Agree for most of this... just my 2 cents:
If Oregon is elite, then PSU and IU are elite too. All three were literally record setting performances.
NW was a great performance. It was a total, inexcusable mental lapse at the end but there was zero chance of losing that game. We were up 15-20 for literally like 90% of the game. Judging it overall, Illinois jumped out and totally dominated.
And also... "bad Minnesota team" - they just won @UCLA. That's a better team than some of the other teams we've lost to (USC, RU) ... and was a much more losable game than some of the games we have lost. But to your point, we dominated and should have dominated - they probably aren't a great team as they have no shot of being in the tournament... but looking at our resume, I'm not ready to take any win for granted lol.
Overall, the two biggest things for this team is to get healthy and have Kasparas playing well. In all of those bad/horrible, KJ was bad/horrible or wasn't playing (USC) - and that just simply can't happen given our expectations of him and how important he is to the team.
Not to derail the thread, but just a few of my responses to try to justify some of my decisions (and also, thank you for your feedback!).
- I put Oregon as elite and the other two as great based on the assumption that Oregon was a much better team than Indiana or PSU. We also shot SO much better vs. Oregon than we have since, so we really did just look super unstoppable in that game in a way that I felt was even superior to Indiana/PSU and therefore deserved its own category.
- For wins like OSU and Northwestern, I tried to "average out" my subjective ranking based on the whole game. For example, I felt the second half vs. OSU was unambiguously good, but our "comprehensive performance" included playing sloppily and digging ourselves an unnecessary double digit deficit in the first place. I'll actually concede Northwestern as good, though, even with the bizarre almost-collapse.
- I literally had no idea Minnesota won at UCLA, as I have consciously tried to check out from this frustrating season a bit since traveling to attend the MSU game in person, haha ... so point taken!
As for your last point about KJ, I could not agree more. I am not sure what a "Game Score" really entails, but
Sports Reference includes it as a stat that tries to gauge a player's overall productivity. For context, KJ's has ranged from 20.7 in our win at Minnesota all the way to -0.2 in the loss at Rutgers, lol. But this is the crazy stat (obviously this only includes games where KJ played).
1) We are 14-1 when KJ has a score of 12.0 or more. And the only loss was the OT loss at Northwestern back in December.
2) We are 2-8 when KJ has a score less than 12.0. Of those two wins, one was vs. Oakland.
Rephrased since January 1...
1) 6-0 when KJ has a score of 12.0 or more.
2) 1-6 when KJ has a score less than 12.0.
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