We are more than two weeks in and teams are playing real opponents! I breakdown what we learned from a busy Big Ten Friday Night, play Good Game Bad Game, hand out awards, & end with No Explanation Big Ten Power Rankings.
by Jordan Beckley
The Big Three
Three Big takeaways from the past week of College Basketball.
1. Are Mackey Arena & Matt Painter enough for Purdue?
Purdue had a classic College Basketball week.
An electrifying home win that makes your confidence soar. Then a disheartening road loss that makes you question whether half the team is capable of playing Basketball.
The Boilers beat no.2 Alabama in Mackey Arena in exhilarating fashion. Trey Kaufman Renn finally looked the part as an All Big Ten replacement to Zach Edey. Braden Smith & Fletcher Loyer outplayed Mark Sears and the Crimson Tide starting back court. Even the supporting characters like CJ Cox, Camden Heide, etc. had memorable performances.
Fast forward to yesterday, and all of that changed. Marquette’s Kam Jones out Braden Smith’d Braden Smith with a tripe double (15pts, 13reb, 10ast), Purdue was back to turning it over like crazy, the Boilers couldn’t outrebound a much smaller team, and the role players disappeared. The Golden Eagles pestered Purdue speeding them up in the halfcourt and tallied 11 steals and 5 blocks for 19 easy fast break points. Marquette won by 18 points.
This kind of fluctuation in home and away is normal in College Basketball. But Purdue, hasn’t been normal the past few years.
Purdue jumped 7 spots in the AP Poll from no.13 to no.6 after the Alabama win. But on KenPom Purdue didn’t move from their no.12 ranking. Instead Alabama just fell back. It’s better to view the Boilers from this prism.
Purdue isn’t winning a National Title this year. They aren’t the sixth best team in the country. Matt Painter’s team is in the no.3 & no.4 seed line discussion more than the no.1 & no.2 seed unless there is some serious development from the players who haven’t turned 20 years old yet.
Braden Smith is an All American who is tasked with doing everything for Purdue. Fletcher Loyer is passing the eye test as a no.2 option. Trey Kaufman Renn’s consistency will be a great barometer for their success. But the supporting characters aren’t offering much yet.
CJ Cox had a result swinging stretch of threes against Alabama. He went 0-fer against Marquette. Myles Colvin scored 0 points against Bama & Marquette. Ditto with Gicarri Harris. The collective of Will Berg, Caleb Furst & Raleigh Burgess making up Purdue’s center minutes are going to operate more as screeners than scorers.
So, what can Purdue do this year? Could they make the Final Four again? Probably not. Could they win the Big Ten again? Yeah, definitely.
For all the warts on Purdue, every other Big Ten team has them too. This will be a weak Big Ten conference this season and we are going to see a lot of variability from teams playing on the road.
Mackey Arena is still one of the best home court advantages in CBB. Matt Painter is still one of the best coaches in CBB.
Will that be enough for Smith, Loyer & TKR to scrounge enough wins (about 13 is my guess) to win the Conference for the third year in a row?
2. Hello, John Tonje! (and Wisconsin)
The other big win of last week was Wisconsin smacking no.9 Arizona in the Kohl Center 103-88.
Coincidentally, The Badgers were celebrating the 2014 & 2015 Final Four teams that beat Sean Miller’s Arizona teams in the Elite Eight both seasons.
And John Tonje and the Badgers honored those teams well by dropping 103 on Arizona and winning wire to wire. Tonje was a lower profile transfer pickup from Missouri who took a medical redshirt after struggling to make his mark for the worst team in the SEC last year. Before Mizzou, Tonje was one of Colorado State’s best players and he seems to be returning to that form at Wisconsin.
Through 5 games Tonje is averaging 22.6ppg and 5rpg while shooting 50% from 3pt (12-24 overall) and a ridiculous 96% from the line. His efficiency was eye popping against Arizona scoring 41 points on just 8 made baskets because he hit 21 of his 22 free throw attempts.
Let me say it again, John Tonje scored 21 points from the line alone and made less than 10 shots to get to a 40 point game.
