Re: College Basketball 2008-2009

[Exile on Waveland]

Indiana will not make the tournament next year. They'll be lucky to make it in '10-'11.

 

Before this season, I thought they had a decent shot to make the tournament next year (approximately 16-20 wins). As CCP said Pritchard and Williams have been better than expected; but, to me, that's trumped by the unexpected improvement within the conference. I'm thinking more like 14-18 wins next year.

 

I would, however, be very surprised if IU isn't in the tournament in 2010-11. They'll have three four-star players (all sophomores), up to eight three-star players (five juniors) and whatever freshmen Crean is able to bring in with the Class of 2010 (which will be a very small class, if a class at all). That's a likely tournament team.

[SouthSideRyan]

that's trumped by the unexpected improvement within the conference.

 

There's the issue. Who is Indiana a decent bet to finish ahead of next year or '10-'11? For next year, I've got their best case scenario as 8th in conference. For '10-'11, I'd think MSU, Purdue, Illinois, OSU, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are all pretty safe bets to finish ahead of IU. That leaves them as 7th at best fighting with 4 other teams with way more experienced talent.

[Smack]

They just showed the visiting locker room at Minnesota on ESPN2. It looks like a broom closet!

[Smack]

Bob Knight actually took his headset off and yelled at Hightower during the game. Nice!

[CubColtPacer]

that's trumped by the unexpected improvement within the conference.

 

There's the issue. Who is Indiana a decent bet to finish ahead of next year or '10-'11? For next year, I've got their best case scenario as 8th in conference. For '10-'11, I'd think MSU, Purdue, Illinois, OSU, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are all pretty safe bets to finish ahead of IU. That leaves them as 7th at best fighting with 4 other teams with way more experienced talent.

 

Looking at the recruits from 2007-2010:

 

MSU? Definitely

 

Purdue for 2010-2011 depends on if they have any more defections. Their next couple classes are not exciting in the slightest, so they really are depending on those 3 sophomores. If even 1 of them leaves Indiana would have a clear advantage over them in 2 years.

 

Illinois-Essentially a year ahead of IU in the development scale. Probably ahead of IU but it depends on which star recruits are developed better.

 

OSU-consider Matta a better recruiter than coach, but it's hard to argue with the continuing talent coming in

 

Wisconsin-Bo Ryan will have them in the hunt like normal even with only mediocre recruiting.

 

Minnesota-Their recruiting is definitely inferior to that of Indiana's.

 

There are 4 schools that are bringing in the top recruits in the Big 10. Michigan State, Ohio State, Illinois, and Indiana. Wisconsin gets thrown in because of coaching. I honestly don't see the experience angle in 2010-2011. Some of the other schools will have some big seniors and some key freshman, while IU's key players will be juniors and sophomores. Not a huge difference. And IU will have just as many top players on their roster as most of the conference (with the probable exception of Michigan State and Ohio State).

 

For 2009, IU will have a similar talent level as 2010 (as Exile said, they only have a possible 2 scholarships for the 10 recruiting class so that will be a mostly empty class) but the experience issue will be much more prominent. It's hard to tell if next year's team will be like 2008 Purdue though or if they'll develop more slowly.

[CubbieBum]

Bob Knight actually took his headset off and yelled at Hightower during the game. Nice!

 

Hightower yelled at him first but that was pretty funny.

 

As far as the game for the first half I couldn't be happier. Purdue has played phenomenal defense and has done a good job staying patient on offense. They win this game and they are back in the thick of things. They lose and they essentially have to win out to have a shot.

[TruffleShuffle]

Bob Knight actually took his headset off and yelled at Hightower during the game. Nice!

 

Hightower yelled at him first but that was pretty funny.

 

As far as the game for the first half I couldn't be happier. Purdue has played phenomenal defense and has done a good job staying patient on offense. They win this game and they are back in the thick of things. They lose and they essentially have to win out to have a shot.

 

a shot at what?

[Smack]

Bob Knight actually took his headset off and yelled at Hightower during the game. Nice!

 

Hightower yelled at him first but that was pretty funny.

