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BTN's early 2017-18 B1G Power Rankings

AuroranHusker

By AuroranHusker
in The Haymarket Hardwood

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Dead Dog Alley

Dead Dog Alley

Posted
Posted

There might be some preseason predictions that pick NU over Penn State or Illinois, but 12 or 13 is where we're going to be in most of them.

 

And if every player coming back is the same player they were last year, with no improvement and with the same lingering injury issues, we'll probably finish 13 or 14.  If everything goes right and we see a lot of guys raising their level of play, there's potential to finish a lot higher, but right now that's just potential.

Norm Peterson

Norm Peterson

Posted
Posted
45 minutes ago, Dead Dog Alley said:

There might be some preseason predictions that pick NU over Penn State or Illinois, but 12 or 13 is where we're going to be in most of them.

 

And if every player coming back is the same player they were last year, with no improvement and with the same lingering injury issues, we'll probably finish 13 or 14.  If everything goes right and we see a lot of guys raising their level of play, there's potential to finish a lot higher, but right now that's just potential.

 

Let's just say guys get healthy.  That's not a far-fetched prediction at all.  And I'm not saying everyone perfectly healthy.  I continue to worry about Anton Gill, for instance.  (Hoping for the kid's sake that he makes it back but that injury is worrisome.)  Anyway, let's say Ed's foot, Isaiah's hip, and Isaac's back all get clean bills of health.

 

Then, let's just say guys physically develop.  That's not far-fetched either.  Jordy has already done a lot to transform himself physically from apparently a fat kid who was over 300 pounds to a pretty fit guy at 6'11" and 280#.  But let's say Jordy adds some major muscle over the summer, like what Ed and Michael did last year.  Let's say the same thing happens for Isaiah and for Isaac.  And maybe even Jack to a certain degree.

 

Then, let's just say some guys work on some areas of their games where they can achieve the greatest returns in the least amount of time.  So, for Jordy, he's wearing the tread smooth on the heels of his hightops with all the pivot moves he'll practice and Isaiah is grooving his shot and Glynn is working on his left hand dribble drive and Ed is polishing some post moves and mid-range jumpers.  Let's just say that most of the guys make some incremental improvements in parts of their game and a couple guys like Jordy and Isaiah take major strides forward (as freshmen tend to do in the off-season before their sophomore years.) 

 

None of this is far-fetched.

 

If we come back healthy, and a little bigger and stronger across the board, and incrementally improved in basketball skills ...

 

I still believe this team can take a major step forward next season.  I don't think it's far-fetched.

Norm Peterson

Norm Peterson

Posted
Posted

And I'm just going to anticipate that some of you are going to say that every other team in the conference is going to put in off-season work as well, so we'll just continue to be where we are relative to them because they'll do those things to improve, too.

 

Two observations in response to that:

 

1.  We had some very untimely and unfortunate injuries that probably cost us at least a few games.  Getting healthy matters more for us.

 

2.  It's about pieces.  Jordy has a very high ceiling and could make a dramatic move forward in the off-season.  His improvement alone could change the outcome in a couple of games.  Think what a beefed up Jordy would mean to our post defense and therefore our perimeter defense when we don't have to always throw double teams?  And I'm convinced we'll have better shooters available next season than we did this one.

 

The guys we have (and have coming in) can get there.  The only question is whether they'll put in the work.  Winners are made in the off-season.

aphilso1

aphilso1

Posted
Posted

Sports writers gotta eat, even in the off-season.  I have no issue with releasing a ridiculously early power ranking.  I'd take our team over OSU, PSU, Illinois, and Indiana (assuming that Blackmon and Bryant decide to enter the draft), but can easily understand why their fans would say the opposite.  

Dead Dog Alley

Dead Dog Alley

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

Let's just say guys get healthy.  That's not a far-fetched prediction at all.  And I'm not saying everyone perfectly healthy.  I continue to worry about Anton Gill, for instance.  (Hoping for the kid's sake that he makes it back but that injury is worrisome.)  Anyway, let's say Ed's foot, Isaiah's hip, and Isaac's back all get clean bills of health.

