I haven’t watched much non-BIG basketball this year, so I’ve started looking at other contenders for potential matchup problems. I think 3 types of players give us trouble:
1. Long, athletic wings (more than 1)
2. Bruising, athletic 4’s
3. Stretch 5’s
From what I can see our toughest team from a matchup perspective is still Baylor. They should still be able to disrupt our perimeter offense with their switching and we don’t really have anyone that can body up Vidal.
Alabama and Texas Tech look like strong defensive teams and have some length on the perimeter but don’t look to be overly long. FSU always seems to have a ton of rangy athletes but don’t look to be overly long this year.
Gonzaga is #1 in KenPom defense, but they don’t look overly long either. I guess Kispert is a problem for us but we just shut down Livers who seems to be a similar player. Timme is great but isn’t a stretch 5 and Kofi has greatly improved over the course of this year of not
biting on pump fakes and making guys score over him.
And every single one of those teams is going to be wondering how in the heck they are going to stop Kofi.
We can absolutely lose to any of those teams or really anybody who makes the tournament, especially Iowa, UM, or OSU. But I don’t see a ton of teams who are a bad matchup for us “on paper.”
It’s so nice to be relevant in March again and I hope we go on a run! Seem to be peaking at the right time!