Big Ten Basketball Preview 2016 (oh hi!)

Guess what fuckers?  I may be back.  I may also not be back.  I am unsure.  However since I can't quite get in the mood to care about college basketball this year, maybe writing up some basic stuff will get me motivated again.  Who knows.  And what better way than to write a Big Ten Preview, using a magazine as my sole source of information?  This should be terrible.

1.  INDIANA HOOSIERS.  Don't worry, there's no doubt Tom Crean will screw everything else and the Hoosiers will underachieve because that's just what he does, but I like the team in general.  They have a super nice little big man/guard combo in James Blackmon and Thomas Bryant, and any time you have two players on the same team that make me think how sweet that team would be on NBA Jam you know I'm going to overrate them.  Plus I think I read somewhere that this Anunoby guy is suppose to like, make a leap or something.  If Crean didn't screw him all up already.

2.  WISCONSIN BADGERS.  Ugh.  Gross.  The entire team is back from last year to be boring and white, but they weren't terrible so I suppose they're probably the favorite to win the conference.  At least Greg Gard doesn't seem nearly as loathsome as Bo Ryan was.  Still pretty loathsome though.  Just like that traitor Illlikainenen.  I confess that I do like watching Nigel Hayes though.  I actually kind of hope he finally has a three point shot figured out, because that would be fun to watch.  I feel icky.  80% of this team is voting for Trump.

3.  OHIO STATE BUCKEYES.  I actually already put down a long shot future wager on them to win the NCAA title at like 66-1, so I gotta stick with it.  Yeah, it's probably a dumb bet but that's why it's a longshot.  But here's the thing I like.  Remember year after year after year, Thad Matta somehow manages to pull in one of the best classes in the country.  Like every year.  And the really good guys like D'Angelo Russell and DeShaun Thomas eventually leave early for the draft.  But all those other guys stick around, and now they're sophomores and juniors and seniors.  There's a whole group of pretty good players here.  If one (or more!) can step up a bit and become an actually like, super good player this could end up a really good team.  Or I'm a big fat idiot.

4.  PURDUE BOILERMAKERS.  Last year they had three big fat tall guys and things went alright.  This year they have two big fat tall guys and that might even work out better since Caleb Swanigen and Isaac Haas (too many As!!) can ball.  But they still don't have a backcourt and I don't think they have since Lewis Jackson, who couldn't shoot.  But they have Spike Albrecht you say?  I still don't get why this is/was a big deal because, spoiler alert, Albrecht sucks.  He had one good half against Louisville on national tv and suddenly he's good?  He's terrible.  A benchwarmer who got hot, went back to warming benches, and then transferred since his coach knew he sucked.  Now he's going to suck for a new team.  What a huge story!

5.  MICHIGAN STATE SPARTANS.  This is a weird team for Izzo.  He has a killer recruiting class and he's going to need it since there's nothing else here.  He has Tum Tum Nairn, who wouldn't shoot the ball if you paid him, and Eron Harris, who wouldn't stop shooting if you cut his arms off, and then like, a bunch of supposedly good freshman.  I know putting them fifth is just me falling for the hype of POTENTIAL and UPSIDE, but every other team in this league freaking sucks.  I'm serious.  Every team after this one is just terrible.

6.  MARYLAND TERRAPINS.  You know who doesn't suck though?  Melo Trimble.  He's going to be on a bad team, but he's good enough to pull them up this high.  I expect him to shoot approximately one zillion times this year.  That is all I can write about Maryland because nobody knows anything else about any of these guys and if they say they do they're lying.

7.  ILLINOIS FIGHTING ILLINI.  Malcolm Hill also doesn't suck, and also will be in the player of the year hunt.  The difference between he and Trimble is that Hill has a few players back that I'm familiar with.  So why are they below Maryland?  Because I'm tremendously inconsistent.  Looking at this roster Tracy Abrams is probably already hurt again, I liked this Mike Thorne guy before he got hurt, and Maverick Morgan has always been a player who existed.  They have Leron Black too, who I remember was supposed to be a stud but obviously that hasn't worked out too well at this point, but like Nickelback says "It's never too late."

8.  MICHIGAN WOLVERINES.  They could be higher if they managed to not get anybody hurt, which seems unlikely.  Caris LeVert basically missed his last two seasons here, and Gary Walton was hurt for what seemed like the entire year two seasons ago and I know this because I had him on my fantasy team.  Zak Irvin hasn't missed as much time as those guys, but he's been absolutely atrocious and I remember reading it had to do with some injury.  Look, I'm not saying Jon Beilein is intentionally hurting his players, but I'm not NOT saying it either.

9.  MINNESOTA GOPHERS.  This is far more optimistic than most predictions out there, but it's my blog so I can do whatever I want.  Once you get down here most of these teams are terrible.  Like really terrible, so it wouldn't be hard for one of them to jump up and get as high as 8 or 9 and why not the Gopehrs?  They have more experience coming back then the majority of the teams below them, a better recruiting class, and a couple supposedly impact transfers.  So there's upside.  I think a lot of this season depends on Pitino's coaching.  The first year he came here he did a lot of interesting things, particularly on offense, that were refreshing after watching Tubby's teams run nothing but flex over and over again.  Then, for some reason, that died and I couldn't ascertain if they were running any set play at all on most of the possessions.  That works when you have a loaded, athletic, smart team.  Even though I like most of this team, they certainly aren't that.  So let's run some plays!  Have some fun!  Finish ninth!

10.  NORTHWESTERN WILDCATS.  I have no doubt one year soon Northwestern will finally break through and make the NCAA Tournament, but I'll believe when I see it.  Every time they get close they blow it.  And since they wear purple might as well make the ole Vikings comparison here.  But there's no doubt they've risen above perennial bottom feeder status.  The big recruiting splash guy Vic Law looked good his freshman year before missing last year with an injury and I assume he's back.  They probably have a big doofy foreign big guy I can make fun of/fall in love with, and Bryant McIntosh is somehow a really, really good player.  He's so punchable he probably should have gone to Duke, but he's really good.

11.  IOWA HAWKEYES.  If you were a reader of this blog, you may remember at once point I was going to do a thing where I kept track of the best chuckers in the country.  That, and everything really, fell by the wayside, but I've always remember Peter Jok because he popped up on my list because he had a pretty insane usage rate for a bench player while not being a very good shooter.  Well guess what?  Everyone is gone from Iowa except for him.  Now, last year he kept a pretty high shot rate but was actually an excellent shooter, but with nobody else out there to draw defensive attention I'm predicting he goes back to crappy.  Crappy, but high volume.  Buckle up.

12.  PENN STATE NITTANY LIONS.  The only thing I know about Penn State this year is that their best player is Shep Garner, and that makes me smile because his name is Shep.  You know who else's name was Shep?  The weirdo creepy security guard from Above the Rim who played basketball against air with no ball because he once accidentally killed his best friend.  But how can you go against someone who can do this?



You can't!  And he's in work clothes!  Man, Penn State should really go get this guy.

13.  RUTGERS SCARLET KNIGHTS.  Rutgers was bad last year.  Like really, really bad.  Except of course when they spanked the Gophers, which was a really fun game to watch.  They have a large chunk of the team back, which is one hand is good because in theory players get better from year to year, but on the other hand is bad because they were really, really bad last season.  At least they're interesting.  Interesting in that they are wildly inefficient and technically horrible and making baskets, but at the same time play at a really fast pace and put up a whole bunch of shots, while also playing zero defense and if they do manage to make the opponent miss they very rarely get the rebound!  In other words, it's fun to watch other teams light them up.  Not the Gophers, of course, but other teams.

14.  NEBRASKA CORNHUSKERS.  Thank god Petteway and Shields are gone and the Huskers can go back to sucking like they're supposed to.  We didn't invite Nebraska to the Big Ten to be mildly competitive at basketball, we invited them to be good at football and fight to not be in last place in basketball every year.  I was getting pretty sick of them not being completely dreadful and going after many of the same recruits the Gophers were.  Now the natural order of things can be restored.  Also pretty sick of Tim Miles at this point.


Well there you have it.  My completely accurate and well researched predictions for the big ten this season.  As far as this blog, I have no idea how often I'll be posting.  Maybe after most games.  Maybe never again.  NOBODY KNOWS!

Iowa 77, Minnesota 75

It's a good thing I had pretty much already written this season off, because the Gophers found a new way to lose a game as brutally as possible.  Getting blown out, crawling back, taking the lead, losing the lead, and tying it up at the buzzer which oops was actually after the buzzer is a new level of losing.  It was clear he was late, clear enough to me at least that we just left after the buzzer instead of waiting for the ref's review.  Sucks.  Here are some things.  I might get to ten I'm not sure.  They're also probably going to be short because it's not very fun.

