2018-2019 B1G Basketball Thread

[betarhoalphadelta]

Michigan is so damn good

Yep. 
This is a rebuilding year for Purdue, but they hung tough with VT and FSU. Michigan is making this look like a paycheck game. 

[HailHailMSP]

Michigan has two major flaws: 

Depth. Belein is currently running a 7.5 man rotation (Davis being the .5). They will hit foul trouble at a juncture, very likely on the road, and it will hurt them.Belein has a tigh rotation you typically start to see out of a coach in early Feb.

The other is free throw shooting.

But when guys like Simpson and Teske go even up agains their matchups (Edwards and Harms), and do it in a more efficient matter, they are tough to beat. The offensive production comes from the rest.

[MaximumSam]

Buckeyes with a big blow, as Luther Muhammad is out indefinitely with a shoulder injury

[MichiFan87]

The offense was great in the first half and then Purdue made some good adjustments except in defending 3s. Conversely, the defense struggled early before playing better late. Overall, I certainly can't complain, though.

Now they need to stay focused for Northwestern, because they appear to be better than expected, and of course, they were the last team to beat Michigan aside from the National Championship Game last year. After that, the remaining 4 non-con games should be easy wins (including South Carolina which has fallen off from their Final Four run team that dominated Michigan in Columbia 2 years ago), so hopefully Johns and DeJulius can get more meaningful minutes in those games and give the regular rotation some rest.

[FearlessF]

Nebraska stormed to a nine-point lead a little more than two minutes into the game, and the Huskers started Big Ten play 1-0 with a 75-60 win over Illinois Sunday afternoon at Pinnacle Bank Arena.

Unlike last season, when James Palmer’s three-pointer at the buzzer gave the Huskers a one-point win over the Illini, Nebraska led the entire way and by nine or more for the last 23 minutes of the game.

[MaximumSam]

Bcuckeyes with a 20 point win over Minnesota.  A little surprising to me, I thought they would struggle after losing Muhammad. 

[Brutus Buckeye]

[ELA]

That had to be the best MSU has played since hammering UNC during their Thanksgiving tournament 13 months ago.

[847badgerfan]

Iowa looked like it brought that loss on Friday with them to East Lansing. This is what happens when you have an emotional mess for a coach.


BTW, Rutgers actually looks pretty darn good. They more than held their own in Madison tonight and against MSU last week. They will win some games this season.

[bayareabadger]

Iowa looked like it brought that loss on Friday with them to East Lansing. This is what happens when you have an emotional mess for a coach.


BTW, Rutgers actually looks pretty darn good. They more than held their own in Madison tonight and against MSU last week. They will win some games this season.

Rutgers defense is low-key nasty, but UW offense found itself down the stretch

[847badgerfan]

Seemed to me that the good UW defense fed that better offense last night. They were pretty lockdown in the 2nd half, save for a few lapses. That can be fixed too.

[ELA]

Iowa looked like it brought that loss on Friday with them to East Lansing. This is what happens when you have an emotional mess for a coach.

It actually just looked like Iowa still can't play defense.  Their zone last night was one of the most poorly executed I've ever seen.  MSU was missing 3s, or it would have been worse.  But they were allowing Goins to sit in the middle and take his pick.  Take the jumper, give Ward a feed.  When you allow a guy set a career high in assists, two guys to set career highs in points, and a former walkon get a double-double, and flirt with a triple-double (finished with 7 assists), you laid a defensive egg.
I think it's possible Iowa is still just not good.  That Oregon win doesn't look great anymore, Ducks lost at Houston and at home to Texas Southern last week.  That's what happens when the polls overreact based on their assumption that their preseason rankings were correct.  Iowa beat a top 15 team, so they must be a top 15 team, except the presumed top 15 team ain't a top 15 team after all.

[ELA]

UM- Northwestern just had the most entertaining half of basketball I've watched all year.

[MichiFan87]

For a neutral fan I guess it was entertaining, but it was incredibly frustrating for me. Exacerbating things was that I thought the refs called it too close and inconsistently, but so it goes. Fortunately, Northwestern missed a lot of free throws, especially on the most questionable calls, interestingly enough.

Northwestern made some defensive adjustments in the middle of the second half it seemed, and Michigan couldn't get good shots and committed too many dumb turnovers. They left Simpson wide open on several 3s in a row, all of which he missed, of course. Meanwhile, they hit a ridiculous number of difficult shots (the banked 3 by Pardon for instance) that I was almost surprised the last one missed thankfully. Pardon got too many easy shots at the rim and not just against Davis, who appears to be more of a liability than anticipated, but otherwise the defense was pretty good, despite giving up 60. Northwestern having Donlon as an assistant (who was at Michigan for a year) definitely helps them in this game, too.

It's very good timing that Michigan just has easy non-con games left in December with South Carolina potentially being the worst team in the SEC this year. This game showed how Michigan needs better depth beyond its main 7 man rotation, so hopefully Davis, DeJulius, and Johns can get more meaningful minutes in these games.

I was encouraged by the team's resilience, though, especially with Brazdeikis making some big shots towards the end.