Wisconsin survived a nervy game against UT Rio Grande Valley (who gave Creighton a scare too) on Monday to move to 5-0 and rocketed up to 19th in the AP Poll. Greg Gard has his team once again outperforming preseason expectations.
The Badgers are relying on the trio of Max Klesmit, John Blackwell and Tonje as the main scorers. Kamari McGee is healthy again and has been the sixth man/default point guard often times. Nolan Winter, Xavier Amos and Steven Crowl rotate in the frontcourt and each have had good moments, but this has been a guard lead team.
The Badgers don’t do anything particularly well, besides shoot threes (39.1%) and get to the line (26.4 FTA). When they do get to the charity stripe, Wisconsin is making them at a nationally no.1 rate of 88.6%.
How real is this Wisconsin team? KenPom has them at no.39 despite the win over Arizona. We will figure it out over the course of the Big Ten schedule, but for now congrats John Tonje for finding a home and Wisconsin & Greg Gard for star-making once again.
3. Ohio State still doesn’t know how good or bad they are
After a 78-64 spanking from Texas A&M on Friday night, Ohio State is firmly out of the AP Poll.
The Buckeyes lost so convincingly that they got less votes than Michigan State who quite frankly looks awful so far. Ohio State jumped the line into the polls at the no.21 spot after beating an overrated Texas in their opener. Now it’s a few games into the season and we don’t know how to feel about the Buckeyes.
One of the biggest questions for the Buckeyes is their frontcourt. Against the Aggies, the main frontcourt trio of Sean Stewart, Devin Royal and Aaron Bradshaw combined for 11 points, 19reb, and went 5-21 from the field in 65 minutes played. Bradshaw and Royal went 0-6 from three too.
Against Youngstown State that core had 28 points, 21 rebounds on 11-18 shooting in 55 minutes played. Now, that isn’t lighting the world on the fire, but that’s all Coach Diebler needs from them. Bradshaw needs to be a threat to open up driving (or passing) lanes for Bruce Thornton when he rolls to the rim. Royal is a tremendous player, but his impact might be reduced down to if he can make the corner three. He went 2-4 against Texas and has missed all 5 behind the arc attempts he had against A&M and Youngstown. Royal showed what his talent can bring with 20 points and 12 rebounds Tuesday versus Evansville.
Beyond the frontcourt, Ohio State is shooting a ton of threes and in doing so are vulnerable to volatility. The Buckeyes hit an unsustainable 14 threes on 50% shooting against Texas. The flip side of that coin happened against the Aggies when they went 8-30 (26.7%). Are we sure this team is actually good at shooting? Like they are going to let it rip, but which of those performances are likely to be repeated over and over again?
The equalizing three has been crucial for OSU as they have not been able to make their mark inside the arc. Before the Evansville game, Ohio State was in the 300s for 2point FG attempts and were making less than half of them. That’s not good.
Ohio State grades out as a Top-25 defense who fouls a little too much. They don’t hurt or help themselves much on the boards or in Assist-to-Turnover ratios, so they are almost exclusively dependent on threes right now.
Almost every player not named Thornton is trying to find their footing on a largely all new team. We have plenty to sort thru with Ohio State, but it will be huge for the bigs to apply pressure to opposing defenses around the rim to lower the Buckeyes’ do-or-die 3-point style so far.
Good Game Bad Game
A recurring segment where I tell you about someone, anyone really who had a good game or a bad game. It will mostly be players, but refs, fans, and coaches will make appearances too.
Good Game
Top Prospect Ace Bailey finally made his Rutgers debut on Friday against Monmouth and it took him one possession to nail a three for his first career points. Bailey showed off his shotmaking and incredible versatility given his size as the Scarlet Knights turned up 98 points against Monmouth.
Maryland was very close to pulling off the upset on Marquette Friday night in College Park. The Terps stormed back late in large part due to Ja’Kobi Gillespie and Derik Queen’s big nights as they put in 24 points each. Maryland could have tied it up with just 15 seconds left but back to back missed free throws from DeShawn Harris-Smith sunk the Terps. Still, it was a verifying game for Maryland that this roster can compete with the best teams.
