I think this would be fair, but Michigan has been screwed so many times when it comes to the Big Ten so I’ll just take this outright championship.
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I want Alabama to win out and join us on the 1 seed line while having Iowa, OSU and Illinois cannibalize themselves. If they’re all on the 2 line as 5, 6, and 7, doesn’t that pretty much guarantee us the 8th as our 2?
That would likely result in us getting West Virginia who is terrifying. Would much rather Bama get the 2 in our region or somehow Villanova post-Gillespie
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WVU has an offense to give us fits, but their defense is more OSU than it is Illinois. So I wouldn’t hate that matchup but I’d love to get Villanova, even before Gillespie but especially so now
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Cheers friends
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That stat from a Big Ten perspective is always going to be a little flawed because Iowa cannot play themselves. Every other team has to play the #1 offense either one or two times, which is naturally going to affect the numbers.
I cringe to imagine Iowa defending Iowa. Garza would not be able to stop Garza - he’d have at least 40. And with the amount of 3 point looks that Iowa’s defense gives up, Iowa’s 3 point shooting ability would really make Iowa pay.
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Feel like that’s just evidence towards selling OSU stock rather than buying Iowa.
I don’t think either team has a particularly great chance to make the final 4. I really only think us and Illinois have any legitimate championship hopes in the conference.
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How many points do the two Garza’s combine for when they play against each other?
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The Garzas would actually foul out pretty quickly and so they’d only score 16 a piece.
Not sure on this. I think we are a nightmare matchup for WVU. Their guards/wings (Sherman & Mcneil) aren’t quick they are just tall(ish). Their center is 6’8 and his backup is 6’7. McBride is a great player, but he’s not big. WVU would be an ideal opponent for us IMHO.
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Is there an effective way to compare efficiency numbers across conferences this year with so few non-conference games played. I’m curious how Iowa and OSU stack up against some other teams in terms of “great offense, bad defense.”
I might be in the minority here but Bama doesn’t actually scare me too much as 2 seed in our region. The obvious caveat here is any 2/3 seed is a really good team that we could lose to.
But Bama is 5-4 in non conference games (15-2 in conference) with losses to Stanford, Clemson, a shorthanded Oklahoma and WKU. People always talk about their offense but it’s their defense that’s carries them. They’re 40th in offense on KenPom, 3rd in defense.
When they were off to their torrid start in SEC play their offense was playing at a top 10 or better level, but that was really only an 8 game stretch. In that stretch they broke 1 PPP every game and were above 1.1 PPP in 5 of them. In the 10 games since (9 conference games and the OU game), they’ve been held under 1 PPP 7 times and broken 1.11 PPP once.
From a matchup perspective, they shoot a ton of 3’s (16th in 3P rate) and play at a super fast rate (8th nationally). But transition offense and 3 point shots are 2 things we take away incredibly well. They’re 94th in 3 point shooting percentage, but if my math is right they’re shooting under 30% since that 8 game SEC game stretch I mentioned. They’re only 171st in 2 point shooting though, and they don’t have much size so shutting down Hunter would be a problem for them.
Their offensive game plan is super interesting and analytical admirable. I think Nate Oats has done a lot with not that much. But the book is also kind of out on how to stop this version of Bama. They’re going to run as much as they can, jack up 3’s, and get shots at the rim. The problem for them is when you cut off their transition, the offense heavily bogs down. And if you don’t help off the shooters and force them to beat you one on one, they don’t really have a ton of guys who can do that. Hence the recent offensive struggles.
Bama is definitely a good team, and they have the interesting mix of a high floor (really good defense) while being high variance (a lot of 3’s and fast tempo). That could definitely lead to an upset, so I get the trepidation. But I also think the book has been out on Bama for a bit now, and we matchup very well to beat them, so I’d be okay with that matchup.
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Culver is a large dude. I’m not sure Dickinson would be able to push him around, could be wrong though. McBride and McNeil are just pure shot makers. And they’re actually really good mid range jump shooters, so they will be comfortable being forced into those shots. That’s what I’m thinking when I say that. But they’re not good on D, we could score on them.
If we’re scared of small but tough defensive teams that could murder us on the offensive boards, we should probably be scared of Houston.
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I yelled about OSU’s defense!
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So saying Iowa’s defense is awful is now an “aging cliche”???
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WVU offense is entirely reliant on offensive rebounding and getting to the free throw line. They are 302nd in the country at 2P%. Unless they kill us in the boards we’d shut their offense down.
Brilliant, my dear Adam Smith!
Saying Iowa’s defense is once a week but never mentioning any of the other big ten teams that are as bad or worse defensively is 
I would take this draw for Michigan anytime.
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