College Sports (Basketball)

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#251      
HoopsterMan
lstewart53x3 said:
Are we sure the SEC will be the best conference this year?

Torvik had the B1G as the best conference last year. The B1G had 9 teams in the top 30 and the SEC had 7. This year, Torvik once again projects the B1G to have 9 teams in the top 30 and the SEC to have 7.
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Torvik is hot garbage at this point. Might be close.

They'll have preseason 1, then Tenn, Ark, Kentucky, Texas all ranked high, then Vandy, Missouri, Bama in that top 25 range.

B10 has MSU, Michigan, Illinois, USC, then maybe a little Nebraska, UCLA, Purdue,
 
#252      
PleaseMakeABowlGame
NarrowJ said:
The guys you’re talking about averaged 8ppg, 6ppg and 5ppg. Hobbled bodies? What a lame excuse, they didn’t play while they were injured lmao.
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Jaland Lowe played 9 games (in two of those games he played 3 minutes and 8 minutes).

Quaintance played 4 games (in one of them played 7 minutes).

That's the sample size you're using to support your point-per-game loophole.

Quaintance was a 1st round pick. Lowe averaged 17 & 6 in the ACC the season prior.
NarrowJ said:
Lost Ty for the season, lost Tomi for a few, lost Boswell for a few, lost Andrej for quite a lot, lost Jaksys (practice body) for the season. Z had to wear a mask for like a month. That’s 6 guys and the production lost for some of these guys is double what Kentucky was losing.

One team made a F4, one was a big old $20 million flame out.
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The only comparable one is Ty here (and he wasn't as significant to our team as Lowe or Quaintance).

Z didn't miss any games.
Tomi only missed 1 High Major game (maybe 2 if we count BAMA).
Andrej missed 2 high major games.
Kylan missed 7 High major games, which is significant, but nothing close to a season ender.
 
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#254      
the juiceman cometh
lstewart53x3 said:
Huh? Using Torvik, here’s the projected average ranking of the bottom 3rd of each power conference:

SEC: 60.8
B12: 73.4
B1G: 74.5
BE: 80.3
ACC: 96.3

The SEC has the most strength at the bottom of their conference, but the ACC has the most bad teams and it isn’t particularly close.

Not only that, but the B1G has 9 teams in the top 30. The ACC has 4.
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100%. Georgia Tech was so bad if you played them at home that would've been a Q4 game. Only Q4 team from any major conference.

Wanted to see how common that was historically, and couldn't find historical NET data so used KP as a substitute. Turns out more common historically than I thought. In 2025 there were 4 major conference teams ranked 161+. 3 from the ACC, 1 from the Big East. 4 total in 2024, 1 from ACC, 1 from Big East, 1 from SEC. 8 total in 2023, 5 from ACC (!!!), 1 from Big East, 1 from B10, 1 from SEC. In 2022, 3 total, 1 from ACC, 1 from SEC, 1 from Big East.

So, over the last five years very little to suggest that the bottom of the Big 10 is particularly weak compared to the other major conferences. ACC is clearly worse.
 
#255      
EmeraldCityIllini
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
They lost their starting center and starting point guard for the year, and a rotation player for 11 games.
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Quintance was hurt the year prior at ASU and then joined Kentucky. They didn't "lose him" he was clearly injured, Pope made a terrible gamble, and it didn't work. If illinois brought in a dude fresh off a torn achilles, gave him $6 million, expected him to be a superstar, and he wasn't ready to go - we'd be all over, Brad. Tell me you wouldn't be critical with a straight face.
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
That's equivalent to Illinois losing Vaaks and Tomislav for the year, and Jake Davis for 11 games. If that were to happen (god forbid), I don't think we'd be any better than Kentucky was.
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first off, Illinois doesn't have $20 million, as has been pointed out a few times, so its not apples to apples. secondly, I disagree, I'd think we'd be better than a 7 seed. PLUS, in this example, you conveniently left out that Tomi in this case would be coming off a major injury that we could plan around.

PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
For you it wasn't, but most people nationally thought it was pretty good.

They beat some of the best teams in the country in Duke, Florida, Tennessee, and more.
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Don't care about national opinions. You're a top 3 paid roster, i expect better than a sweet 16. If you want to hand Pope and UK the participation trophy, go for it.
 
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#260      
March2TheArch
March2TheArch said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2091576477238390916
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Michigan is going to be a major problem.

