Big Ten Basketball 2020-21 Discussion (Part 1)

The inevitable conclusion to this is that Hoggard figures it out a few games left in the Big Ten season and solves a large portion of MSU’s troubles (probably coinciding with Bingham figuring it out too) en route to MSU making another F4. Also MSU will bring everyone back for next year and will be preseason top 5…

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That’s the dramatic tension that keeps the plot rolling along

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Really making quite the leap here. Sounds like he’s trying to convince himself
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I know almost nothing about Hoggard other than he’s a freshman “point guard” who has been described around here as more of a combo guard. With that being said, I do think there’s value for MSU in putting everyone in their natural positions: Watts at SG, Henry at SF, Langford as 6th man, Hauser as a 5 with some 4, Hall getting more minutes at the 4. It forces you to live with a flawed PG position, but everyone else can do what they’re best at.

The analogy to Michigan was all of the off-season chatter about how Mike Smith will be a 15mpg role player so that we can get our best-five guys out there all the time with Brooks, Brown, Wagner, Livers, and Johns/Dickinson. What Dylan and some of us saw coming was that such a lineup put too many guys in unnatural roles - Eli @ PG, Franz/Chaundee @ SG, Johns @ C. So we’re seeing that lineup some out of necessity, but everything fits better when Brown comes off the bench and Smith settles things down as the primary PG.

Good thing Rocket grew up shooting then, because you definitely don’t want to be starting someone at shooting guard who takes more than 4 3s and game and hits 27.8% of them, down 0.3% from last year.

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If MSU’s answer is playing Hoggard and Loyer at the 1 for 40 mins then I’m not particularly scared of them figuring things out.

As for Watts nba chances: he doesn’t need to be a PG. There are lots of bigger players in the NBA that initiate offense so if he were a good scorer he could make it ala a Carden Edwards type. But he’s not scoring well so that’s moot

This is also coming from the guy who has said Josh Langford has been their best player the past 3 years.

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One of our assistants said Austin Davis beat out Hunter Dickinson so :rofl:

Am I the only one who fears that starting Hoggard will in fact turn their whole season around?

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I think that thought is lurking in the back of a lot of our minds. Somehow they always find that missing link that saves the day.

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It makes me feel like they’d at least have a chance. I also think Watts would be better in a role where he strictly focuses on putting the ball in the basket, instead of worrying about any of that facilitator nonsense. Just score more than the guy you’re guarding. Let some other sucker get tricked into passing the ball.

Starting Hoggard means at minimum one of Watts/Langford/Henry/Brown is off the floor, and I think any version of MSU that turns things around requires that group of 4 to be heavily involved and just playing better. Also Hoggard does nothing to fix their issues at C, and I’m looking forward to next week’s Tom Izzo Press Conference Revelation where he realizes he didn’t recruit any Big Ten caliber bigs for 2+ seasons, bonus points if he blames Xavier Tillman for not returning to school to work on his jumper.

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Couldn’t it take Loyer off?

I have been fearful of a scenario where MSU somewhat turns it around and are on the bubble and Michigan rolls in on March 7 to clinch a B1G title. That is not the most comforting scenario to me.

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Hey if we are in a position to win the B1G they can have their bubble seed. I like that scenario just fine

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Aaron Henry is extremely turnover prone right now highest on the team 3.1 TO per game.

He’ll do nothing to address their defensive issues.

It’s gotta be that Hoggard played really hard in the last game. So he wants more of that spark.

Yes. Seems like the best decision for them to shake things up. It could absolutely work. Even though PG is tough for freshmen

Hoggard isn’t going to do anything for their interior defense, but they’ll definitely be better in two months than they are now.