 

As far as the game for the first half I couldn't be happier. Purdue has played phenomenal defense and has done a good job staying patient on offense. They win this game and they are back in the thick of things. They lose and they essentially have to win out to have a shot.

 

a shot at what?

 

Big Ten title I assume.

[TruffleShuffle]

Bob Knight actually took his headset off and yelled at Hightower during the game. Nice!

 

Hightower yelled at him first but that was pretty funny.

 

As far as the game for the first half I couldn't be happier. Purdue has played phenomenal defense and has done a good job staying patient on offense. They win this game and they are back in the thick of things. They lose and they essentially have to win out to have a shot.

 

a shot at what?

 

Big Ten title I assume.

 

regular season titles in basketball are worthless

[Smack]

regular season titles in basketball are worthless

 

yeah, that's why they never get talked about

[bcl412]

Bob Knight actually took his headset off and yelled at Hightower during the game. Nice!

 

Hightower yelled at him first but that was pretty funny.

 

As far as the game for the first half I couldn't be happier. Purdue has played phenomenal defense and has done a good job staying patient on offense. They win this game and they are back in the thick of things. They lose and they essentially have to win out to have a shot.

 

a shot at what?

 

Big Ten title I assume.

 

regular season titles in basketball are worthless

 

As far as the tournament goes, yeah they are worthless. Especially to smaller schools. But I wouldn't say they are completely worthless. You get a trophy, you get to cut down the nets and you get a banner. People also remember conference championships as a mark of how good of a program you are. What's one of Iowa's biggest knocks as a program? The fact that they haven't won a title since 79'.

[SouthSideRyan]

You're being pretty disingenuous when talking about recruiting here.

 

MSU '09: 1 Four Star, 1 Three Star. They lose Suton, Gray, Ibok, and Walton. They're the class of the conference now, and IU won't be close to them next year.

 

UI '09: 2 Four Star, 2 Three Star. They lose Frazier, Meacham, and Brock. They're clearly better than Indiana now, and return their best talents next year.

 

MN: 1 Five Star, 1 Four Star, 2 Three Stars. Clearly better than IU now, they lose Abu-Shamala.

 

PU: 1 Four Star, 3 Three Stars. Clearly better than IU now, they lose Calasan and Green. They return all their best players.

 

Wisky: 2 Three Stars. Clearly better than IU now, they lose Krabbenhoft and Landry. I do think they fall off, but still their system should be enough to keep them ahead.

 

OSU: 0 recruits. Likely to lose at least 1 of Mullens, Turner, or Buford to the pros. They could lose all 3 and still have more talent.

 

UM: 1 Four Star, 3 Three Stars. May lose Manny Harris to pros. System team, with experienced system players.

 

NU: 1 Three Star, 1 Two Star. They lose Craig Moore. Again its a system team with experienced system players. Should probably still finish ahead of IU.

 

Iowa: 2 Three Stars. They lose Cyrus Tate. I'm not shy about being down on Iowa, and I think you guys beat them at home this year. You've got a good chance of beating them out next year.

 

PSU: 1 Three Star, 1 no ranking. They lose Pringle, Cornley, & Morrissey. If DeChelis doesn't make the tourney this year, he might never make it. Talor Battle's a stud, but he won't have much supporting cast behind him.

 

IU: 3 Four Stars, 3 Three Stars, and Jeremiah Rivers. They lose nobody(besides Jobe when they force him out.)

 

Off of this, i put IU 9th ahead of Iowa and PSU. I think you're really overrating what a non-stud recruit can do in his first year. You've got 3 freshmen starting for you from the get-go and you think they can manage a 16 win improvement on that alone?

 

That's not even getting into the '10-'11 season where IU has nobody verballed right now compared to Illinois who has 2 Fives and a Four, OSU who has 3 Fives, 2 Fours, and a Three, MSU who has 2 Fours, Purdue who has 2 Fours and a Three, and Wisconsin who has 2 Fours. And(as you said), it's not like IU's gonna be able to get stud commits coming in cause they'll have all of 1 open schollie.

