I was just going to toss out a couple tweets, but this is probably slightly longer than a tweet, although it won't be the huge word vomit type I post I used to litter this blog with. Couple things I didn't like about the game, besides the soul crushing loss.
- The pick and roll. It flat out didn't work, and they went to it over and over and over and over and over again. The Spartans hard hedged/doubled the ball-handler every single time, and I can't remember a single time the roller got the ball. I haven't rewatched because I'm not a weirdo, but it's bizarre that they never hit the roller on a single pick and roll. Even if Michigan State covered the roller with help defense perfectly there should have been a skip pass that was memorable.
The only success they had with the pick and roll was when the ball handler would go the opposite way from the pick and get to the rim. I do remember this working with more than one of the guards a few times, but the success rate was just overall brutal. The team needs to switch things up, and use the pick and roll maybe to start the play, but with some kind of pick/screen action away from the ball to kick start things. This offense flat out did not work against the Spartans defense.
- Partially because of the bad offense, and partially because they screwed up like, every single fast break, the assists dropped off in this game. 11 assists on 20 made baskets, or 55%, below their season number of 62% (after this game). May not seem like much of a drop, but the prior games were 73%, 69%, 71%, and 72% and it seemed like the offense was humming. So this game was a bit of a fucking record scratch.
- Where was Springs? He played 17 minutes but I swear I hardly saw him in the second half or overtime. I now he's not the greatest, but he's shown he can light it up. If he's off he has little value and shouldn't play, but he only took two shots and the one he made was a bit of a tough one on a real quick catch and shoot. On a night where the offense mostly sucked, maybe giving your streakiest shooter more of a chance is a good idea?
- Reggie Lynch. Cut the shit. 11 minutes due to constant - CONSTANT - foul trouble. He's the most game changing player on this team and the team is totally different on both ends of the floor when he's in the game. Eleven god damn minutes. Knock it off. Bakary Konate has turned into a much better back-up than I expected, and he actually did a nice job on whoever that fat guy was who kept scoring, but Lynch is the most important player on this team. Eleven minutes. Stop being dumb.
- I think that's it. I thought both plays at the end of games with chances to win were fine. Shots didn't go in. Free throws sucked, and if we counted up the number of missed front ends of 1-and-1s maybe I'd feel different, but they shot 68.9% in this game, basically their season number (69.2%) and the overall college basketball number (69.6%). The real problem was the terrible second half offense. Be more interesting. And cut the shit with the weave to start every possession. It's not doing anything but wasting time.
Showing posts with label Michigan State. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michigan State. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Friday, December 23, 2016
Well. Here we go.
(I'm writing this today because if they lose to Arkansas State everything goes to shit anyway)
Against nearly everyone's expectations, this year's Gopher team is sitting at 11-1 and is in position to sit on the NCAA bubble all season long. They rank a respectable 46 in kenpom's rankings, which puts them at #7 in the conference ahead of Michigan State and Maryland, among others. And, I mean, there's a lot of good wins here (though no great ones).
UT-Arlington (#66) - The big warning before the game was this wasn't some typical hyphen school, and they've lived up to the hype with road wins over Texas and St. Mary's.
St. Johns (#99) - They've been completely inconsistent this year, but they did just blow out Syracuse, who might be terrible, but they're a top 100 team so I'm putting them in here.
Arkansas (#44) - It's still the Razorbacks only loss, and they've beaten four top 101 teams.
Vanderbilt (#76) - There's a chance they're really bad, but again, top 100!
Add in Lafayette, Northern Illinois, Arkansas State, and Georgia Southern who are all in the top 160 and this has been the best non-conference season I can remember in a few years. Last year they had exactly 1 win in the top 100 in non-conference (Clemson). The year before that was also one (Georgia). In 2014 they had just two. You have to go back to 2013 to find better non-conference results, when they had five wins over Top 100 teams. What happened that year? They beat Michigan State at home in the Big Ten opener and went on to make the NCAA Tournament (and won a game!). Which brings us to Tuesday.
Once again, the Gophers open at home vs. the Spartans, and this is a game they absolutely need to win if we're serious about making the NCAA Tournament. Michigan State is ranked #53 at kenpom, and most likely the Gophers will be a short favorite. The Spartans are 8-5, which is slightly deceiving because they've played a hellacious schedule, but also not deceiving because they haven't beaten any of their top opponents other than Wichita State (#25). They do have three top 100 wins, but also come in with a bad loss to Northeastern. This isn't a gimme, but it's a game the Gophers can and should win.
The biggest variable in this game will be Miles Bridges, a much hyped freshman who has been out with an injury, missing the last five games for the Spartans. He leads the team in both scoring (16.6 ppg) and rebounding (8.8 rpg) and is really, really good. Obviously this game is much easier if he's out, and I'm looking for easy (tell your sister hi).
But really, this game isn't about Michigan State. It's about me getting sucked into believing in a Minnesota sports team for the one millionth time, which has resulted in heartbreak about 99% of the time. I'm trying my best to hold out on any sort of NCAA hopes until after this game, which basically means my entire sports winter is riding on this one stupid game. Sports are dumb. Go Gophers.
Against nearly everyone's expectations, this year's Gopher team is sitting at 11-1 and is in position to sit on the NCAA bubble all season long. They rank a respectable 46 in kenpom's rankings, which puts them at #7 in the conference ahead of Michigan State and Maryland, among others. And, I mean, there's a lot of good wins here (though no great ones).
UT-Arlington (#66) - The big warning before the game was this wasn't some typical hyphen school, and they've lived up to the hype with road wins over Texas and St. Mary's.
St. Johns (#99) - They've been completely inconsistent this year, but they did just blow out Syracuse, who might be terrible, but they're a top 100 team so I'm putting them in here.
Arkansas (#44) - It's still the Razorbacks only loss, and they've beaten four top 101 teams.
Vanderbilt (#76) - There's a chance they're really bad, but again, top 100!
Add in Lafayette, Northern Illinois, Arkansas State, and Georgia Southern who are all in the top 160 and this has been the best non-conference season I can remember in a few years. Last year they had exactly 1 win in the top 100 in non-conference (Clemson). The year before that was also one (Georgia). In 2014 they had just two. You have to go back to 2013 to find better non-conference results, when they had five wins over Top 100 teams. What happened that year? They beat Michigan State at home in the Big Ten opener and went on to make the NCAA Tournament (and won a game!). Which brings us to Tuesday.
Once again, the Gophers open at home vs. the Spartans, and this is a game they absolutely need to win if we're serious about making the NCAA Tournament. Michigan State is ranked #53 at kenpom, and most likely the Gophers will be a short favorite. The Spartans are 8-5, which is slightly deceiving because they've played a hellacious schedule, but also not deceiving because they haven't beaten any of their top opponents other than Wichita State (#25). They do have three top 100 wins, but also come in with a bad loss to Northeastern. This isn't a gimme, but it's a game the Gophers can and should win.
The biggest variable in this game will be Miles Bridges, a much hyped freshman who has been out with an injury, missing the last five games for the Spartans. He leads the team in both scoring (16.6 ppg) and rebounding (8.8 rpg) and is really, really good. Obviously this game is much easier if he's out, and I'm looking for easy (tell your sister hi).
But really, this game isn't about Michigan State. It's about me getting sucked into believing in a Minnesota sports team for the one millionth time, which has resulted in heartbreak about 99% of the time. I'm trying my best to hold out on any sort of NCAA hopes until after this game, which basically means my entire sports winter is riding on this one stupid game. Sports are dumb. Go Gophers.
Thursday, November 3, 2016
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!
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!
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Preseason Top 25 - Reactions
Hey the Preseason Top 25 polls just came out. You know what that means, time to write about how bad all these teams suck. I'm taking a look at the AP poll instead of the Coaches poll because I chose it at random. Spoiler alert: The Gophers aren't in here.
