I really like the breakthrough on transition offense the last few games, especially last game. It appears a light went on. If this team can continue to turn defense and rebounding into transition offense, this will be a fun team to watch.
The emphasis to run really hit home to me when Donnal got a rebound, turned and aggressively looked to throw an outlet pass. For me that play exemplified the priority the coaches put on getting out and running.
Next we need to see the bigs streaking down the middle of the court ala Jordan Morgan
Furmanās 5 losses are by a combined 17 points. Thatās gotta be extremely frustrating for them lol. Their biggest guys who play meaningful minutes are 6ā7" 210 and 6ā8" 215 so hopefully Wagner and Wilson feast down low.
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Agree 100% with both of you guys here.
Interestingly enough, this Furman team is #163 on KenPom. Could mean that this is the kind of easy but not too easy game weāve been complaining about not having.
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Separate point, and maybe widely known (but was complete surprise to me), we are ranked 18 in ESPN BPI. Is the general sense that this is less useless than RPI, but more useless than Kenpom?
BPI is just another metric, more similar to KenPom in terms of how it is derived (margin of victory, meant to be predictive, etc.)
āThe Basketball Power Index (BPI) is a team rating system that accounts for the final score, pace of play, site, strength of opponent and absence of key players in every Division I menās game. BPI can be used to measure both how well a team has performed (going far beyond just wins and losses) and how powerful it is likely to be going forward.ā
Could be wrong, but the BPI rating tends to confirm a sense I have that this team has displayed a considerable amount of promise in the several weeks since the pretty awful VTech loss. (Had they eked that one out weād all be feeling pretty elated.) Now to see if they can make good on that promise. The conventional thinking is always that youāre not as good as your best showings, not as bad as your worst. But if Derek and Zak continued to play with verve and confidence for the rest of the season. . . weād be a second of third round NCAA team. They donāt always have to play well, and cannot, but they need to keep their head in the games when things donāt go right. Thatās really what leadership is all about.
If Walton and Irving play well and more importantly intelligent ( Iām looking at you zak) this is a very dangerous team. The loss to v tech was a fluke bottom line. That team has no business beating us particularly at home. If we play them again or right now thatās a double digit beat down even in their house. So I see two real losses. One on the road versus the number one team and then a South Carolina team on the road who appears to be top 25 with lineup intact.
I believe mo received a ton of crappy calls that v tech game and was on the bench unfairly if I recall. That was one huge reason we lost. Eighteenth sounds about right to me. I have no doubt were a top twenty team. Really if we get it together weāre a fringe top ten team with potential to crash the elite eight or final four. Call me crazy if you want but I see it. Very dangerous top 6 guys. The defense is very solid and our offense is beautiful at times when we swing the ball and move with a purpose.
Big ten champs here we come. Calling it.
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Weād have to really reshape our offense before you can convince me we are even a top 20 team, IMO. As of right now, we are a guard-oriented offense running the offense through two guys are who are very flawed (Walton and Irvin). I donāt think we have that upside with them as our high usage guys.
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I agree. When I look at how the team has played so far this year, I donāt view it as a Top20 team. I look at it more as an āOthers Receiving Votesā caliber team ā which kind of equates out to an 8/9 seed in the NCAA Tourney.
I disagree with the assessment of lack of upside to this team. But that might be splitting hairs on āupsideā ā I donāt think this is a Final 4 caliber team. That type of run would be rather surprising. But if Robinson can learn to be a dangerous shooter against B1G quality teams and if MAAR can re-find his game from last conference season, then thereās enough depth of pieces to get out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tourney.
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While I admire your homer-ism, you are completely off base here. This is not a top 10 by any means. We simply do not have the backcourt talent to be in contention for anything beyond a sweet 16 appearance, and even then, that would be surprising. Iād say a successful year is anywhere from 8-10 B1G conference wins.
I, for one, will be very disappointed if we only win 8 B1G games. I think we can finish top 5.
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Yeah, the Big Ten is really weak at the top, you have to finish atleast top 5 or itāll be disappointing.
Well, offense remains a question mark.
Iām encouraged that we continue to increase Wagnerās touches. Heās our best player, IMO, and the one most likely to beat his defender consistently.
Irvin and Walton are inconsistent. Itās nice to put up strong numbers against weak competition, but we need one or both of these guys to come out and drop 25 (efficiently) on an Indiana, MSU, Purdue, or Wisconsin. Thus far, I havenāt seen much to make me think it can happen, though at least Irvin had a nice game against UCLA.
For our offense to work - and really this applies to any team - you need players capable of beating their man and drawing additional defensive help, which frees up other guys for open looks. We had that with Trey, Nik, and Caris. We donāt really have that now, and itās a problem against good defenses.
With that said, other than UCLA (and really, no one has defended them all year), our defense has been good, so that should keep us in most games and prevent the blowout losses we saw last year. But Iām not convinced this is a strong offense against the better Big Ten defenses. Weāll find out. I see 11-7 or 10-8 in conference, with around a 7-9 seed.
Would fully agree with that, but is āreshapingā not just calling for more usage/plays for Mo? If so, I would expect that will tick up little by little through the year. No reason we couldnāt do that (I think we all a want them to) by March (?)
10 wins seems like the low bar for anything that could be considered āsuccessful,ā depending on where the wins come. 11 seems like a reasonable expectation and Iād take 12 wins right now, which would probably get us a 6 seed, maybe even a 5. The offense is inconsistent but is ranked 20 in kenpom. I think we will be in a bunch of tight games. With that in mind, and with the lack of a dominant team at the top, we could be in the race late with a chance at a 13-5 type record and a piece of the title. We could also be clawing for those last couple wins to feel safe on selection sunday.
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Thereās a portion of the fan baseāand it includes some pretty knowledgeable fansāwho are just going to be disgusted when their team loses, convinced their team is awful. . . Beilein has had an interesting challenge this year seeing where the scoring was going to come from, giving much more time to having D taught. Considering they were really IN all three of those games, I think heās arguably doing a pretty darned good job. And while I was pretty down about Michiganās prospects all through the summer, I think theyāre arguably on a pretty nice upswing. Get Bamba in the mix. . . I think weāre playing anyone tough in the near future.
As I put on Twitterā¦
And South Carolina has been without Thornwell. Stillā¦ Michigan should be kicking itself about VT loss.
If Michigan goes 11-2 with losses to UCLA and USC on the roadā¦ thatās a pretty great non-conference. 10-3 with a home loss to VA Tech feels ājust okayā.
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Yup. I really wish we could have played SC and VT after the UCLA game. I think a light went on for this team identity-wise on offense. They proved to a lot of people (and themselves) that they can score shot for shot with the best in the country for an extended stretch. They tempo we have played with and confidence since then is like a whole new team. Iād love to see both those games and the Texas game played now