2018-2019 B1G Basketball Thread

[Entropy]

I'll believe the UNL hype after December.... until then, the team still needs to prove they can handle expectations.   Come out strong in December and I'll believe.   So far, Miles has started slow in each of his 6 seasons.

[ELA]

Apparently Lamelo Ball is moving to Ohio to play high school basketball.  That's...something.

MSUs PG commit, and another kid they are recruiting go to the school.  The spotlight of MSU will be nothing to him after dealing with the balls.

[ELA]

Azubuike showing Ward why he's not a pro.  You have to be his size to play that style anymore.

[ELA]

Late segment of Izzo's career will be defined by his stubbornness to bring in a fresh offensive perspective

[ELA]

Feels like a game ending swing.  Ward undercut on a layup, injured, no call.  Leads to a 5 of 4 three.  Deficit goes from 6 to 11.

[bayareabadger]

Ethan Happ  had a triple double in a blowout of a tomato can.  I think the Wynn give me more confidence that I should. To correct for that, I’ll dig back to some of the successful early games last year. 

 Also, until Ford comes back, Wisconsin will feature a lot of four guard lineups. Granted, I like a lot of the guards. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Purdue cruises over Fairfield. I know that should be expected, but for Purdue fans who realize we graduated a core of 4 outstanding seniors, we were worried. Especially since this is the first time in 6 years that we haven't had a 7'+ back-to-the-basket traditional center out there. Yeah, Haarms is 7'3" (7'6" with the hair) but he's more of a modern stretch 5 and face-up guy than a back-to-the-basket post-up guy.

Still a lot of questions for this team. I couldn't see the game [BTN hates Purdue, so we were on the $10/month BTN+], but was listening on the radio, and it sounds like we weren't doing a cohesive job on the defensive end. Even though we blew them out on the scoreboard, it sounded like we gave up easy points and didn't close out on their best shooters all that well. 

But I'll take a 90-57 win. 

[MaximumSam]

Bucks and Bearcats combine to go 13 of 54 in the first half. Whoot

[ELA]

Apparently Lamelo Ball is moving to Ohio to play high school basketball.  That's...something.

https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1059872110598873090?s=19

[MaximumSam]

Good looking win for the buckeyes. Look to have a little better balance this season scoring wise, and the defense was good. Overcame some bizarre calls by the refs in this game, but were lucky Cincy couldn't shoot straight for most of the game.

[Brutus Buckeye]

[MaximumSam]

A more in depth review: 

Bucks played 8 deep.  They did not play freshman Jaedon Ledee, who was assumed to get minutes that would have gone to Micah Potter.  When Wesson got in foul trouble, Kyle Young moved to center and they played small.  

In any event, Kaleb Wesson looks like a dude in the middle for the Bucks.  He can post up, step outside for a three, and even played some defense.  Kyle Young played the power forward/backup center role, and he looked like a strong effort guy, getting strong rebounds, playing good defense, and getting some opportunistic offense.  

At wing, Andre Wesson played great defense, and made his two three point attempts.  He wasn't much of a shooter last year, and if he develops into a shooter, he can really be an impact player.  

The guards were a mixed bad.  CJ Jackson wasn't super efficient, but was very clutch.  Luther Muhammed looks like he might be something.  Woods and Washington didn't do a whole lot.  Musa Jallow had some strong plays and not so strong plays.  

In any event, nothing too shocking, except that I really didn't expect them to win, and they they had a double digit lead for most of the second half and won by 8.  The defense was strong, as expected, though Cincinnati wasn't expected to be great on offense.  The big question is who would score for them after losing so much production, and it was a pretty even split there.  Kaleb Wesson was the high scorer with 15, but four guys were in double digits and you can see there will probably be a different leading scorer every other night.

[ELA]

Cincinnati is always going to defend the hell out of you.  Scoring 64 on them ain't bad.

[MichiFan87]

Cincinnati looked very overrated, but I was impressed by Ohio State's defense, as well, while their offense did enough. I still don't think OSU will be as good as they were last year, but they might be good enough to make the tournament.

No major upsets yet except the losses by Baylor and Wichita State last night.