1. NORTH CAROLINA. They only lose J.P. Tokoto who entered the NBA Draft for some reason but that's fine because I think he mostly made people mad at his shooting. Marcus Paige is back and he's really good when he's not being terrible. They had zero outside shooting other than him last year, and unless one of the freshman can shoot (one supposedly can) or somebody else learned how to hit a 3-pointer in the offseason this is not the best team in basketball. Also I just read Paige is out for 3-4 weeks with an injury so maybe that will lead to somebody else being good. SPOILER: nope.
2. KENTUCKY. Hell I don't know.
3. MARYLAND. It's hard to wrap my head around Maryland being this high, but I can't argue with it. They were a 4 seed in the tournament last year and even though they didn't make it out of the weekend they were still a solid team. Melo Trimble came back and might be the best player in the conference, they added two big time transfers, and got a late commitment from Diamond Stone who is supposed to be awesome despite the ridiculous name and fills their only real hole. Still, three seems really freaking high.
4. KANSAS. Want to hear something that will blow your mind? Perry Ellis is back for another year. Even so, these guys are my pick for title winner. Ellis sucks but he's not completely useless, and even if he is Kansas has everybody back (except Kelly Oubre who was meh anyway) and they're adding two McDonald's All Americans who are both forwards. This team is deep as all hell, all they need is someone to make the leap. With so many above average players in both ability and pedigree you'd think somebody's going to do it, and if two or more do these guys will be really, really good. Bet on them. Do it. Go do it. They're like 10-1. Do it.
5. DUKE. Uh, you guys know they lost Tyus, Okafor, and Justice Winslow, right? This is all because Grayson Allen, who makes J.J. Redick look downright lovable, had that good stretch in the National Championship game, isn't it? Does he really seem like the kind of player who can carry a team for a while season. NOT BLOODY LIKELY. Good luck with him and one million freshmen. Oh, right, they got a transfer from Rice coming in too. Yes, Rice. The college. If you read any preview of Duke this year they call out a transfer from Rice as a huge positive. I am currently making a dismissive wanking motion.
6. VIRGINIA. Hoops nerds like to tell you that if you think Virginia basketball is boring, you don't really understand basketball. Well I understand basketball and I know what the pack line defense is and all that and I'm telling you - Virginia basketball is freaking boring as all hell. And basically the whole team is back again to be boring and annoying and get handjobs from announcers. Ugh. Stop already.
7. IOWA STATE. If you asked me to guess where Iowa State was rated I would have said like I don't know, maybe mid-20s or something so this is a bit of a surprise. But I guess Georges Niang is back which seems impossible and possibly illegal, and, you're not going to believe this, but the Cyclones get a couple of big deal transfers from other programs. Add that to almost the whole team being back and I guess I see why they're this high. They should be really fun and pretty good until one of their players gets suspended.
8. OKLAHOMA. The opposite of Virginia, these guys are fun as hell to watch and since Buddy Hield, who is basically a lock to lead the Big 12 in scoring, is back they probably will be again. They also ranked 8th in defensive points per possession, so it is actually possible to play fast, fun, and good defense all at the same time. Take notes, Cavaliers. Also, this is way too high for these guys.
9. GONZAGA. Lots of people say stuff like man Gonzaga is overrated, they stomp the WCC, get all this Final Four type buzz, and then flame out. Last year they finally made the Elite 8, which is definitely an accomplishment, but also just the second time they've gotten that far, the last coming in 1999. So I don't know that they've proved that they're anything more than a small conference bully. They've got a rock solid front court, but lose their entire back court so things could be rough early. This section was extremely boring.
10. WICHITA STATE. They have Ron Baker and Fred VanVleet back. That right there is enough to win the Missouri Valley. No really, you take those two and Greg Marshall and you could roll out of their with three toddlers and the Shockers would roll. Unfortunately it is both unsafe and illegal to play with toddlers so Wichita State will use real players to complement those two. I don't really feel like looking up who any of those players are, but since Wichita has been good for so long at this point I'm guessing they're probably pretty good.
11. VILLANOVA. God that sucked when these guys got bounced last year, and not just because they were my non-Kentucky pick to win. They were so freaking good. Then a dopey NC State team knocks them off. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, that's kind of Villanova's thing. Also their thing: guards. And they have a bunch of them again. So expect the Wildcats to shoot a ton of three pointers, own the Big East, grab a high seed, and flame out early. It's what they do. Lesson learned.
12. ARIZONA. Stanley Johnson, T.J. McConnell, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, and Brandon Ashley are all gone. That is a lot of people to be gone. However Arizona is Arizona, and it must be nice to be Arizona, because they get a star transfer from Boston College and picked up one hell of a recruiting class, including stealing Allonzo Trier from the Gophers. Also, they still have Kaleb Tarczewski and he is awesome and looks like he would fight you. And you would die.
13. MICHIGAN STATE. Another team with a couple of big losses which catches a break with a big time transfer, ready to step right in. For Sparty it's Eron Harris who only scored over 17 points per game in his last season at West Virginia, no big whoop. I'm really fascinated by Lourawls Nairn (remember him?) here. He only took 8.5% of the team's shots when he was on the floor. The lowest Gopher with any real minutes played was Bakary Konate at 11.1%, which is actually way higher than Nairn. I only found two other Big Ten players under 10% last year (Jaylon Tate of Illinois and Jeremiah Kreisberg of Northwestern) but both played far fewer minutes than Nairn. So like, is that his thing? What does he do if nobody guards him? He's the anti-chucker, which in a way, is as fun as a real chucker. I love watching how teams guard Rajon Rondo - they don't. I hope that's what happens with Nairn.
14. CAL. This team could be like whoa. I bet them at 60-1 to win the whole thing this summer, and I still like them now down all the way at 20-1. They have a ton back from last year's team, not a great year, admittedly, and add two Top 10 recruits. Yes, that's TWO top 10 recruits. If the name on the jersey was Duke instead of Cal this would be a Top 5 team. Plus, I like Cuonzo Martin as a coach. This is my favorite sleeper this year.
15. INDIANA. Oh come on! Do we not play defense any more in basketball, because if this is offense only I would say the Hoosiers are too low, but overall? No chance. It's the same team. The only difference is they got some stud recruit center, but can one player suddenly take a swiss cheese defense and make it good? Or even passable? No. Maybe Antoine Broxsie back in the day, but nobody can make Yogi Ferrell look good on defense. Should score a lot of points though. Gopher/Hoosier games should be in the 160s.
16. UTAH. I know they have at least one, and maybe two, big giant tall guys, and that's generally a good start when it comes to basketsball. Ok I decided to check and they only have one, but he's really good you guys! His name is Jakob Poetl and he's a possible lottery pick who held Jahlil Okafor to 6 points and 4 turnovers in March. He can score, rebound, and block shots and now that Delon Wright is gone he should be the offenses focal point. Should be fun. No idea about all these other guys.
17. WISCONSIN. Oh come on! You're kidding me. Look, I love Nigel Hayes, I love him as much as I could ever love a Badger. I think he's most likely a more skilled Noah Vonleh and I loved Noah Vonleh and thanked Jehova every day that Tom Crean was such a terrible coach. But the Badgers are basically Hayes, Bronson Koenig who is whatever fine, and then nobody else. I know people say it's stupid to bet against the Badgers and Bo Ryan, but people like blood sausage too. People are morons. Badgers suck this year.
18. VANDERBILT. Here's another team I like, although I can also see them sucking. On paper it looks good - a potential lottery pick at center (Damian Jones) surrounded by shooters (Riley Lachance (remember him) and Wade Baldwin (him too) among others, and a team that really gelled as the season went on with most of the team back. Vandy started out 1-7 in SEC play, but closed out 8-2 and looked really good, so yeah, on paper this looks good. In reality, it's Vanderbilt so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
19. NOTRE DAME. Jerian Grant is gone, which is a fairly huge deal considering the game plan was generally "hey Jerian, go do everything for us." The back-up for that was, hey Pat Connaughton, you go do stuff instead but oops, he gone. Zach Auguste is a super stud, I'll give you that, and he's probably going to be better than Noah Vonleh, but somebody has to get him the ball. In summation, these guys suck.