1.  Dre Hollins still can't shoot.  I consider myself a fairly analytical basketball mind, but there's really no rational reason for Hollins to continue to miss at this level (2-12 last night).  I still think he's settling for jumpers to much and not getting to the rim, but it's not a huge shift from last year (14.1% of shots at rim this year vs. 16.8% last year) and if he's not 100% that could be the reason, but he's just flat missing even the wide open looks.  I wish I knew more about stuff like shooting form and balance and release points and all that, because at this point it's gotta be mechanical.  Or at least I hope so, because if it's mental it's going to be tough for him to pull it together after so many, many, misses.

2.  Carlos Morris and Nate Mason were offensive superstars.  The duo accounted for 38 of the Gophers' points on 14-25 shooting - that's good!  Both have been showing off multi-faceted offensive games recently, and that only bodes well for the future.  Wait, let me rephrase.  The Gopher offense should score a lot of points next season, and points are fun.  The defense right now looks to me like it will be absolutely dreadful. We're getting pretty used to it, but there's a very good chance it's going to be worse next year.  Much worse.

3.  If they make their free throws at the end of the game, they probably win.  This is something people want to focus on and it's tough to blame them.  Yeah, there were tons of other things that could have changed the game's outcome and the Gophers shot 12-16 from the line for the game, but missing the front end of two one-and-ones with a slim lead in the final two and a half minutes is pretty tough to ignore.  I, and plenty of others, said if the poor free throw shooting didn't improve from earlier in the year it would cost this team at least one game, and here it probably did.  Weird to say in a game they shoot 75% from the stripe, but tough to ignore that situation.

4.  Pitino's new starting lineup didn't matter.  Another thing I heard some whining about is how Pitino's different starting lineup (Eliason-Buggs-King-Hollins-Mason) screwed the team because they started the game in a 10-2 hole.  Just shut up.  That didn't matter.  First, it was so early in the game that an eight point lead is not really close to insurmountable.  Second, nobody on this team is so good compared to his replacement that his not being on the floor is going to make any significant difference.  The only change that would make any difference long term would be Eliason in for Mo Walker, and it looks like Walker came in at about the seventeen and a half minute mark (we missed about the first five minutes or so because Macs was SO slow bringing the food out).  This is a dumb point.  He tried something kind of dumb to "spark the team" because that kind of dumb stuff sometimes works.  This time it didn't, but it had little bearing on the team's loss.

5.  Pitino's offense seems to have lost its edge.  Remember when the Gophers ran some cool plays?  Good enough stuff that I would point some of them out here?  What happened?  I know the base offense is kind of to let the players create and not have a pet play (like Tubby's flex) but the Gophers don't really have the types of players who can do that consistently.  It works at Louisville and Florida because those guys are really, really good (Florida this year excepted).  There needs to be a little bit more of a plan on the offensive end, especially when Mathieu is running rough.

6.  Maybe Mathieu should have shot a pull up at the end.  I guess in hindsight yes he definitely should have since he couldn't get the lay-up off, but he's fast and he's used to get where he's going and it's not like he was late by some huge amount of time.  He saw a lane, he got to it, and it almost worked.  He shares plenty of blame for what's gone on this season, and I have no idea what's going on with his dribbling which was near flawless last year but seems to have gone to hell, but don't put a whole lot of blame on him for running out of time.  I saw some classy chap on twitter call him dumb.  He makes a lot of dumb turnovers, sure, but this is the kind of thing that just sucks.  It happens.

7.  I thought the defense on Iowa's last shot was fine.  I haven't rewatched it, which I probably would have if this season was going any where but it's not so I really don't feel like it, but my first impression was the defense was there, Uthoff just made a tough shot.  I don't want to look at it again.  If I'm wrong, it's probably the first time so give me a break.

8.  Joey King is like, trying to be unlikable.  He hit two monster threes in the second half.  After both he did some cocky thing with his shooting hand like, simulating a ball going down into the hoop.  Don't do that.

9.  It may be time to let the kids play.  This season is in oof status, and I'm not advocating a wholesale benching of the seniors or anything it's probably time to at least start glancing towards next year.  With both Mo and Eliason gone that means Buggs, Bakary Konate, and Gaston Diedhiou are going to have to log a lot of minutes next season (gulp).  Time to let them get more than a little taste and at least get some idea of what you have going into next season.  Also probably time to be hitting the Juco, late signee, and transfer ranks pretty hard.

10.  Well now what?  I don't believe this team is anywhere near as bad as an 0-5 Big Ten team usually is, flaws notwithstanding,  Kenpom still has them ranked #50 in the country, which kind of seems silly right now, but on the other hand they've mostly blown out bad teams and played good teams close, which is a recipe Kenpom generally likes.  Unfortunately there are other metrics out there that mean more to the NCAA Selection committee such as RPI (#106) and Strength of Schedule (#103) which have pretty much now reached a level where anything the Gophers do short of nearly running the table isn't going to be enough to reach the tournament, and there's even some work to be done to go back to the NIT.  Time to just try to have some fun with the rest of the year and watch the guys develop for next season and beyond.  Luckily, I had already tricked my brain into thinking that way after Purdue.  Even so, this season has been a disappointment on a level that I don't know if I've ever experienced.

I do think they'll smoke Rutgers on Saturday though.

Michigan 62, Minnesota 57

Well that sucked.  Another game that looked eminently winnable, and another loss.  0-4 is not a good place to be, but luckily for me I had pretty much prepared myself for this.  Yes, I got sucked in a bit and yes, I felt a bit of rage rising post game, but I beat that shit back like Link fighting Ganon.  Sorry my kids are really into watching me play Zelda games these days.  Anyway, I didn't expect a win, I kind of started to believe, but when the collapse happened I wasn't the least bit surprised and well, I pretty much was just waiting for it.  Here are ten things I liked and didn't like about that Michigan game.

1.  Back door cuts are killing this team.  It happened against Ohio State, it happened against Purdue, and it probably happened against Maryland but I slept through most of that game.  It happened again big time against Michigan.  It doesn't seem to matter if it's man or zone defense, that back door cut is just killing this team. Against Michigan there was a play I actually rewound twice to see if there was a pick, but no, it was just Dre Hollins falling asleep and letting his man go back door.  I don't want to single him out because this is a team wide issue (Carlos hi) but it's a constant problem.

2.  Mo Walker has become so good he's getting hard doubled.  Pretty much every time Walker got the ball on Saturday Michigan sent a second defender, and not in a semi double way in a hard double way.  Walkter had no choice but to pass, basically (which killed my Walker over 13.5 points bet) and it made sense because Michigan doesn't have the personnel to guard him one one hone (which is why I made the bet).  He did a good job handling it and found open teammates enough times where it should have helped, but a staggering majority of those times whoever received the pass wasn't ready to shoot.  Could have made a lot of difference.

3.  I have never seen a team throw the ball directly out of bounds as much as this team.  The Gophers turned it over 17 times in the game, and I swear at least 8 of them were balls just thrown directly out of bounds. Michigan is a decent team at causing turnovers, but this was just out of control.  I gamble kind of a lot (but always within my means!) and a rule I try to follow is never bet on a dumb team.  Baylor, LSU, and any team coached by Bruce Weber usually fall into this.  The Gophers are trending in this direction.

4.  Carlos Morris could end up being really good.  Morris is on a really good run.  Outside of the Maryland game (which I slept through) he's managed to take his chucker tendencies and turn them into scorer tendencies (this difference is not missing as much).  He can hit the outside shot, he loves to drive to the rim, and against Michigan he showed off a very nice post game on a possession which had me like whoa (he did a very nice fake into an up and under which I didn't know he had in him).  Morris can score, and there was little doubt of this from day 1, but he's started doing it in a a way that fits the offense. Next year, when he's the clear #1 option (and he will be) he could seriously end up with a spot on an all Big 10 team.  For real.

5.  That being said, Morris's jump pass is killing me.  One thing you can say about Morris is the boy is confident. When he gets the ball and decides it's scoring time he's going to go to the rim and I am fully in favor of it.  The problems is, besides the sometimes really bad shots, is that if he doesn't have a shot he'll jump and look to pass.  If someone is open he great, good play dude.  But when there's no one around he's suddenly finding himself in the air with nowhere to go.  It's not good.  Or, at best, rarely good.

6.  Derrick Walton's jumper is beautiful.  Is it Ray Allen beautiful?  Of course not, don't be ridiculous, but it's a good looking shot.  I know the stats say the long two is the worst shot in basketball and I don't dispute that, but there are some guys who can just hit it enough to make it worthwhile.  Walton looks like he's going to be one of those guys.  I wish there was a way to get stock on a guy in a way that actually made money, because I'm telling you right now Walton is going to be an absolute superstar by the time he's out of Ann Arbor.  You heard it hear first.