 

I have no clue how you can rationalize that IU could be better than Purdue in '11. I have no clue how you think IU could develop their '09 recruits that much better that they could somehow make up the astronomical difference in talents between them and Illinois. Not to mention that Illinois's 2 classes combined are better than IU's.

 

Minnesota's '09 recruiting really isn't any worse than IU, they just have less scholarships available. I don't know how you put IU with MSU, OSU, and UI, but don't include MN.

 

IU is presently a horrendous basketball team and has a deep, solid class coming in next year. How that equals to an extra 16 wins in a top 4 conference is beyond me.

[bcl412]

The Gophers aren't that good. We should have beat them. Of course, we aren't that good.

[TruffleShuffle]

As far as the tournament goes, yeah they are worthless. Especially to smaller schools. But I wouldn't say they are completely worthless. You get a trophy, you get to cut down the nets and you get a banner. People also remember conference championships as a mark of how good of a program you are. What's one of Iowa's biggest knocks as a program? The fact that they haven't won a title since 79'.

 

i didn't know you got a banner/trophy and cut down the nets for having the best conference record. i guess it's somewhat of an accomplishment, but in the grand scheme of things, a regular season conference championship and 50 cents will get you a phone call.

[bcl412]

As far as the tournament goes, yeah they are worthless. Especially to smaller schools. But I wouldn't say they are completely worthless. You get a trophy, you get to cut down the nets and you get a banner. People also remember conference championships as a mark of how good of a program you are. What's one of Iowa's biggest knocks as a program? The fact that they haven't won a title since 79'.

 

i didn't know you got a banner/trophy and cut down the nets for having the best conference record. i guess it's somewhat of an accomplishment, but in the grand scheme of things, a regular season conference championship and 50 cents will get you a phone call.

 

Yeah, I suppose this is true.

[Smack]

As far as the tournament goes, yeah they are worthless. Especially to smaller schools. But I wouldn't say they are completely worthless. You get a trophy, you get to cut down the nets and you get a banner. People also remember conference championships as a mark of how good of a program you are. What's one of Iowa's biggest knocks as a program? The fact that they haven't won a title since 79'.

 

i didn't know you got a banner/trophy and cut down the nets for having the best conference record. i guess it's somewhat of an accomplishment, but in the grand scheme of things, a regular season conference championship and 50 cents will get you a phone call.

 

as opposed to what? winning the Big Ten tourney? if you win the regular season title of a major conference you're going to be a top seed in the ncaa tournament anyway... or are you saying only winning the ncaa tournament matters? this isn't like pro sports where there is one winner out of 30 or so teams.

[TruffleShuffle]

As far as the tournament goes, yeah they are worthless. Especially to smaller schools. But I wouldn't say they are completely worthless. You get a trophy, you get to cut down the nets and you get a banner. People also remember conference championships as a mark of how good of a program you are. What's one of Iowa's biggest knocks as a program? The fact that they haven't won a title since 79'.

 

i didn't know you got a banner/trophy and cut down the nets for having the best conference record. i guess it's somewhat of an accomplishment, but in the grand scheme of things, a regular season conference championship and 50 cents will get you a phone call.

 

as opposed to what? winning the Big Ten tourney? if you win the regular season title of a major conference you're going to be a top seed in the ncaa tournament anyway... or are you saying only winning the ncaa tournament matters? this isn't like pro sports where there is one winner out of 30 or so teams.

 

i guess my point is that, when the conference has an end-of-season tourney, nobody really remembers who won the regular season. alabama had the best regular-season record in SEC football this year, but if you ask someone who won the SEC in football, i don't think anyone except for alabama fans would answer anything other than "florida"

[Smack]

As far as the tournament goes, yeah they are worthless. Especially to smaller schools. But I wouldn't say they are completely worthless. You get a trophy, you get to cut down the nets and you get a banner. People also remember conference championships as a mark of how good of a program you are. What's one of Iowa's biggest knocks as a program? The fact that they haven't won a title since 79'.