20. UCONN. They have Amida Brimah who I love because he blocks like, every shot ever taken, and their transfer train is rolling, picking up Sterling Gibbs (who is kind of a dick) from Seton Hall to go with Rodney Purvis whom they stole from NC State last year or maybe the year before. Actually looking at this roster I've heard of like, everybody which seems goodish. How the hell is Omar Calhoun still in college basketball? That's insane. Also, I probably watch too much basketball.
21. LSU. One of my favorite sleepers this year. Tons of guard play back and they're bringing in the #1 recruit in the country and another big deal new guy too who just got eligible. As far as negatives go, I have a short list of what I call "dumb teams to never ever bet on" who are always dumb and do stupid stuff and lose when they shouldn't because they are dumb every year no matter what. LSU is on that list.
22. BAYLOR. Baylor still? I figured they'd drop off the face of the map with recruiting violations or something by now, but here we are. The front court has a monster in Rico Gathers who is basically a bigger Montrezl Harrell (yes bigger) without the jump shot, but their entire back court is gone. Oh what's that? A really young back court coached by Scott Drew? I smell some early season anti-Baylor wagers.
23. PURDUE. Another team I like, mainly because facing them is like going against a bunch of gigantic monsters from a Goosebumps book. A.J. Hammons is seven feet tall, 261 lbs., Isaac Haas is 7-2, 297 lbs., and incoming freshman Caleb Swanigan is 6-9, 260 lbs.. It would be pretty sweet if they figured out a way to play all three at the same time. I mean, it wouldn't make a lick of sense, but it would be pretty sweet. Anyway, Purdue plays pretty good defense, and it's probably going to be even better next season. They also can't shoot at all. So there are going to be some ugly, ugly games.
24. BUTLER. I tried to write about Butler like 4 times. That's probably enough.
25. MICHIGAN. Michigan loses nobody from last year's team, and that's good even though last year's team missed the tournament. That was more because Caris LeVert and Derrick Walton played only 37 combined games than Michigan being an actually crappy team, because I am learning John Beilein is a wizard who doesn't make crappy teams. They're still basically lacking any kind of skilled or capable big man and Zak Irvin is kind of wild out there, but this should be a pretty good team. Probably better than this ranking. Man, if Purdue could trade one of their big dudes for a shooter from Michigan, that would be pretty sweet. College sports needs trading, would be so awesome. Not like they care about the kids anyway, which is ok because neither do I. PLAY GAMES FOR MY AMUSEMENT!!!
1. NORTH CAROLINA. They only lose J.P. Tokoto who entered the NBA Draft for some reason but that's fine because I think he mostly made people mad at his shooting. Marcus Paige is back and he's really good when he's not being terrible. They had zero outside shooting other than him last year, and unless one of the freshman can shoot (one supposedly can) or somebody else learned how to hit a 3-pointer in the offseason this is not the best team in basketball. Also I just read Paige is out for 3-4 weeks with an injury so maybe that will lead to somebody else being good. SPOILER: nope.
2. KENTUCKY. Hell I don't know.
3. MARYLAND. It's hard to wrap my head around Maryland being this high, but I can't argue with it. They were a 4 seed in the tournament last year and even though they didn't make it out of the weekend they were still a solid team. Melo Trimble came back and might be the best player in the conference, they added two big time transfers, and got a late commitment from Diamond Stone who is supposed to be awesome despite the ridiculous name and fills their only real hole. Still, three seems really freaking high.
4. KANSAS. Want to hear something that will blow your mind? Perry Ellis is back for another year. Even so, these guys are my pick for title winner. Ellis sucks but he's not completely useless, and even if he is Kansas has everybody back (except Kelly Oubre who was meh anyway) and they're adding two McDonald's All Americans who are both forwards. This team is deep as all hell, all they need is someone to make the leap. With so many above average players in both ability and pedigree you'd think somebody's going to do it, and if two or more do these guys will be really, really good. Bet on them. Do it. Go do it. They're like 10-1. Do it.
5. DUKE. Uh, you guys know they lost Tyus, Okafor, and Justice Winslow, right? This is all because Grayson Allen, who makes J.J. Redick look downright lovable, had that good stretch in the National Championship game, isn't it? Does he really seem like the kind of player who can carry a team for a while season. NOT BLOODY LIKELY. Good luck with him and one million freshmen. Oh, right, they got a transfer from Rice coming in too. Yes, Rice. The college. If you read any preview of Duke this year they call out a transfer from Rice as a huge positive. I am currently making a dismissive wanking motion.
6. VIRGINIA. Hoops nerds like to tell you that if you think Virginia basketball is boring, you don't really understand basketball. Well I understand basketball and I know what the pack line defense is and all that and I'm telling you - Virginia basketball is freaking boring as all hell. And basically the whole team is back again to be boring and annoying and get handjobs from announcers. Ugh. Stop already.
7. IOWA STATE. If you asked me to guess where Iowa State was rated I would have said like I don't know, maybe mid-20s or something so this is a bit of a surprise. But I guess Georges Niang is back which seems impossible and possibly illegal, and, you're not going to believe this, but the Cyclones get a couple of big deal transfers from other programs. Add that to almost the whole team being back and I guess I see why they're this high. They should be really fun and pretty good until one of their players gets suspended.
8. OKLAHOMA. The opposite of Virginia, these guys are fun as hell to watch and since Buddy Hield, who is basically a lock to lead the Big 12 in scoring, is back they probably will be again. They also ranked 8th in defensive points per possession, so it is actually possible to play fast, fun, and good defense all at the same time. Take notes, Cavaliers. Also, this is way too high for these guys.
9. GONZAGA. Lots of people say stuff like man Gonzaga is overrated, they stomp the WCC, get all this Final Four type buzz, and then flame out. Last year they finally made the Elite 8, which is definitely an accomplishment, but also just the second time they've gotten that far, the last coming in 1999. So I don't know that they've proved that they're anything more than a small conference bully. They've got a rock solid front court, but lose their entire back court so things could be rough early. This section was extremely boring.
10. WICHITA STATE. They have Ron Baker and Fred VanVleet back. That right there is enough to win the Missouri Valley. No really, you take those two and Greg Marshall and you could roll out of their with three toddlers and the Shockers would roll. Unfortunately it is both unsafe and illegal to play with toddlers so Wichita State will use real players to complement those two. I don't really feel like looking up who any of those players are, but since Wichita has been good for so long at this point I'm guessing they're probably pretty good.
11. VILLANOVA. God that sucked when these guys got bounced last year, and not just because they were my non-Kentucky pick to win. They were so freaking good. Then a dopey NC State team knocks them off. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, that's kind of Villanova's thing. Also their thing: guards. And they have a bunch of them again. So expect the Wildcats to shoot a ton of three pointers, own the Big East, grab a high seed, and flame out early. It's what they do. Lesson learned.
12. ARIZONA. Stanley Johnson, T.J. McConnell, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, and Brandon Ashley are all gone. That is a lot of people to be gone. However Arizona is Arizona, and it must be nice to be Arizona, because they get a star transfer from Boston College and picked up one hell of a recruiting class, including stealing Allonzo Trier from the Gophers. Also, they still have Kaleb Tarczewski and he is awesome and looks like he would fight you. And you would die.
13. MICHIGAN STATE. Another team with a couple of big losses which catches a break with a big time transfer, ready to step right in. For Sparty it's Eron Harris who only scored over 17 points per game in his last season at West Virginia, no big whoop. I'm really fascinated by Lourawls Nairn (remember him?) here. He only took 8.5% of the team's shots when he was on the floor. The lowest Gopher with any real minutes played was Bakary Konate at 11.1%, which is actually way higher than Nairn. I only found two other Big Ten players under 10% last year (Jaylon Tate of Illinois and Jeremiah Kreisberg of Northwestern) but both played far fewer minutes than Nairn. So like, is that his thing? What does he do if nobody guards him? He's the anti-chucker, which in a way, is as fun as a real chucker. I love watching how teams guard Rajon Rondo - they don't. I hope that's what happens with Nairn.
