:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/68857786/usa_today_15609126.0.jpg)
We took a pretty in-depth look at the Badgers’ NCAA Tournament resume 12 days ago where we explained some of the advanced metrics and how the final numbers are reached, so let’s go ahead and dive right into the rankings and see how the Wisconsin Badgers are looking with only three games left (UW is off until Saturday this week) in their regular season.
- NET ranking: No. 20
- KenPom: No. 13
- T-Rank: No. 11
- EvanMiya: No. 8
- AP Poll: No. 23
- Coaches Poll: No. 24
You can already see a bit of disparity between the traditional polls and the advanced metrics with NET trending closer to the AP and Coaches polls than the more analytically inclined rankings.
Wisconsin is 3-7 in Quad 1 games, which isn’t great but also isn’t terrible. They are 6-1 in Quad 2 games and have no bad losses, all of which is good. UW has six wins over the current KenPom top-50, including an impressive win over the No. 9 Loyola-Chicago Ramblers. Depending on how Louisville (No. 52) does the rest of the way they could end up being a top-50 win too, but Minnesota (No. 49) could drop out.
The great (maybe?) thing is, the Badgers have three games left and all three will be Quad 1 games (NET rankings used here): home against No. 4 Illinois, at No. 28 Purdue and at No. 5 Iowa.
The Big Ten is far and away the best conference in the country this year and even though fans have been disappointed by Wisconsin’s play so far this year they aren’t in any real danger of missing the NCAA Tournament even if they were to lose all three of their remaining games. Obviously they’d get a bad seed, but they’d still be dancing come March.
We’ll update this post again next week after we get some more data points and we’ll also start taking a look at potential Big Ten Tournament opponents too.