 

i didn't know you got a banner/trophy and cut down the nets for having the best conference record. i guess it's somewhat of an accomplishment, but in the grand scheme of things, a regular season conference championship and 50 cents will get you a phone call.

 

as opposed to what? winning the Big Ten tourney? if you win the regular season title of a major conference you're going to be a top seed in the ncaa tournament anyway... or are you saying only winning the ncaa tournament matters? this isn't like pro sports where there is one winner out of 30 or so teams.

 

i guess my point is that, when the conference has an end-of-season tourney, nobody really remembers who won the regular season. alabama had the best regular-season record in SEC football this year, but if you ask someone who won the SEC in football, i don't think anyone except for alabama fans would answer anything other than "florida"

 

I understand that - I just think basketball is different. I mean Northwestern could finish below .500 in the conference schedule and go on a run and win the Big Ten tournament, they did beat Michigan State at home. Ole Miss beat Florida in the regular season and it's not unthinkable that they could have beaten them again in a playoff scenario, but they never got a chance.

[Smack]

Best win of the year by Purdue.

[SouthSideRyan]

 

i guess my point is that, when the conference has an end-of-season tourney, nobody really remembers who won the regular season. alabama had the best regular-season record in SEC football this year, but if you ask someone who won the SEC in football, i don't think anyone except for alabama fans would answer anything other than "florida"

 

Football's a bad analogy because not every team plays each other. That's why they have championships. The teams that win the conference championships are the champions. The teams that win tournaments in basketball are the tournament champs. The tournaments aren't intended to crown a champion, they're intended to steal another bid for your conference.

 

It's definitely the opposite of what you said though, nobody remembers who won the tourney at the end of the year(unless it was a team that wouldn't have made the tourney or if you're Steve Alford), but people remember who won the regular season.

[CubbieBum]

As far as the tournament goes, yeah they are worthless. Especially to smaller schools. But I wouldn't say they are completely worthless. You get a trophy, you get to cut down the nets and you get a banner. People also remember conference championships as a mark of how good of a program you are. What's one of Iowa's biggest knocks as a program? The fact that they haven't won a title since 79'.

 

i didn't know you got a banner/trophy and cut down the nets for having the best conference record. i guess it's somewhat of an accomplishment, but in the grand scheme of things, a regular season conference championship and 50 cents will get you a phone call.

 

as opposed to what? winning the Big Ten tourney? if you win the regular season title of a major conference you're going to be a top seed in the ncaa tournament anyway... or are you saying only winning the ncaa tournament matters? this isn't like pro sports where there is one winner out of 30 or so teams.

 

i guess my point is that, when the conference has an end-of-season tourney, nobody really remembers who won the regular season. alabama had the best regular-season record in SEC football this year, but if you ask someone who won the SEC in football, i don't think anyone except for alabama fans would answer anything other than "florida"

 

You must not follow basketball too much. Its the exact opposite. After the season no one talks about who won the conference tournaments. They talk about who won the conference regular season title. Unless its the two seed that wins the tournament its the regular season champ who has the highest bid in the NCAA Tournament. Unlike football there is a playoffs for the teams who are really good and won their conference regular season but just had a bad game in their conference tourny.

 

And I'm not trying to be mean but how do you not know the regular season champ gets a trophy and cuts down the net?

[CubColtPacer]

You're being pretty disingenuous when talking about recruiting here.

 

MSU '09: 1 Four Star, 1 Three Star. They lose Suton, Gray, Ibok, and Walton. They're the class of the conference now, and IU won't be close to them next year.

 

UI '09: 2 Four Star, 2 Three Star. They lose Frazier, Meacham, and Brock. They're clearly better than Indiana now, and return their best talents next year.

 

MN: 1 Five Star, 1 Four Star, 2 Three Stars. Clearly better than IU now, they lose Abu-Shamala.

 

PU: 1 Four Star, 3 Three Stars. Clearly better than IU now, they lose Calasan and Green. They return all their best players.

 

Wisky: 2 Three Stars. Clearly better than IU now, they lose Krabbenhoft and Landry. I do think they fall off, but still their system should be enough to keep them ahead.