14. CAL. This team could be like whoa. I bet them at 60-1 to win the whole thing this summer, and I still like them now down all the way at 20-1. They have a ton back from last year's team, not a great year, admittedly, and add two Top 10 recruits. Yes, that's TWO top 10 recruits. If the name on the jersey was Duke instead of Cal this would be a Top 5 team. Plus, I like Cuonzo Martin as a coach. This is my favorite sleeper this year.
15. INDIANA. Oh come on! Do we not play defense any more in basketball, because if this is offense only I would say the Hoosiers are too low, but overall? No chance. It's the same team. The only difference is they got some stud recruit center, but can one player suddenly take a swiss cheese defense and make it good? Or even passable? No. Maybe Antoine Broxsie back in the day, but nobody can make Yogi Ferrell look good on defense. Should score a lot of points though. Gopher/Hoosier games should be in the 160s.
16. UTAH. I know they have at least one, and maybe two, big giant tall guys, and that's generally a good start when it comes to basketsball. Ok I decided to check and they only have one, but he's really good you guys! His name is Jakob Poetl and he's a possible lottery pick who held Jahlil Okafor to 6 points and 4 turnovers in March. He can score, rebound, and block shots and now that Delon Wright is gone he should be the offenses focal point. Should be fun. No idea about all these other guys.
17. WISCONSIN. Oh come on! You're kidding me. Look, I love Nigel Hayes, I love him as much as I could ever love a Badger. I think he's most likely a more skilled Noah Vonleh and I loved Noah Vonleh and thanked Jehova every day that Tom Crean was such a terrible coach. But the Badgers are basically Hayes, Bronson Koenig who is whatever fine, and then nobody else. I know people say it's stupid to bet against the Badgers and Bo Ryan, but people like blood sausage too. People are morons. Badgers suck this year.
18. VANDERBILT. Here's another team I like, although I can also see them sucking. On paper it looks good - a potential lottery pick at center (Damian Jones) surrounded by shooters (Riley Lachance (remember him) and Wade Baldwin (him too) among others, and a team that really gelled as the season went on with most of the team back. Vandy started out 1-7 in SEC play, but closed out 8-2 and looked really good, so yeah, on paper this looks good. In reality, it's Vanderbilt so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
19. NOTRE DAME. Jerian Grant is gone, which is a fairly huge deal considering the game plan was generally "hey Jerian, go do everything for us." The back-up for that was, hey Pat Connaughton, you go do stuff instead but oops, he gone. Zach Auguste is a super stud, I'll give you that, and he's probably going to be better than Noah Vonleh, but somebody has to get him the ball. In summation, these guys suck.
20. UCONN. They have Amida Brimah who I love because he blocks like, every shot ever taken, and their transfer train is rolling, picking up Sterling Gibbs (who is kind of a dick) from Seton Hall to go with Rodney Purvis whom they stole from NC State last year or maybe the year before. Actually looking at this roster I've heard of like, everybody which seems goodish. How the hell is Omar Calhoun still in college basketball? That's insane. Also, I probably watch too much basketball.
21. LSU. One of my favorite sleepers this year. Tons of guard play back and they're bringing in the #1 recruit in the country and another big deal new guy too who just got eligible. As far as negatives go, I have a short list of what I call "dumb teams to never ever bet on" who are always dumb and do stupid stuff and lose when they shouldn't because they are dumb every year no matter what. LSU is on that list.
22. BAYLOR. Baylor still? I figured they'd drop off the face of the map with recruiting violations or something by now, but here we are. The front court has a monster in Rico Gathers who is basically a bigger Montrezl Harrell (yes bigger) without the jump shot, but their entire back court is gone. Oh what's that? A really young back court coached by Scott Drew? I smell some early season anti-Baylor wagers.
23. PURDUE. Another team I like, mainly because facing them is like going against a bunch of gigantic monsters from a Goosebumps book. A.J. Hammons is seven feet tall, 261 lbs., Isaac Haas is 7-2, 297 lbs., and incoming freshman Caleb Swanigan is 6-9, 260 lbs.. It would be pretty sweet if they figured out a way to play all three at the same time. I mean, it wouldn't make a lick of sense, but it would be pretty sweet. Anyway, Purdue plays pretty good defense, and it's probably going to be even better next season. They also can't shoot at all. So there are going to be some ugly, ugly games.
24. BUTLER. I tried to write about Butler like 4 times. That's probably enough.
25. MICHIGAN. Michigan loses nobody from last year's team, and that's good even though last year's team missed the tournament. That was more because Caris LeVert and Derrick Walton played only 37 combined games than Michigan being an actually crappy team, because I am learning John Beilein is a wizard who doesn't make crappy teams. They're still basically lacking any kind of skilled or capable big man and Zak Irvin is kind of wild out there, but this should be a pretty good team. Probably better than this ranking. Man, if Purdue could trade one of their big dudes for a shooter from Michigan, that would be pretty sweet. College sports needs trading, would be so awesome. Not like they care about the kids anyway, which is ok because neither do I. PLAY GAMES FOR MY AMUSEMENT!!!
Friday, March 27, 2015
Previewing the Sweet 16 - Friday
Small loss yesterday pretty much because of the 5 unit loss on the Wis/UNC under. I still feel like I read that game right as it was just a 60 possession game so I nailed the pace. Carolina hitting 8 of 13 three point attempts really sunk me. I figured Wisconsin would are UNC to shoot and they'd miss a bunch, but they nailed them so what are you gonna do? Even given that I still had a chance until that stupid UNC foul on the perimeter with less than a minute left took out the possibility of Bucky running the clock down. Whatevs. We move on. Had most of the other stuff nailed. Here's what I'm thinking for Friday.
UCLA vs. Gonzaga. I really, really, really didn't expect UCLA to get here, so I'm at a bit of a loss. Bryce Alford, who was becoming more and more of a chucker as the year went on, has been white hot in the tournament, and after a lucky, grind it out win against SMU (with a questionable call to boot) they looked like an absolute offensive juggernaut against UAB. That might not sound like much, but don't forget the Blazers pretty much completely shut down Iowa State. Is UCLA a lucky team who snuck into the tournament undeservedly, lucked into a first round win, and then decimated a shoddy opponent in round 2? Or are they a team worthy of inclusion who has won two games playing vastly different styles and is now peaking at the right time?
Nothing in these teams' profiles suggests the Bruins have a prayer of stopping Gonzaga. The Bulldogs are a smoothly run offensive operation with plenty of firepower both inside and outside and other than some suspect free throw shooting from their big guys no real weaknesses. UCLA is going to have to score to keep up with them, and the Zags defense is far superior to the Bruins so it won't be easy. They're going to want to try to get down the court as soon as possible with their athletes and try to get moving towards the basket before Gonzaga can get their half court defense set up, but an uptempo game also suits the Bulldogs just fine.
These teams played earlier this year, with Gonzaga coming out ahead 87-74. The Zags absolutely shredded the UCLA defense with the Bruins hanging as close as they did thanks to good 3-point shooting and a bunch of offensive rebounds. I don't really see much of any reason to expect anything wildly different, though without question this is the game I feel I have the shakiest read on.
Bet: Gonzaga -8.5 (1 UNIT), Over 146 (1 UNIT)
UCLA vs. Gonzaga. I really, really, really didn't expect UCLA to get here, so I'm at a bit of a loss. Bryce Alford, who was becoming more and more of a chucker as the year went on, has been white hot in the tournament, and after a lucky, grind it out win against SMU (with a questionable call to boot) they looked like an absolute offensive juggernaut against UAB. That might not sound like much, but don't forget the Blazers pretty much completely shut down Iowa State. Is UCLA a lucky team who snuck into the tournament undeservedly, lucked into a first round win, and then decimated a shoddy opponent in round 2? Or are they a team worthy of inclusion who has won two games playing vastly different styles and is now peaking at the right time?
