Big Ten’s top 25 players for 2021-22: 6-10

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So what’s the order?

Personally:

Ivey
TJD
Lidell
Hunter
Kofi

(a countdown)

I also personally spend a decent amount of time talking myself out of Curbelo (really inefficient, needs a massive step up to warrant this ranking) to talking myself into him (watching him absolutely shred us in our game when they were down Ayo).

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Hard to argue that order.

Swap TJD and Liddell

I think that order is right. I also think that Ivey and Curbelo have the most opportunity to slide up or down these rankings this year while the rest of the guys are pretty steady. Even a “down year” from Liddell keeps him high in these rankings. Ivey could be the POY or he could struggle in a bigger role and just be a solid player again. Same with Curbelo - he could be the best PG on the best team and pad the stat sheet…but if he still can’t shoot there may be a hard ceiling for him.

For comparison, the four bigs in tomorrow’s post finished the year with offensive ratings of 107.3, 111.0, 117.9 and 114.2.

If these are listed in their order of finish, then it’s

  • TJD
  • Hunter
  • Kofi
  • Liddell

Maybe the ordering is random, but my OCD is setting off alarm bells that they’re not listed in order of ascending ORtg. I’d guess that Ivey is #5 regardless of the ordering of the four bigs.

It’s funny, I think the 4 are really stratified into two groups: there are 2 very good offensive players (Liddell, TJD), and two very good two-way players (Hunter, Kofi). I think Liddell is more offensively diverse than TJD, and I’ve also seen him play great in big games (TJD has never played a big game in college), so he’s my preference. People always discuss Kofi’s LACK of diversity and potential on offense - which is true, but what he does is pretty unstoppable in college.

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I personally would take Liddell over TJD, but I think TJD will be ahead of him in these rankings since 1 of the voters is Inside the Hall. I think these will be the rankings:

  1. Kofi
  2. Hunter
  3. TJD
  4. Liddell
  5. Ivey
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ORtg is not the be all end all. And only describes one half of the court.

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#1 is Hunter. He’s going to wreck everyone.

It’s funny. I’d rather have Hunter but if I had to rank them I think I’d put Kofi number one. Just so dominant. Hunter can get there (and do even more) but we’ve already seen it from Kofi.

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Dylan, after the loss to UCLA, I’m sure nobody was interested in this, but how would you rate the top 25 in the B1G at the end of last year? I’m guessing this isn’t a hard exercise as you just have to slot in the leavers, drop out the rookies, and cut out the back end, but if this would be a pain, feel free to ignore me.

The time to do this would be around the Big Ten Tournament but it is always such a blur. At this point it is all about next season so hard to really go back and think about things in depth enough to get to a top 25.

I don’t remember having many major issues with the All Big Ten teams other than U-M players being snubbed from the defensive team.

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Hunter is going to drain threes in Kofi’s face and laugh at him. Count on it.

If Hunter is taking and making 3s consistently and can go over both shoulders, then it’s no contest. Certainly in the range of possible outcomes but I have to see it to believe it though.

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I understand that. It was more just my OCD tendencies noticing something. I don’t actually think that EJ Liddell is the best (or second best) player in the conference.

My ordering would go Ivey, TJD, Liddell, Hunter, and Kofi, but I also think Adam is probably right that TJD will be #3 because of ITH’s influence.

My hot take prediction is Ivey won’t be #5

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Who do you have in front of Ivey?

@umhoops are you bullish on Rutgers now?

I think they have a better roster than maybe I gave them credit for a couple of months back. Don’t really see a path to being significantly better than last year but probably have a chance to scrap and claw to a bubble season again.

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