7.  The Gophers got killed on the boards.  I know the final numbers show Minnesota winning the rebound battle, but man they got smoked on so many by a team that's basically running a four guard lineup.  Michigan doesn't crash the o-boards, but the got 31% of their own misses against a season average of 26% (including the Minnesota game).  There were just too many times a Michigan missed shot resulted in the Wolverines keeping the ball, which is a killer against a team that thrives in transition.  On a list of ways to lose the game, giving up offensive boards should have been near the top.  The Wolverines only shot 22% from three, which should have been a big part of a Gopher win, but giving up second chances negated that.

8.  Michigan does a great job of taking away passing lanes.  They did this in both man-to-man and that 1-3-1, but the whoever is on top for Michigan does a great job of making the offense reset.  They don't necessarily try to steal the ball, but whenever a Gopher guard on the wing was trying to pass back to the point the Michigan defender was always in the way, making the pass go much further towards half court than the Gophers would like and effectively making them start the offense over.  When Michigan switched to the 1-3-1 it was even more pronounced, and unfortunately no Gopher other than Nate Mason understood you need to attack the gaps rather than just work it around the perimeter.  Really, Mason impressed me with his understanding of what needed to be done, but he was the only one.

9.  Elliott Eliason is broken.  There as a play as the game wound down where somebody (and I wish I had the game recorded right now to rewatch this) left the ball off for him and it should have been a one dribble and dunk situation.  Instead it resulted in something else bad which I don't remember because he was just so hesitant.  I know he's not a good offensive player, and that's just who he is, but at point Elliott seemed to realize that he could score in the right situation and was seeming to develop into a competent player.  I have no idea what happened to the man, but he's become nothing more than a back-up center who can grab some rebounds sometime.  The difference between who he was early last season and who he is now is staggering, and it's impossible to not wonder what happened with the coaching here.  And yes, this is my first questioning of Pitino and staff I think.  It happens.

10.  I remember talking with someone and saying the Gopher might have the best back court in the conference.  They sure aren't playing like it.  Dre Hollins is basically playing the same as last year statswise, and he's shooting well but he has seemed to resign himself to being a jump shooter and isn't driving anymore (though you'll notice when the team is playing well it's when he's driving more) and Dre Matheiu is turning into a guy who won't shoot, even though he's a good shooter and who can't take care of the ball.  Both are scoring less than last season, and both have disappeared at times.  Despite a hot first half Hollins is still shooting like hell at just 10-46 (7-29 from three) in conference play and he's at 7 assists and 7 turnovers in those games.  Mathieu might even have been worse - he's totaled 17 turnovers in B10 games against just 8 assists.  I think everyone knew that these two were the key to the Gophers' season, and it's turning out that way.  If things are going to get turned around, it has to happen here.

11.  Extending this to eleven just because I have to mention Joey King  Oof.  Didn't shoot well, didn't rebound, and turned the ball over like it was his job.  One key play towards the end of the game he dove for a ball on the ground and gained possession (good!), had enough wits about him to not call timeout since the Gophers were out (smart!), and, despite multiple teammates around him, was unable to get the ball to one of them, leading to Michigan possession (bad!).  It was a huge play at that stage of the game.  I know King is just crazy inconsistent and he's never going to be anything resembling a competent ball handler, but he's been brutal.  Do you realize he has had more than one rebound in just one of the last five games?  He's 6-9 for christ's sake.  Ridiculous.


0-4 is a pretty major hole to dig your way out of, but it can be done.  Kenpom still projected the Gophers to finish the conference season at 8-10, and if they could basically do that but steal just one game they aren't supposed to win (without the corresponding bad loss) that's 9-9 and in the ballpark for an NCAA bid.  They'll probably need to go 10-8 to feel good, which means a whole lot of winning and it starts Tuesday night against Iowa.  The Hawkeyes have been solid this year (11-5) without a single bad loss (Texas, Syracuse, Michigan State, Iowa State, Northern Iowa) and two outstanding road wins (North Carolina, Ohio State).  Yes, they won both at Columbus and Chapel Hill, so I don't think they're going to automatically wilt because it's Williams Arena.  The Gophers will have to play well.  The Hawkeyes like to play fast, so this should be a fun game at least.

Minnesota 80, Iowa 77.

Iowa 75, Minnesota 66

Big Ten Basketball Preview: #8 Iowa Hawkeyes

I'm going to be honest with you here - I barely remember anything about Iowa.  I know they should have made the NCAA Tournament two years ago over the Gophers after closing hot but didn't, and I know they probably shouldn't have made it last season after collapsing down the stretch which they then proved by losing to Tennessee in a game which I can't even remember if it was close or not.  I also remember Roy Marble - both of them - and they're both gone now and even though they're used to the old guy being gone his kid having graduated is going to pose a major problem since he was pretty much the guy who could create his own shot there.  Maybe I do remember more stuff.  Like how annoying that entire team (sans Marble) was.

Now the job of scorer goes to annoying ginger Aaron White, the Hawkeyes second leading scorer (12.8ppg) and leading rebounder (6.7rpg) last season.  White was incredibly efficient last season (15th best true shooting % in the country) in large part because he was able to be more selective with Marble using up so many possessions and drawing tons of defensive attention.  Zach McCabe also used a ton of possessions (took 22% of Iowa's shots when he was on the floor) and he's gone too so there'll be plenty of extra shots this season for White to take more of and fail spectacularly.

Two other guys who might grab some of those extra shots are starting guards Mike Gesell and Josh Oglesby.  They're super mediocre, but Gesell does a nice job of running the offense and Oglesby can heat up from the outside which the Gophers unfortunately saw twice since Oglesby shot 9-16 from three in the two games Iowa played against them.  The fit the profile for Iowa guards by being extremely annoying, as does reserve guard Peter Jok who really, really likes to shoot and other reserve guard Anthony Clemmens who really hates to.

Even though White is probably the key to seeing if the Hawkeyes make the NCAA Tournament or not, the key to how good they can be and how far they can go is junior center Adam Woodbury.  He's a legit 7-1 and it was a major upset a couple of years ago when the hometown kid signed on with the Hawkeyes despite offers from North Carolina and Ohio State when he ranked as the #39 player in the country.  After a so-so freshman year, however, Woodbury stagnated and maybe even regressed in year two, and put up averages of just 5.7 points and 3.9 rebounds per game last year.  With both McCabe and Melsahn Basabe (7.2ppg, 5.7rpg) gone it's time for Woodbury to get his shit together.  6-8 junior Jarrod Uthoff was pretty decent last year and he should help out, but it kind of needs to be Woodbury's year.

Iowa has several fairly decent pieces back, but a ton of questions as well.  Most likely 8th is a bit low and they'll be in the hunt for an NCAA bid, but they're Iowa so they can all just go to hell.


OTHER PREVIEWS
#9 MARYLAND TERRAPINS
#10 INDIANA HOOSIERS
#11 PENN STATE NITTANY LIONS
#12 NORTHWESTERN WILDCATS
#13 PURDUE BOILERMAKERS
#14 RUTGERS SCARLET KNIGHTS

There's a New Mexico now?

This was a long day.  I flew to New Mexico today, which included a 4-hour layover in Denver.  I finally get to my room, and see the Gophers are actually leading at halftime and have scored 50 points, which was weird.  Then I look and see Charles Buggs had 11 of them.  Even weirder.  I tried to watch some of the game on the btn2go thing but the internet here sucks.  Then I had tickets to the New Mexico/Utah State game at The Pit and we had to leave, and since the Pit is underground there's no cell service really and last I saw the Gophers were up 6 with 2:30 or so left, a perfect place to blow a game.  Not until after we left did I get to find out they actually won.  Shocker.

Thoughts on the game, looking only at the box score since I barely saw any of it:

-  Obviously the Buggs thing is like WTF.  More important than the 13 points is he didn't turn it over.  This Buggs thing is something I'm going to have to go back and watch the first half.  I also see Oto didn't see the floor, and I have no clue if this was expected or an injury or if he was just straight benched (twitter tells me it was a knee injury), but it sounds like Buggs looked great so that's pretty odd but excellent news.

-  Obviously it's great to see the much maligned Austin Hollins have a breakout game (and not just because he's on my Big 10 Fantasy team and we're in the playoffs).  8-10 from the floor overall and 4-6 from three are great, and maybe even better was the 7-7 from the line.  The offense must have been clicking like crazy looking at their shooting numbers of 61%/58%/83%.  The 1.32 points per possession have to be a season high for this team, and with assists on 63% of their made buckets it must have looked awfully good.  Bummed to have missed it.

-  The defense, of course, was brutal again, allowing 1.24 points per possession.  Iowa is at 1.21 for the season, so even playing a great offense like the Hawkeyes the Gophers still managed to make them look better than normal.  Turnovers were ugly again as well at 19.4% of possessions, but you know what?  In the end, it only really matters if you outscore your opponent, and the Gophers did, so I'm happy.  I haven't stopped to think what this means for their NCAA hopes, but it most certainly is a nice boost.