Nothing in these teams' profiles suggests the Bruins have a prayer of stopping Gonzaga. The Bulldogs are a smoothly run offensive operation with plenty of firepower both inside and outside and other than some suspect free throw shooting from their big guys no real weaknesses. UCLA is going to have to score to keep up with them, and the Zags defense is far superior to the Bruins so it won't be easy. They're going to want to try to get down the court as soon as possible with their athletes and try to get moving towards the basket before Gonzaga can get their half court defense set up, but an uptempo game also suits the Bulldogs just fine.
These teams played earlier this year, with Gonzaga coming out ahead 87-74. The Zags absolutely shredded the UCLA defense with the Bruins hanging as close as they did thanks to good 3-point shooting and a bunch of offensive rebounds. I don't really see much of any reason to expect anything wildly different, though without question this is the game I feel I have the shakiest read on.
Bet: Gonzaga -8.5 (1 UNIT), Over 146 (1 UNIT)
Louisville vs. North Carolina State: I’m such a horrible traitor. For years I've been a huge Rick Pitino fan, which helps to explain some of my enthusiasm at the Gophers’ hiring of his son, and have always backed them to overachieve in the NCAA Tournament. I won a 20-1 future bet three years ago when they won the title and won my NCAA pool the year he won with that awesome Tony Delk Kentucky team and that should have been enough to make me a believer for life, and I thought I was. So why did I pick Louisville to lose to UC-Irvine? Was I enthralled with that giant 7-6 guy? Did I think losing Chris Jones would make a chaotic, and sometimes limited, offensive team even more chaotic? Did I think a poor close to the season made the Cardinals a prime candidate to flame out early? Yes to all of it. I'm horrible. It's Rick Pitino, you dummy.
Of course, we can't discount NC State seeing as they completely dismantled what I thought was a very good Villanova team, not to mention beating a very athletic LSU squad in round 1. Both teams have played tremendous defense in the tournament thus far holding all opponents far under their points per possession average with both putting up an extremely impressive performance versus an elite offensive team (Northern Iowa and Villanova). Both teams do it with a hellacious half court defense, though Louisville holds an edge here because they also excel at causing turnovers whereas NC State never does. Neither team shoots the ball particularly well, so if this turns into a half court game it could end up quite a slogfest.
It will most likely end up that way, at least on the NC State end since the Wolfpack like to take their time and the Louisville defense, despite the press, generally forces teams to take up quite a bit of the shot clock on each possession. Louisville will probably get a few easy baskets in transition thanks to turnovers, though NC State is pretty good at taking care of the ball, and they'll need them since their tendency is take a lot of terrible long twos. I have a feeling this is going to be a very ugly game, or a beautiful game if you like defense. In that case I'd be crazy to pick against Rick Pitino again.
Bet: Louisville -3 (2 UNITS), Under 130 (4 UNITS)
Of course, we can't discount NC State seeing as they completely dismantled what I thought was a very good Villanova team, not to mention beating a very athletic LSU squad in round 1. Both teams have played tremendous defense in the tournament thus far holding all opponents far under their points per possession average with both putting up an extremely impressive performance versus an elite offensive team (Northern Iowa and Villanova). Both teams do it with a hellacious half court defense, though Louisville holds an edge here because they also excel at causing turnovers whereas NC State never does. Neither team shoots the ball particularly well, so if this turns into a half court game it could end up quite a slogfest.
It will most likely end up that way, at least on the NC State end since the Wolfpack like to take their time and the Louisville defense, despite the press, generally forces teams to take up quite a bit of the shot clock on each possession. Louisville will probably get a few easy baskets in transition thanks to turnovers, though NC State is pretty good at taking care of the ball, and they'll need them since their tendency is take a lot of terrible long twos. I have a feeling this is going to be a very ugly game, or a beautiful game if you like defense. In that case I'd be crazy to pick against Rick Pitino again.
Bet: Louisville -3 (2 UNITS), Under 130 (4 UNITS)
Utah vs. Duke. The Blue Devil start and end with Jahlil Okafor, who is the key to everything they do on offense. He has an incredibly polished game in the post, is an adept and smart enough passer to find open shooters when double-teamed, and is a terror on the offensive boards. He struggles against defenders who can match his size, however, and I found a little factoid that he's averaged just 11.6 points per game against teams with a 7-footer they can throw at him. Well guess what? Utah has two in Jakob Poeltl and Dallin Bachynski, and neither are just a big body, both have skill. This bodes well for the Utes. Not that Okafor is all Duke has, especially with Justise Winslow really coming on in the tournament, but having the ability to potentially limit Okafor is a really good start.
Offensively Utah also matches up well against Duke. The Blue Devils excel at perimeter defense giving up very few three pointers and they rarely foul, but over 60% of their points allowed this year came from 2-point shots, not a problem for Utah since they shot 53% from there this year. They were a little more reliant on three pointers than you'd like to see in this spot, but shooting 41% from behind the line on the year can do that to a team. At least you know that even if they get limited looks they should be able to knock them down. Delon Wright is an underrated super star at guard for Utah and he should be able to get into the lane against Duke, which could create some of those open looks.
If this becomes a half court game, I really like the Utes' chances. I think their size on defense and ability to pound the ball in the paint are huge issues for Duke. Even if Duke tries to get up and run, and they will, Utah's offense should be good enough to keep pace.
Bet: Utah +6 (3 UNITS), Over 134 (1 UNIT)
Offensively Utah also matches up well against Duke. The Blue Devils excel at perimeter defense giving up very few three pointers and they rarely foul, but over 60% of their points allowed this year came from 2-point shots, not a problem for Utah since they shot 53% from there this year. They were a little more reliant on three pointers than you'd like to see in this spot, but shooting 41% from behind the line on the year can do that to a team. At least you know that even if they get limited looks they should be able to knock them down. Delon Wright is an underrated super star at guard for Utah and he should be able to get into the lane against Duke, which could create some of those open looks.
If this becomes a half court game, I really like the Utes' chances. I think their size on defense and ability to pound the ball in the paint are huge issues for Duke. Even if Duke tries to get up and run, and they will, Utah's offense should be good enough to keep pace.
Bet: Utah +6 (3 UNITS), Over 134 (1 UNIT)
Michigan State vs. Oklahoma. Two inconsistent teams (MSU lost to Texas Southern and Nebraska this year, Oklahoma lost to Washington and was swept by Kansas State) who seem to be peaking at the right time, this should be a pretty entertaining game. Though both teams play great defense, both also enjoy running with much quicker average possession times on offense than on defense. The Spartans defense generally ends up with them playing games that look to be slower tempo but their opponents average time of possession was 20.1 seconds, the second slowest mark in the country. That’s against plodding big ten teams, not a team like Oklahoma who averages under 17 seconds per possession, one of the quickest in the nation. This reads like a potential track meet to me, so the question is: who wins a track meet?
The Sooners were 6-4 this year in games against the kenpom 100 that hit 70 possessions or more; the Spartans 1-2. Sparty is definitely a deeper squad, but with almost a week of rest at this point in the season that’s pretty meaningless outside of foul trouble and neither team draws many fouls, so that advantage is pretty much irrelevant. Michigan State is a better rebounding team by a little bit, but if this game goes as I’m picturing it that won’t matter all that much either. Same goes for Oklahoma’s advantage in the turnover department, which could come into play but it’s small enough and this game should be wide open enough I don’t think it matters all that much.
I guess, in my opinion, it’s all going to come down to making shots. Michigan State is a better shot making team, but Oklahoma is a better shot defending team. Oklahoma has the best offensive weapon in Buddy Hield, but Michigan State probably has the next three in Travis Trice, Denzel Valentine, and Branden Dawson. Oklahoma is a great free throw shooting team, while Michigan State is terrible. How much is that going to matter in a game where neither team draws many fouls? I really don’t know. I don’t have a great read on the side here, but I think we’ll see points.
Bet: Oklahoma +2.5 (1 UNIT), OVER 134 (3 UNITS)
The Sooners were 6-4 this year in games against the kenpom 100 that hit 70 possessions or more; the Spartans 1-2. Sparty is definitely a deeper squad, but with almost a week of rest at this point in the season that’s pretty meaningless outside of foul trouble and neither team draws many fouls, so that advantage is pretty much irrelevant. Michigan State is a better rebounding team by a little bit, but if this game goes as I’m picturing it that won’t matter all that much either. Same goes for Oklahoma’s advantage in the turnover department, which could come into play but it’s small enough and this game should be wide open enough I don’t think it matters all that much.
