Big Ten Basketball 2020-21 Discussion (Part 1)

College Basketball
503
  1. Wisconsin
  2. Illinois
  3. MSU
  4. Iowa
  5. Michigan
  6. Rutgers
  7. Purdue
  8. OSU
  9. Indiana
  10. Minny
  11. Maryland
  12. PSU
  13. NW
  14. Nebraska
504

Since your list was the one last on the list when I got to this thread, I’ll use yours for my feedback. I’m still a little skeptical of Illinois over MSU and I have no idea what to do with Purdue-OSU-Indiana…but otherwise your list feels about right.

The battle for last place is going to be interesting.

505

Anybody willing to give me the field vs. Wisconsin in a friendly UMhoops community wager? I’m surprised they seem to be the consensus #1.

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506
  1. Wisconsin
  2. Michigan State
  3. Illinois
  4. Iowa
  5. Michigan
  6. Rutgers
  7. Ohio State
  8. Purdue
  9. Minnesota
  10. Indiana
  11. Maryland
  12. Northwestern
  13. Penn State
  14. Nebraska
507

Yeah I feel like 1-4 is pretty set and 5-9 is pretty set, but the order within them is up to the owner’s choosing.

I went Illinois over MSU mainly because they have the highest upside in the league. They were 30 in KenPom and 29 in Torvik last year, but they bring back Ayo, Kofi and have a very good recruiting class coming in. If Ayo can be closer to 35% point shooter he was as a freshman and the current freshman give Illinois some much needed shooting, they could be really good. I could also see a world where they fall back to #4 in the B1G, or potentially a little lower if they remain stagnant in that #30 range.

With MSU if Henry and Watts are both the players they are hyped up to be, MSU could easily win the B1G. I just really don’t trust that’s going to happen. Henry has been the same player 2 years straight and didn’t make a significant leap from freshman-sophomore year so I don’t see it happening this year with no Cassius. And Watts I could see making a big leap, but a big leap for him takes him from awful to slightly above average. I could honestly also see MSU dropping out of the top 4, but I kept them there due to Izzo mainly.

In a response to Buckets comment, the reason I (and I think a lot of people) are putting Wisconsin #1 is they have the highest floor. Of the top 4 they have the lowest upside too where I can’t really see them being good enough to be a national title contender, but they bring back every starter from a team that won the B1G and play great defense. Every other team has an obvious reasons they could fall out of the top 4, but Wisconsin doesn’t, so they get the #1 spot for me.

As for Purdue/OSU/Indiana I agree the order could go anyway, so I just went in order of quality of the coach.

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508

Well said. Wisconsin feels like they have the highest floor and it feels unlikely that they would experience any weird swings in outcome (Covid excluded).

MSU might have the highest ceiling of anyone. I agree that Henry, Hauser, Watts have received a ton of hype…and all could hit that and raise the ceiling. But is that real? Is that more likely than Illinois or Michigan?

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509
  1. Wisc
  2. Illini
  3. Iowa
  4. U of M
  5. Sparty
  6. Rutgers
  7. OSU
  8. Purdue
  9. IU
  10. Maryland
  11. Gophers
  12. Neb
  13. PSU
  14. NW
510

Don’t understand the faith in MSU. Replacing their two best players, almost 100% of their offense, no key seniors, don’t have a PG, and incorporating a big who is important on offense but who isn’t necessarily a defender. All the necessary preconditions for an MSU team that struggles until March, when it finally looks like what people thought it would pre-season. And, this is a year where there won’t be an easy lift-off through buy-in games in Nov/Dec.

511

We shall see if the B1G gives Izzo the predicted bottom feeders for their first 2 conf games like the past 2 yrs.:thinking:

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512

Feel like we’ve had this argument 10x during this offseason :rofl:

To me MSU is just flat out the top to bottom most talented team so I will pick a couple guys to break out and Izzo to put together a solid defense.

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513

Been a long offseason…

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514
  1. MSU
  2. Wisconsin
  3. Illinois
  4. Iowa
  5. UM
  6. Indiana
  7. OSU
  8. Rutgers
  9. Minnesota
  10. Purdue
  11. Maryland
  12. Penn State
  13. Nebraska
  14. Northwestern
515

When was the last time MSU underachieved in the regular season? 10-11 and 16-17? Twice in the past 15 years?

7 Likes
516

I mean they definitely underachieved last year. Consensus pre-season #1 needed a collapse by Maryland to win part of a B1G title. Still a great team, but definitely underachieved.

517

Underachievement is pretty much the only possibility when you are preseason #1.

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518

Hard to say they underachieved in the Big Ten when they won the Big Ten. :rofl: Especially w/in the conference of discussing who will win the Big Ten.

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519

I mean I don’t think so. They were unranked in the AP poll as late as February 20th. You don’t think that was underachieving? I think saying “MSU won the B1G = no underachievement” is an overly simplistic way of looking at it.

Yes, you can pretty much only underachieve as preseason #1. But when you then underachieve as preseason #1, it’s fair to bring it up as an underachievement. Also there’s a difference between being preseason #1 and being a top 10 team most of the season vs falling out of the top 25 deep into February.

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520

They were a top 11 KenPom team all year, dominated the Big Ten in efficiency margin and were on track to be a 2 or 3 seed.

Sure they underachieved in that they weren’t the No. 1 team all year, but they still had a pretty good year and would have been a very popular Final Four pick.

You want to see a top five team underachieve? Watch Iowa this year :rofl:

As far as the AP/USA Today Top 25, you’ll never hear me reference those in any meaningful way.

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521

I don’t disagree with any of that, like I said they were still a very good team, just underachieved relative to expectations.

And absolutely agree on the Iowa front, if was a betting man depending on the odds I’d put money on Iowa not being top 5 in the B1G, let alone country.

3 Likes
522

Kenpom has absolutely adored OSU the past two years as well, so, well, any big complicated methodology is going to have its flaws. MSU meanwhile was preseason #1 and out of the top 25 for a good bit of January. Precipitous. Stil, it was definitely a good year for MSU. But a predictable one, and in fact predicted here last summer by multiple people that they’d more likely be a 3-seed kinda team than a real contender as they were touted to be. They were gonna miss McQuaid and Goins – Izzo thrives when he has great senior role players.

Anyhow, that’s my two cents on last MSU last year. This year, Wisconsin seems an non-controversial pick and Illinois has two first-round picks on its team and adds an impact freshman at a position of need. Doesn’t seem like we should have expectations for Iowa to do much postseason, but if the question is conference play, well, MSU can easily end up the better team at the end of the year but with a worse record. Garza will rack up a lot of wins on his own while Izzo is figuring out life after Winston on offense and at the same time life after Tillman on defense.