-  So anyway I got to see The Pit today and it was awesome.  It goes straight down from street level to where the playing surface is actually way underground, thus the nickname.  It's about as loud as I've ever heard any place.  The Barn can certainly get there at its peak, but the New Mexico fans are just loud the entire game.  If things are going well, they're loud.  If things are going poorly, they're louder.  The only place I can remember watching a game that kept that constant level of noise was Iowa State's Hilton Coliseum and that was back when I went when they were playing #1 Kansas, this was just against Utah State.  The seats are really packed low to the ground and it has a really low ceiling so it just amplifies the noise.  The other noticeable thing was everybody, I mean everybdoy, was in Lobo gear.  Every old person, every kid, and I think every little girl was in a Lobo cheerleader outfit.  It was pretty neat.  The only place I remember seeing it like that was when I went to a game at Utah State.  Really, really cool place to see a game and I'm glad I got to go in my lifetime.

-  As for the team, New Mexico won by 9 and I was impressed by them.  They won 67-58 despite shooting just 11-21 from the free throw line and they're going to be tough in March.  They have this inside combo of Cameron Bairstow (6-9, 250 lbs) and Alex Kirk (7-0, 245 lbs) who just dominate their offense.  Both can step out and hit a mid-range jumper and both are really good passers from the high post and they just play really well together.  They are also both exceptionally good at screening off their man when a guard drives.  Like if they're being fronted in the post and a guard drives baseline they'll just box their man out to give the guard an easy lay-up.  Really underrated skill.   Oh, and they also have Kendall Williams who averages 17pts and 5 assists per game, plus a bunch of shooters to surround those guys with.  They can't defend the three for shit and Preston Medlin went 4-5 tonight because those bigs don't come out far enough on a pick and roll, but I'm a Lobo fan.  Probably because it was so fun and they actually aren't very good but whatevs.

-  So yeah I had a four hour layover at the Denver airport today.  You know what they have in Denver?  A shit load of really great beer.  My favorites were the Upslope Brown Ale and the Oskar Blues Imperial Red, but really they were all good.  They were also really strong, so yada yada yada, I slept the entire flight into Albuquerque.

-  There was this one lady having lunch with her friend and they were sitting next to me at the airport bar and I couldn't help but notice how much I wanted to murder her.  First she wanted to order one of their fancy cocktails, but didn't want any alcohol.  So the server said they could use coke or something and she turned that down and then something else and she turned that down until finally they agreed on Sprite.  Then she wanted a small.  They only come in one size, but she haggled and begged and harassed until she got a smaller one.  Then she ordered the veggie burger with nothing on it and wanted a plain bun instead of a pretzel bun, which she asked her friend, "what's a pretzel bun."  Everything about her enraged me.  Then when she got up to leave, of course she had brought a pillow for the plane.  Oof.  Good luck with all that some guy probably.

-  Shabazz Muhammad had 20 points tonight?  I told you dorks he was awesome.

-  Since the hotel is so close to the University of New Mexico they had a free shuttle to go to the game.  The guy started talking basketball with me and mentioned how The Mountain West had the son of the first NBA dunk contest winner.  I said, "Yeah Larry Nance right?"  And he said "yes" and then I said, "he just blew out his knee didn't he" and the guy was like "wow you much really watch a lot of college basketball" and I was both embarrassed and proud.  But it made him like me so on the way back from the game I was able to get him to stop at a store for me so I could grab a six pack (went with Bud Light Platinum - don't judge me I've had a lot of heavy beer today and don't have a bottle opener - not all that bad, actually) so that was cool.  Pretty sure they aren't supposed to do that or at least that's what I'm telling myself so I feel cool. 

-  Dinner tonight sucked.  We got back to the hotel so late and it was such a long day I just went with room service.  Decided to go with the New York strip encrusted with red chile since that's supposed to be a New Mexico specialty, and also because their best known for their Mexican and I'm pretty sure we'll be eating a lot of that the next two days and I don't want to overload because of my tum tum.  Anyway it was horrible.  Fatty steak, over cooked, and the chile sauce was pretty tasteless with very little spice.  The herbed fingerling potatoes were mushy and I think the only herb they used was butter, and the spinach was just blech.  I know I shouldn't expect much at a hotel, but I didn't expect total crap.  Looking forward to crushing some good meals the next two days - you know I'll tell you about it.

-  One thing that never ceases to baffle me is how guys who were terrible shooters/scorers in college can suddenly thrive in the NBA.  Kendall Marshall is averaging 10.1ppg this year for the Lakers and shooting 47% from three.  He never broke 9ppg or 40% shooting in his two years at North Carolina.  It's not like he's been around forever either, it's just his second year in the NBA.  Michael Carter-Williams is averaging 17ppg for the Sixers this year, and he was a terrible scorer for Syracuse.  I guess he's actually a terrible shooter still as his percentages still suck, but it's just weird to see him scoring that much.  I just saw Kendall Marshall on ESPN doing a fancy swoopy woopy lay-up thing and there's no way he could have pulled that off at UNC and that's why I wrote this part.  Thank you for asking. 

-   I really need some sort of locking device on my computer that keeps me from playing online craps.  Anyway, I'm pretty wiped out from the long day so I'm done here now.  Hopefully I get really drunk at least once in the next two days and write some stupid crap.

Two-Headed Horribleness: A DWG movie blog

Coming at you live from my couch, and it's time to use this fancy netflix thing I have now to watch something completely terrible, hopefully with people dying, and write words about it.  Today I have chosen 2-Headed Shark Attack for your enjoyment, as you probably surmised from the picture right above here.  I went with this movie for four reasons:

1.  It's on Netflix
2.  It sounds really stupid
3.  Carmen Electra

Yes, Carmen Electra, one of my first loves, is in this, along with Brooke Hogan who is famous for being a daughter and Charlie O'Connell who is famous for being a brother and has also been in at least one Live Movie Blog on here before.  So let's kick back with a drink (going with Bell's Christmas Ale to start, but I'm guessing my good buddy Vodka might make an appearance by the halfway point of this garbage) and enjoy some terrible acting, horrible science, and big breasts.  I'll set the mood:

 

 

All good?  Let's go.

-  Two chicks water skiing at the same time, there's almost now way the 2-headed shark doesn't eat them simultaneously, right?

-  Right.

-  I like this because there's these three douchebag guys who were driving the boat and the sharked rammed it and we're supposed to think they're in deep water but while they're "treading" water I can actually see the ocean floor.

-  Carmen.  Electra.  My god.  Still just stunning.  I can't even think right now.

-  Ok so here's some boat that appears to be some kind of school on a boat deal and Charlie O'Connell's the teacher, so that's the second biggest stretch of the movie so far.  The biggest is Brooke Hogan playing the "hot chick."  So far every character is a perfect stereotype - we have nerdy guy, nerdy chick, hot chick, mean jock, pothead guy, and bitchy chick.  I don't like any of them. 

-  Apparently this movie needed two writers, one for the story and one for the screenplay.  I feel like this is somehow the most absurd thing about this movie, and there's a two-headed shark involved. 

- Oh god more Carmen.  Is it hot in here?  It feels really hot in here.

-  The black girl talks really black.  You know what I mean.  Super good writing so far.  The characters really come to life. 

-  The school boat just ran over a dead megamouth shark, and nerdy guy rips off about 10 facts about the megamouth and you're not going to believe this, but they're all dead on balls accurate.  So some completely retarded movie about a 2-headed shark is the first syfy movie ever to actually research and put something factually accurate in the movie.  I did not see that coming.

-  So here's what happened:  the megamouth ended up going through the school ship's propellers injured the boat and made it start taking on water, while at the same time the massive amount of blood in the water attracted the totally realistic looking 2-headed shark to the boat.  So the school boat will have to land at this super small island that's probably going to be deserted or something while some blonde chick repairs the hull.  Not a euphemism.

-  So since I switched jobs about a year and a half ago you may have noticed a lack of updates regarding fancy dinners, and that's because we never have fancy dinners at this job.  But last week we did, and so you should know that we went with calamari, mozzarella stuffed meatballs, a couple of flatbreads, spicy shrimp, and brussels sprouts for appetizers, followed up by a caesar salad and then for my entree I had pesto sea bass with roasted asparagus with a thai chili beurre blanc.  Pretty good.  Toffee and Grand Marnier truffles for dessert.  I much prefer my current job to any other I've had, but man do I miss those kind of dinners.

-  The good news is there are about 20 "college students" on this island now and many of them are female and in bikinis.  The bad news is that everyone in this thing is either a terrible overactor or just a plain terrible actor, and we need more Carmen Electra.

