Who’s currently the best coach in the Big Ten?
- Greg Gard
- Matt Painter
- Brad Underwood
- Chris Holtmann
- Fran McCaffery
- Tom Izzo
- Steve Pikiell
- Juwan Howard
- Mike Woodson
- Micah Shrewsberry
- Chris Collins
- Danny Manning
- Ben Johnson
- Fred Hoiberg
0 voters
As annoying as it is, I don’t think there is much of an argument for anyone but Izzo.
I understand the affection that people here have for Painter. He’s far more likable than Izzo obviously. But you have to separate likability as a coach and actual results.
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I voted for painter because I think he does more with less, but yours is a very strong argument. And as much as I hate to say it, you have to factor Gard in there. Another guy very clearly doing more with less. There are clear instances in which Izzo beats himself so the opponent doesn’t have to do it on their own.
That said, this informal title is there for the taking by our guy if he calms himself down and gets his talent pipeline fully stocked.
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Offenses really good this year or defenses really bad?
According to EM, we are 4th best offense in the conference, but 4th worst defense. So we are about where we deserve to be in the standings.
Are those actions the same though? 
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Izzo planting the seed
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Traumatic 2 years?? Little bit of overreaction?? Nevermind the media will eat it up saying Izzo is keeping it real. There has been nothing “traumatic” about the last 2 years in the sense of basketball.
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Do you think he would hit the portal, or just play in any pro league that would have him?
I know it’s way too early and the seedings will change a lot before next week, but inject this bracket into my veins.
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FWIW… If Michigan goes 2-1 to close out then it will most likely be out of the 8-9 game. If U-M finishes .500 I think it is almost a guarantee to be in the 8/9 game.
Wisconsin should be the 1 if it wins the Big Ten outright (basically if it beats Purdue on Tuesday) but otherwise, I think Purdue is more likely to be the 1 seed.
Basically means that there’s a pretty significant chance of a “win and in” game against Wisconsin in the Big Ten Tournament if UM slips up this week.
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Play in a pro league or go pro in something other than sports. I personally don’t get the sense he’s super into college basketball. MSU fans don’t like when I say that but there’s a lot of reports that he’s never taken strength and conditioning seriously.
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You think 1-2 this week, followed by 2-1 in the BTT with a win over Wisconsin would be enough? Would be 18-15 at that point, that feels like best case scenario of being last four in play-in game with a 50/50 chance of being out IMO. Critical to go 2-1 this week.
Yeah, I would think so. That would be something like 6 Q1 wins, right? I don’t completely trust the Torvik sim stuff but it puts U-M as a 9 seed in that 1-2, 2-1 scenario.
I’m more curious what that looks like with a win over Indiana and a loss to Wisconsin or Purdue or whoever.
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Under that scenario, I believe theyd be 17-15 overall with 5 Q1s. If they get in at 17-15 that feels crazy. Is there precedent for that? I know record isn’t everything but it really feels to me like they have to play their way in, not just hold serve at this point. I know a handful of 19-15 teams have made it since they prioritized NET but being a game above .500 with 15 losses seems very NIT-y to me.
Torvik is about 2 seeds higher on Michigan than BracketMatrix (and has been for a while), so I’ve been adjusting any projections with that in mind
I mean MSU made it at 15-12 right?
I think they probably need two wins this week or two wins in Indy to get in but if they go 1-2 this week and then beat IU and lose to the 1 seed… at the very least they’d knock Indiana out I would think.
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15-12 just feels optically different than 17-15 would but it’s probably just me feeling that way. That MSU team also finished the season really strong though, won 5 of their last 7 with three wins against top 5 teams in the country. Playing 32 games and losing 15, while basically playing .500 ball down the stretch is a dicey proposition
MSU lost in the 8/9 game of the Big Ten tourney, right? And went .500 in its last four regular-season games?
The whole record thing is interesting because the biggest factor in that is that U-M lost a buy game to COVID. Not sure how the committee handles that.
U-M is going to have way better computer metrics than the other Big Ten bubble teams though and end up with one of the toughest schedules in the country and a lot of Q1 wins, so they have the other parts of a resume that would match up with getting in with a bad record.
Winning two games this week would obviously make things a lot more straightforward though.