Young and Stefanovic are both reasonable options for a late spot on the list, I’m not really crazy about either one though.
Stefanovic’s argument would be as a shooter but I think we probably leaned more toward Frazier/Eli as better defenders as low usage guards.
Yeah I’d probably have it Frazier >> Brooks ~= Stefanovic, but I might not be valuing the defense vs shooting tradeoff properly. I view Stefanovic as an elite shooter who you can run some off-ball screens for and hit 40%+ (which is definitely a different tier of shooting than Brooks), but my perception could be off. Purdue has to have some good players on their team!
33% Big Ten and 35% Big Ten the last two years also gives me pause on Sasha, even if that’s unfair. Purdue also has Eli’s role split in two a bit where Sasha is the shooter and Hunter is the defender.
I think the major difference between the way I’d rank vs. this list is that this one seems to be more based off of the player they were last season or what they’ve done in the big ten versus what they project to do in a new season. Harrar being an HM guy last year as an example, it makes sense that you would include him because of that, but that doesn’t make me think Penn State’s 5th year center on a team that loses Brockington, Jones, Wheeler is going to improve at all individually. I don’t like Fatts either but it’s not hard to see a good Maryland team’s starting PG ending up higher than Penn State’s starting C. Same logic could be applied with the freshmen incoming across the conference and the transfers over returning guys that have experience but a lack of talent or production individually.
It’s a weird year with so many newcomers but my guess is that a lot of them crack the list very clearly early on over the Harrars, Brad Davisons, etc. of the conference. Ivey and Curbelo wouldn’t have been near anyone’s top 25 lists last season before the year but by end of season it was obvious.
I think it was like two weeks ago where I started to rank guys and just gave up because numbers ~12 through ~30 are really not that far apart at all. So I salute Dylan and Alex for taking on the thankless task.
Sasha is similar to Eli in role, just a better offensive player but not as good defensively. He had an even lower USG in less minutes on a worse team than Eli so I think putting Eli above Sasha makes sense. Young is the big man version. But I’d have Eli above him as well
Personally, I think it is more likely that Fatts has a negative impact than a positive impact for Maryland. Maybe that’s wrong and Fatts completely changes his game but he was a bad offensive player for most of his time at Rhode Island. Just because he’s new to the league doesn’t make him better. The man shot 40% on twos and 24% on threes last year.
Ayala is a significantly better player than him IMO. Hell, Hakim Hart could be a better player in his role than Fatts this year.
Where would they have been at the end of the year? Neither guy was All-Big Ten or anything. Obviously they are promising players but the best newcomers in the league aren’t always the best players.
There will be freshmen who outperform their ranking and we tried to grab a few that have a really good shot at that (i.e. Christie on the list) but they are mostly just guesses.
Last year, we ranked Khristian Lander and Adam Miller because they were the highest-ranked freshmen. We got sold on the Hauser and Watts hype because of their opportunity. We definitely try to project out but the idea that all of the impact players are going to be newcomers seems hard to buy and it is hard to accurately project the right ones.
I just don’t think it’s crazy that Harrar could be the 6th-ish best big man in the league which is probably worthy of a top-25 spot compared to someone like Gabe Brown or something like that.
That’s fair. Would you rather have John Harrar than Moussa Diabate this season? I think both teams if given the chance would take Diabate.
And I’m not advocating for Diabate’s inclusion in the Top 25…just that I think he’s a better player than Harrar, and there’s others that are likely better players than some of the names between 15-25, but we haven’t seen them do it in the conference before.
Diabate is clearly a more talented player but what we try to look at is a combination of talent, role, opportunity, production and team. There are just too many questions about how many minutes Diabate will be able to play this year whereas Harrar is probably going to play 28 per game and average close to a double double.
Every team message board probably thinks their 3rd, 4th and 5th options should be ranked in the 15-25 range 
I know he squeaked into the top 25 list yesterday, but I would put Jonathan Davis ahead of all these guys. I think he’s really being slept on, would not surprise me if he made All Big Ten second team. He impressed last year, and will have a much bigger role. He seems like the type that can take on the increased usage without sacrificing a lot of efficiency.
I know Dylan wasn’t sold on Keegan Murray upthread but when I look Murray vs. Davis as “breakout sophomores” I like Davis more. And I like what Murray offered last year. I just think Murray’s production was based off Iowa being what it was last year and to push him into a higher profile role this year he might not be quite ready for where I feel Davis is more prepared for that.
But he is coached by Greg Gard so maybe I should pump the brakes a bit!
I can buy into some Johnny Davis hype but I’m not exactly sure what that looks like.
Wisconsin’s starting lineup is probably Hepburn, Davison, Davis, Wahl and Carlson. Wahl and Davis should be breakout guys but I just don’t exactly know what an All-Big Ten season looks like for either considering how Wisconsin plays and how potentially average that team is.
Older than first year player Hunter Dickinson!
Great language used here. Downright bad could also work. Personally feel that average is the ceiling for this Wisconsin club
Best part of this series is definitely the discussion though! Entertaining stuff today.
I’ll admit to being pretty stunned at Harrar in the top 20…but I was also a little surprised to see Eli so high. I think those two players are similar and highlight the challenge of this exercise. They are both “really high floor, low ceiling” guys that every coach wants on their team but knows they’re not going to make any all conference teams.
Meanwhile guys like Christie or Houstan could be one-and-done stars who lead their teams in scoring…or they could be just rotation guys who struggle to get consistent production. How do you compare those two?
I do think I would have ranked them personally a little more weighted to potential impact and thus maybe something like Christie > Eli > Davis > Harrar…but we’re splitting hairs. The funny thing about Harrar for all of his value is that I’m not sure where he’d go in a fantasy draft of B10 centers. Behind Hunter, Kofi, Williams, TJD, Liddell for sure…maybe the guy at Maryland or Edey also.
Harrar is a solid big and I’m surprised at the opposition.
Is this really more of a ‘name on the front of the jersey’ situation? I wonder.
(Let’s ignore the fact that Penn State doesn’t have them on the back anyway)