-  Guess what's attracted to the sound/smell/sight of a welding torch underwater?  Yep, a 2-headed shark which roars, of course.  Sorry blonde girl, although I do like how the two heads fought over the meal and ended up tearing her in half.  If the computer effects were done by something more powerful than an etch-a-sketch that would have been really cool.  But hey, Carmen is not sunbathing in a tiny bikini.  Previously she was dancing in the sun in a tank top.  I enjoy how nobody is pretending she is anything she isn't in this movie.  It's kind of beautiful.

-  I feel bad for Brooke Hogan here and not just because of her dad.  She's clearly supposed to be the main star here but she's completely overshadowed by Carmen and really everybody else.  We know Brooke is supposed to be the star because she just told a story about almost getting attacked by a shark or something and how she hasn't been in the water since she was twelve.  So she signed up for semester at sea to get over her fear of the water because that's something people in movies do that people in real life would never ever do.

-  Uh oh, a guy and two girls snuck off and are about to go "swimming."  This never ends well.

-  Boobs?  We have boobs?  Whoa.  Since this was originally on SyFy I wasn't ready for this but I guess the netflix and DVD versions are different, because there are lots of minutes of boobs.  But here comes growly mcfunhater shark to blow things up, and right as we have two chicks making out.  Also, they're in water that's only up to their waists (to better expose the boobs, of course) but the huge shark (with 2-heads) somehow managed to kill both the girls and do so in such a way that it bit their legs and they started coughing up blood.  This is horrible.

-  I think there was an earthquake or something.  Not really sure but there was a loud noise and then everybody started yelling and pretending the ground was shaking.  Chuck O'Connell fell on a dock and now he has some blood on his leg and can't walk or something.  I suspect this is supposed to be a serious injury but it pretty much looked like he fell down and got a scrape.  And there's another earthquake or whatever and bitchy girl started crying so Brooke Hogan slapped her.  Everyone is mad at Brooke now but I think slapping a woman when she's crying or talking is something that should really start catching on.

-  Ha Ha Carmen Electra is playing a doctor.  Awesome.  Also Mr. O'Connell hasn't stopped whining about his leg.  Brooke Hogan needs to slap that bitch.

-  Two more students we were never introduced got eaten, but this time people saw it so now they know there's a shark.   A shark that kills indiscriminantly in as little as 3 feet of water besides being totally huge and also every time it attacks they show it coming up from deep water.  And also roars.

-  The students found some old fishing boats which apparently Brooke can fix and so now they have two working boats.  To be eaten.  Keep in mind these students have no idea anything is wrong other than their big school boat needs repairs, so there's no reason for them to steal these fishing boats other than to go joy riding, which is exactly what they're doing.  Kids today, no respect. 

-  Omg the island is sinking because the shark keeps ramming the island.  Go ahead and let that one sink in while I grab another beer. 

- And now we have looped footage of Carmen Electra yelling "get out of the god damn water."  Looped footage.  I have watched an awful lot of crap but this is the worst of the bunch, and it has Carmen Electra so you know it must be extra bad. 

-  Oh man that guy just got his arm ripped right off.  Just like Aaron Rodgers.  By the way, fantasty football is totally gay and if you play it you're stupid too.  I hate it and I'm quitting forever next year.

-  So I guess this is just some shark born with two heads.  And because it has two heads apparently boat motors really bug it because it has "hyper sensitive electromagnetic responders", which really goes along way towards why it keeps attacking swimmers.

-  "We're in shallow water now, the shark can't get to us."  OH BULLSHIT!  Haven't you been watching this movie Brooke?

-  This is so bad there isn't even much to say.  The atoll is sinking because the shark is ramming it, teh big boat doesn't work, and they can't use the little boats because the 2-headed shark has twice the "electromagnetic resonance" as a normal shark.  And yet it's all super boring. 

-  The plan is too create a super strong magnetic field to distract the shark using an electric generator and some metal polls.  It took two writers to come up with this. 

-  So how about Jason Kubel coming back to the Twins?  That's pretty cool.  Not cool?  I got ride of my Kubel shirt. 

-  The shark rammed charge generator and then ate a couple of characters we don't care about (while roaring).  Now there is nothing to distract the shark from Brooke Hogan who is the one who is welding the ship back together even though she's scared of the water. This seems more like a scooby doo episode than a movie.

-  I guess she fixed it because the mean jock guy is driving away now, which means he's leaving all the other students behind because they've already established he's a jerk who is only worried about himself.  Also earlier they said it would take at least a day to fix the hull but that was clearly about 15 minutes.  Shocking there would be continuity problems with a movie that also spent the majority of the time establishing that this mean guy was mean.  And now dead because the shark killed the school boat.  Because of all the electromagnitvity, you see.

-  Now that the atoll (fancy word for island) is about to sink the new plan is to climb the trees.  Seriously this is when SyFy clearly threw in the towel and just stopped trying altogether.  I would rather spend the entire weekend in Iowa than watch this again.  And I don't mean Ames which is pretty awesome or that Casino just over the border, I mean the bad parts of Iowa.  Most of it.  You know, the parts that literally smell like shit.

-  Carmen and O'Connell just got hit by a tidal wave (no idea where that came from) and the shark at the same time but it's ok because they realized they were about to die and started making out.  Lucky dude.  Hope he grabbed a feel.

-  Now alternating between shots of completely fake super tidal wavy water and the students screaming while in totally calm water.  Par for the course.  They locked themselves in a flooded shed but the shark is still knocking on the door like the big bad wolf and shit because that's how sharks totally act god this sucks I hope everybody involved went bankrupt. 

-  Roaring.  Kill me.

-  Somebody has a gun all of a sudden.  I don't know.  I need a drink.

-  Since 99% of this is computer generated so many of the scenes are clearly the director (if there is one) telling the actors, "ok, the shark is coming after you now, run towards the camera screaming" and it totally shows.

-  They're going to try to blow up a barrel of gas to kill the shark, because one of the students still alive somehow kept her beach bag with her through everything else including earthquakes and shark attacks (the 2-headed kind) and she happened to have a lighter.

-  The shark what ated everybody just got successfully fought off by Brooke Hogan with a piece of driftwood.  Then it bit the can of gasoline and blew up.  But wait!  Only one head blew up!  What a twist!!

-  The second head died when the shark bit the boat's engine, a behavior it hadn't exhibited throughout the entire movie.  This movie gave me eye cancer.

Big Ten Hoops So Far

With the Holiday tournaments and B10/ACC Challenge behind us this a nice time to take a look around the league and see what's happened so far, and what we think we know about these teams.  So let's do this, power ranking style of course because we are on the internet after all.  As usual, all stats per kenpom.com. 

1.  WISCONSIN BADGERS.  I told you dopes that as much as it pained me to say that Wisconsin would be really good this year, and it appears I may have actually underrated them.  10-0 right now with wins over top 100 kenpom teams St. Johns (67), Florida (13), Green Bay (87), Saint Louis (28), West Virginia (60), Virginia (19), and Marquette (45).  That is freaking impressive and easily the best list of anybody in the Big Ten and maybe the nation but it's a lot of work to double check that so let's just run with it.  At this point kenpom projects them to win every game the rest of the year other than @Michigan and @Iowa (they don't travel to Columbus or East Lansing), so we're looking at a possible 29-2 with a ton of good wins - a #1 seed for the Badgers?

It's the same formula they use every year - super slow pace of play, good defense, good rebounding, and efficient shooting.  Frank Kaminsky is the newest big dumb slow fat white guy who has suddenly blossomed into a star under Bo Ryan and Sam Dekker has been as good as advertised.  The one problem they might have is they aren't very deep with the five starters all playing 28+ minutes and no bench guys playing more than 15, and their big time reliance offensively on the three pointer.  I suppose that's been their MO, so no need to worry too much.  This is a really good Badger team and it sucks.

Shout out to #1 Badger fan Matty Wisconsin.  Big fan, Yao Ming jersey wearer, and fastest beer chugger I've ever seen.  And he's on twitter!  @strykerpks.  Check it.  He follows @spaghettios and is a big fan of the Beer Stars.

2.  OHIO STATE BUCKEYES.  At 7-0 with two good wins (Maryland, Marquette) and two decent wins (Ohio, Wyoming) the Buckeyes haven't been seriously challenged (all wins by 10+) and they're doing it, no surprise, with their defense.  OSU ranks #1 in total defensive efficiency, #3 in opponents effective field goal %, and #10 in turning their opponent over.  Basically they will force turnovers all the time and when they don't it's really hard to make a shot against them.

