2022-2023 B1G Basketball Thread

[medinabuckeye1]

They could have fired him for cause 10 months ago, without paying him a dime, and didn't.  I don't think they are going to pay him to go away now.

Beilein still lives in Ann Arbor.  I think they had an opening to oust Juwan last year, and bring Beilein back for like 2 years, with a coach in waiting/succession plan.

I *THINK* that ten months ago his coaching deficiencies were less apparent and his recruiting success looked great. Today I would imagine that he has a MUCH shorter leash.

That does play a role. For example, firing Woody for punching an opposing player seems completely obvious and it was but he had gotten in trouble for other things earlier. One key difference was that 1976-1978 were pretty weak by Woody's standards:

• Three straight losses to TTUN without even scoring a single TD in any of the three games. Prior to that Woody had never even lost two in a row to Michigan.
• Three straight years with at least three games not won (7-4-1 in 78, 9-3 in 77, 9-2-1 in 76). That hadn't happened since Woody's first three years (4-3-2 in 51, 6-3 in 52, 6-3 in 53).
• Unranked finish in 1978 and three straight outside the top-5. That hadn't happened in more than a decade.

I'm not saying that Ohio State was terrible at the end of Woody's tenure, but those last three years of his were way below the insanely high bar that he had established.

I'm also not saying that Ohio State definitely wouldn't have fired Woody for punching Charlie Bauman if Hayes had been coming off of an NC in 1977 but it would have been a *MUCH* tougher call. Maybe he'd have been compelled to apologize, attend Anger Management training, and sit out the 1979 opener against Syracuse.

[medinabuckeye1]

We had actual B1G Basketball yesterday!  Mostly it was easy wins by B1G teams over opponents who visited solely for the payday but there were two exceptions:

• Michigan lost at home to CMU, and
• Iowa got obliterated in Lincoln.  

So how does this impact our view of the teams involved?  

Iowa:
Kris Murray hadn't played since the Dook game on December 6 which may explain the home losses to Wisconsin and Eastern Illinois but he was back for the Nebraska game and . . . Iowa got drilled.  Murray had 17, Filip Rebraca had 16 and the rest of the Hawkeyes combined to score 17.  Seriously, Iowa's other three starters (McCaffery, Perkins, Ulis) played a combined 67 minutes and only scored six more points than I did in that game.  Something is wrong with this team and Murray's return does not seem to have fixed it.  

Nebraska:
Maybe the Cornhuskers are better than we thought?  They just drilled Iowa and earlier this season they pushed Purdue to OT.  They also beat a ranked Creighton team on the road.  

Michigan:
A month ago the Wolverines pushed (then) #3 Virginia to the max in a two point home loss in the Challenge.  Losing by a single bucket to a top-3 team is obviously nothing to be ashamed of and at that point I thought Michigan looked like a pretty good team with their more questionable results being perhaps flukes or outliers.  At this point it looks like the Virginia game was the fluke/outlier.  Michigan:

• Barely beat EMU, 
• Got drilled by ASU, 
• Needed OT to beat OhioU
• Beat Lipscomb by only 8
• lost to CMU and:

#296 in KenPom.  Michigan didn't have a good win, but they also didn't have a bad loss.  Now they have a horrific one.  Probably have to go 13-7 at worst to get in

That is REALLY bad.  

The Wolverines don't have an upset (per the tiers) yet but they have only played one league game, against Minnesota.  Minnesota might actually be worse than CMU so beating them, even in Minneapolis, isn't much of an accomplishment.  

I am unilaterally moving up the date to update the tiers to Friday, January 6.  Between now and then we have:

• MSU, RU, and UW have what should be easy home payday games tonight
• No games on NYE
• Three league games on NYD:  UMD@M, IA@PSU, tOSU@NU
• RU@PU amidst the bowls on 1/2
• UNL@MSU and MN@UW on Tuesday, 1/3
• PSU@M and IL@NU on Wednesday, 1/4
• UMD@RU, PU@tOSU, and IU@IA on Thursday, 1/5

Current tiers (needs updated but waiting until next Friday) are:

• PU, IL, IU
• IA, tOSU, RU, UMD, MSU
• UW, M, PSU
• UNL, NU
• BLANK
• MN

[medinabuckeye1]

Current KenPom:

• 7 Purdue
• 14 Ohio State
• 19 Indiana
• 21 Rutgers
• 22 Maryland
• 30 Illinois
• 35 Wisconsin
• 41 Penn State
• 43 Michigan State
• 46 Iowa
• 51 Northwestern
• 65 Michigan
• 77 Nebraska
• 199 Minnesota

That gap between Minnesota and everyone else is staggering.  

I'm not sure that tiers are going to work well this year and I'm not sure that anything would.  I'm confident that Purdue is our best team and that Minnesota is our worst team but the other 12 are anybody's guess.  

