2023-24 Big Ten MBB Discussion Thread

[HawkHoops80]

Great ballgame. Purdue guard play is much improved. And Edey is basically unstoppable. What a beast.

I was pretty skeptical about the Lance Jones add in the offseason, but that is looking like a brilliant pickup for Painter. He just adds an experienced ball handler to the backcourt for when Smith faces pressure and he's immediately their best perimeter defender--he basically shut down Knecht for Tennessee in the 2nd half of that game.
I thought they really needed a shooter in the offseason which is why I was skeptical--but if Smith and Loyer continues to grow and Gillis continues to be good off the bench than Jones is perfect for what he is.

 

[littlez]

Missouri Valley has been kind to the Big Ten this year. Krikke from Valpo has been our best player, Domask from Southern Illinois to Illinois has been a good pickup and Jones from Southern Illinois to Purdue has been huge as well.

 

[9and4]

Missouri Valley has been kind to the Big Ten this year. Krikke from Valpo has been our best player, Domask from Southern Illinois to Illinois has been a good pickup and Jones from Southern Illinois to Purdue has been huge as well.

Nebraska's Rienk Mast (Bradley transfer) has been a good Derrick Walker replacement for us, probably better given Mast's ability to hit 3-pointers and make free throws.

 

[littlez]

Nebraska's Rienk Mast (Bradley transfer) has been a good Derrick Walker replacement for us, probably better given Mast's ability to hit 3-pointers and make free throws.

Forgot about him.

 

[9and4]

Forgot about him.

No worries. Beat the Gooners today!

 

[hawkirugged17]

Texas A and M 35 - Penn State 29 with 1:55 left first half.

 

[hawkirugged17]

Arizona - Michigan State and Stanford - Michigan later today. Along with the Hawks, of course.

 

[QChawks]

Sparty loses to Zona

Big ten looking really bad this year, luckily this is Iowa’s worst team in a decade

 

[hawkirugged17]

Sparty loses to Zona

Big ten looking really bad this year, luckily this is Iowa’s worst team in a decade

 

[HawkLogic]

Yep. The basis of overrating is giving them more credit than they are due. B1G as a league isn't due a lot of credit, relative to other major conferences, and the aren't getting it for the most part.
The one glaring exception is sparty at the high end getting their usual undeserved early season talk as final four contenders that they almost immediately fail to live up to. I think they are at the bottom of any talk of the league being overrated. One team that is given way too much credit before a game has even been played and then fails to live up to that. Outside of pu, the rest of the conference is a mixed bag. Nobody's great. Terps are pretty lousy to start the year, but that's the only team that's really flopped.

The B1G tends to be overrated on this board. We've got board members that blame lack of NCAA tourney success on Referees, physical B-ball when in fact it is lack of athleticism/elite guard play.

The lack of NCAA success for past 10 years means most fans outside of B1G see B1G as weak. Yet the B1G continues to get t 6-7 bids to the NCAA tourney and that is where the overrated feelings manifest.

Last year Purdue being at Top4 seed and getting beat by a nobody was re-affirming to overrated. Giant man B-ball works vs weak, non athletic B1G competition but doesn't work vs swarming guards in NCAA tourney B-ball. Izzo has peaked, OSU hasn't been good since Matta era....Purdue Big man ball fizzles out, Michigan is down, Fran's no defense teams are DOA as soon as they get to NCAA.

 

[icwesthawk]

Nebraska's Rienk Mast

Wears a bra

 

[HawkHoops80]

Nice win for the conference yesterday with Ohio State beating Alabama by 11. Thornton had 29 off of 13/14 from the FT line and 4/6 from 3. They have some nice pieces to be good this year. Kind of interesting to note, but their talented freshmen class did not get a ton of playing time in this game--I suppose this is what happens when Zed Key is your 7th man. Still don't understand what Mahaffey brings to the table that Scotty Middleton doesn't other than 1 more year of experience. I wouldn't be shocked if Middleton is in the starting lineup come February though.

 

[SDHawkDoc]

The B1G tends to be overrated on this board. We've got board members that blame lack of NCAA tourney success on Referees, physical B-ball when in fact it is lack of athleticism/elite guard play.

The lack of NCAA success for past 10 years means most fans outside of B1G see B1G as weak. Yet the B1G continues to get t 6-7 bids to the NCAA tourney and that is where the overrated feelings manifest.

Last year Purdue being at Top4 seed and getting beat by a nobody was re-affirming to overrated. Giant man B-ball works vs weak, non athletic B1G competition but doesn't work vs swarming guards in NCAA tourney B-ball. Izzo has peaked, OSU hasn't been good since Matta era....Purdue Big man ball fizzles out, Michigan is down, Fran's no defense teams are DOA as soon as they get to NCAA.

I agree with the caveat added of "on this board". Probably true of other boards as well; hard to completely avoid the homer effect.
Also agree that while pu looks good now, giant man ball imploded at tourney time. Not sure how well they will do again. Not sure pu guards are good enough.
B1G has often got the benefit of the doubt and had maybe 1 or 2 additional teams in the tourney. Will this be a down year and they have a smaller number of tourney qualifiers? Maybe 6?