Of course everyone expected Ohio State to be elite defensively, but the big question was how the Buckeyes would fare on offense with the loss of DeShaun Thomas.  Everyone wondered who would step up, and although nobody has really stepped into his place is hasn't mattered because everybody has upped their game just a bit and they're doing it by committee - six players average between 9.0 and 11.4 points per game.  It's weird to look at their stats because they only play nine guys - like, literally nine guys as only one other guy has played at all and only two games - and they all play 13+ minutes and all contribute. 

I thought Ohio State would struggle this year on the offensive end and that would knock them down a peg, but they're doing just fine as a collective group.  There may end up being some rebounding issues that could do them in, and they haven't played a truly great team (and won't until January) so there are still plenty of questions, but I'm impressed so far.  Great coaching job by Thad Matta, and I probably should have seen that coming.

3.  MICHIGAN STATE SPARTANS.  I still think Sparty will probably end up the best team in this conference, but horrendous effort against North Carolina, particularly at home.  When was the last time Michigan State was out rebounded that badly (49-38)?  It helped that they shot so poorly, of course, and that's another good point because shooting just 40% from 2 is so bad you almost have to try to do that poorly, which would actually explain a lot about that game.

Obviously a loss to North Carolina doesn't wipe out all the good that the early win over Kentucky did, but they've struggled to pull away from teams all year and it's the kind of thing that could bite them in the ass come March.  Letting Oklahoma, Columbia, and Portland hang around is really not great considering those are the exact type of teams that Michigan State is likely to face in the first round of the tournament.  Of course, it's Tom Izzo here, so the team is likely to get better as the season goes on and I can't imagine an Izzo team ever getting bounced in the first round unless it's already happened and I don't remember and if it has don't remind me - I want to remember Izzo as I remember him, not all mixed up with facts and stuff.  That's for nerds.

4.  IOWA HAWKEYES.  They were everybody's sleeper for this year, and they've more than lived up to that billing.  Wins over Drake (#98), Xavier (#65), Notre Dame (#74), and an absolute stomping of UTEP (#90) make up a pretty good resume this early in the season, but Iowa's most impressive outing may have been their overtime loss to Villanova (#5).  The Hawkeyes had a double digit lead well into the second half before Nova got white hot to go up 7 with four minute left before Iowa clawed back to tie it up.

Roy Marble looks like he's going to be one of the top players in the conference this year, Aaron White has suddenly morphed into a complete player, and transfer Jarrod Uthoff is way, way better than I ever expected.  Those three have plenty of room to operate too, because the team's two point guards (Anthony Clemmons and Mike Gesell) both hate shooting and they don't really have a center.  Well they have three, but they're all pretty horrible and are basically the poster children for not developing past your freshman year (seriously they may as well have been coached by Tubby).  The Hawkeyes still don't shoot the ball very accurately, but they've done everything else so well this year that it's covered up that issue.  Interested to see what happens down the road.

5.  MICHIGAN WOLVERINES.  This is probably the hardest team to evaluate.  They have three losses, but all are explainable (the neutral court loss to Charlotte is a little head scratching, but it's not like they're a bad team).  Because of those losses (the other two were @Duke and @Iowa State) the only good win they have is against Florida State in overtime, and the rest are against scrubs.  Granted, they've taken care of business against said scrubs and their advanced metrics look good (ranked #27 overall), but there's nothing truly impressive at all in the results, so I mostly have them at #5 based on the belief that they'll come around.

I expect they will mainly because they haven't struggled the way I expected after losing Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway, in that they're taking care of the ball just fine (14th best in TO%).  They're still missing out on that driving ability Burke and Hardaway had, although Nik Stauskas is doing his best to fill that role.  Right now they only have three real offensive threats, and Glen Robinson seems to be regressing and I have trouble believing Caris LeVert is for real (mainly because of that terrible name).  I expect Michigan to end up a Top 25 team, but I won't be shocked if they don't.

6.  MINNESOTA GOPHERS.  I believe I had them at seven when I did my preseason rankings, so this says I'm impressed enough to move them up a spot, which I suppose is a good thing.  I still have one jillion questions about this team, and unfortunately none of them are going to be answered until conference play starts in January because the next three opponents are pretty much worthless as a measuring tool.  The rebounding and interior defense will likely continue to be an issue, but Drizzy Matheiu is better than I could have hoped and the guards are going to keep them in a bunch of games and maybe even manage to sneak out and upset or two.  I still don't think this is quite an NCAA Tournament team, but it's getting closer.  That win over Florida State impressed me.  Looking forward to Big Ten play.

7.  INDIANA HOOSIERS.  I get this impression that people think Indiana is good and guess what?  They really aren't.  What have they done besides show everyone how big a chucker supposed "point guard" Yogi Ferrell really is?  Ok, sure they played a great game against UCONN that went down to the wire.  Ok, I'll give you that one.  But then they got crushed by Syracuse and they have nothing else on the resume.  The win against Washington sounds good, but the Huskies are absolutely terrible.  The win over Stony Brook is probably their best win.  I actually think the Hoosiers are less likely to bomb out than Michigan, but there are plenty of questions here.

Basically with so many players suddenly thrust into new roles with everything they lost last year the team is struggling with who fits where and how to play together.  Thus they're turning the ball over at an alarming rate (21.5% of possessions, ranks 310th) and just not sharing the ball well (328th in assists per field goal).  It probably does help when your point guard shoots all the time, but he's also their most efficient player so what do you do? They're very talented and very deep, so a great coach like Tom Crean I'm sure will eventually get this all straightened out.

Ha ha just kidding Crean sucks and is a terrible person and I hope he burns the program to the ground.

8.  ILLINOIS FIGHTING ILLINI.  Illinois has a nice shiny 8-1 record, but it's a completely empty 8-1 record.  There isn't a single good win on that resume.  A win over UNLV sounds good, until you realize that UNLV is a shitbox this year, and Valpo is the only other win they have that's even close to going to matter at the end of the year.  They had a good chance at a quality win on the road against a somewhat frisky Georgia Tech team, but they let the Yellow Jackets finish the game on a 19-4 run so Illinois lost by three.

Despite a new coach and a whole new group of players they're still doing the traditional Illinois thing where they like to sit around and shoot jump shots.  And, also a tradition at Illinois, they're not very good at having those jump shots go in.  Luckily, thus far, they've been extremely good at rebounding their own misses, something that is unlikely to continue once we get into Big Ten play.  They don't create turnovers at all, either, which means their only means of getting extra possessions is by those offensive boards, and, like I said earlier if you were paying attention, I doubt that keeps up against Big Ten teams. 

9.  PENN STATE NITTANY LIONS.  I don't know what it is about my attraction to Penn State but I can't stop being infatuated.  I'm like Freddie Prinze looking at Jessica Biel.  No wait that one made sense.  More like I'm some handsome devil like Ryan Gosling and I ended up falling in love with that lumpy chick from Girls.  Penn State has all kinds of flaws and I shouldn't be attracted to their fat ass and busted teeth, but there are enough good things here that I keep overlooking those flaws and fixating on that great personality, sense of humor, and alcoholism.

Ok that was a pretty tortuous analogy, but the point is that Penn State is probably horrible but I love them anyway.  A couple of really good guards including maybe the best one in the conference, a team that never turns the ball over and shoots well, a patchwork front court that fits together just well enough to be dangerous, and a horrible defense that ensures their games are going to entertaining.  Then they get a sharp shooting transfer from Pitt eligible in the second semester.  They haven't necessarily done anything impressive, but they do have wins over St. John's and LaSalle.  I dunno, I'm rooting for them.  WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME!??!?!

10. NEBRASKA CORNHUSKERS.  Nebraska has actually been a pleasant surprise this year.  Pleasant as in I, and many others, expected them to be completely horrible, while instead they've been somewhat competent. Wins over Miami and Georgia aren't great, but they're solid enough, and they've been competitive against good teams like Creighton, UAB, and UMass.  The advanced metrics aren't great as they're the only Big 10 team outside the top 100 in both offensive and defensive efficiency (a near loss to Northern Illinois and they're 305 ranking doesn't help things), but they are looking better than they have the last couple of years.

Tai Webster, the much heralded freshman point guard from New Zealand, hasn't worked out as well as hoped yet as he struggles with his shot and turns the ball over far too frequently, but those are problems most freshman point guards deal with so there's no reason to panic.  The Huskers have gotten solid play from their transfers, with Terran Petteway (Texas Tech), Deverell Biggs (Juco, reshirted last year), and Walter Pitchford (Florida) all in the team's top four in scoring and rebounding.  Perhaps Nebraska is taking a page out of Iowa State's and becoming transfer U.  No just kidding. 

11.  PURDUE BOILERMAKERS.  Purdue beat Boston College 88-67 in the Big 10/ACC Challenge, and I feel confident in saying that's the first good thing they've done all year.  Really.  Despite being 8-2, before beating BC and following that up by beating Eastern Michigan this weekend, the Boilers wins were all over teams outside the Top 208 with four of those wins by less than double figures.  One loss was fine (to Oklahoma State) but the other was pretty wretched (to Washington State).

