early worry for me about Iowa is Garza and him sending our bigs to the bench in foul trouble. Last season in our win in Ann Arbor, Garza had 44 points including 13 FTAs and our centers got whistled for 9 fouls. In our loss in Iowa City, Garza had 33 points with 13 FTAs and our centers got another 9 fouls (plus Brandon Johns fouled out in 28 minutes from the 4 spot). The previous season in our loss at Iowa City, Jon Teske fouled out in only 13 minutes of play.
It would be nice for Dickinson to not be stuck to the bench in foul trouble the entire game. Would also be nice to not see Garza shooting double digit FTs.
Thatās indeed the worry with Iowa. Scares me to think about HD getting two early whistles from Garza elbows being a foul. It is further magnified by the fact that Garza sucks defensively so Hunter should go to town if he isnāt glued to the bench.
I do think itās worth noting that Burke likely wouldāve gotten a lot more than 7 FOTWs in any year where he wasnt competing with Cody Zeller. Dickinson has been dominant (top 10 kenpom NPOTY) but he has also capitalized on the weak B1G frosh class
Also I donāt feel like going through and doing this, but itād be interesting to see how these awards compare by percentage of awards won, rather than raw totals. Meaning Hunter has won 7 of these, but how many weeks has he been eligible vs how many weeks did Jared win of the weeks he was eligible? Obviously this season is shorter by a few weeks reducing the amount of weeks Hunter can win, but also Michigan was off for over a week during December and another 3 weeks due to COVID, so that was 3 or 4 weeks Hunter didnāt play a game and couldnāt win. So accounting for those Iād like to see the percentage of times Hunter won vs Jared.
This would be completely pointless because it doesnāt matter, but anytime we can potentially beat OSU in something Iād like to.
Taking Shannon Scott over Trey Burke was a bad move for Thad Matta. Never saw either play in HS, when evaluations must occur, but it was a head scratcher for anybody who saw the two play college ball
It kind of is! Both teams give up a truck load of threes! Iām surprised more people arenāt talking about how bad OSUās defense is after watching that game to be honest.
During their 7-game win streak that took them from 5-4 to 12-4 in the B1G and from 22nd to 7th on Torvik, these were their in-game DEff scores:
PPP was a wider range:
But there are still enough lockdown performances in there that I could understand forgetting about or overlooking their defensive metrics, particularly since their offense was on fire:
Not that there was a mirage of exceptional defense, just good enough to forget about.
To wit, I think every national reaction to the game has had some version of this comment. āThere was a lot of scoring, and it wasnāt because the defense was bad.ā That just seems pretty inaccurate in this case.
Iāll be interested to see if thereās a similar game against Iowa if the takes are any different. Iām wondering if it has something to do with Holtmanās reputation as a good defensive coach. Since Fran obviously has a different reputation in that way, I bet we donāt hear the same sort of narrative, regardless of the fact the two defenses seem to be on a similar level.
It seemed like OSU overhelped on everything, from Dickinson in the post to even doubling Isaiah on the perimeter late in the game which gave Eli an open cut to the basket.
Whether we were working out of Hunter in the post or a Smith/Brooks/Wagner ball screen, it always generated an open look on the perimeter after a pass or two, which in turn generated more open looks because OSU couldnāt close out and weād easily drive right past them. Following our early shot clock actions, it seemed like we played simple drive and kick basketball most of the game stemming from those bad closeouts.
I think people arenāt pointing it out because it takes a bit away from the accomplishment to say that our opponents were terrible on D. But boy, OSU looked like the worst defense we had faced in a long time. Couldnāt keep up with anything.
IIRC Burke played highschool ball with Sullinger (a year difference in age) so if Matta was recruiting Sullinger, surely he watch Burke play too. Just a big wiff on his part that I am all the happier for