 

[HawkHoops80]

I agree with the caveat added of "on this board". Probably true of other boards as well; hard to completely avoid the homer effect.
Also agree that while pu looks good now, giant man ball imploded at tourney time. Not sure how well they will do again. Not sure pu guards are good enough.
B1G has often got the benefit of the doubt and had maybe 1 or 2 additional teams in the tourney. Will this be a down year and they have a smaller number of tourney qualifiers? Maybe 6?

It's definitely possible that there is a slight down-tick in bids for the conference this year, but maybe an under discussed part of recent conference expansion is how watered down some of the mid-major leagues have gotten. The American is a shell of it's former self with the B12 poaching some of the better teams--that feels like a 2 bid league unless there is an upset in the conference tournament. The Mountain West is probably the best non-power league, they could probably get 3-4 bids. The A10 has one team in the top-70 on KenPom currently. Can Bradley and Drake get resume's good enough to make the Valley a 2-bid league? I'm doubtful. Saint Mary's has already lost 3 non-con games so it feels like that league might just be Gonzaga for the first time in quite a few years. And then of course there is the random Liberty and James Madison who could, in theory, be bid stealers if they win 28+ games and lose in the conference tournaments.

So basically, it's likely that the mid major leagues produce less than 5 at-large bids which is pretty typical. So in order for the Big Ten to get less bids it is going to have to likely mean that the middle & bottom of the other power conference leagues are better than the Big Ten--that's probably true for the Big 12 and SEC, but the bottom of the BE, ACC and P12 are all really bad.

 

[HawkHoops80]

Finally caught up on the Indiana-Maryland game. What an absolute disappointment Maryland has been. I just do not understand the regression that Scott has had. Willard was a questionable offensive coach at Seton Hall and that is starting to rear it's head.

 

[hawkjt]

MD rallied to make a game of it.
NW rallying to give PU a game .
.46-45 in 2nd half.

 

[Chishawk1425]

53-53 NW and Purdue. 10 min to go. Purdue tired on Monday?!

 

[hawkjt]

Trap game for PU...they lost here last year as #1.
PU not shooting 3s like normal which means they will light us up.

 

[hawkjt]

Tie game w 3:40 to go.
PU is playing the game we need them to play on Monday...not likely.
NW has their crowd on fire.
73-70 NW.

 

[Chishawk1425]

OVERTIME!! Perfect

 

[hawkirugged17]

Kansas 69 - Uconn 65 Final.

 

[SDHawkDoc]

terps have sh!t the bed this season.
pu with poor perimeter shooting doomed them. They will cure that Monday.

 

[hawkirugged17]

 

[HawkHoops80]

View embedded media

Wisconsin fooled us all by going up-tempo for 2 games and then immediately going back to the slowest brand of basketball imaginable. Bummer.

 

[hawkirugged17]

Wisconsin 22 - Marquette 13 with 9:19 left in first half.

 

[HawkHoops80]

Klesmit is on a heater. My lord.

 

[HawkHoops80]

Klesmit is on a heater. My lord.

Klesmit has 18 off 4/7 from 3 with 3:30 to go in the first half. Badge up 13.

 

[hawkirugged17]

Wisconsin 38 - Marquette 23 with 2:42 left in 1st half.

 

[HawkHoops80]

Penn State down 2 to Bucknell under 6 to play over on BTN. I'm not sure who is worse this year between Minnesota and PSU. They play each other twice to determine who is finishing 13th in the league.

 

[hawkirugged17]

Marquette making it a game. Down 1 with 13:45 to go.

 

[hawkirugged17]

Wisconsin back up 10 with 5:02 to go over Marquette.

 

[HawkHoops80]

Good win for the conference. The middle of the conference is starting to look much better than they did after week 1, which should help the conference get their usual number of bids.

 

[HawkHoops80]

Michigan down 3 at the half @ Oregon. Oregon has had a lot of injuries to start the season and is playing a walk-on significant minutes.

 

[hawkirugged17]

Michigan leads by 1 at Oregon with 31.4 seconds left. Wolves ball.

 

[hawkirugged17]

Oregon steal, but foul called. Michigan misses FT, and Oregon has the ball with 22.6 left down 72-71.

 

[hawkirugged17]

Oregon throws the ball in ... to Michigan. Oh my! Foul. Michigan makes 1-2 FTs and leads by 2 with 22.0 seconds left.

 

[hawkirugged17]

Oregon strong drive by Oquendo and he is fouled. He makes both FTs to tie game with 15.1 seconds left. Michigan ball.

 

[hawkirugged17]

Michigan brings ball up and Oregon goes for steal. Review to see who balls goes off of ...

Oregon gets the call and the ball with 9.5 seconds left.

 

[hawkirugged17]

Oregon gets two shots at it ... but nope. Overtime!

 

[hawkirugged17]

Oregon wins on a long three pointer with under 2 seconds left ... 86-83 over Michigan.