I’d say both have shown flashes at different points but I’m not sure either is “solid” or consistent.
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That’s a dangerous hire. He connects really well with kids. He’s the reason Seton Hall landed Tray Jackson who was a former Missouri kid from Detroit.
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agree and OSU traditionally recruits the DMV well.
Yeah, I’ll be honest - I had the MSU off season pegged wrong for sure. I thought guys like Loyer and Kithier, who clearly weren’t talented enough to play at MSU’s level but were very much coach favorite type of players, would be the kind that got the “stay in the family” treatment. Meanwhile I thought that guys entering their senior year who have spent most of their career in the doghouse (Brown & Bingham) would leave for an opportunity to be a star elsewhere.
Instead, Izzo actually pulled off the best outcome - remove the temptation of playing Loyer/Kithier and force himself to play the more talented guys and see if they can develop the consistency.
Brown isn’t perfect, but MSU’s biggest issue last year was actually making shots. Brown shot 42% on threes. He only took 81 of them - fewer than Hauser (34%), Langford (34%), Watts (25%) and Henry (30%). Heck, Loyer shot 52 of them in just 19 games at 33%. Shifting some threes from those types of players to Brown should be good for MSU.
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My guess is that coaches who value being the biggest celebrity on campus knock the football schools down a peg.
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Izzo is definitely doing something different this year. They’ll be better, but I’m not too worried. Dylan put it well:
“MSU probably doesn’t have a really proven veteran leader because two of its seniors are guys who have never really had Izzo’s trust”
Historically, that’s not a recipe for success over there. I’m sure they’ll be better. Not a bubble team. But here’s hoping that our carryovers feel like they lost an opportunity to sweep MSU this year, because next year is probably a better shot at doing it than the years following it.
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That’s funny. I’m not on campus and UM is unquestionably more of a football school. But I have a feeling most students would prefer to have a random run in at Pizza Hut with Juwan rather than Harb.
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I think that (Walker + Freshmen + Uncertain B10) is going to result in a pretty big rebound for MSU. I think the fact that there aren’t proven veterans means that Izzo is going to have to roll with the young guys and they are probably his best way to jump start the offense. I think they will struggle on defense for a variety of reasons, but I’m not going to sleep on MSU as a fringe contender in the B10.
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We’ll ask a variation on the same question we did for the ACC – which Big Ten coach would you want your kid to play for?
Borzello: Juwan Howard
Gasaway: Juwan Howard
Medcalf: Juwan Howard
Lunardi: Tom Izzo
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For sure they’ll be better. But I think next year the late-season resurgence will be about seeding rather than about getting off the bubble. Izzo’s best teams usually have excellent senior role players who have earned Izzo’s trust and play the kind of mistake-free basketball he demands of them. Next year’s roster doesn’t have those kinds of players. Izzo’s good enough to make it work, but the team should be a clear step down from the tops of the league.
So which one of us is calling DCF on Lunardi?
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Ahem.
Rutgers shouldn’t be in the bottom tier. The RAC is a dump but it’s an endearing dump and at 8,000 capacity in a state of 9 million it’s not that hard to fill consistently if the team is half-decent. The new practice facility is really nice. The school is not “really struggling financially” and I don’t know where that comes from. We’re just about at a full share of Big Ten money, and on the football side we shelled out for Schiano and just paid $1 mil for his offensive coordinator.
The tier 3 ones listed have decades of big ten history so we’re definitely not up there. But Nebraska above Rutgers is confusing to me. Is it because they got a 5*? I mean even Fred Hill was able to convince Mike Rosario to come to Rutgers so I don’t see how it’s any tougher for us compared to them.
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Skinn got very little from the DC pipeline for Seton Hall, but Ohio State is certainly a different beast.
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Nebraska has great facilities and an inexplicably devoted fan base that consistently pulls more than 15,000 per game. I’d say there’s reason to put them in the same tier as Rutgers. Not sure there’s any argument for putting them above y’all though. Location sucks compared to Rutgers (although Creighton proves it’s possible to get solid classes to the state of Nebraska).
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oof
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You just HATE to see it.
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I’m just loving it!
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Illinois fans are going to be absolutely haunted by the 2021 tournament as time passes. They had to strike when the iron was hot. They will not be in that position again anytime soon.
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Absolutely. Which is why even though the UCLA loss is kind of easy to let go, it’s still kind of not.
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