I liked Hummel’s point that Maryland really started to overplay Ayo’s right hand in the second half. He pretty clearly is right hand dominant, and they dont set up a ton of sideline ballscreens to get him leverage. I remember thinking everyone should play CM like he didnt even have a left arm, because it was so predictable that he’d drive right.
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Interesting. My perception was always different, that he was an an average/above average creator in the half court. Possibly rooted in comparisons to guys who’ve done that at a near-elite/elite level–Simpson, Winston, Cowan, Carr(?), etc. Not asking for this, but would be interesting to see Ayo’s ball screen volume and efficiency plots the last few years, in the context of some of the other Big Ten guards/playmakers. (Are those Spectrum numbers?)
And to be clear, I was never calling for the ball to be taken out of his hands in some significant way–he’s the best guard in the conference. Just thinking about why Curbelo is being used as discussed above (other than he’s a super talented freshman guard Illinois wants to get on the court).
IIRC, he was below average in the halfcourt as a freshman and was similarly mediocre early last year and then he improved in the second half of the season.
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Yeah, I guess I wrote something about it.
That was like halfway into last year though so we are closing in on half of his career that he’s been elite. I also think it helps that Underwood runs less spread now. They figured out how to actually use Dosunmu.
The comments on their roster construction being odd do resonate - 4 guards and 2 centers is a weird top-6. But I’m not sure that’s the reason either…at least on offense. They have a natural point guard, they have a natural scoring 2, they have a classic 5, they have realized that Georgi should be relegated to a back-up 5 most of the time…so the fact that their two forwards are closer to guards than wings doesn’t seem like a real problem on offense because their job is mostly to spread the floor and hit jump shots anyway. If you want to sell me on defense in that they have too many short-guys to defend bigger wings I’m buying.
I also wonder if part of the issue is just that they were never quite as talented as they seemed last year given all of their close wins and a radical change in their system to fix defensive problems from Underwood’s past. In some ways you could say that Ayo & Kofi are both NBA prospects in the way that Livers is - good college player who put his name in but didn’t have enough interest to justify leaving. I think they’re a good team with a couple of great players…this league is still going to end asking you to win a bunch of tough close games and maybe their luck is on the wrong side of those this season.
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Whoa…I knew MSU had some good recruiting pedigree…but 9 of their players are top-100 guys? Wow. Hard to argue they shouldn’t be doing better. Sort of similar to Michigan football where the recruiting rankings have been fine but a couple of roster construction issues can undermine it all.
I presume that Loyer, Kithier, and one of their wings (Hall? Brown?) were outside the top-100?
Loyer was top 100. Henry, Brown, Kithier, Marble were not
Although most everyone thought of Henry and Brown as Better prospects than Loyer
Using RSCI as a composite score:
Josh Langford #20
Mady Sissoko #34
Rocket Watts #35
Malik Hall #55
Joey Hauser #57
Marcus Bingham #62
AJ Hoggard #70
Foster Loyer #77
Gabe Brown #100
So of the guys who play 10 minutes a game, Henry and Kithier are the 2 guys who were not top-100 recruits.
BTW a lot of gripes about the rankings services undervaluing Michigan prep players but the state has sort of been a bust lately
Hey Jamal Cain in his 4th year is scoring 10 PPG for a mediocre Marquette team. He was clearly criminally underrated
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Loyer was a great HS player but he was vastly overrated as a recruit. He’s a small PG with below average athleticism. Not sure why MSU recruited him.
The Fife/Clarkston connection. I think that’s about it…
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Weren’t they really stoked to have him? I thought he was perceived as a major piece.
So all of the cold water I was throwing in the off season to temper expectations for freshmen centers playing lots of minutes and playing well should have been directed at Sissoko instead of Dickerson?
I didn’t realize Watts final rating made it up that high…wow.
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Interesting. Nebraska is a classic slump breaker. There goes any free games in conference play until they get better.
Hopefully Indiana isn’t affected by this.
Is this a conspiracy that the two winless teams can’t even beat COVID. 
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Some people had theories that teams with not much to play for would struggle with covid most. Not that players wouldn’t take it seriously or get it on purpose, just that it’s hard to stay disciplined when some motivating factors start falling aside.
But I think every team will have to deal with it at some point. Sucks.
Wonder if the college contact sports players should get the vaccines sooner than the general public. Not that vaccines are 100% effective but at least reduces the risk. New York starts to roll out vaccines to all staff in K-12 school today.