CJ Cox came into the Purdue Alabama game and absolutely changed it by hitting three straight threes in less than one minute. Please just take a listen to the Mackey crowd…
His shot creation could be critical for the Boilers as they are thin on that end beyond their big 3 of Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer & Trey Kaufman Renn. We aren’t going to mention his Marquette minutes in this section.
Jalen Leach scored 27 points for Northwestern in their unexpected OT win over Eastern Illinois. The Wildcats needed Leach’s steady hand as some of their younger guards struggled. Leach’s 7 points in OT and 15-16 performance from the FT line for Leach was enough for Northwestern to escape without a stain on their tournament resume.
Brooks Barnhizer meanwhile made his debut against Montana State yesterday and Northwestern would have lost without the 20pts, 10reb, 4asts, & 4 stocks in a 3 point home win. Northwestern is 4-1 right now but they are kind of the Kansas City Chiefs of the Big Ten not that they are elite but that they just keep pulling close games out.
Rick Pitino and St. John’s beat UNLV & Richard Pitino in the Pitino Bowl 85-71 on Sunday.
Bad Game
As of Monday morning, Michigan State has hit only 20% of it’s threes while attempting 20 a game. The Spartans are 364th out of 364 teams in the country at three point percentage. If you didn’t follow that, MSU is the worst shooting three point team in College Basketball. They went 4-20 in a closer than it should’ve been game against Bowling Green on Saturday and their 3-24 performance against Kansas in the Champions Classic is an easy stat to point to for the loss to the Jayhawks.
UPDATE: The Spartans’ 7-24 (29.2%) long range accuracy against Samford dragged them up 1 whole spot to be the 2nd worst 3 point shooting team in the country.
Coleman Hawkins had a bad game in Kansas State’s home loss to LSU last Thursday. The Illini grad transfer went for 8 points on 3-10 shooting and 0-4 from three, but made more waves for trying to fight LSU’s Cam Carter.
Richard Pitino lost to his dad Rick Pitino on Sunday in the Pitino Bowl and had to listen to the Madison Square Garden crowd chant “Who’s your daddy!” at him.
Award Winning Wings
I hand out my awards and superlatives for the week of CBB.
Wait What? Upset of the Week
Unfortunately, Villanova is a back to back winner of our dishonorable awards. Nova lost to Philadelphia rival St Joseph’s for the 2nd straight year last week 76-83. Kyle Neptune and co. followed that up with a 60-70 loss to Virginia to drop to 2-3 on the young season. It’s so bad that Villanova is now ranked below Depaul on EvanMiya.com.
I might have to rename my Did Louisville Win this Week update from last season to Did Villanova Win this Week? because woof it is not going well for the Cats.
Player of the Week
Kam Jones is my player of the week despite the harm he has done to the Big Ten in the past week. On Friday against Maryland Kam Jones dropped 28 points on 55% shooting. As mentioned earlier, Jones had Marquette’s third ever Triple Double (first since Dwyane Wade) versus Purdue with 17pts, 13reb, 10ast on 58% shooting.
With Tyler Kolek and Oso Ighodaro gone, Shaka Smart needs Kam Jones to be both. He can’t just be a scorer like he was afforded to next to one of the best passing guards in Kolek. After the Purdue game Jones is taking that mantle over with 6 apg and an insane assist % of 42%. The Golden Eagles Final Four hopes will fall squarely on his shoulders.
Coach of the Week
The flowers I’m giving for Coach of the Week have wilted a little, but I haven’t written since Mark Pope outcoached Jon Scheyer and beat a much more talented Duke team in the Champions Classic.
The Mark Pope system has gone on a mission trip from BYU to Lexington and UK is undefeated. The Wildcats are going to shoot around 30 threes a game (hitting them at about 40%), they play at a pace that gives them more possessions than most teams in basketball, and they pass extremely well with the most assists in the country while taking care of the ball with only 11 TO per game that the elevated pace and increase in field goal attempts is a mathematical advantage.
