I think it is more than U-M is going to need a few road wins to bolster the resume.
Short on Q1 home opps but heavy on Q1 road opps (against teams that aren’t elite). That’s how the Big Ten shapes up this year.
Winning at Northwestern might be more useful as beating Wisconsin at home, for example.
Right now there are only 4 teams in the league who would be Q1 games at home: Purdue, OSU, Rutgers and Indiana. Michigan doesn’t play Rutgers which makes those other 3 very important because of how winnable they are compared to road games.
Yah, Michigan’s schedule is maybe better for a conference record POV but worse from an NCAAT POV. Something that is often overlooked by people who a really into conference record (which actually doesn’t mean all that much).
Lively isn’t very good, and Filipowski has good counting stats but his efficiency stinks. Grandison is a complete after thought, Roach seems to have regressed.
I’ve heard the term “anarchy” multiple times to define this year’s college basketball season. It’s likely referring to so many top 25 teams losing to non ranked opponents. Or it’s referring to the fact that no teams are undefeated in early January. Or it’s because early picks like UNC, Kentucky, etc… are just not good.
It seems like “experts” picks/predictions were maybe way more off that usual this year. Which makes it look like anarchy.
So I’m wondering, is it just one of these random, out of one or two standard deviations of the mean. Or is it the transfer portal? By that I mean, are “experts” just not good at understanding how a team fits together, and how players translate to new systems, under this new landscape? And rankings are just bad and uninformed?
I was wondering what everyone thought on this topic
I think this is a great point. Coaches, the ultimate experts, don’t even know how their team will fit together until they hit the floor. It makes prediction even more difficult than it was in the pre wild west portal days.
I think the portal is a huge factor in that you never know what your gonna get when you blend a team together like that. Then you always have teams like UNC and many before then who string together some good games in March and get overrated because of that. Also think with COVID development and scouting took a hit and this is the group that would be most affected by that.
I think that the guys getting 5th years on COVID is still a major factor and warping the sport historically old - it’s made the sport much deeper than normal and I think blunted the impact of big time freshmen (how many true freshmen are as good as Jaylen Pickett this year?)
This exactly. The value of 5th year seniors can’t be understated. Where is Michigan without Eli last year? And obv without Pickett PSU is flat not good. Osu has Seuing and Likele
That’s a really solid observation. Penn State is a great example of an old team that is well constructed and well coached. You could see how they would eat up a “portal” team like they did with Illinois.
That’s a good point. But why can’t “experts” value this as much? Are they still stuck on shiny McDonald’s All Americans from high school to determine if a team will be good/better?
Going back to the portal, it’s interesting to think how a team like Kansas State was so under the radar, but beating top 25 teams easily. I wonder if we all will get used to this new norm, or will it always be impossible to predict
It’ll be interesting to see whether “old” teams like PSU and Missouri fade as the season rolls along and younger teams with presumably higher ceilings start to gel.
