There’s a reason many, if not most, Big Ten power rankings have the Boilermakers at #1.
Your 2016-17 Purdue basketball team currently has the highest RPI of any B1G team at #18. While Wisconsin is ahead of them in the AP poll (Badgers are #11 while the Boilers are #16), Purdue has a much more impressive resume for the NCAA Tournament committee.
Purdue is ahead of Wisconsin in the Sagarin #11 vs #13, and in KenPom (#11 vs #15). This past Saturday brought us the first early bracket reveal (of the top 16 seeds anyway) in history and the B1G was a major talking point.
That’s because no one in the league, not this Purdue basketball team, not the Wisconsin Badgers, not the Maryland Terrapins, had a top four seed in any region. That’s where we stand right now and if that holds until Selection Sunday, it would be the first time it has happened since 2003.
Oddly, most of the chatter about this revelation centered around the Badgers, not the Boilermakers. Most pundits claimed Wisconsin, and not Purdue, was the more deserving team left out. That’s likely because the Badgers were nine slots higher than Purdue basketball in the AP poll at the time of the show’s airing.
Perhaps they forgot that the Boilermakers won quite decisively the only meeting between the two sides this season, in West Lafayette on January 8th, 66-55.
There isn’t a meeting at the Kohl Center scheduled, at that’s too bad, because it would be a good chance for both teams to pick up another signature win, which are now harder to come by inย a weaker-than-usual league.ย (Would make for more material in the Ethan Happ versus Caleb Swanigan B1G POY debate too)
Forget all the alternative facts incessantly espoused on BTN (one of the announcers for the Penn State-Illinois game was claiming this past Saturday that the Illini, in 13th place out of 14, were still fighting for an at-large NCAA Tournament berth…it’s seriously gross negligence to intentionally dumb down your audience like that). The B1G is down this year and the bracket reveal verified this truth.
BTN talking heads will espouse nonsense like “parity” and “everyone beats up on each other,” words and phrases that conflate and confuse. We love sports when we have clear cut winners and losers, definable numbers and metrics, but TV networks owned and operated by leagues and teams threaten that the existence of objective truth in this realm.
They produce propaganda, not journalism.
The plain truth is, every B1G team has work to do, and they have a handful of games left over this last month to do it. The bracket reveal sent a message not just to the top of the B1G, but to the bubble teams as well. The committee told them that league wins are not as valuable as in years past.
Here’s where Purdue basketball stands as of now-
#18 in RPI, #11 in Pomeroy and Sagarin, and several key wins. Those big victories include Notre Dame (RPI 26) at Maryland (RPI 23) and the aforementioned Wisconsin. Their resume is further augmented by strength of schedule, which currently ranks 19th in the nation. The losses to Villanova (RPI 2) and Louisville (RPI 4) gives the Boilers a real advantage in the “well who have you played” argument over Wisconsin, and the rest of the league.
We currently have Purdue a #5 seed in our latest bracket projection.
They do have a couple eye sore losses though- at Iowa (RPI 106) and at Nebraska (RPI 86). There is one game left on the schedule to further negate those blemishes, however- March 5th at Northwestern.
Of course, another deep run in the B1G Tournament, like last season, would bolster the profile. Right now they seem to be in the #5 seed conversation, but they could easily play themselves up to a #3. They might still be a 27 win team heading into Selection Sunday.
Paul M. Banks runsย The Sports Bank.net, partnered withย FOX Sports Engage Network.ย andย News Now.ย Banks, a former writer for the Washington Timesย andย Bold, contributes regularly to theย Chicago Tribuneโs RedEyeย publication, CGTN America, WGN CLTV News and KOZN.ย
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