I would bet against that assumption. We shall see. Where was DJ Wilson’s mental makeup his first two seasons? It took Derrick Walton until late in his senior season to fully accept he was the go to guy. Different growths for different folks.
1 Like
I hope you’re right. But if all of the starters are back next year minus Matthews, I can’t see him becoming an alpha dog with X, Iggy and Poole around. Maybe his senior year.
2 Likes
Minny has been up and down but they won @Wiscy and beat Nebraska, and we beat them while shooting 3-22 from 3
.
The team is 18-1 (7-1 in conference), with the one loss being on the road to the #13 kenpom team on a cold shooting night. They’re 6th on kenpom, barttorvik, and the NET. I guess I don’t know what people are rating this team, but they certainly seem like a 1-seed contender (might come down to the games @MSU), with a 3-seed being pretty much the floor, unless their play really falls off. Shooting slumps could derail them from a conference championship or a deep tourney run, but they still seem quite capable of both.
And maybe Coach Beilein will get them playing even better by the end of the year…
3 Likes
Also DJ’s mindset his first two years was “I have no f***ing clue what I’m doing out here,” a pretty different situation if you ask me.
Not to mention DJ Wilson was never a go-to guy, he played a Livers type role at a higher volume. 18% usage in his breakout year, 16% for Livers this year. I remember once he hit Wagner on a pick and roll and we all freaked out… Then it never happened again.
3 Likes
I guess I don’t know what people are rating this team, but they certainly seem like a 1-seed contender (might come down to the games @MSU), with a 3-seed being pretty much the floor, unless their play really falls off. Shooting slumps could derail them from a conference championship or a deep tourney run, but they still seem quite capable of both.
Oh, I agree they have a #1 resume at the moment. But I think we’ve overachieved. I wouldn’t be surprised by a 7-5 finish and a drop to a #3 seed.
1 Like
I don’t expect 5 more losses in the Big Ten regular season, but it wouldn’t particularly surprise me. 15-5 has always seemed like a pretty solid baseline and still what the computers project. When you say we’ve overachieved, do you mean resume wise, or that our computer efficiency rankings of 6 are misleading somehow?
For what it’s worth, barttorvik would project us as a 2 seed even if we lost 5 more games before the conference tourney. We’d be 25-6 with, based on current projections, a minimum of 9 Q1 wins, 9 Q2 wins, and no Q3 or 4 losses. But a 3 seed seems like it’d at least be in play in that scenario.
1 Like