~2017-18 Big Ten Basketball Thread~

[Brutus Buckeye]

Boy, Penn State really has OSU's number this year. 

[ELA]

Yeesh, PSU lead up to 30 now

[medinabuckeye1]

Yikes, not a good night for the B1G's top teams (well, except it is good for MSU).

[bayareabadger]

What a delightful game. This team still isn't good, but man can they play hard. On Wisconsin. 

[bayareabadger]

As I said, three of the last four on the road, against teams with underachieving talent still makes me nervous.  Evanston and Madison are still going to be a bear.

Still not apt for Wisconsin.

Tonight would be a case of an overachieving under-talented team. Only had 18 walk-on minutes and rode the starters without mercy. 

I'll also say this, UW is capable of playing HARD. They usually need to, but this was a lot of grit tonight. 

[ELA]

They aren't typical Wisconsin, but they have more talent than their record.

[ELA]

Sounds like this FBI investigation is going to take down a ton of teams.  Seen 100 schools thrown around by Doyle.  My guess is that includes players talking money from shoe companies outside any sort for school knowledge.  I doubt we get 100 smoking guns linking head coaches, or even assistants, or really even players to schools.  I think we might see a ton of kids immediately ineligible.

[betarhoalphadelta]

Guess Purdue can kiss a share of the B1G regular season championship goodbye, and without a BTT sweep, probably a #1 seed. Grrr.

[PSUinNC]

Sounds like this FBI investigation is going to take down a ton of teams.  Seen 100 schools thrown around by Doyle.  My guess is that includes players talking money from shoe companies outside any sort for school knowledge.  I doubt we get 100 smoking guns linking head coaches, or even assistants, or really even players to schools.  I think we might see a ton of kids immediately ineligible.

I read on Yahoo Sports that timing and how it all trickles out (or is just released) will be key.  

[FearlessF]

Let the chips fall

[bayareabadger]

He's a phenomenal post player. Having watched Purdue heavily over the last 4 years, he's really put together a great skill set in the post.
As I've said, if he gets the ball on the low block, it's over. If he's single-covered, that ball is going in the basket. [He's shooting about 62% on the year]. He can turn either direction, he's got a lot of spin moves, and is good with the little hook shot with either hand. And it's not just "bullying a smaller center". He plays fine against other big guys.
If you decide double him, he's become very good at feeling the pressure and understanding the offense, so he's going to pass out to an open shooter. And Purdue's got a lot of those.
That wasn't true a few years ago. He was hesitant in the post, had a tendency to bring the ball down before making his move, and didn't have good ability to pass out of the double-team. So he was responsible for an incredible amount of turnovers. But he's cleaned up that part of his game.
As I mentioned earlier, he's got deficits. MSU kept him off the low block on Saturday, forcing him to play from the high post. He still did alright (shot 54%), but it's not his ideal game. Any time prior to this year, the idea that he was going to back someone down off the dribble was basically a recipe for a turnover. So I was happy to see that not be the case Saturday, but it's not his comfort zone and his efficiency showed it. He's actually not that good of a rebounder, which is surprising for someone who is 7'2", so yeah, the rebound/tip-in isn't where he's creating his stats. And defensively he's a liability. He can defend traditional centers, but he doesn't have the lateral quickness to defend an athletic center, and is useless away from the basket against a stretch 5 like Wagner.
But offensively, he's an amazingly efficient post player. He's got all the moves, and as I said, unless you're able to force him off the low block like MSU did [and which would likely have resulted in a lot more fouls called on another court], you either are letting him score or doubling him and letting a shooter have a wide open look.

Meant to reply to this earlier, but thanks for the nuanced writeup. After reading, I pulled up a couple games and locked in on him. Unsurprisingly, the sense I had was dead wrong. 
I've been watching too much Kaminski/Happ/Kind of Nigel Hayes, often-slithery guys doing a ton with footwork. Haas has that in the tool bag, but his spins and touch are better than I had thought. Nice to see him develop like that. 
(I know, I know, I write this after last night )

[bayareabadger]

They aren't typical Wisconsin, but they have more talent than their record.

It's an interesting question actually, and sort of comes down to how you define "talent." Like if if a high three-star we know hasn't and won't develop counts as talent, they might. If we're saying, this team has the ability to reasonably play better than it has for long stretches, probably not. 
This is the rotation at this point, in terms of consistency 
1. Happ - Obviously awesome, but being asked to do waayyyy too much
2. Brad Davison - He's playing better than can be expected, but he's a non-Top-100 recruit being asked to carry the biggest offensive load on the perimeter as a true freshman.
3. Iverson - He's UW's third most consistent player. He's 0-for-23 from 3, he turns the ball over on 23.9 percent of the possessions he uses, and despite having a robust field goal percentage because he takes almost no jump shots, he's got probably 10-plus missed dunks this season. That's the third-most consistent guy.
4. Pritzel - He does some nice things on offense and turns the ball over as little as one of UW's low-usage SGs should. ... But he is still not actually shooting the ball better than 33.1 percent from 3, which is the main thing I need him to do, and has defensive lapses often.
5. Aleem Ford - Tall, standstill shooting, redshirt freshman combo forward who has enough defensive issues he got benched for walk-ons for a whole second half five games ago. 
6. Nate Reuvers - Skinny freshman big who has shown aggressiveness, but not yet honed the finer points of efficiency or not fouling all over the place. Also sometimes moves like a baby deer on defense, but that's improved somewhat. 
7. Walk-on
8. Walk-on

Beyond that, you have a trio of junior bigs who all busted pretty badly. Only one was kind of well-rated (No. 147), and he hasn't been able to carve out a niche of "defend OK guys at multiple spots and hit enough 3s," which is maddening. Two other rotation perimeter guys are on the shelf for the season. At the moment, the third-best guard is a small forward who can't shoot and doesn't have great handles and the center often has to bring the ball up because the shooting guard can't.

That up there isn't the talent to be much better than 12-16, really 8-10 since losing those two rotation guys to injury. Six guys that can play ahead of passive walk-ons, only one of whom is really high-end (Divison will be as a sophomore or junior). It's been a rough year for a reason. 

[Entropy]

Sounds like this FBI investigation is going to take down a ton of teams.  Seen 100 schools thrown around by Doyle.  My guess is that includes players talking money from shoe companies outside any sort for school knowledge.  I doubt we get 100 smoking guns linking head coaches, or even assistants, or really even players to schools.  I think we might see a ton of kids immediately ineligible.

Article also suggest 1/2 of the 16 teams that were discussed as the top 4 seeds should be worried...  

[FearlessF]

hey, if 8 of the top 16 teams burn, the Big Ten can add a couple more teams to the dance