I guess, in my opinion, it’s all going to come down to making shots. Michigan State is a better shot making team, but Oklahoma is a better shot defending team. Oklahoma has the best offensive weapon in Buddy Hield, but Michigan State probably has the next three in Travis Trice, Denzel Valentine, and Branden Dawson. Oklahoma is a great free throw shooting team, while Michigan State is terrible. How much is that going to matter in a game where neither team draws many fouls? I really don’t know. I don’t have a great read on the side here, but I think we’ll see points.
Bet: Oklahoma +2.5 (1 UNIT), OVER 134 (3 UNITS)
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Big Ten Basketball Preview: #7 Michigan State Spartans
It feels very weird putting the Spartans this low in the conference rankings, but losing Adreian Payne, Gary Harris, and Keith Appling will do that. Michigan State has suffered heavy and significant defections before, but this time the holdovers and replacements aren't strong enough to bring Sparty back to the top of the conference. They should still be in the mix for an NCAA bid and will likely get one, it'll just be more of a struggle than years past when it was basically locked up by February, especially since Kenny Kaminski was dismissed from the team, leaving Sparty extremely thin in the bigs department.
Without Kaminski the big men are Branden Dawson, who is awesome, Matt Costello, who isn't, and Gavin Schillling, who is untested at best but being Shane Schilling's brother doesn't bode well for him, and that's it. Dawsen they don't have to worry about assuming he doesn't break his hand punching a wall again or doing something else stupid. Usually when a player is thrust into a position to go from supporting player to go-to guy like Dawsen I'd consider it a big question, but Dawsen is totally awesome and should be a monster this year. It would probably help if he could develop any kind of jump shot, but he'll be just fine and be in the running for conference player of the year. Beyond him? It's dicey.
Matt Costello is the leading returnee at 14.7 minutes per game last year, and he was pretty productive in that time averaging 4.0 points and 3.3 rebounds per game while shooting 60% from the field. He doesn't seem like the type to blossom into a star, but the Big Ten specializes in the whole Big White Stiff to Star transformation - look no further than Frank Kaminsky last year - so nothing would really surprise me. The other legit option in the front court is Gavin Schilling, younger brother of Shane and Cody He played sparingly last year, just 238 total minutes. He gives them size (6-9, 240) and a complete inability to make free throws (11-21 last year) if nothing else. Other than that the only size is a collection of unknowns, most of which are pretty underwhelming, though freshman Marvin Clark is at least interesting, in a hasn't been disappointing yet way.
As unsettled as the bigs are, the littles are in about as good of shape as they could be after losing both starting guards. Travis Trice is back and should be able to slide into Appling's role with no issue whatsoever. He's a better shooter than Appling was, if not quite as good a creator. Should be an easy transition. Denzel Valentine is also back on the wing, and he's one of the more underrated all around players in the conference, probably because he's so depressingly ugly. He averaged 8 points, 6 rebs, nearly 4 assists, and 1 steal per game last year and I'm guessing there wouldn't be more than a handful of players who hit all those marks last season. Fun Fact: In our Fantasy Big Ten league he finished third in the league in scoring among returning players behind Frank Kaminsky and Rayvonte Rice, and he should better his numbers with more opportunity this year. Sparty also adds two interesting freshmen on the perimeter on Lourawls Nairn (traitor) and Javon Bess, and has almost Gopher Alvin Ellis who looked good in a limited role last year, so the perimeter is really not a concern.
Michigan State has as many unanswered questions as anybody in the conference this year, yet I saw one magazine preview had them ranked as high as second in the conference. That makes no sense to me, and I have pretty close to blind faith in Izzo, but somewhere from 5-8 feels about right. That should put them in line to pick up a bid with a low single digit seed and then inevitably march to the Elite 8 because Izzo is a complete wizard in March. Hate him.
OTHER PREVIEWS
#8 IOWA HAWKEYES
#9 MARYLAND TERRAPINS
#10 INDIANA HOOSIERS
#11 PENN STATE NITTANY LIONS
#12 NORTHWESTERN WILDCATS
#13 PURDUE BOILERMAKERS
#14 RUTGERS SCARLET KNIGHTS
Without Kaminski the big men are Branden Dawson, who is awesome, Matt Costello, who isn't, and Gavin Schillling, who is untested at best but being Shane Schilling's brother doesn't bode well for him, and that's it. Dawsen they don't have to worry about assuming he doesn't break his hand punching a wall again or doing something else stupid. Usually when a player is thrust into a position to go from supporting player to go-to guy like Dawsen I'd consider it a big question, but Dawsen is totally awesome and should be a monster this year. It would probably help if he could develop any kind of jump shot, but he'll be just fine and be in the running for conference player of the year. Beyond him? It's dicey.
Matt Costello is the leading returnee at 14.7 minutes per game last year, and he was pretty productive in that time averaging 4.0 points and 3.3 rebounds per game while shooting 60% from the field. He doesn't seem like the type to blossom into a star, but the Big Ten specializes in the whole Big White Stiff to Star transformation - look no further than Frank Kaminsky last year - so nothing would really surprise me. The other legit option in the front court is Gavin Schilling, younger brother of Shane and Cody He played sparingly last year, just 238 total minutes. He gives them size (6-9, 240) and a complete inability to make free throws (11-21 last year) if nothing else. Other than that the only size is a collection of unknowns, most of which are pretty underwhelming, though freshman Marvin Clark is at least interesting, in a hasn't been disappointing yet way.
As unsettled as the bigs are, the littles are in about as good of shape as they could be after losing both starting guards. Travis Trice is back and should be able to slide into Appling's role with no issue whatsoever. He's a better shooter than Appling was, if not quite as good a creator. Should be an easy transition. Denzel Valentine is also back on the wing, and he's one of the more underrated all around players in the conference, probably because he's so depressingly ugly. He averaged 8 points, 6 rebs, nearly 4 assists, and 1 steal per game last year and I'm guessing there wouldn't be more than a handful of players who hit all those marks last season. Fun Fact: In our Fantasy Big Ten league he finished third in the league in scoring among returning players behind Frank Kaminsky and Rayvonte Rice, and he should better his numbers with more opportunity this year. Sparty also adds two interesting freshmen on the perimeter on Lourawls Nairn (traitor) and Javon Bess, and has almost Gopher Alvin Ellis who looked good in a limited role last year, so the perimeter is really not a concern.
Michigan State has as many unanswered questions as anybody in the conference this year, yet I saw one magazine preview had them ranked as high as second in the conference. That makes no sense to me, and I have pretty close to blind faith in Izzo, but somewhere from 5-8 feels about right. That should put them in line to pick up a bid with a low single digit seed and then inevitably march to the Elite 8 because Izzo is a complete wizard in March. Hate him.
OTHER PREVIEWS
#8 IOWA HAWKEYES
#9 MARYLAND TERRAPINS
#10 INDIANA HOOSIERS
#11 PENN STATE NITTANY LIONS
#12 NORTHWESTERN WILDCATS
#13 PURDUE BOILERMAKERS
#14 RUTGERS SCARLET KNIGHTS
Friday, March 28, 2014
Sweet Sixteen Predictions (Friday)
Well I couldn't have read that Wisconsin/Baylor game any worse. I expected Frank Kaminsky to get killed, but instead he did the killing. It was like watching The Others and being like, man this is way creepy poor Nicole Kidman but then bam it turns out Nicole Kidman is dead the whole time. Oh, spoiler alert. Anyway thanks to Florida coming through, a couple over/unders, and hitting two middles with second half bets I overcame the big Baylor loss and made a little bit of money. Hopefully there's more to come tonight.
#11 Tennessee vs. #2 Michigan.
