OT: Illinois AD writes open letter about B1G Champions situation

God I hope they lose to Rutgers again in the B1G Tourney. The B1G should make him eat his computer with a spoon and wash it down with a bottle of Spartan Tears, 2012 vintage, if they do.

an open letter to josh whitman:

suck it.

What we did not anticipate, and what we now realize, is that this same metric would actually penalize a team

Buuuuuuullshit. I guarantee a scenario such as the current one was presented and discussed.

yeah, but of those games, we didn't play they were all vs scrubs if I'm not wrong.

give us Penn State at home and Northwestern we will run them by 20 each.

Ok, so let’s say that Iowa or OSU wins the national championship.. Can we say the we should be co-national champions because we beat them head to head?  This is an absolute ridiculous argument.  This is why I am glad out athletic department stays out of this nonsense.

I could see the players and fans of Illinois putting up arguments. I could see the players and fans of Michigan putting up arguments if the roles were reversed. But for the AD to publicly campaign for a title is bush league. Where is your pride?

Tough shit. The rules are the rules. You don’t like it? Don’t lose games that you shouldn’t.

The MSU games clearly illustrate how flawed the "we blew them out, head to head".  Michigan blew out MSU, then lost to that same MSU a few days later.

A loss or even a blow out loss does not necessarily mean anything.

We had all that time off, then had to play 3 top 10 teams, Indiana, and our biggest rivals (back to back games).....all within a very short period of time.  I'm sure having that much time off, then having that brutal of a schedule, in such a short period of time, had them extremely worn out.  Not only a bunch of good teams, but a lot of emotions.....after being off for 3 weeks.  Endurance was DEFINITELY a factor.

Well, the Big Ten has shown some flexibility in terms of the rules they use to pick a champion.  Remember OSU making the football title game after playing only five games?

The babies on the bus go wah wah wah.

Someone get her a participation trophy and a pacifier.

None of this matters a single bit.  The one thing Illinois can hang their hat on is that they beat the champ.  Good for them.  The last game of the season had zero implications on Michigan's conference championship prospects, and the intensity showed as much.  Why?  Because they already won the conference!  On that information alone, you cannot possibly know how Michigan would've played with all the chips on the table (oh wait, yes we can because we saw them demolish MSU a couple days earlier in exactly that situation).  By the rules, mathematically, however you want to slice it, Michigan is the outright champ.  To summarize:  Ok, cool! Go Blue!

Seriously pathetic look by the Illinois AD.   Especially after Underwood says these games don’t matter.  So there appeal is a shared crown on what basis.

Fuck if anyone has a bitch it’s Indiana football where they changed the rules. What a d bag move.

crying Illini 

So .... everyone agreed to the revised Covid rules?  Check. 
 

Reason to gripe?  Not unless your a blithering idiot. 

I honestly didn't realize people cared that much about the basketball regular season. Surely once you are in the tournament, it's all about that. I mean 95% of the country basically starts caring at exactly that time.

This situation certainly stinks for Illinois and its fans.  I, for one, can empathize.  But there is no injustice here.  There is no dilemma.  The criteria was established before the season started.

End of discussion.  Set your sights on the Big Ten Tournament, Illinois.  Godspeed, you band of international scallywags!!

B1G says before the season this is how we will determine who wins the regular season Championship, and then follows that procedure at the end of the regular season. You have to be a real piece of work to take issue with that after the season is over.

Why?

I hope he doesn’t gamble.  What’s next a letter to Vegas???  I lost all my money, I shouldn’t have bet, and I did but I regret it.  I’m whining so I can gain respect of others.  Warde isn’t a whiner, so I can’t stand him.  Unfkdsafbelievable.

That's it!

Give us Illinois in the BTT. What a great game that would be now. Juwan would have them pumped. 

What a whiny bitch. So fucking tired of victim mentality. 

Rules are set and after the fact people want to make up new rules. Totally pathetic. 

And if Michigan were on the other side of this, I would be embarrassed for them if they wrote anything like this.... which they would not have. 

It's like the cicadas. 

Every twenty-four years (1973 Ohio State, 1997 Nebraska, 2021 Illinois), Michigan will be involved in some kerfuffle with someone else about who that year's Champion is.  

2045 will be fun.

***Breaking News***
 

https://twitter.com/noescalators/status/1369495388609216512?s=21

You would think people on a Michigan site would understand basic math (this isnt an OSU site) The team with the highest win % is awarded a Conference Title .

Michigan .824 

Illinois .800 

Someone should tell him that our football team is the winningest program in NCAA history.

The regular season trophy was shipped to Michigan by the B1G office. It's official, case closed. 

Illinois AD is wrong, but it's nice for him to fight for his school.

Lol, fuck him.  

The sad part - you have whack jobs like Illinois fans and the RCMB couch burners complaining for IL.  When in the end - these were the rules EVERYOnE agreed to at the beginning of the season. 
 

Just cause you don’t like the end result doesn’t mean you can change what you agreed to.  Next time - don’t agree.  Ask for changes. Man up and speak your mind before you get into these situations. 

Well after thinking about it, I’ll offer a trade off for the NCAA and Big Ten declare Michigan the 2013 NCAA basketball National Champs Louisville forfeited anyway, and then you can say Illnois still finished behind Michigan in winning percentage in the Big Ten.

Who fucking cares! IL finished 2nd LOL.

Who fucking cares! IL finished 2nd LOL.

Sorry Illinois, but losing to bad to mediocre teams is your thing, not ours.  Us not padding our stats against bottom dwellers is not the reason Illinois didn't win the B1G.  Losing to both "cable subscribers" teams was their problem.  They were very lucky to not have lost to other bad teams as well.  The thing that made Dosunmu look like "Mr. Clutch" was that they were trailing late in the 4th against bad teams.  Good job making the shots.  Bad job nearly losing to Nebraska.

Illinois fans have reason to be upset.

Illinois doesn't have a legitimate gripe though.

This situation wasn't just some low-probability outcome - it was perfectly predictable. The powers that be could have easily mandated a different criteria for champions. They could have easily added a clause that says "if the team with the most wins is different than the team with the highest win percentage, they will be declared co-champions". They could have amended this sometime a month or two ago after seeing it as more of a possibility, even if they didn't specifically account for it in November. But they didn't. The gripe is therefore not legitimate.

So be upset at the Big Ten for mishandling another sticky situation all you want, but all this is nothing more than sour grapes from them. Not anything different than what happened to Michigan vs. OSU in 2016 in football. But nobody thinks Michigan didn't lose that game. 

I mean, Michigan was confirmed as outright champions after the 1st win vs. MSU. If you don't think that played a factor in the meaningless rematch on Sunday (with MSU having everything on the line and Michigan having very little), then you haven't watched sports. It happens to the best teams all the time. To declare post-facto that that loss now matters and Illinois is co-champions would actually be worse and more unfair to Michigan than the unfairness that Illinois fans feel right now. 

And for the record, I'd be ok with a "most wins and win percentage are co-champions" clause. Because I bet most of the time those are the same team. And in a weird covid-season that's not a bad compromise. But again, they specifically did not do this. So cry me a river about unfairness. It's not like the conference changed its rules midseason to let Michigan win it all. 

Hope we play them and beat them in the BTT.  Meanwhile, their AD’s letter and $1 will get you a cup of coffee at Dennys ??

Does this AD and others who may do similar things have a vested interest? Do they have some incentive clause in their contracts that grant them a bonus if teams win a championship? 

I thought Big Championships didn’t mean that much?