The Spike/Loyer comparison is so stereotypical that it is painful, and I agree they are different players, but Spike was definitely a good shooter. He was 79-of-195 – 41% in his career at Michigan.
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Better than I remembered, likely cause I also view his Purdue numbers
Let the record show that I was not trying to make the horrible comparison of Loyer to Albrecht. I was trying to say something about Loyer’s overall ability as a basketball player in reference to the Dakich comp.
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Personally I think Loyer is along the lines of Peyton Pritchard… 
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I see a lot of DeAaron Fox
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Just gonna drop this here 
I’m very aware that Freshman Spike was a much different player than Sophomore and Junior Spike. I just thought this was funny.
Don’t the sub-900 numbers across the board indicate difficulty for KP’s algorithm to come up with a truly accurate comparison? I feel like I’ve read about that before, the “sub-900 club” or something.
Not sure. Like I said, I just thought it was funny that out of the thousands of D1 players in the Kenpom era his name popped up there. Not trying to make any point on the accuracy of it.
This is his description: https://kenpom.com/blog/comps-are-back/
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I’ll own up to making the Spike/Loyer comparison. It wasn’t because they’re both short, white guys. It was because of the following similarities:
- Point guards
- Undersized
- Lacking the overall athleticism you see with most P5 lead guards
- Good shooters
- Poor defenders
- Ideal in a supporting role (15-18mpg) more than a starter role
- Not likely to get their own shot
- Need to be surrounded by better athletes to cover up for their limitations
That’s why I was shocked when Loyer started the first game because Watts has so much more potential and is the key to unlocking MSU’s ceiling. Loyer is going to be a fine rotation piece, but in the right scenarios. If he’s not hitting threes, you’re going to have to cover for him.
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On the MSU/Duke game, but away from Foster Lower, was anyone else puzzled by Brendan Quinn’s article on Aaron Henry this morning? Full disclosure–I love Brendan’s stuff, I think Henry is a very good basketball player with excellent defensive, rebounding and passing skills, and I get the whole we need to make Aaron Henry become more of a shot hunter on the offensive end–but all that said, it seemed really odd to me to trumpet Henry’s increased usage on a night where he (a) had only 14 points on 21 shots, (b) only got to the free throw line twice, and missed both, © missed all three 3 point attempts, (d) offset his 5 assists with 4 turnovers, and (e) had an efficiency rating, per Barttorvik, of 69.1 (100 is average). Being a bigger shot taker is great, provided that you also are a shot maker when you take them (see, eg., Jordan Poole). While Brendan may assume that this uptick in usage will be accompanied by an uptick in production, shouldn’t we actually see that production first before the laudatory article comes out?
Full disclosure… I haven’t read what Brendan wrote, but from your post I assume it was positive.
The game was a disaster offensively for both teams so if you hone in on anyone’s individual numbers they are going to be ugly. I came away from that game viewing it as a breakout game for Aaron Henry. He looks like a transformed player to me. He’s even better defensively – especially as far as making an impact from the help side – and I didn’t know he had that level of playmaker in him.
So maybe he wasn’t efficient, but he looks like he’ll be what a lot of people consider as a “point guard” for that team in a way that wasn’t certain. To be the guy who steps up and makes plays at Cameron is important in my opinion.
But yes the shot is a concern.
That wasn’t Cameron. That was just a court.
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Sure, and watching it certainly reinforced how minimalized HCA will be this year. It’s one thing to have no fans in an MTE but this was an atmosphere where not having fans was jarring. But Henry really showed me something.
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Just few of Spike’s highlights on that great tournament run…these guys could play. What great PG’s this team had.
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It’ll be interesting to look at how fouls on home teams vs away teams changes, if at all, this year.
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I had to watch with the sound off, but those refs seemed a little charge happy to me.
And I did not think we got a favorable whistle against Oakland for whatever that is worth.
Yes. “HCA” by itself is kind of a catch-all. Does it mean that refs somehow call more fouls on the away team? That theyhome team gets more juiced by its fans? That the visiting team gets intimidated? Maybe some of this year’s stats help better isolate one of two of those kinda nebulous factors.
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So, how we feeling about Illinois/Baylor tonight? Vegas (4.5) and Torvik (3.6) like Baylor. I haven’t re-upped my KenPom sub yet but imagine it’s probably Baylor by 5 considering their respective AdjEM marks (Baylor +28.08, Illinois +19.91).
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Kenpom has it at -6
Full disclosure, if anyone listens to your guys podcast religiously like myself, nothing negative will be said about Henry all year.*
*slight exaggeration
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