Advanced metrics absolutely love Tennessee. They rank 16th in offensive points per possession and 17th in defensive points per possession. The only other teams to rank in the top 20 in both this year are Wichita State, Florida, Virginia, and Louisville. That's a pretty damn impressive group. However I think this is a classic case of beating up on bad teams. The Vols have a win over Virginia back in December, but do you know their next best win? That win over a fading Iowa team. Next up? A win over a fading and overseeded UMass. Then Georgia, LSU, and Arkansas. See what I'm saying? Yeah they've won three games to get here and that's impressive, but I am not loving them.
Michigan, on the other hand, seems to be peaking at the right time. They destroyed both Wofford and Texas and everybody's clicking. Tennessee has overwhelmed their opponents with their size and rebounding so far, but that won't happen against Michigan. Jordan Morgan and Jon Horford might suck offensively but they can play defense. From there I think Michigan's perimeter guys can out score Tennessee's. I just think Michigan is a far superior team, so I'm going with Michigan -2 for four units
#7 UCONN vs. #3 Iowa State.
The loss of Georges Niang didn't hurt Iowa State against North Carolina, but it very well could against UCONN. Without him the Cyclones are very small, and although Melvin Ejim and Dustin Hogue play bigger than their size would suggest I'm not so sure that gets it done against a more rough and tumble former Big East team. It will also allow UCONN to go small with what is probably their best lineup, and one they have only been able to use about 5% of the time over the last 5 games because they generally need to have either Amida Brimah or Phillip Nolan in there at center for extra size. That's not really a concern against a Niang-less Iowa State, and Brimah's foul issues become much less important.
Then of course there's the whole Kemba Walker thing Shabazz Napier has going on right now. He's put up 24-8-6 against St. Joe's and 25-5-3 against Villanova despite missing a huge chunk of the first half. And man did you see some of those shots against Nova? Right now he's fearless and he's hot, and that is a dangerous combination to run up against. DeAndre Daniels seems to be peaking at the right time, and Ryan Boatright played as well as I've ever seen him play against Villanova. It wouldn't shock me to see this team make the Final Four. Sorry Clones. UCONN +2 for 3 units, and also a unit on the over 146 - ISU likes to get up and down, and I expect UCONN to get in the spirit.
#8 Kentucky vs. #4 Louisville.
Easily my most anticipated match-up of the weekend, and also the hardest to read for me. Before the tournament started I would have gone with Louisville -4.5 without hesitation, but Kentucky's win over Wichita was one of the most impressive top to bottom games I've seen anybody play this year. Everyone said at the beginning of the year that Kentucky was the most talented team in the country and if their talent came together they'd be the team to beat in the tournament, and that is still the case with at least five guys who are likely to be NBA first round picks in either this year's draft or the next. So that's the question, has this team now come together enough to beat the defending champs who, with the exception of the Manhattan game, have been rolling?
Well, it was just the sixth time this year a team scored 70+ against Wichita, and Kentucky shot 54% while doing it so they played pretty much a perfect shooting game on the offensive end. With Andrew Harrison's six turnovers and a total of 11 for the Wildcats vs. just 11 assists that tells me they didn't suddenly "get it" and considering six of those assists came from Julius Randle it's pretty clear the Kentucky guards still don't really know how to run a team. Another big piece of Kentucky's win was their 22 offensive rebounds, but the presence of Montrezl Harrell for Louisville should guarantee that at a minimum that number is cut in half, and the rest of Louisville's guys should be able to keep Kentucky off the boards better than Wichita did. Plus when it comes down to Calipari vs. Pitino with almost a week to prepare, I'll take Pitino every time. Louisville -4.5 for one unit and another unit on the over 139. Louisville tries to speed teams up and that should work beautifully against Kentucky.
#4 Michigan State vs. #1 Virginia.
People really seem to underrate Virginia this year, but a 16-2 run through the ACC, an ACC Tournament Championship, and a thorough thrashing of Memphis (with a mini scare against Coastal thrown in there) is one hell of a run. They've mainly done it with an incredible defense and a slow pace that left them allowing the fewest points per game in the country at 55.5. They also score at an efficient rate, a top 10 in the country rate, although they don't shoot the ball particularly well and can be prone to shooting slumps.
The Spartans should be able to handle them, however, because they're one of the best shooting teams in the country (13th by eFG%) and the execute extremely well and move the ball well (62% of baskets come from an assist, also 13th). I tried to find teams that have a similar profile that Virginia played this year and the closest two I could find were Duke and Wisconsin, team's that gave Virginia two of its six losses this year, and Michigan State is both a better rebounding and defensive team than either Duke or Virginia. Plus the Spartans put up those impressive numbers while rarely being healthy, and now they are. The pace shouldn't bother Sparty either, they can grind it out with the best of them. One unit on Michigan State -2, and two units on the under 127.
#11 Tennessee vs. #2 Michigan.
Advanced metrics absolutely love Tennessee. They rank 16th in offensive points per possession and 17th in defensive points per possession. The only other teams to rank in the top 20 in both this year are Wichita State, Florida, Virginia, and Louisville. That's a pretty damn impressive group. However I think this is a classic case of beating up on bad teams. The Vols have a win over Virginia back in December, but do you know their next best win? That win over a fading Iowa team. Next up? A win over a fading and overseeded UMass. Then Georgia, LSU, and Arkansas. See what I'm saying? Yeah they've won three games to get here and that's impressive, but I am not loving them.
Michigan, on the other hand, seems to be peaking at the right time. They destroyed both Wofford and Texas and everybody's clicking. Tennessee has overwhelmed their opponents with their size and rebounding so far, but that won't happen against Michigan. Jordan Morgan and Jon Horford might suck offensively but they can play defense. From there I think Michigan's perimeter guys can out score Tennessee's. I just think Michigan is a far superior team, so I'm going with Michigan -2 for four units
#7 UCONN vs. #3 Iowa State.
The loss of Georges Niang didn't hurt Iowa State against North Carolina, but it very well could against UCONN. Without him the Cyclones are very small, and although Melvin Ejim and Dustin Hogue play bigger than their size would suggest I'm not so sure that gets it done against a more rough and tumble former Big East team. It will also allow UCONN to go small with what is probably their best lineup, and one they have only been able to use about 5% of the time over the last 5 games because they generally need to have either Amida Brimah or Phillip Nolan in there at center for extra size. That's not really a concern against a Niang-less Iowa State, and Brimah's foul issues become much less important.
Then of course there's the whole Kemba Walker thing Shabazz Napier has going on right now. He's put up 24-8-6 against St. Joe's and 25-5-3 against Villanova despite missing a huge chunk of the first half. And man did you see some of those shots against Nova? Right now he's fearless and he's hot, and that is a dangerous combination to run up against. DeAndre Daniels seems to be peaking at the right time, and Ryan Boatright played as well as I've ever seen him play against Villanova. It wouldn't shock me to see this team make the Final Four. Sorry Clones. UCONN +2 for 3 units, and also a unit on the over 146 - ISU likes to get up and down, and I expect UCONN to get in the spirit.
#8 Kentucky vs. #4 Louisville.
Easily my most anticipated match-up of the weekend, and also the hardest to read for me. Before the tournament started I would have gone with Louisville -4.5 without hesitation, but Kentucky's win over Wichita was one of the most impressive top to bottom games I've seen anybody play this year. Everyone said at the beginning of the year that Kentucky was the most talented team in the country and if their talent came together they'd be the team to beat in the tournament, and that is still the case with at least five guys who are likely to be NBA first round picks in either this year's draft or the next. So that's the question, has this team now come together enough to beat the defending champs who, with the exception of the Manhattan game, have been rolling?
Well, it was just the sixth time this year a team scored 70+ against Wichita, and Kentucky shot 54% while doing it so they played pretty much a perfect shooting game on the offensive end. With Andrew Harrison's six turnovers and a total of 11 for the Wildcats vs. just 11 assists that tells me they didn't suddenly "get it" and considering six of those assists came from Julius Randle it's pretty clear the Kentucky guards still don't really know how to run a team. Another big piece of Kentucky's win was their 22 offensive rebounds, but the presence of Montrezl Harrell for Louisville should guarantee that at a minimum that number is cut in half, and the rest of Louisville's guys should be able to keep Kentucky off the boards better than Wichita did. Plus when it comes down to Calipari vs. Pitino with almost a week to prepare, I'll take Pitino every time. Louisville -4.5 for one unit and another unit on the over 139. Louisville tries to speed teams up and that should work beautifully against Kentucky.