Kentucky is now in the Top 10 and the team still seems like a greater than the sum is greater than the parts team. Koby Brea has limitations defensively, Otega Oweh has limitations offensively, Jaxson Robinson is inconsistent, so are several other players, and Kerr Kriisa needs a certain length leash that isn’t too long or too short. So far, Mark Pope is pushing all the right buttons.
I don’t believe in Kentucky as an SEC contender, but the fact that Pope can completely rebuild UK in the offseason and beat a Duke team with a roster full of 5-stars on the strength of his coaching is an encouraging juxtaposition for Kentucky fans.
‘Oh No, We Suck Again’ Award
The winner of this week’s “Oh No, We Suck Again” Award is a team who didn’t have high expectations but man have they not reached them. Seton Hall is 2-2 so far with losses to Hofstra (no.133) and Fordham (no.166 KenPom).
The strangeness doesn’t end there because Seton Hall hasn’t given up 60 points in any game this year and still is 2-2. They lost 56-57 to Fordham, 48-49 to Hofstra and followed that up with a 54-28 win against Wagner. The Pirates suck but they’ve been giving up the fewest points per game of any team in College Basketball and they still can’t win. Shaheen Holloway’s team is scoring just 53.8ppg which ranks 362nd out of 364 D1 Teams. And that output is against four buy games.
Imagine this offense against the Big East… Do they crack 20 points against UConn?
The Look Ahead
I take a sneak peak at the biggest upcoming games and give non-legally binding vague suggestions on who I might think could possibly win in an of course non-betting capacity…
- #25 Illinois vs. #8 Alabama (in Birmingham)
- Oregon at Oregon State
- Wisconsin vs UCF (in West Virginia)
- Nebraska at Creighton
- Villanova vs Maryland (in New Jersey)
Illinois will get their first real test of the season when they play a “neutral site” game against no. 8 Alabama in Birmingham. The Illini and the Tide both want to jack threes so expect points to be flowing or if you are fading a very young Illinois team in their first game out off the state maybe the under is smart. For Illinois to win they will need to continue their elite rebounding, rim protection, and three point production. Kasparas Jakucionis is a passing maniac with 7.7 assists per game in just 29mpg, but has struggled to score. What does the projected lottery pick look like against Alabama’s length? This is an obvious loss for Illinois and that’s okay.
Due to conference expansion for College Football, the Oregonians get to enjoy the Ducks vs. the Beavers in Basketball before their football teams’ seasons are even over! This one isn’t much of a thought. Oregon is not playing their best yet and still profiles as a much better team. This one could get really ugly if the Ducks best players start playing like it (stares at Jackson Shelstad).
If Arizona Wisconsin had 87 total free throws then the Badgers vs UCF might have 100 free throw attempts. Both of these teams are shooting a ton of free throws each game at 55 or so combined. Remember UCF just beat Texas A&M in the opener. I like Wisconsin to win as I think they are a slightly better version of the Golden Knights.
The great Nebraska-Creighton rivalry is about to have its 58th iteration Friday night. Greg McDermott is 11-3 in this rivalry and Creighton overall leads the series 30-27. It’s very unlikely that Nebraska will beat Creighton in the CHI Health Center and it’s far less likely they find an answer to serious National Player of the Year candidate Ryan Kalkbrenner down low.
Villanova pulled themselves together (a little bit) and beat Penn 93-49 yesterday. Maryland embarrassed Canisius worse 108-37. There’s not really an excuse here for Maryland. This is a must-win game if they want to make the NCAA Tournament. The Terps like everyone else will get beat up in Big Ten play. They can’t have a loss to a bad Villanova team. I am wondering at this point if we will ever see a game where both Julian Reese and Derik Queen play well.
No Explanation Big Ten Power Rankings
I am just the humble mouthpiece for the No Explanation College Basketball Committee, who release their weekly Big Ten Rankings to me. I provide their rankings with… no explanation.
Some shuffling at the top and bottom tier but not a ton of movement overall from the committee. If only there was more information about the selection process. Darn.