Does anyone actually care about winning a Big Ten tournament? I remember ripping on Steve Alford for bragging about winning the Big Ten tournament. Sure I'd rather win it than lose the first game, but it generally has minimal affect on seeding and many teams would rather rest up for the tournament, because like it or not, everyone places a lot of importance on the NCAA Tournament.
I don't understand why some are so beholden to Underwood. Some are just, he's our coach so I love him, but I think some are basically saying, we hadn't won a conference title since 2005, he did it, he's the greatest coach ever, if we lose him, we're right back to the Groce years. To that I say, well if we replace him with a coach that never finished better than 3rd in the MAC, then you could be right, but I highly doubt Whitman will do that.
Like it or not, it's hard to separate Underwood's tenure here from Ayo and more importantly Kofi. Our defense was pretty pathetic until Kofi showed up, and it wasn't great after he left. Having a 1st and 2nd team All American on our roster gave us a great season, but an extremely disappointing tourney result. The question is, does Underwood need that level of talent to win?
I think you can replace Ayo. Kid was a stud, but there are lots of stud guards out there. They're not the easiest in the world to land, but they're there. Now replacing Kofi, a genetic freak that could dominate on both ends of the court, that's much harder. So does he need a mismatch to win? Last year with a lot of talented players we were pretty meh. Middle of the pack in the Big Ten, middle of the pack seed in the NCAA Tourney, and yes we'd rather be there than playing in the NIT with John Groce, but that's not where we want to be as a program.
So Underwood has taken a different approach this year. Going with guys that are older to counter the struggles we had with Fr. last year, going with guys that are maybe less talented overall but more willing to play team ball, to counter the issues we had with Mayer, but it's hard to say our talent level is at the same level of last year. And of course we're currently looking at a hole at the PG position. So if Underwood wins big next year, top 3 or 4 in the Big Ten gets a 5 seed or lower, and actually wins some tournament games, people will be happy and say good job coach, we'll see you next year. If we have a season similar to this past year or worse, people will start saying Ayo and Kofi aren't coming back coach. You need to win without them or we'll find someone else.