Big Ten Basketball 2021-22 Discussion

College Basketball
6050

Hoggard’s season last year surprised me as I had really low expectations for him. He does two things well that fit right into what Izzo wants - fast break and defense. Those two skills are going to get him a big role for them. However, he can’t shoot or run a half-court offense so when you look at why MSU struggled this past year it isn’t going to get better swapping out Christie/Brown/Marble for Akins/Brooks/Kohler necessarily. Hoggard isn’t going to start running ball screens effectively or being an offensive threat.

Additionally, I don’t think Hoggard and Walker played much at the same time, which feels like something they’re going to have to do a lot next year - also with Akins on the floor. On the one hand, I sort of like the idea of a small ball lineup where you get 20 minutes per game with three ball handlers on the floor all trying to run fast break offense. On the other hand, Izzo typically hasn’t done that so it will be a change.

I think MSU will be “okay” and their experience, Izzo’s coaching ability, and the down year in the conference should get them above the bubble. But their margin for error will be slim again.

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6051

Yeah, I dk. I don’t think it’s too hard to make a pessimistic case for them. If you just had to guess if each of the guys in the rotation next year was going to have the production of a star, a starter, or a backup in a typical B1G year, what’s a reasonable guess?

Hoggard - starter
Walker - starter
Hall - starter
Akins - backup
Brooks - backup
Hauser - starter
Kohler - backup

Kind of intentionally made Akins a backup there but also think it’s totally plausible he’s pretty meh. Was Jaden way better than Rocket Watts as a freshman? Based on what we knew then? Meanwhile Izzo’s least favorite thing is playing his best players a ton of minutes, but let’s give him some benefit of the doubt here:

Hoggard: +4 pts per 100 * 70% of minutes
Walker: +4 * 0.7
Hall: +4 * 0.7
Hauser: +4 * 0.7
Akins: +2 * 0.7
Brooks: +2 * 0.5
Kohler: +2 * 0.5
Weird Guys: +0 * 0.5

~14-15 AdjEM. So, bubble in with his experienced guys all getting 70% of minutes, a pretty strong assumption tbh.

Even if you want to upgrade Akins, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to downgrade a few of their starters considering what they’ve shown in the past. So the pessimistic case is their experienced guys are a bit underwhelming when asked to carry the load and Akins doesn’t prove to be that great. Or, Izzo still plays 10 dudes and kills his team with his own lack of depth.

The most reasonable optimistic case is Akins is a star and, say, somebody else overperforms:

Akins: +6 * 0.7
Hoggard: +5 * 0.7
Walker: +4 * 0.7
Hall: +4 * 0.7
Hauser: +4 * 0.7
Brooks: +2 * 0.5
Kohler: +2 * 0.5
Weird Guys: +0 * 0.5

~18 AdjEM, solid top 20-25 type team. I think a more Izzo-y outcome will be the experienced guys are mostly kind of underwhelming, but somebody surprises and Akins really does break out big and, ofc, Izzo plays too many weird guys. So come tourney time they’re a 5 or 6 seed but they end up a 10 seed because he spent November thru January tinkering.

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6052

Really? Are you expecting Hall “starts” or plays 25 minutes at the 3? Because unless Hall “starts”, Hauser is playing 25 minutes instead of Akins or Walker or Hoggard. I’m much more optimistic about each of the guards being a league average starter (or even better) than I am at this point about Hauser. Maybe I don’t give Hauser enough credit, but he seems out of his league.

Also, and this is somewhat amusing to me, would this have been Foster Loyer’s senior year? He wouldn’t be awful on this roster as a bench combo guard.

6053

Would have been Loyers Covid year (which he’s using at Davidson)

6054

I agree with this range in general. I don’t think MSU has a bad team. I’m just not sure what the upside is. I’d project them as a tournament team but basically similar to what they were last year except without ever becoming top 10 in the country at some point

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6055

MSU fans are already pivoting to say that Akins is better than Christie anyways. I like Akins, but that is quite a spin zone. If Akins was better than Christie, why did he play 15 mpg and Christie play 31 mpg? Is Izzo an idiot? Or was Christie a better player?

And that’s not even accounting for the loss of sophomore Christie, which would have been a significantly better player than the freshman version.

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6056

Nobody should. It is lunacy.

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6057

please delete this before i enter my “kobe bufkin is actually better than caleb houstan” era at some point in the next two weeks

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6058

I really like Akins, and think it is fine to pencil him into a breakout year. That being said, missing Gabe/Christie on the wing is a huge loss and there isn’t really an obvious replacement.

Akins is a lot of things but he isn’t really a true wing. I like Hall as a wing, but he’s not a volume shooter in the way that Christie/Brown were.

I actually like a 3 guards, Hall + Hauser at the five lineup but it isn’t very Izzo.

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6059

Wisconsin just got a commitment from 4 star big man Gus Yalden. You couldn’t make up a more Wisconsin-y looking basketball player.

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6060

Yeah, Izzo prefers to have size for rebounding. The best lineup would be 3 G with Hall and Hauser but there would not be a good rebounding and interior lineup. Izzo would be dead on the inside if he sees his team getting outrebounded night after night. :joy:

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6061

That’s like saying man-to-man isn’t very Boeheim. :joy:

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6062

I can sorta see that small lineup being good at least offensively. But do you truly believe a Big Ten team could have Joey Hauser as their center and be successful??

6063

The other options are a true freshman or Mady Sissoko?

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6064

Not only the look but “Gus Yalden” just screams Wisconsin LOL

6065

I mean the other option is Sissoko who isn’t good and you have an undersized true freshman. It’s slim pickings and Hauser provides shooting and spacing at the 5.

6066

and apparently the freshman isn’t even bigger than Hauser. he is more of a pure 5 in his play style but I’ve read people who watched him in person say he’s about 6’7".

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6067

3 guards + Hall + Hauser isn’t classic Izzo but his roster is so small that I fear he’ll just be forced into his best rotation.

If he had 13 scholarship players but 4 of them were Thomas Kithier clones I would actually feel a lot better than if he has 9 and 8 of them are good.

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6068

this is a really prominent type of Big Ten Guy though. seems like every year there’s a center in the league who insiders whisper is positively lilliputian, no taller than 6’4, who averages 12 rebounds a game somehow. usually they play for indiana. it’s possible i’m remembering one indiana guy and extrapolating, but i will not be doing any further research to confirm or deny

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6069

interesting archetype, I think you’re right. you may be thinking of Juwan Morgan.

Jordan Murphy, Dererk Pardon, Branden Dawson, Troy Williams, Trevor Mbakwe…I think you’re onto something my dogg

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