Programming Note: We will have a new Pin Down episode (Michigan only pod) on Sunday or Monday reacting to the exhibition and previewing the season. Hopefully Sunday. So stay tuned for that.
I love the Pindown pods but a (hopefully) helpful suggestion to make them flow better as sometimes the two of you don’t seem sure when to speak and don’t want to step on each other. Maybe have a go-to phrases to cue each other.
Stealing this from The Dunker Spot but if you want the other person to talk at length on something, “I’m gonna clear out and let you iso…” Or if you feel like you’re rambling, “The shot clock’s running down so I’m just going to pass it back to you.”
I think this was a great pod and the central dialogue — can this guy coach three more years — is really an excellent frame.
BQ’s closing what if — what if IU had said screw it, we got our guy—w Kelvin (effing) Sampson is just absolutely haunting. The whole league would be better. (Slower, too? I don’t think so (asymptote of zero), but it’s worth consideration.)
Cut through this pod on my long drive this morning, quality work.
I thought the Big ten tournament success or lack thereof was an interesting conversation. Certainly we would need to break down more data and trends from teams that made the final four in the past 20 years to see if there’s something more obvious. I also would have loved to explore that conversation about which teams were poised for a final four run and fell short, like the bridges JJJ team at Michigan State or one of the Kofi Illinois teams perhaps. There’s certainly something to the recruiting rankings and I think Dylan’s on to something with the depth of the conference. It isn’t that the other converses aren’t trying to win, I think the diversity is lacking and the bottom teams are pretty solid so it maybe does underprepare teams for the tournament.
I still love the hypocrisy of Tom Izzo railing against the current state of basketball when two of his starters are from the portal and he was able to benefit by jettisoning three players to the portal that he didn’t want to play anymore. Meanwhile his school is capitalizing on some rich mortgage moguls to fund their facilities, coaches, and NIL.
The B10 needs a team that plays like Texas Tech that wants to cause havoc. Even the good defensive teams in the B10 don’t want to force turnovers and play more conservatively. The only team who presses consistently is Iowa and their defense stinks often.
Iron sharpens iron. Teams like Tech, Houston, etc. challenge the opposing guards and force them to be better. I think B10 guards need to get tested more if you want to see improvement from those positions in the B10.
This is not to say a defensive team like Tech would even be the best team in the B10. But I think a program like that would force everyone to adapt.
I agree. Someone needs to come in and do something different but that may be a bit daunting to coaches to be the one outlier team
Isn’t that what Underwood tried to do initially? And then he had to fully change defensive strategies because it wasn’t working?
This is a good point. That Illinois team his second year was tricky to play in a one off, but was really inconsistent because of how they played. I think you need a team who’s willing to commit to working through some growing pains.
I just don’t think it’s a coincidence that a B12 team has been in three straight title games ever since Beard transformed Texas Tech and other B12 teams started adjusting their styles too. It’s not just Kansas in those kind of games either.
Underwood’s defense always sucked though. See the first round game in between Michigan and ok state
Sampson was blatantly and intentionally breaking ncaa rules.
Really bad rules too. Like texting too many times
U still up?
I love how Dylan finally has a theory based on narrative rather than stats; and BQ, the king of narratives, instantly dismisses it 
This is kind of what I hoped Beilein was doing, tho’ I think he was (in crude terms) bringing more of a finesse game to a league dominated by the (to me tedious) lunch pail style of MSU. I don’t know whether he ended up adapting more than the league adapted to him, but I do think that (again, from my somewhat untutored vantage) a team with an up-and-down, havoc-style of play would be a good challenge in-season for B1G teams.
Kelvin Sampson is one of my all-time favorite coaches, despite what was apparently some egregious shenanigans at Oklahoma; he had epic battles with KU during his time there. But I’m not ready to write Woodson off, and I don’t quite get why others are. This is a guy who coached in the NBA, and if he sticks around. . . We may already be looking at the fruits.
Yeah I think that was it. Something like that
I think it’s more accurate to say the strategy was changed to play Kofi as much and effectively as possible. That’s part of the intrigue this year, what changes for Illinois with no Kofi and defense and offense?
Not writing off Woodson at all. If he hits this year and takes IU to a Sweet 16 or better, and gets another good recruiting class, he could be off and running for 3-4 years, which would be excellent. I think the concern is upside, he’s so old already, and he’s dragging IU up from such a low level that it is hard to imagine he will be able to take IU to the promised land. But maybe he could bring them to the doorstep and be IU’s Moses. Unite the tribes (and IU hoops is replete w tribes) and start the journey together. A badly needed, historically significant contribution.
Really enjoying Moving Screen 2.0 btw.