By now I imagine the bars have all renamed them Chris Collins’ yeah?
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I’m sure Sparty will be fine, but just hear me out folks… maybe Duke kinda sucks this year. The Sparty love in this forum made me nauseous.
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I’ve never gotten it. People expecting Henry to step up and be a 1st All B1G, alpha dog, didn’t make sense nor did the rocket watts hype. Both good, solid players just not what they’re being hyped as.
And agreed, they’ll be fine, but…
They have a lot of playable players, I’ll give them that. I like what I see from Watts, Hauser could be effective, but I just don’t see them as world beaters. I think there’s a lot of drop off from last year’s top end.
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Watts should have a shock collar on every time he drives to the left shooting a floater with his right hand moving to the left. Does he not know that shot is extremely difficult to make? Watts is very talented but I am not sure if he will be comfortable being a PG and facilitator for his teammates.
Well the loss of Tillman is huge, terrific defensive player, alter shots inside, rebounder etc… Bingham/Kithier don’t scare anyone and if their guards allow dribble penetration nobody is going to hesitate going to the hoop.
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My jury vote is still out, I just think they have a lot to replace. Winston may be their best player in the last decade. I was really hoping Tillman would go pro. Like I said, they’re pretty deep, but CBB talent would have to really be at a low ebb for this to be one of the more talented teams in the country.
MSU has some issues figuring out how their parts for together…but I am not ready to write them out of the conversation for winning the conference yet. It is early.
Their defense and rebounding will be fine. They won’t shoot that badly from deep very often. They just have to get Watts to settle down and hope their centers settle into a rotation that is adequate.
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Are we sure their defense will be fine though? I feel like the effort last night was more telling than the fact they shut down a Duke team that basically can’t run offense. I know Northwestern hit lots of otherwise bad shots, but there were some rough stretches there for that defense regardless. I can see where they have a high ceiling defensively and Izzo has a good track record of getting his teams to improve defensively, but I’m not sure we can just say they’ll be ok until we see some more this year.
Just to clarify I definitely wouldn’t write them off either. I’ve seen them figure things out after inexplicable losses enough times to know they could still be really good come year’s end.
Izzo hasn’t really had a “bad” year in forever - losing double digit games only 3 of the last 13 years and making the tournament 23 straight years. The guy drives me absolutely nuts and I don’t think I’d send my kid to play for him…but I’m going to give him credit that he’s going to get defense and rebounding under control. I’m less convinced he can figure out a plan on offense.
Izzo likes having centers as part of his offense and this year they are a mess. Izzo adapted to a ball-screen focus the last few years with Winston but that isn’t a strength of Watts. His best offensive player is Hauser, but as a power forward there’s a limit to how many shots he can create for himself. I think they’ll be fine, but they have a lot of work to do in this conference to remain contenders.
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The segment talking about MSU on the next podcast is gonna be a bloodbath.
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Love a ton of these points in here. Both them (and Illinois to some extent) are getting a ton of milage of the Duke win that I’m not sure is that impressive. Also have never really understood the Henry alpha-dog hype either. I think he and Watts will have some stinkers like last night and some games where they blow up.
I know it was brought up in the last pod, but what is Langford at this point? If they are expecting starter-level 25 minutes/game I’m not sure thats the right idea. I know he is their “best player” and all but he just does not look healthy. I’d rather see more minutes for Gabe Brown. Loyer has been better than I would have thought but still is going to be a liability and the fact that he has to play significant minutes is an issue.
Team has issues but Izzo has a track record of figuring them out. I just don’t know if this years issues are solvable. I do expect they will give Wisconsin their best shot on Christmas though as they can’t be as bad as they were last night. But I do wonder, especially with Rutgers looking legit, if they are more of a mid-tier B1G team than a true contender.
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Agreed with the Brown/Langford point, was saying the same thing last night. Brown has 61/52/100% shooting splits and is playing 21 minutes a game. Not to mention more explosive play potential. He should be playing more and getting more shots.
Yeah, Gabe makes a ton of awful mistakes though, especially on defense.
To be fair who hasn’t been doing that on MSU right now? Henry is probably the only guy who has been a consistent defender this season, and even he’s been bad at points.
You expect Henry/Watts to figure it out so you may not be worried about them long term. So if the thought process is play those two until they work through their problems on both ends I get that. But that being said Brown is one of their best offensive options right now, so at a certain point I feel like you have to give him more run until someone else proves they deserve it over him.
MSU’s defense isn’t far off from where it needs to be imo. People can rag on Henry not making the jump and all but this was supposed to be a defensive team. And the defense has just shocked me. I thought they were a shoe-in top 10 defense. I have to imagine Izzo can figure that out. If not, we should retroactively give Tillman every possible award last year
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States bigs are underwhelming and can’t make up for defensive blow by’s. Also they do not have a dominate point guard to control tempo or can just make plays (Winston). If they have to constantly just play half court they will be in trouble. I just don’t see Watts as being an effective point guard period against consistent tough competition that will make plays for others.
it is difficult to have a great defense when you give consistent minutes to guys like Foster Loyer and Joey Hauser.