Always appreciate your insights, especially on Big 10 teams. Sounds to me like Michigan is doing the fundamentally sound things necessary to make their metrics look great early in the game, then playing loose (if not cheating) deeper into the game. Very interesting.
Almost the opposite of Kentucky, where we usually keep banging on you for 40 minutes and make it hard for you to guard us the whole time.
I’m started to be convinced that a lot of our slow starts are more that teams are prepared for us at tip off, but by some point in the second half they get tired of chasing us into every corner and we hit them with a run.
Aike, I responded to your email and sorry for late response. Haven't been online much in the past two months.
Michigan has moments--Danny Wolf is outstanding. They get a great shot every time he touches the ball. Then the guards/wings get jealous and start to "Create"-it's awful. Not only is it awful to watch, they limit Wolf and Goldin-who mainly scores his pts off Wolf's great pick and roll reads and drop offs for Goldin's dunks. If they hit some 3's-they look like a top 10 team-but then comes the Turnover Orgy which happens the second Wolf stops getting the ball and Donaldson/Gayle start wanting to "create". Watched them play Iowa--they were destroying them by as much as 21 and then blew the entire lead and trailed by 4 late in 2nd Half only to pull it out as they played through Wolf. Saw their Arkansas game--a debacle where they dominated--threw the ball all over--then took over the game only to piss it away due to some awful decisions. Last night was a game that was poorly coached.
Can't emphasize enough how awful Minnesota is. They are a terrible program, led by a neophyte HC who had to be told by the Administration to quit having his former HS coach who is on the Staff run his huddles, do all the interviews, etc....he can't recruit, he can't coach offense, and he chalks it all up to NIL. Minnesota used to have a great home court advantage at the "Barn" and now you can't get over 5000 people to attend and most nights it's around 3500 actually there. Just awful. They can't shoot. Can't defend. They just suck. Michigan "played with their food" again and still had a chance to win in regulation but Tre Donaldson went coast to coast for a falling layup attempt instead of passing to Wolf who would've gotten them a good shot-likely won the game. Then in OT--they bricked FT's/lost on a 40 ft desperation shot.
Roddy Gayle is on the take. I'm convinced he left Ohio State because he feared Bradshaw being looked into for point shaving could be traced to him as well. He's a guy who was a really promising player 3 yrs ago and now looks like trash. Donaldson looks decent because he's in the Big Ten. At Auburn he'd not play. My advice to Donaldson is to skip Basketball and go back to FB-he was an elite FB prospect as a Safety and could play at Michigan if he chose that path.
Kentucky makes adjustments and Pope/Staff have an NBA feel in terms of starting out with an idea--reading how the game is going and then attacking based on how the game is going-which is what most CBB coaches don't even attempt to do. They just do "what we do" with system approach. Michigan has guys who look like they literally hate that Danny Wolf could get Jokic numbers in CBB and just feel "it's my time to shine" and play like complete D'heads for at least 5 mins a Half in games I've sat through all 40--I'd give them 15 to 18 mins a game of just throwing the ball all over, being careless, not rebounding, allowing straight line drives, etc....
I'd rank the Big Ten right now as Michigan St (by a wide margin ahead of rest of Conference), Oregon/Illinois lumped together, Purdue/Wisconsin, Michigan, then the crazy MF'er division of teams who depending on where you play them and what night their top guys decide to show up can get a win-be it Indiana, Northwestern, Rutgers, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio St--who has regressed this year despite UK win and I will mention Joel Golden Boy Justus joined them...lol---it's just ugly to watch. I mean Iowa giving up 116 pts to a Greg Gard team should ban them from Tournament.
One thing to point out-there was a recent article talking how Big Tens "master" their scheduling. Specifically brought up Iowa and how they literally suck but have scheduled in a manner that somehow the computer numbers spit back that they like them and meanwhile every team they play usually gets their best offensive game and they couldn't defend a lamp post.