 

Then, let's just say guys physically develop.  That's not far-fetched either.  Jordy has already done a lot to transform himself physically from apparently a fat kid who was over 300 pounds to a pretty fit guy at 6'11" and 280#.  But let's say Jordy adds some major muscle over the summer, like what Ed and Michael did last year.  Let's say the same thing happens for Isaiah and for Isaac.  And maybe even Jack to a certain degree.

 

Then, let's just say some guys work on some areas of their games where they can achieve the greatest returns in the least amount of time.  So, for Jordy, he's wearing the tread smooth on the heels of his hightops with all the pivot moves he'll practice and Isaiah is grooving his shot and Glynn is working on his left hand dribble drive and Ed is polishing some post moves and mid-range jumpers.  Let's just say that most of the guys make some incremental improvements in parts of their game and a couple guys like Jordy and Isaiah take major strides forward (as freshmen tend to do in the off-season before their sophomore years.) 

 

None of this is far-fetched.

 

If we come back healthy, and a little bigger and stronger across the board, and incrementally improved in basketball skills ...

 

I still believe this team can take a major step forward next season.  I don't think it's far-fetched.

No, it's not very far-fetched. But improvements do need to be made (Roby, Jordy, Ed, Jacobson for sure) and they need some luck regarding injuries.

Dean Smith

Dean Smith

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

Let's just say guys get healthy.  That's not a far-fetched prediction at all.  And I'm not saying everyone perfectly healthy.  I continue to worry about Anton Gill, for instance.  (Hoping for the kid's sake that he makes it back but that injury is worrisome.)  Anyway, let's say Ed's foot, Isaiah's hip, and Isaac's back all get clean bills of health.

 

Then, let's just say guys physically develop.  That's not far-fetched either.  Jordy has already done a lot to transform himself physically from apparently a fat kid who was over 300 pounds to a pretty fit guy at 6'11" and 280#.  But let's say Jordy adds some major muscle over the summer, like what Ed and Michael did last year.  Let's say the same thing happens for Isaiah and for Isaac.  And maybe even Jack to a certain degree.

 

Then, let's just say some guys work on some areas of their games where they can achieve the greatest returns in the least amount of time.  So, for Jordy, he's wearing the tread smooth on the heels of his hightops with all the pivot moves he'll practice and Isaiah is grooving his shot and Glynn is working on his left hand dribble drive and Ed is polishing some post moves and mid-range jumpers.  Let's just say that most of the guys make some incremental improvements in parts of their game and a couple guys like Jordy and Isaiah take major strides forward (as freshmen tend to do in the off-season before their sophomore years.) 

 

None of this is far-fetched.

 

If we come back healthy, and a little bigger and stronger across the board, and incrementally improved in basketball skills ...

 

I still believe this team can take a major step forward next season.  I don't think it's far-fetched.

I would say I hate to knitpick but that's kind of my thing. If Jordy wears the tread on his heals smooth doing pivots, he's probably going to tear something in his knees. The pivot needs to be on the balls of his feet with his heel not touching the ground. I actually had someone step on my foot as I was pivoting once and I tore my MCL. 

atskooc

atskooc

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Norm Peterson said:

And I'm just going to anticipate that some of you are going to say that every other team in the conference is going to put in off-season work as well, so we'll just continue to be where we are relative to them because they'll do those things to improve, too.

 

Two observations in response to that:

 

1.  We had some very untimely and unfortunate injuries that probably cost us at least a few games.  Getting healthy matters more for us.

 

2.  It's about pieces.  Jordy has a very high ceiling and could make a dramatic move forward in the off-season.  His improvement alone could change the outcome in a couple of games.  Think what a beefed up Jordy would mean to our post defense and therefore our perimeter defense when we don't have to always throw double teams?  And I'm convinced we'll have better shooters available next season than we did this one.

 

The guys we have (and have coming in) can get there.  The only question is whether they'll put in the work.  Winners are made in the off-season.

Getting healthy doesn't matter so much as staying healthy does. Of course, that's one of those things we can't control. 

