Postseason Primer: Who Could Wisconsin Play and Where Could It Be Seeded?

MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin men’s basketball offices at the Kohl Center added a new decoration late Tuesday night when the Big Ten conference presented them with the 2021-22 regular-season championship. They’ll find out over the next month whether they’ll need to clear more space for hardware.

No.10 Wisconsin (24-5, 15-4 Big Ten) enters Sunday’s regular-season home finale against Nebraska in firm control of its own fate, the prime position to be in entering the start of postseason play late next week.

We look at the different scenarios that could happen for the Badgers.

Illinois took care of business on Thursday night, barely, with a 60-55 home victory over Penn State to remain one game behind the Badgers. It was just the fourth win in the last seven games for the Illini (22-8, 15-5), including an 86-83 home loss to an Ohio State team that has recently lost at 11th-place Maryland and at home to last-place Nebraska.

The only way for Illinois to clinch a share of the title would be beating visiting Iowa (22-8, 12-7) and the Badgers losing to Nebraska. UW’s tip time is at 1 p.m. and Illinois doesn’t play until 6:30 p.m., so it'll know where it stands well before taking the court. In the situation where both teams share the title, Illinois would earn the tiebreaker and the No.1 seed based on its 80-67 victory over Wisconsin on February 2 in Champaign.

A Wisconsin victory would be the Badgers’ 10th outright conference championship and their first since 2015.

Should Wisconsin earn the No.1 seed, the Badgers would play the winner of the No.8/No.9 game in the first conference quarterfinal Friday in Indianapolis.

Indiana (18-11, 9-10) is locked into the No.9 seed. The Badgers swept the season series against the Hoosiers and have won 10 of the last 11 meetings. The No.8 seed could be either Michigan or Michigan State. Either of those opponents would create intrigue.

UW won the only meeting with Michigan (16-13, 10-9) on February 20, but the game was marred by a physical altercation in the handshake line between Wolverines coach Juwan Howard and Badgers coach Greg Gard. The incident stemmed from Howard being upset at Gard calling a late timeout to reset the 10-second clock with his reserves going against a Michigan pressure defense, resulting in both coaches needing to be separated afterward and Howard striking Wisconsin assistant coach Joe Krabbenhoft in the face. Three players were suspended for throwing punches, Gard was fined, and Howard was fined and suspended five games.

Wisconsin and Michigan State (19-11, 10-9) won on each other’s home court this season, the latest being UW’s 70-62 victory in East Lansing on February 8. UW has played Michigan State more than any other Big Ten team in the conference tournament (10) and is 4-6 against the Spartans.

If UW is the No.2 seed, the Badgers would play the third quarterfinal game against the winner of the No.7/No.10 game.

The Big Ten Tournament runs from March 9-13 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

The NCAA ridded itself with the flawed RPI model after the 2018 season in favor of the NET rankings, rankings wins in four quadrants. Depending on the rank of the opponent and the location of the game would determine the overall strength of the victory.

Quad 1 wins are the more valuable and are earned when a team defeats a NET-ranked team in the top 30 at home, a top 50 team on a neutral site, and a top 75 team on the road. A Quadrant 2 win are those at Home against the RPI 31–75, neutral 51–100, and away victories over the RPI 76–135.

UW improved to 9-3 in Quad 1 games with Tuesday’s victory over Purdue and are 16-4 in Quad 1 and 2 games, tied for the most in the country. The Badgers are also one of seven schools in the Power Five (and Gonzaga) with five-or-fewer losses this season.

However, Wisconsin currently sits as No.20 in the NET rankings. Among the teams ahead of them are St. Mary’s at No.19 (who UW defeated in the Maui Invitational finals), Iowa at No.17, 10-loss LSU at No.16, and nine-loss Texas at No.15.

While the NET has a lot of results-based data as part of its process, the rankings include a predictive element that involves scoring margin, evaluated teams based on how much they win by. Wisconsin is 15-1 in games decided by six points or less. A remarkable achievement but such wins against non-tournament teams Georgia Tech, Illinois State, Maryland, Minnesota (x2), and Northwestern are looked at as negatives by the computers because the Badgers didn’t want by as much as forecasted.

In games through Friday, UW ranks No.20 in Sagarin, No.221 in T-Rank, and No.25 in KenPom.

Fortunately, the NCAA selection committee won’t care about the margin of victory as much as the result. The Badgers were ranked as the top No.4 seed (No.13 overall) when the NCAA selection committee released its top 16 seeds on February 19. Since then, UW has gone 4-0 with two road wins. Of the seven teams that were ranked above them, six have lost at least one game, with four of the teams (Kentucky, Purdue, Tennessee, Illinois) residing in the Midwest.

If UW doesn’t lose to Nebraska (No.148 in the NET), the Badgers worst loss will be a Quad 3 defeat at home to Rutgers. All of UW’s opponents in Indianapolis will likely be Quad-1 games, meaning a pair of convincing wins and advancing to the conference title game could potentially sneak them onto the No.1 line. Seeing teams ahead of them lose would certainly help matters, and it’ll be interesting to see if the committee slightly devalues two of UW’s losses considering the Badgers were shorthanded against Providence (no Johnny Davis) and Michigan State (no Tyler Wahl).

Regardless, if UW wins Sunday, the Badgers are likely looking at a No.2 or No.3 seed and opening the NCAA Tournament in Milwaukee at Fiserv Forum on March 18.

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