraska and Penn State were primarily the result of bad shooting. On a normal shooting night, Wisconsin wins both games easily. (Indeed, if you assume that both teams shoot their season averages on 2s, 3s, and FTs, Wisconsin beats Penn State 73-50 and Nebraska 62-50—which is weirdly close to my pre-season prediction of 75-50 and 65-50 for those games.)

All told, a Wisconsin loss to Illinois would be surprising, but revealing—particularly if the Badgers come out and have another bad shooting night. If that happens, it will probably be time to resign ourselves to the fact that this team just isn't very good at shooting, and therefore not very good at basketball.

But I don't think that's going to happen. Stretches of bad shooting are common, at least for the Badgers. They have these stretches even when they are really good. For example, see the three-game stretch last year when they lost at home to Iowa and Michigan State, then on the road to Michigan: their effective field goal percentage in those three games was 37, 38, 38.2—each of which is worse than any their performances so far this year.

I expect Wisconsin to have an average shooting game and win. I will stick to my pre-season prediction of a 6-point win.

Was I wrong about Illinois? No.

For some reason I have become fixated on the merits of Illinois's basketball team. Having gone public with my belief that they are a "fraud," I now actively root against them so that my uninformed opinion can be validated. This is one of the great things about making my stupid opinions public—it makes watching sports more interesting.

As you'll recall, I first discussed Illinois prior to their road game with Purdue. I said that a loss against Purdue would prove that they are not for real. They lost to Purdue, so I declared them not for real. I also opined (on Twitter) that Illinois was now facing the likelihood of an 0-4 start in the Big Ten, with upcoming games against Ohio State, Minnesota, and at Wisconsin.

Illinois promptly went out and destroyed Ohio State.

So was I wrong about Illinois? Of course not! I was wrong about Ohio State.

Coming into the season, I was suspicious of all the love Ohio State was getting. They lost a lot from last year's Final Four team, and have mostly unproven players coming back. They do have a scorer's scorer in DeShaun Thomas, but the rest of the team is mostly question marks.

They really did nothing in the non-conference to dispel these doubts. They won all the games they should have won, and lost the two games (at Duke and against Kansas) that you can excuse them for losing.

What happened, really, is that I kind of forgot about my doubts about Ohio State. But I remembered them well when I watched them play Illinois on Saturday. Mainly, they had a bad shooting day—something I've watched a lot of, lately. But it was also pretty clear that their offense is not a well-oiled machine. Thomas can score, but he's the only one who can consistently create his own looks. And he has to create his own looks, because they didn't get a lot of open looks out of the flow of the offense.

I'm sure Ohio State will be fine, but they look like a team that is going to have a tough time winning on the road in the Big Ten. That was my takeaway from their game against Illinois.

As for Illinois . . . Perhaps they can be put back in the "jury's still out" category. If they beat Minnesota or Wisconsin this week, they'll have done probably enough to assure that they get to 9-9 in conference, which would make them a clear tourney lock. That would be a good result for that team. But we shall see...

Early Big Ten test for Illinois

Among Big Ten teams, it's safe to say Illinois had the most surprisingly positive performance during the non-conference season. No one was expecting much of this team in John Groce's first year. These are still Bruce Weber's players—a ragtag bunch of talented individuals who just don't seem to have the patience required to play winning college basketball. But so far they've gone 13-1, with a neutral court win over Butler, an impressive road win over a very good Gonzaga team, and just the one loss to a good Missouri team on a neutral court. That résumé has them sitting at No. 11 in the current AP poll, and they're projected as a 3-seed in the tourney over at the Bracket Matrix.

Still, there's good reason to be suspicious of this Illinois team. First, there's history. Illinois started out 11-1 last year, too, and that start also included a nice win over Gonzaga (though it came at home). Then the wheels fell off. Illinois won just six more games and finished 17-15.

Second, a closer look at the way Illinois has won its games isn't as impressive as their won-loss record. For example, they just squeaked out a two-point win over lowly Auburn in Chicago the other day. Although they had the game in hand with just over a minute to go, they made several boneheaded plays in the final minute, which almost let Auburn back in the game. It was not real impressive to watch. They also barely beat a bad Hawai'i team (on the road), a mediocre Gardner-Webb team, and a bad Western Carolina team (which tied the game with six minutes left).

As a result, the computer ranking systems are not high on Illinois. Kenpom has them ranked 41st, and the Sagarin Predictor has them 35th.

If it weren't for the road win over Gonzaga, I'd be pretty confident in labeling the Illini a fraud. But Gonzaga is good—they're 8-0 against other Kenpom top-100 teams (including a huge win at Oklahoma State on New Years' Eve)—and Illinois is their only loss on the season so far. College basketball is, of course, a coach's sport, and there is a real possibility that John Groce has turned Illinois right around. So I'm withholding judgment.

Until at least tonight. Tonight Illinois plays at Purdue, which is deep into a rebuilding season. Purdue comes into Big Ten play with a 6-6 record. They have just one okay win (at Clemson) and at least one terrible loss (at Eastern Washington Michigan, 47-44). They're not likely to be favored in any Big Ten game except their games against Northwestern (at home), Nebraska, and Penn State.

Purdue is bad enough that even a win by Illinois tonight will not prove they are for real. But a loss tonight will prove—to my satisfaction, at least—that Illinois is just fool's gold.

Illinois is a 2.5 – 3 point favorite. I'll take Purdue and three points.