What's gone wrong?  They're just thoroughly mediocre as Matt Painter has been unable to bring in top tier talent lately.  Nine of the twelve Big 10 teams could be consider elite offensively or defensively, but Purdue (along with Northwestern and Nebraska) is just blah.  The Boilers are playing at a lightning quick pace, their fastest ever under Painter, perhaps due to their overall lack of size, but it's not translating to easy baskets, and they're giving up way too many easy ones on the other end.  Purdue is going to miss the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year.  They're really bad.

12.  NORTHWESTERN WILDCATS.  I cannot think of a single good thing to say about Northwestern this year other than that they probably have a really good combined IQ.  They've basically been crushed by every single decent team they've played so far while sneaking wins against crap teams.  This is how it's going:  Northwestern is ranked #140 overall by kenpom's advanced metrics.  The next worst team in the Big Ten is Nebraska all the way up at #92.  There isn't a worse team in the ACC.  There's just one worse in the Pac-12 and Big 12, and two worse in the Big East.  They've been one of the worst teams in major conference basketball.

They're the worst team in the conference in offensive efficiency, and the second worst in defensive efficiency.  I thought the return of Drew Crawford would mean this team would have an outside chance to rise to the level of competitive, and he's been fine, but the rest of the team has been crap.  Dave Sobolewski has been absolute garbage, Alex Olah is putting up embarrassing rebounding numbers for a seven footer, and Tre Demps is still a terrible chucker.  Chris Collins will likely find a way to make the program more competitive, and he's already got a nice recruiting class for next season coming in, but this year is the kind of year where a team with tournament aspirations needs to sweep Northwestern.  Which, as you know, means the Gophers are headed to splitsville.  Come on Pitino, break that curse that I just made up.


So that's where we stand with just a few short weeks to go until conference play.  I see three teams with a shot at a #1 seed, two others who are almost certain to get bids, and then a small group of teams who will be around the bubble.  I think the Gophers and Indiana are a step ahead of teams like Illinois and Penn State, but as usual it's going to come down to who defends home court and who can steal some games.  I'm happy to say I see the Gophers right in the mix for a bid at this point, so hopefully that keeps up.  Should be a pretty entertaining league this year with a lot of teams very close together in talent and skill level.  Avoiding losses to the bottom three teams will be key.

Big Ten Preview

Here we are on the eve of the Gophers kicking off their exhibition season.  Given that, here is a bunch of words that will serve as my official Big Ten preview.  I already talked about the Big Ten like a hundred years ago, and here's a post where I kind of talk about NCAA basketball this year in general, so this will be the capper on the trilogy of posts that form my NCAA preview this year.  Man, I feel like I'm writing an epic or something.  Everybody knows the best things come in trilogies.  I dare you to find something other than Twilight that proves this wrong.  Indiana Jones tried to make a fourth something and it bombed.  Trilogies are the best, ergo, I am the best.  Here are my thoughts, teams in order of my predicted finish.

Big fan of this behavior

1.  MICHIGAN STATE SPARTANS.  It's almost unfair.  The Spartans return Keith Appling, Gary Harris, Denzel Valentine, Branden Dawson, and Adreian Payne this year.  That's at least three NBA players.  For me, Michigan State is the top team in the Big Ten by a pretty wide margin, and I think they're the second best team in the entire country (behind Louisville).

If you check out kenpom.com, you'll see the Spartans finished as the ninth best team last year according to his metrics.  Every team in front of them is experiencing some pretty major roster turnover from last season (with the exception of Louisville), while Sparty loses only Derrick Nix and conveniently still have Payne to just stick right in there.  Plus what was Nix's main contributions? Rebounding on both ends of the floor and making high percentage shots.  Well Michigan State as a team is great at rebounding and makes a high percentage of their shots, so it's not like they're losing somebody who single-handedly changed their team like DeShaun Thomas.  Plus with Izzo as their coach you know they'll just get better as the year goes on.  It's just not fair.  Of course, Keith Appling is the kind of player who can burn down a season pretty much by himself so I guess we have that going for us.  Which is nice.

2.  OHIO STATE BUCKEYES.  Even though the Buckeyes only lose one player from last season (unless you count Evan Ravenel as a person, which I don't) but at the same time you could argue that they lost more than any other team in the conference because DeShaun Thomas.  Not only did he take a ton of his team's shots  (30th most of any player in D-1 by percentage) but he was very efficient as well, leading the team in offensive rating by a pretty good amount.   Now he's gone, possibly in the NBA but I couldn't be bothered to look it up, but in any case he gone.

So now Ohio State is made up of a ton of formerly highly rated recruits who have been deferring to Thomas, two new freshman (both top 65 recruits by ESPN of course, this is Ohio State after all not some shit box program), and the Wes Ellsbury Eckstein Welker Punto of college basketball Aaron Craft.  Seriously, who is going to lead the team in scoring this year?  Any of Craft, Lenzelle Smith, Sam Thompson, LaQuinton Ross, Shannon Scott, Amir Williams, or Kameron Williams could end up leading the team and it wouldn't be a surprise.  Actually, watch Kameron Williams because he's basically the new DeShaun Thomas but shorter and skinnier.  He's definitely never seen a shot he didn't like.  Plus look at this guy, tell me he doesn't look like a chucker:

Doesn't he kind of look like Pauly D.?  Come on, you know you see it.  And Pauly D. would definitely be a chucker if he was a basketball player.  I'm also going to assume J-Woww is still hot even though I haven't watched that show in like 3 years.

I can't wait to watch this guy.  I love chuckers when they aren't on my team.

That's a beer bong coming in from the right side there.

3.  WISCONSIN BADGERS.  I've written too much about Wisconsin already, which you can see if you click on the two links above, but I can't help but be really high on them this year as much as it pains me.  I think their starting guards are absolutely perfect for Bo's system this year.  His boring, boring system of boring opponents to death by being so boring.  Then add in Sam Dekker, who brings a level of athleticism and ability the Badgers haven't had since, geez, maybe Devin Harris, and there's a whole new wrinkle to the offense.  The biggest knock on the Badger offense, besides being so boring, is they get over reliant on the 3-point shot and don't penetrate the lane at times.  Well Dekker can solve all that by being unguardable.

Yes, there are a million questions about the front court, but if Bo Ryan is good at anything, besides being boring and looking ugly and acting like a baby, it's getting seldom used, little regarded big white guys to suddenly be productive and efficient when needed.  Plus Nigel Hayes may be in position to contribute as a freshman, and he led the team in rebounding in their exhibition against UW-Platteville.  Yes, I hated writing every word of this.

This seems like a lot of teeth.

4.  MICHIGAN WOLVERINES.  People seem to think Michigan is going to be really, really good this year and I suppose that might end up being true, but I think they're more of a good not great team.  I mean, it's a pretty big deal to lose your two starting guards to the NBA, especially when they pretty much dominated the ball all the time.  Going from Tre Burke to one of Spike Albrecht, Caris LeVert, or a freshman is going to be a bit startling, even if Derrick Walton is one of the top PGs incoming this year.

I know there's some good talent back but is this really a top 10 team?  Nik Stauskas is just a shooter (a very good one) and Mitch McGary is a rebounder/dunker guy (a very good one).  Where's the playmaker who makes this an elite team gonna come from?  If Glenn Robinson makes that leap or freshman SF Zak Irvin is a game changer right away (and the PG situation works out) they could certainly end up meeting these preseason expectations, but that's too many unknown variables for me to be really confident in Michigan this year.  So yeah.  I'm also guessing that off all this predictions this is the one that's going to make me look really stupid at the end of the year.  Possibly Penn State too.  You'll see why.

I still hate Iowa, but this is a good argument it it's favor

5.  IOWA HAWKEYES.  The trendy pick for not just Big Ten sleeper but national sleeper, and why not seeing as how they basically have the same team from last year and they were very, very good the second half of the season making it all the way to the NIT Championship game.  Last year Iowa was pretty good at just about everything except shooting where they were just dreadful, ranking 308th in the NCAA in 3-point percentage.  That's pretty much going to decide just how good they can be, and with the same team back things don't look great, but they do everything else well enough that I think 5th is just about right.

One major problem from last year, and the reason they didn't make the NCAA tournament most likely, is their non-conference schedule was shit.  It left their RPI somewhere in the 70s and it's awfully damn hard to get an at-large bid with an RPI up there (and a SoS somewhere in the mid-100s).  Well, they went ahead and made the exact same screw-up.  They have their typical game against Iowa State, play Notre Dame in the B10/ACC Challenge, and they play in the Battle 4 Atlantis where they could pick up some good games, so none of that sounds too bad.  Their mistake lies in scheduling way too many schools that could be in the 300s for RPI and zero other teams that have even an outside shot to crack the top 100.  And yes, if this sounds familiar it should because the Gophers did the same damn exact thing and I don't want to talk about it.

