Home court is evening out
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I see what you are saying. From strictly maximizing win total you are definitely right. At a certain point though you probably need to lower the win total required to win the league. In that case I think you want shots at the contenders.
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I think my current read on this is that the difference in quality between Wisconsin, Ohio State, Illinois and Purdue is very minimal and theyāre all a large step behind Michigan (and Iowa, for the time being).
halfway thereā¦
Illinois and OSU are way better by conf efficiency stats.
Purdue is ā¦ bad by efficiency stats. Iām not very convinced they are a good team.
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Of all the Big Ten basketball teams I would rather not see succeed, itās OSU.
I think itās because I can understand why someone might want to live in Ann Arbor or Madison for four (three, two) years. Or Iowa City, or Bloomington IN. Or Champaign/Urbana, or Evanston. Or State College or even E. Lansing. I expect they would all be relatively nice places to live.
I just canāt see myself willingly rooting for (or not against) anyone that would willingly choose to live in Columbus, OH for any length of time.
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OSU is good, though I hate to say it. I watched some of Villanova and most of this game and honestly? OSU is the better team if they played today.
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Iād probably put the league in tiers like this. ā¦
1st: Michigan (close to its own tier), Illinois (needs to beat Iowa to stay up IMO), Iowa
2nd: Ohio State (closer to first group than third), Wisconsin
3rd: Indiana, Purdue, Minnesota (we call this the bubble)
4th: MSU, Maryland, Rutgers, Northwestern, Penn State (good enough to beat anyone, bad enough to lose any game)
5th: Nebraska
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I want the version of OSU that was getting blown out by Northwestern
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Who, if anyone, from that fourth tier would you see qualifying for a 68 NCAA tournament field this season?
if Maryland could put together some home wins theyād have a very nice resume
Maryland is going to have a really interesting resume because it already has 3 really good Q1-A wins. Just need to figure out how to win 5 or 6 more games probably.
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I find this hilarious
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OSU being good just makes no sense to me. Torvik still hasnāt updated, but coming into today they were #18 on Torvik, with the #5 offense and #100 defense. So their offense is why theyāre good.
But you look at that roster and it just doesnāt make sense. They have 2 guys shooting above 28% from 3 (minimum 1 make a game), and before this 4 game stretch that started against Rutgers and ended against Purdue, they were a bad 3 point shooting team. But somehow in those 4 games they shot like 50% from 3. They have pretty bad guard play (Washington is an elite shooter but thatās really all he does), and no true post presence (their tallest player who plays is 6ā8). Their roster consists of guys who are all 3ās/4ās, and pretty much all of them make their living in the mid-range. Yet somehow that works itself into the #5 offense.
Iāve been saying all season that I donāt think theyāre that good, and the last 5 games are really proving me wrong. But I still donāt buy them actually being good. I think theyāre going to hit a 4ish game stretch soon where the go just as cold shooting wise as they have been hot recently, and they drop 2/3 games to fall back closer to a .500 team in conference. Which is where I think their true talent lies. But Iām also the guy who said Rutgers was better than them all offseason.
Ohio State is getting a bit lucky with 3-point defense in Big Ten games: 10th in 3PA/FGA allowed and 1st in 3P%
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It doesnāt add up visually but they crash the offensive glass, draw fouls, and never commit turnovers. So theyāre always winning the shot volume battle.
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My take on Purdue is they are not very talented but Painter is a good coach and his system and the way they ugly a game up makes them a lot tougher of an out than their talent says they should be.
But losing their only reliable perimeter shot maker is going to be a huge blow for them.
I am pleased to report that Ohio stateās uniforms have been formally judged the ugliest seen in a long time.
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I saw a lot of above average talent, I gotta tell you. Itās not that I donāt appreciate stats, Iām actually a former trader and a numbers guy. So Iām interested in what Dylan and his acolytes put out, but I figure you guys have it covered. So I often focus on eye test. And watching OSU, Iām afraid I see a number of acceptable pieces for a top 15 team. And theyāre starting to be a really good fit ability wise for what Holtmann tries to do. There were like 7 guys out there who would belong in an NCAA tourney game, and thatās pretty good. Wisconsin couldnāt throw it in the ocean from 3 today, but I think OSU got better 3 point looks throughout that game than Wisconsin.
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Purdue basically tries to murder the lane and then have at least one or two reliable shooters from deep when they pass the ball out of the carnage in the lane. Dropping down to zero of those guys will be a big problem for them for the next two and a half weeks. Theyāre in big trouble without that guy.