 

OSU: 0 recruits. Likely to lose at least 1 of Mullens, Turner, or Buford to the pros. They could lose all 3 and still have more talent.

 

UM: 1 Four Star, 3 Three Stars. May lose Manny Harris to pros. System team, with experienced system players.

 

NU: 1 Three Star, 1 Two Star. They lose Craig Moore. Again its a system team with experienced system players. Should probably still finish ahead of IU.

 

Iowa: 2 Three Stars. They lose Cyrus Tate. I'm not shy about being down on Iowa, and I think you guys beat them at home this year. You've got a good chance of beating them out next year.

 

PSU: 1 Three Star, 1 no ranking. They lose Pringle, Cornley, & Morrissey. If DeChelis doesn't make the tourney this year, he might never make it. Talor Battle's a stud, but he won't have much supporting cast behind him.

 

IU: 3 Four Stars, 3 Three Stars, and Jeremiah Rivers. They lose nobody(besides Jobe when they force him out.)

 

Off of this, i put IU 9th ahead of Iowa and PSU. I think you're really overrating what a non-stud recruit can do in his first year. You've got 3 freshmen starting for you from the get-go and you think they can manage a 16 win improvement on that alone?

 

That's not even getting into the '10-'11 season where IU has nobody verballed right now compared to Illinois who has 2 Fives and a Four, OSU who has 3 Fives, 2 Fours, and a Three, MSU who has 2 Fours, Purdue who has 2 Fours and a Three, and Wisconsin who has 2 Fours. And(as you said), it's not like IU's gonna be able to get stud commits coming in cause they'll have all of 1 open schollie.

 

I have no clue how you can rationalize that IU could be better than Purdue in '11. I have no clue how you think IU could develop their '09 recruits that much better that they could somehow make up the astronomical difference in talents between them and Illinois. Not to mention that Illinois's 2 classes combined are better than IU's.

 

Minnesota's '09 recruiting really isn't any worse than IU, they just have less scholarships available. I don't know how you put IU with MSU, OSU, and UI, but don't include MN.

 

IU is presently a horrendous basketball team and has a deep, solid class coming in next year. How that equals to an extra 16 wins in a top 4 conference is beyond me.

 

That just teaches me to not look at ESPN just because they were the quickest to jump between recruiting pages. Here is the rating of every player on their site who would be on each 2010/2011 team (just to show you that I really wasn't trying to change the numbers):

 

Minnesota: 96, 93, 93, 89, 88, 85, 78, 76

Indiana: 96, 95, 93, 92, 92, 90, 89, 89, 89, 87, 78

Purdue: 97, 96, 93, 90, 90, 89, 89, 87, 87, 87, 40, 40, 40

Wisconsin: 97, 96, 93, 93, 91, 89, 89, 89, 89, 81, 40, 40 (97 and 96 both freshman in 2010)

 

You can see where I am going with this. Of course, digging through some of the more recognized recruiting sites has very different rankings for several players which put IU in a much more negative light compared to some of the other programs. It's my mistake for talking in an area that I'm not proficient in (recruiting) and not presenting info from a variety of places. My apologies.

[Guest]

Holy crap, Oregon State went into Berkeley and won their second conference game of the year. :shock:

 

Oregon is still winless in conference.

[Andy]

Wow, WVU went into Georgetown and beat up the Hoyas pretty good. G-Town now 3-3 in conference.

 

I don't think anyone in the Big East will have fewer than 4 league losses this year. Maybe Pitt or Syracuse, MAYBE.

[Guest]

UC Davis 89, UC Santa Barbara 75

 

Third straight win (first time ever with three straight DI wins) and second place in the Big West. Fourth straight game shooting over 50% shooting as a team and they had six in double-figures for the first time all year.

 

This team is playing some really good basketball right now and I see no reason why it should stop. And with Pacific getting ripped in Stockton by a Cal Poly team that came in 0-5 in the Big West and Northridge losing yesterday, this team is the second-best team in the BW right now. Pomeroy and Sagarin may have them fifth in the BW right now, but that's a product of how poorly they were playing earlier in the year.