Iâm watching this 1987 Michigan-IU game on BTN and wow is the game different. There is NO contact allowed by the referees. Gary Grant gets grabbed as heâs going up for a layup and the announcers are going crazy about what a hard, intentional foul it is. It would be just another foul today. It hardly even seems like the same sport as the MSU-OSU game yesterday.
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sounds like Pittâs outgoing transfer Xavier Johnson may end up at Indiana. He committed to Kenya Hunter at Nebraska then flipped to Pitt when Hunter left. Now Hunter is an assistant at Indiana.
But I was told that basketball was way more physical back then
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Ha, definitely not that day!
I knew nothing about this game before watching. It was dramatic- we came back from 15 down to take the lead in the last minute, but then Alford hit a runner with 1 second left to win it. Ugh.
Dosunmu, Brooks, Fredrick, Potter, Garza
Backup team:
Brooks, Chaundee, Franz, Livers, Dickinson
OK, Iâm not going to be super creative:
Dickinson-Wagner-Washington-Smith-Other (Chaundee)
Just too hard not to pick our guys.
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How would you compare it with the NBA? The popular narrative is that it was brutal in the Pistons Bad Boys era and that no one fouls today. . .
I mean, thatâs correct.
Did you just take CPA Potter???
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It definitely didnât look anything like the Bad Boy era. Now, I donât know if it was just that particular crew that day calling it tight or what, but almost every foul was a touch foul.
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I dunno, ESPN is almost daily filled with accounts of hard fouls and the responses to them. There may be less fouling, or the game may be less physical in other ways*. . . I was kinda more interested in the apparent contrast between the college and pro game in times past, college and pro now. . .
*I kinda think the issue nowadays it the stars getting away with stuff/protected, in a way that MJ, at least at first, did not.
A reddit comment chain bickering about Dickinson and Cockburn caused me to look into their respective kenpom profiles and theyâre strikingly similar, yet Dickinson is 3rd in kPOY and Cockburn isnât in the top 10.
Everything is virtually identical except for Dickinsonâs assist rate. Below is an excerpt of Kenpomâs description of the kPOY calculation.
To refresh: In order to determine the impact of departing players, a playerâs minutes were weighted by the amount of value they provided to the team. On offense, I used a combination a playerâs offensive rating and his possessions used, which was valued relative to his teamâs offensive rating. On defense, I used the proportion of his teamâs Dean Oliver-formulated stops that he was responsible for.
Are Dickinsonâs âDean Oliver-formulated stopsâ that much better than Cockburnâs? What am I missing?
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Dickinson is also much better on FTs. That matters a lot at the end of the game. Can you play Cockburn in the last minute when he shoots that poorly?
That assist difference is also pretty big.
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Probably. Michigan is a much better defensive team than Illinois and there is a major fall-off on that end with Dickinson is off the floor.
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Smith-Stefanovic-Dickinson-Wagner-Livers
Speaking of fouling, in all honesty Iâve thought that the foul that sent Rumeal to the line in '89 was pretty soft. But watching that '87 IU game today, they were calling fouls like that all game. I guess thatâs just how it went.
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Awful presumptuous, donât you think?
Assuming
- MSU makes the tournament
- If they do make the tournament that they will get a 10 seed rather than a First Four Game
- That they will definitely win their first round game in order to potentially play a 2 seed
Letâs pump the brakes here, Graham. Just one week ago MSU wasnât even in the tournament discussion and now heâs mapping out a deep run in said tournament.
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Despite his name, Graham not doing much couching there 
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