TourneyBound

TourneyBound

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

Let's just say guys get healthy.  That's not a far-fetched prediction at all.  And I'm not saying everyone perfectly healthy.  I continue to worry about Anton Gill, for instance.  (Hoping for the kid's sake that he makes it back but that injury is worrisome.)  Anyway, let's say Ed's foot, Isaiah's hip, and Isaac's back all get clean bills of health.

 

Then, let's just say guys physically develop.  That's not far-fetched either.  Jordy has already done a lot to transform himself physically from apparently a fat kid who was over 300 pounds to a pretty fit guy at 6'11" and 280#.  But let's say Jordy adds some major muscle over the summer, like what Ed and Michael did last year.  Let's say the same thing happens for Isaiah and for Isaac.  And maybe even Jack to a certain degree.

 

Then, let's just say some guys work on some areas of their games where they can achieve the greatest returns in the least amount of time.  So, for Jordy, he's wearing the tread smooth on the heels of his hightops with all the pivot moves he'll practice and Isaiah is grooving his shot and Glynn is working on his left hand dribble drive and Ed is polishing some post moves and mid-range jumpers.  Let's just say that most of the guys make some incremental improvements in parts of their game and a couple guys like Jordy and Isaiah take major strides forward (as freshmen tend to do in the off-season before their sophomore years.) 

 

None of this is far-fetched.

 

If we come back healthy, and a little bigger and stronger across the board, and incrementally improved in basketball skills ...

 

I still believe this team can take a major step forward next season.  I don't think it's far-fetched.

This is all good, but flat out a lot of guys need to work on putting the ball in the basket!!!!  Whether it's 3 pointers, free throws, mid range jumpers, or in the paint guys gotta improve on their scoring!!  This and 3 point defense of course.....??

jimmykc

jimmykc

Posted
Posted

Generally speaking, the Big Ten announcers have been most fair toward our team-maybe they are told to do that. Since I am now in full baseball mode I really don't care where they pick us for next year at this point. It just seems so far away.

Norm Peterson

Norm Peterson

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, Dean Smith said:

I would say I hate to knitpick but that's kind of my thing. If Jordy wears the tread on his heals smooth doing pivots, he's probably going to tear something in his knees. The pivot needs to be on the balls of his feet with his heel not touching the ground. I actually had someone step on my foot as I was pivoting once and I tore my MCL. 

 

Well, my basketball experience may be a bit dated, but for me it was always plant your heel and rotate around the sole of your foot to the ball of your foot.  I don't think I could do it without touching my heel to the ground.

HB

HB

Posted
Posted
28 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

Well, my basketball experience may be a bit dated, but for me it was always plant your heel and rotate around the sole of your foot to the ball of your foot.  I don't think I could do it without touching my heel to the ground.

 

Nice moves, Norm.   No wonder you have so many kids.  

OmahaHusker

OmahaHusker

Posted
Posted

A lot of the way too early preseason polls and even regular preseason polls we'll see down the road will be based solely on what you did this season and who's returning. They see we had a below average record last year and our best player is leaving. They're not going to rank on potential. I wouldn't worry about it we know how good this team can be.

hhcmatt

hhcmatt

Posted
Posted
9 hours ago, thattimeofyear said:

I'm sure all the guys are gonna put in the work. I'm more concerned with what kinda changes and improvements the coaches make offensively.

With the players that are gonna be around next yr im expecting a little more fast paced ally-oop type one. 

 

 

A lot of mouths to feed next year. One way to do that is playing a lot of guys fast. We have the roster to do that.

 

Conference play Tempo

2013 - 60.9 (10th) 

2014 - 63.9  (6th)

2015 - 61.6 (10th)

2016 - 65.0 (12th) *shot clock changed from 35 to 30...everyone got faster 8

2017 - 69.0 (6th) 

 

FWIW last season even with Gill out and Ed out half of conference it felt like this was our deepest roster since Miles started here.

We'll have to see who we fill with our last two spots, when Copeland can play, and how Nana looks but currently it looks like we have 9 guys that should play minutes.

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