One semi-helpful thing with looking at the Hawkeyes is they've already played six exhibition games this season thanks to their August trip to Europe (they went 5-1 with a loss to the great Hyeres-Toulon Basket team.  I found box scores for five of the games, and they shot 32% for the trip from three, which is a slight uptick from last year but at the same time they were playing exhibition games against Europeans who were probably plucked from the local YMCA if they have those in Europe.  Also this Peter Jok guy?  The one newcomer this year for Iowa?  Holy cow what a gunner.  He took 31 threes in the five games to lead the team, and was either hot (4-8 and 4-7) or really not (1-4, 1-5, 1-7).  Pretty ballsy for a freshman, but he and Josh Oglesby might be the keys for Iowa as the guys most likely to provide the outside shooting they need.  Either way one thing is for certain: Iowa smells like shit.

Indiana was surprisingly lacking in pictures.

6.  INDIANA HOOSIERS.  Indiana, like Michigan, is another team I feel is getting a little bit too much national love based on how gutted they are to last season.  They do bring in a hell of a recruiting class (four ESPN Top 100 guys) and they actually complement what they bring back, but I guess, again like Michigan, I'm just hesitant to throw my opinion behind a team with so many questions.  Besides the four new guys you've got Yogi Ferrell who can't shoot, Will Sheehey who is kind of a spaz, and a bunch of guys who played very limited minutes last year. 

Obviously Tom Crean's hair is recruiting it's ass off so it's probably stupid to dismiss this team with that many ESPN Top 100 guys still hanging around.  Along with those new 4 and Ferrell there are two others from last year, so yeah this team is talented I guess.  The good news though is they seem to be losing out on recruits all of a sudden.  Top 100 guy James Blackmon Jr. had committed but backed out, and they've lost out at the last minute on Top 100s Theo Pinson, Goodluck Okonoboh, and Devin Robinson.  Hopefully this means that recruits are figuring out what a huge piece of crap Tom Crean is.  Because it's true.  [After I wrote this part Blackmon re-committed to Indiana.  I stand by my theory that Tom Crean sucks as a human.]

I like her she seems smart.

7.  PENN STATE NITTANY LIONS.  This is the team, outside the Gophers, I'm having the hardest time ranking, and I think, like the Gophers, it's because my emotions keep getting in the way.  See, I love guys like Tim Frazier and want them to do well.  When Talor Battle was at Penn State (and no, this is not some kind of Penn State phenomenon) I desperately wanted him to do well and carry his team to the NCAA tournament - which he did only to be beaten by some Temple jerks.  Obviously putting them 7th, and I think this is pretty much their ceiling, means I don't think Frazier is going to make it, but if he's 100% back and everything gels perfectly they could do it.

It would have helped if that jerk Jermaine Marshall wouldn't have transferred and deserted Frazier, but with him (Frazier) out all of last season with that knee injury at least that meant everybody else who is back got to gain some valuable experience scoring the ball, mostly D.J. Newbill, but overall there just isn't enough here outside of Frazier to really have faith in this team.  Ross Travis is a heck of a rebounder and the Gophers could definitely use him, but hopefully they'll end up with a different Travis instead (Reid Travis announces Nov 8 with a final three of Duke, Stanford, and Minnesota - have faith).

8.  MINNESOTA GOPHERS.  I'm honestly a little concerned I have them too high - yes, too high - but what can I say optimism is flowing through my veins right now (and it's a really weird feeling, like that one time I woke up not hungover).  But of course that optimism is tinged by reality and pessimism that I cannot escape, and I just don't think there's enough in the front court here to really be even a middle-tier Big Ten team this year.

You've got three guys who are more perimeter guys, a high jumper who is probably way too small to pull it off, and a guy who yes, lost a bunch of weight, but has dealt with knee issues so who knows what you're going to get?  Eliason is the only known commodity, and I think he's just fine as a Big Ten center, but if he's in foul trouble who knows what you're going to get?  Not to mention you still need to find a starting 4 man out of this group of unknowns, and I don't have a particularly good feeling about any of them.  The guard play should be top notch and that alone will keep them in a lot of games, and you just know there's a night here where all the 3-pointers are dropping and they shoot like 14-24 and knock off one of the top teams, but that's not going to be reliable enough to count on night after night.  I hope I'm wrong, but I see the upside here as a bubble team.  Here's hoping they make it.

The pillow says Illinois. Nice microwave.

9.  ILLINOIS FIGHTING ILLINI.  Hey you know what's cool about Illinois?  Besides nothing?  They're another team who has already played an exhibition game this season, and since there are tons of questions about how the team's going to shake out maybe we can learn a little something from that box score.  Such as how Tracy Abrams, the point guard, led the team in shot attempts.  Oh what an Illinois thing.  Seriously, Chester Frazier must be rolling in his grave looking at the line of shoot first point guards who have populated that back court since he graduated.  Well the line is just two, but they've both been extra annoying so it seems longer.

This was going to be a rough year in Illinois either way, but losing out on Ahmad Starks (transfer from Oregon State, going for the ole "closer to home" waiver - denied) is going to hurt since he averaged 10 pts per game last season.  It's always tough to figure out how a team will shake out with so many newcomers (I count 2 transfers (+Starks) and five freshmen) but I'm pretty sure most of these guys suck.  Could they make some noise later in the season after they've had time to play together for a while?  No.

The website said these were Northwestern girls.  Good enough for me.

10.  NORTHWESTERN WILDCATS.  This is a team that for some reason, probably because I like the dudes at Sippin' on Purple, I kept wanting to rank higher but then I slapped myself in the face and looked closer and was like gross.  After being right on the verge of that elusive first ever NCAA bid for a couple years, they took a step back last season (a Drew Crawford injury will do that) and finished 13-19 (4-14 in conference) and finally fired their coach.  Oh, what's that?  You didn't know Northwestern has a new basketball coach well you should since he's a former Dukie which means it's all anybody can talk about.

But I don't want to talk about that even though it's kind of interesting that we should see Northwestern playing in a whole new way.  I'm more interested in wondering how good their back court might be if Crawford is fully healed and all good again and stuff.  The one good thing about his injury last year was it allowed Reggie Hearn to step forward and thrive, and he actually put up nearly identical numbers to what Crawford did before he got hurt.  Should be a pretty dynamic back court, plus they have that little lesbian still running around running point. 

11.  PURDUE BOILERMAKERS.  Well, Purdue has A.J. Hammons, a guy named Basil Smotherman, and a guy (Travis Carroll) whose nickname is "Tacos" because of an auto-correct mistake on a scoreboard.  That's pretty much all the positives.  Maybe this freshman Kendall Stephens could end up being pretty good.  And I suppose they do have two guys with the last name Johnson which means they could nickname themselves Johnson & Johnson, which is catchy.  Not Tacos catchy, but still catchy.

I'm not really sure what's going on here with Purdue lately.  If this season goes the way I'm expecting that'll make a second straight sub-par season and a second straight year missing the NCAA Tournament after making it six straight years (2 Sweet Sixteens).  Looking at this year's freshman class and who is on the hook for 2014 there isn't really much of an impact here.  In fact, Painter hasn't brought in anything resembling an impact class since that crazy Moore/Johnson/Hummel/Martin quartet, and that was back in 2007.  Does this mean we're witnessing the slow death of Purdue basketball?  Yes.

Bottom.

12.  NEBRASKA CORNHUSKERS.   I wrote about 11 teams, took my kids trick-r-treating, and boy am I tired.  Yet here is Nebraska staring me right in my stupid face.  I think we all believe that at some point Tim Miles will get Nebraska turned around and at least making them competitive.  This is not that year.

After finishing 5-13 last season they return just two starters and I wouldn't exactly say the "Nebraska recruiting hot bed thing" hasn't started yet so ouch.  Top returner is mad bomber Ray Gallegos (no relation to Mike Gallego) who led the Big Ten with 271 three-point attempts, but made just 30.6% of them.  Remember how Gallegos went 6-9 from three against the Gophers at the Barn?  Yeah, that didn't happen all that often.  This Shavon Shields guy might be ok and they have a bunch of transfers coming in, most notably Terran Petteway from Texas Tech (that's the opposite of exciting), Florida transfer Walter Pitchford (whose name reminds me of Kevin Pickford who was that cool guy who was gonna throw the party in Dazed and Confused so I already like him) and guard Tai Webster out of New Zealand.  According to some Webster would have been a top 50 type recruit if he came up through the AAU system and is an absolute steal for Miles.  So maybe Nebraska will provide some excitement this year.  Beyond just when we kicked their football asses!!!! SKI U MAH!!!!!