You mean the best player on the best team in the best conference? 
Feels like a snub for sure when three other Big Ten guys are on that list.
It’s tough cause there are like 5 or 6 B1G players that deserved consideration. And Hunter has the least prolific stats of the bunch so not really surprising at all.
While that’s true I think you can make a case Hunter is playing better than Williams, and I love Williams’ game. Also does conference matter? Probably, but it shouldn’t
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It probably adds to my frustration that we just saw Dickinson utterly stifle Garza, even though that’s just one data point
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Conference doesn’t matter but it makes it tougher to separate yourself and get recognition. And votes could get split.
I agree that per game stats probably drive it (though I’m not sure where Livers’ stats lined up against the others in his category).
I love me some Trevion Williams, I can’t even imagine what Purdue would be without him…but I think he’s the one I’m surprised made the list.
Also, fun to note that both Williams and Garza each shot 6-19 in their games against UM.
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I believe Trevion is #1 in the nation in usage. And his team is ahead of schedule record-wise…I think it’s a fair pick.
Hunter is great but Michigan’s balance really takes guys out of the running for stuff like this. These other guys are much more productive consistently because their teams need them to be.
Michigan can have Livers, Wagner or Dickinson look like one of the best players in the country on any given night.
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More implicit Austin Davis shade smh
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I totally agree, and a week ago I didn’t think Hunter would make the cut because of this exact reason. But when Livers made the cut at his position without the gaudy “per game” stats, I guess that’s where my confidence came from that Hunter would make the cut as well. He’s still #1 on every opponents scouting report.
Oh well, like I said, I love me some Trevion Williams so I’m not mad about it.
There’s just not as many good SFs. Honestly Franz and Isaiah both should have been nominated for that. I mean Sam Hauser and Ron Harper Jr are finalists
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Don’t you do that every time someone brings up Iowas top 25 victories?
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I’d say crediting “top 25” victories based on ranking “when they played” is similar to saying games mean more at one point of the season.
You should measure how “good” a win is based on where the team is ranked now (ie the most data about how good they are) and not where people decided they should be ranked then.
So top 25 wins should be based on current top 25 teams if you want to use that stat. It doesn’t matter when they game was, though.
It doesn’t matter that Iowa beat Minnesota in January and not February. It matters that Minnesota isn’t good.
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You’ll never convince me Northwestern wasn’t one of the 25 best teams in America in December!
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I believe today was the deadline for conferences announcing alternate arrangements for tournament autobids. No conference tournaments were canceled, as far as I know.
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Gonzaga is elite. They have elite talent by recruiting rankings, a great coach, and a great program. No reason to question them for being #1. They are undefeated and played a great OOC schedule. Yes their conference sucks, but they are absolutely obliterating it like you would expect.
Bart Torvik’s site has conference pages that show efficiency margins within conference play, both raw and adjusted for competition.
In Big Ten play this year, Michigan is outscoring opponents by 18 points per 100 possessions which is insanely good in a great conference. Considering opponents and location of games, T-rank yields an adjusted margin of +33 points per 100 possessions. Again, simply amazing.
In WCC play this year, Gonzaga is outscoring opponents by 33 points per 100 possessions which is staggering. T-rank when adjusting for competition gives them an edge of +36 points per 100 possessions which is even better in conference play than Michigan has been.
Yes we can get into discussions of how to appropriately weight difficulty of games and whether beating the #100 team by 40 points is more impressive than beating the #30 team by 25 points, but there is no question that Gonzaga is truly elite. They were ranked high preseason for good reason and they have lived up to every bit.
I actually like the way we match up with them since they are so reliant on scoring in the paint and only have 1 good shooter on their team, but I am willing to acknowledge they can probably have the #1 overall seed in the tourney.
(that said if we run the table including winning the Big Ten tourney we will have an argument for that #1 overall seed)
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Ya know I think you might be right about that. Do we match up with them better than anyone in the country?
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we might. I mean maybe I am biased from how we obliterated them last year, but it just seems that the things they want to do on offense play right into our defense. And I also think we could do some things against their defense.
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