#4 Michigan State vs. #1 Virginia.
People really seem to underrate Virginia this year, but a 16-2 run through the ACC, an ACC Tournament Championship, and a thorough thrashing of Memphis (with a mini scare against Coastal thrown in there) is one hell of a run. They've mainly done it with an incredible defense and a slow pace that left them allowing the fewest points per game in the country at 55.5. They also score at an efficient rate, a top 10 in the country rate, although they don't shoot the ball particularly well and can be prone to shooting slumps.
The Spartans should be able to handle them, however, because they're one of the best shooting teams in the country (13th by eFG%) and the execute extremely well and move the ball well (62% of baskets come from an assist, also 13th). I tried to find teams that have a similar profile that Virginia played this year and the closest two I could find were Duke and Wisconsin, team's that gave Virginia two of its six losses this year, and Michigan State is both a better rebounding and defensive team than either Duke or Virginia. Plus the Spartans put up those impressive numbers while rarely being healthy, and now they are. The pace shouldn't bother Sparty either, they can grind it out with the best of them. One unit on Michigan State -2, and two units on the under 127.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Michigan State 87, Minnesota 75 (OT)
I suppose I'm so supposed to write about this game, but I really don't think I can. Part of it is it's just too hard to right about a game that goes down like this, a game where you don't think your team has a chance and have no expectations. Then they play so incredibly well, you find yourself believing they have a chance, but you still don't quite let yourself think it could happen. Then something happens, like say a whipped pass from Dre Hollins to Mo Walker to give your team a 10 point lead, and you can't help it but you're all in. Then the bottom falls out, but wait there's hope, and then you get curb stomped. Too hard to write anything. Plus I missed the entire last 10 minutes (listened on the radio at least) and all of overtime because I was stupid and made plans to take my damn wiener kids to the aquarium. I did manage to pull up the game on btn2go on my phone, but once I got it started the Gophers were already down 9 in the OT and frankly looking at sharks just seemed more appealing.
I could probably cobble together the usual 10 things I liked and didn't like (I do have some notes I made since I'm a huge nerd), but honestly I just don't think I have it in me. Plus, Aaron Paul didn't win the Golden Globe and I've been watching Illinois and Northwestern so really, it's a pretty rough weekend. I guess I went with the kids to the shark thing and then on Sunday I got to go see the new Hobbit movie which pretty much rules so it wasn't a completely lost weekend, but man the basketball part sucked. The gambling part was pretty bad too. Mostly because I suck.
I could probably cobble together the usual 10 things I liked and didn't like (I do have some notes I made since I'm a huge nerd), but honestly I just don't think I have it in me. Plus, Aaron Paul didn't win the Golden Globe and I've been watching Illinois and Northwestern so really, it's a pretty rough weekend. I guess I went with the kids to the shark thing and then on Sunday I got to go see the new Hobbit movie which pretty much rules so it wasn't a completely lost weekend, but man the basketball part sucked. The gambling part was pretty bad too. Mostly because I suck.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Hoops Preview: Gophers vs. Michigan State
Well here we go. The next four games see the Gophers playing at Michigan State (#9 team per kenpom), home to Ohio State (#1), at Iowa (#13) and home to Wisconsin (#3). Things get easier after that, but if the Gophers can come out of this stretch with even one win it will be a success. Unfortunately, this first game in East Lansing is going to be the toughest game to get.
Sparty is 14-1, with their only loss against giant killler but get beat by crappy teams North Carolina. That was a home game, so it's not like Michigan State is invincible at the Breslin Center, but pretty much they are. This team is good at basically everything. They shoot over 40% from three, they shoot 52% from two, they don't turn the ball over much and they will turn you over. They rebound well, although their offensive rebounding is only so-so, but against the Gophers I'm guessing they'll do just fine. They share the basketball incredibly well (assists on 62% of their made baskets, 12th best in the country) and have four players averaging double figures in points per game. They like to attack the rim and get the ball into the post. Their only weakness is they don't get to the free throw line often and don't shoot well when they get there. Well, that and their overall depth.
Michigan State has four really incredible players in guards Keith Appling and Gary Harris, forward Branden Dawson, and center Adreian Payne. Then they have two pretty good players in swingman Denzel Valentine and guard Travis Trice. And that's it. Only one other player (forward Matt Costello) outside of those six plays more than nine minutes per game. Trice missed last game with an illness, so the Gophers best hope would be that whatever that illness was spreads like wildfire through the Spartan locker room and knocks out at least two of the four studs for the game. Or control the tempo and get Sparty running and hope they get tuckered. Or something.
Really though, when your press and half court defense have just been shredded by Purdue and Penn State and you're about to take a big step up in class of opponent things really aren't pretty. I have been trying to think of how the Gophers could win this game, and outside of the illness thing or insanely hot three point shooting I can't come up with anything. Even their fifth guy, Valentine, is perfect to go up against the Gophers because he's a great passer for a wing player and should be able to shred the Gophers' zone when he gets the ball at the free throw line. North Carolina beat Michigan State by holding them to a horrendous shooting night and attacking the paint on offense. They used their depth in the front court to bully the Spartans' thin front court on both ends of the court. Unfotunately, the Gophers can't copy that game plan, and I can't come up with a good one. Maybe they'll overlook the Gophers after their monster win over Ohio State. I don't know. I'm stumped. Fortunately, Richard Pitino is smarter than me (probs). I just don't know that it's possible.
Michigan State 84, Minnesota 67
Sparty is 14-1, with their only loss against giant killler but get beat by crappy teams North Carolina. That was a home game, so it's not like Michigan State is invincible at the Breslin Center, but pretty much they are. This team is good at basically everything. They shoot over 40% from three, they shoot 52% from two, they don't turn the ball over much and they will turn you over. They rebound well, although their offensive rebounding is only so-so, but against the Gophers I'm guessing they'll do just fine. They share the basketball incredibly well (assists on 62% of their made baskets, 12th best in the country) and have four players averaging double figures in points per game. They like to attack the rim and get the ball into the post. Their only weakness is they don't get to the free throw line often and don't shoot well when they get there. Well, that and their overall depth.
Michigan State has four really incredible players in guards Keith Appling and Gary Harris, forward Branden Dawson, and center Adreian Payne. Then they have two pretty good players in swingman Denzel Valentine and guard Travis Trice. And that's it. Only one other player (forward Matt Costello) outside of those six plays more than nine minutes per game. Trice missed last game with an illness, so the Gophers best hope would be that whatever that illness was spreads like wildfire through the Spartan locker room and knocks out at least two of the four studs for the game. Or control the tempo and get Sparty running and hope they get tuckered. Or something.
Really though, when your press and half court defense have just been shredded by Purdue and Penn State and you're about to take a big step up in class of opponent things really aren't pretty. I have been trying to think of how the Gophers could win this game, and outside of the illness thing or insanely hot three point shooting I can't come up with anything. Even their fifth guy, Valentine, is perfect to go up against the Gophers because he's a great passer for a wing player and should be able to shred the Gophers' zone when he gets the ball at the free throw line. North Carolina beat Michigan State by holding them to a horrendous shooting night and attacking the paint on offense. They used their depth in the front court to bully the Spartans' thin front court on both ends of the court. Unfotunately, the Gophers can't copy that game plan, and I can't come up with a good one. Maybe they'll overlook the Gophers after their monster win over Ohio State. I don't know. I'm stumped. Fortunately, Richard Pitino is smarter than me (probs). I just don't know that it's possible.
Michigan State 84, Minnesota 67
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
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.
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.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.]
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.
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.
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.
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!!!!!
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| 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. |
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. |
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 |
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.
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| Indiana was surprisingly lacking in pictures. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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.
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| Bottom. |
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!!!!!
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