Have to hope Mirk’s back to full strength and conditioning by conference season. It’s going to be a brutal battle vs. the Wolverines and Spartans yet again.

McCoy showing why he was the #1 ranked player in the class at one point. College ready body, skilled, and poppy. If his shot gets consistent watch out. Could make the all B1G defensive team.
 
#261      
NarrowJ
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
Jaland Lowe played 9 games (in two of those games he played 3 minutes and 8 minutes).

Quaintance played 4 games (in one of them played 7 minutes).

That's the sample size you're using to support your point-per-game loophole.

Quaintance was a 1st round pick. Lowe averaged 17 & 6 in the ACC the season prior.

The only comparable one is Ty here (and he wasn't as significant to our team as Lowe or Quaintance).

Z didn't miss any games.
Tomi only missed 1 High Major game (maybe 2 if we count BAMA).
Andrej missed 2 high major games.
Kylan missed 7 High major games, which is significant, but nothing close to a season ender.
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No loopholes, just facts.

Since you don't like the 'per game' angle:

Quaintance production scaled to 25 mpg is 7.5 ppg.

Lowe shot 35% overall and 21% from three and if you scale his production it's not very good either.

Maybe don't spend all your money on an already injured player and another who is an atrocious shooter (he shot 26% from 3 at Pitt on 5 attempts / gm) and call those the starting PG & C on your $20M roster.

Extremely poor and easily refutable argumentation on your part, I'm afraid.


Fly Illini Fly! said:
Not a dog in this fight, but Lowe was playing with one shoulder… pretty literally.
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Never saw a literal one-shouldered guy play basketball, but sounds pretty funny. He shot about the same percentages as he did at Pitt across hundreds of attempts, so I think saying he is an atrocious shooter is just a fact (unless he's been missing this entire shoulder for the past 2-3 years?).
 
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#262      
March2TheArch
March2TheArch said:
Michigan is going to be a major problem.

Have to hope Mirk’s back to full strength and conditioning by conference season. It’s going to be a brutal battle vs. the Wolverines and Spartans yet again.

McCoy showing why he was the #1 ranked player in the class at one point. College ready body, skilled, and poppy. If his shot gets consistent watch out. Could make the all B1G defensive team.
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https://twitter.com/x/status/2091600810253893821
 
#264      
lstewart53x3
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
My excuses for our losses would be about the referees; not injuries (other than maybe the Wisconsin game because we played six guys).
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My point is: you tend to talk up other programs (Kentucky, USC, etc) while downplaying the program you root for.

We’re likely to have a better season than those two teams, but if an outside observer only read your posts, they’d think the opposite.
 
#265      
Fly Illini Fly!
NarrowJ said:
No loopholes, just facts.

Since you don't like the 'per game' angle:

Quaintance production scaled to 25 mpg is 7.5 ppg.

Lowe shot 35% overall and 21% from three and if you scale his production it's not very good either.

Maybe don't spend all your money on an already injured player and another who is an atrocious shooter (he shot 26% from 3 at Pitt on 5 attempts / gm) and call those the starting PG & C on your $20M roster.

Extremely poor and easily refutable argumentation on your part, I'm afraid.




Never saw a literal one-shouldered guy play basketball, but sounds pretty funny. He shot about the same percentages as he did at Pitt across hundreds of attempts, so I think saying he is an atrocious shooter is just a fact (unless he's been missing this entire shoulder for the past 2-3 years?).
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Because they were playing hurt. Obviously scaling the production won’t look good if they were playing on one arm or one leg. (and honestly Lowe’s pts/ast numbers aren’t that bad scaled to 30 minutes)

Let’s say it was an Illinois player, and they only played 4-9 games in low minutes while visibly hurt… would you really be willing to criticize their games based off of scaling that small/injured sample?
 
#266      
Uihoop2023!
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
Jaland Lowe played 9 games (in two of those games he played 3 minutes and 8 minutes).

Quaintance played 4 games (in one of them played 7 minutes).

That's the sample size you're using to support your point-per-game loophole.

Quaintance was a 1st round pick. Lowe averaged 17 & 6 in the ACC the season prior.

The only comparable one is Ty here (and he wasn't as significant to our team as Lowe or Quaintance).

Z didn't miss any games.
Tomi only missed 1 High Major game (maybe 2 if we count BAMA).
Andrej missed 2 high major games.
Kylan missed 7 High major games, which is significant, but nothing close to a season ender.
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Come on Quaintance was severely injured late the year before and it was common knowledge that he was not going to be ready to start the year. After tweaking the injury his camp made the decision that he wouldnt play for the rest of the season to not jeopardize his draft status.
 