KenPom's 13th best B1G team gave Purdue all they could handle in a 65-62 loss a couple weeks ago and I don't feel like tOSU is anywhere close to Purdue's biggest challenge in the league.  All-in-all, I feel like the gaps between the middle 12 and #1 and #14 are bigger than the entire gap between #2 and #13.  

[ELA]

The last two MSU teams had glaring weaknesses.  This MSU team feel.likenit should be better than it is.  Their bigs are underwhelming.  It's 2 true freshmen, one of whom is a walk on, and a sophomore who played 35 total minutes last year.  But I *think* they have comfortably the best backcourt in the conference, and that should result in better than this

[847badgerfan]

UW with another "play down to the opponent" first half, followed by a blistering 2nd.

Not gonna get away with that much longer.

Still think this could be a very good team, but man, they need another Big to step up badly.

[medinabuckeye1]

Looking ahead to tomorrow we have three league BB games:

• Maryland at Michigan at 430 on FS1
• Iowa at Penn State at 530 on BTN
• Ohio State at Northwestern at 730 on BTN

UMD/M is a pick while PSU and tOSU are favored by 2.5 each so basically all three games are toss-ups. I think we'll see a lot of that this season because all games among the twelve teams in the middle are basically toss-ups.

[medinabuckeye1]

UMD/M is a pick while PSU and tOSU are favored by 2.5 each so basically all three games are toss-ups. I think we'll see a lot of that this season because all games among the twelve teams in the middle are basically toss-ups.

Pretty impressed with Ohio State and Michigan yesterday. Both had games that seemed like toss-ups and dominated.

[847badgerfan]

There is something seriously wrong with this punk.

[medinabuckeye1]

At this point I am thoroughly confused.  Heading into the last two days I expected:

• Maryland and Michigan to play a close game in Ann Arbor - because I thought Maryland was the better team but they were on the road.  
• Penn State to beat Iowa pretty easily - because I thought PSU was the better team and they were at home.  
• Ohio State and Northwestern to play a close game in Evanston - because I thought tOSU was the better team but they were on the road.  
• Purdue to beat Rutgers pretty easily - because I thought PU was the better team and they were at home.  

Instead:

• Michigan obliterated Maryland.  
• Penn State barely beat Iowa.  
• Ohio State obliterated Northwestern.  
• Rutgers went into West Lafayette and beat the Boilermakers - This REALLY sucks for Purdue because it compounded an already bad day for Purdue sports.  

As most of you know I'm frankly not very high on Ohio State but as of right now there is a pretty strong argument to be made that they are the best looking (or most accomplished) team in the league.  The Buckeyes are undefeated in league games as are the Badgers and the Wolverines but the difference is that Ohio State's two victims (RU and NU) have lost ONLY to Ohio State.  That is NOT true for the Badgers and Wolverines as their opponents/victims are:

• 1-2 Maryland (UW and M)
• 0-2 Minnesota (M)
• 0-3 Iowa (UW)

That said, I simply don't believe that the Buckeyes are the best team in the league or even in the top tier but they are hosting Purdue on Thursday and travelling to Maryland on Sunday so . . . we'll find out.  

There are a slew of teams that I just have no idea what to think of.  First among them is Michigan.  After their embarrassing home loss to directional-Michigan I thought I had them figured out.  It looked like they just sucked and there was talk in this thread about how long Howard would hang on to the HC job there.  Then Maryland came to Crisler and the Michigan smoked them.  The Wolverines may just have the widest ceiling-to-floor gap in the nation.  In their good games the Wolverines look like a borderline NC contender but their bad games are flat awful.  There isn't a game on their schedule that they couldn't win . . . or lose.  

As I said upthread, I want to update the tiers on Friday.  Between now and then each league team has exactly one league game:

Today, Tuesday, January 3:

• Nebraska +6.5 at Michigan State, 7BTN
• Minnesota +12.5 at Wisconsin, 9BTN

Wednesday, January 4:

• Penn State at Michigan, 7BTN
• Illinois at Northwestern, 9BTN

Thursday, January 5:

• Maryland at Rutgers, 630BTN
• Purdue at Ohio State, 7FS1
• Indiana at Iowa, 9FS1

[ELA]

Wisconsin survives an offensive shit show.  63-60 over Minnesota 

[ELA]

Wisconsin survives an offensive shit show.  63-60 over Minnesota

Lol, beating Minnesota at home by only 3, actually dropped Wisconsin 9 spots in KenPom

[bayareabadger]

Lol, beating Minnesota at home by only 3, actually dropped Wisconsin 9 spots in KenPom

That 100 percent checks out. 

[847badgerfan]

UW's best player went down injured. KP probably doesn't know about that.

[bayareabadger]

UW's best player went down injured. KP probably doesn't know about that.

I mean, it does know about it. But it is so unquantifiable (and probably doesn’t need to be quantified) that those things don’t really factor in.