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#267      
NarrowJ
Fly Illini Fly! said:
Because they were playing hurt. Obviously scaling the production won’t look good if they were playing on one arm or one leg. (and honestly Lowe’s pts/ast numbers aren’t that bad scaled to 30 minutes)

Let’s say it was an Illinois player, and they only played 4-9 games in low minutes while visibly hurt… would you really be willing to criticize their games based off of scaling that small/injured sample?
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Any players playing hurt (debatable anyway) is merely another coaching failure by Pope.

If it were an Illinois player I’d consider factual data exactly as I am in Kentucky’s case.

Pope put together an exorbitantly expensive roster that couldn’t overcome injury setback headlined by an awful shooter (26% threes at Pitt on volume) as a main perimeter option and paid a ton for an already badly injured center. I think that’s far more significant than trying to claim Kentucky played wheelchair basketball all year.
 
#268      
PleaseMakeABowlGame
This was Indy Illini Fan's reporting about Kentucky"s team last offseason:

1000016054.jpg

1000016055.jpg
 
#269      
PleaseMakeABowlGame
NarrowJ said:
Pope put together an exorbitantly expensive roster that couldn’t overcome injury setback headlined by an awful shooter (26% threes at Pitt on volume) as a main perimeter option and paid a ton for an already badly injured center. I think that’s far more significant than trying to claim Kentucky played wheelchair basketball all year.
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Poor shooter doesn’t automatically mean not a good player.

Andrej shot 24% from 3 and I’d argue he was our second best player (at worst third).

Lowe averaged 17 & 6 in the ACC. He was a big addition and a big loss.
 
#270      
NarrowJ
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
Poor shooter doesn’t automatically mean not a good player.

Andrej shot 24% from 3 and I’d argue he was our second best player (at worst third).

Lowe averaged 17 & 6 in the ACC. He was a big addition and a big loss.
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I didn't say he wasn't a good player, but lets be real here: Andrej was a driving force behind Illinois' F4 appearance (.530 eFG%) and Lowe was a poor volume chucker on a 17-15 Pitt team (.396 eFG%).

With all due respect Lowe couldn't hold Andrej's jock.
 
#273      
March2TheArch
RollChief said:
I believe they lost to the National team yesterday and the B team today...

To be fair, they didn't play Thiam or McKenney.

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McCoy and Costello look very good as freshmen in their first competitive games in Michigan unis.

Costello looks like a prototypical Brad forward. Sad he joined the enemy. I know we were recruiting both him and Morillo off the same team.
 
#274      
March2TheArch
March2TheArch said:
McCoy and Costello look very good as freshmen in their first competitive games in Michigan unis.

Costello looks like a prototypical Brad forward. Sad he joined the enemy. I know we were recruiting both him and Morillo off the same team.
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That said…

McCoy’s shot looks horrible - from 3 and FT stripe. People will play a half foot off him until he can prove he can hit’em. And no one was going to replace Yaxel.

Estrella is a major downgrade at the 4 from Morez. Better shooter and that’s about it.

Thiam, assuming minor injury, will be a problem. Skilled 5-man ala Mara.

Michigan does not have a proven secondary ball handler. The team looks clanky without Cadeau.

McKenney is a major upgrade on Nimari.

In summary, a top 5 back court. But definitely behind UConn and Duke.

On the whole, this is a top 10 but not top 5 team. Assuming full health, I would definitely take Florida, Duke, UConn, and us over them.
 
#275      
EmeraldCityIllini
March2TheArch said:
That said…

McCoy’s shot looks horrible - from 3 and FT stripe. People will play a half foot off him until he can prove he can hit’em. And no one was going to replace Yaxel.

Estrella is a major downgrade at the 4 from Morez. Better shooter and that’s about it.

Thiam, assuming minor injury, will be a problem. Skilled 5-man ala Mara.

Michigan does not have a proven secondary ball handler. The team looks clanky without Cadeau.

McKenney is a major upgrade on Nimari.

In summary, a top 5 back court. But definitely behind UConn and Duke.

On the whole, this is a top 10 but not top 5 team. Assuming full health, I would definitely take Florida, Duke, UConn, and us over them.
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I said the same thing last year, so ill be cautious. But McCoy, Thiam, and Estrella is a ROUGH 3 - 5 shooting lineup.
 
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