thrasher31

Welp. Kudos to Rutgers for playing tough. Piscataway is a hard place to win, but better team wanted to win last night. -Need to hear something on Gary soon. If he's back this year, and that's a big if, allick and potentially diop or Rice need to step up. Brice will have to play down to the 4 some too. -easily the worst game I have seen from mast this season. Clif is a good big, but he took the fight to mast. -allick was pretty productive, and he'll need to continue that carrying forward, as he's the guy I pencil in as a starter. -j law got easy looks early, but needs to knock down one of his 3s. We've seen him be a good shooter, so it is likely a confidence thing. Him figuring it out in Gary's absence would be a massive development. Nothing really good from that game. Road bug bites them again. Fight on the glass over the next few days in practice and be ready for a MASSIVE game vs NW on Saturday.

I was curious on what the road record is for big ten teams in big ten play only starting back in December. So far road teams are 8-29 in big ten play this season. Wisconsin has two of those wins as well. Will be interesting to watch as the season goes on. Need to get a few on the road though @Rutgers, @Maryland, and @Michigan are the best bets imo. Bart has us winning 3 over the season, with those first two I mentioned, Michigan as a slight underdog and IU as a win.

3-1 is my expectation honestly. I don't think Fred has a win vs NW yet since taking over, so that one will be tough. OSU is a good team also. Winning both of those would be incredible. Both road games are winnable though, even if winning on the road in this conference is a damn hard thing to do. Drop 1 and I'm happy, but drop 2 and I'm a bit concerned.

Also, in games where mast and Krikke played each other in the MW, Mast won every matchup. Fwiw Edit: forgot about the double OT game krikkes sophomore year. Mast is 5-1 vs him from the MW days

I've let this marinate for a day. I was in person and that was my favorite game I've been to outside of the Kansas one in 2017. Everyone who touched the court impacted the game in a positive manner. I really liked the defensive strategy last night. Essentially shut off the rim for edey and force tough 3s. Purdue still scored 72, which is a credit to them and how good they are, but edey was neutralized for 12 minutes basically.

All I want is a split of the next two at minimum. I think Iowa is a great opportunity to do that. Still not great defensively and if they execute the formula from last night and last year vs Iowa in Lincoln, they have a legitimate shot. Double fast on baseline to cut off the rim, rotate HARD to the shooter, and big defender on the double rotate to the big so allick (example I'm using) can get out to the shooter. Or force a mid range contested pull up, which is out of Iowa's offense. Create chaos basically and speed them up.

They're decent. Hopefully tomorrow the roads melt more, because it'll be single digits from there on out

Him knocking down a 3 or two will do a lot for the offense. Him and Gary need to be good on their shots in order to stand a chance. Anything allick adds from distance is a plus, but keep it to 1-2 3pa

It's interesting to watch. I don't think they're a good team still, but they're clearly better than they were last year. Mitchell and Hawkins have a lot of juice to them. And I absolutely LOVE Payne. Very very very good big. Also winning on the road in this conference is a very hard task. Michigan losing to PSU today may just mean they're a bad team, so them losing to Minnesota may have been the start of the spiral.

Xavier was before miles was terminated. He left the recruiting class because Kenya Hunter left for UConn I believe. Chucky was leaning us I believe and Donovan left the class because of abdelmassih and Teddy Allen (I think)

Ahhhh. It's Friday and I was early. Sarcasm went above my head.

I think he means guys that they can trust to close out halves if guys get in foul trouble. Drop off talent wise from Brice to CJ or keisei to sam is there, but those guys have the trust of the staff at this point. "close out the half for Brice so we don't have to play him and risk a third foul". Wednesday night was also the first night I can remember if serious first half foul issues. Brice, Gary, and I think one more picked up 2 in the first half. So they haven't been tested in that department. Don't think it's THAT big of a deal. But it is interesting to watch. I'm interested in the splits in those minutes where the bench comes in for the 2 foul guy. Does the team tread water, lose ground, or gain ground going into half

I think MSU was still figuring things out internally with their guards and big man rotation. Big man rotation still isn't solved yet, and won't be until Kohler comes back, but their guards are playing a lot better. So a bit of the first, and yeah Nebraska is better than the consensus had thought imo. I also think PSU is not very good.

Me too. He is a good matchup for teams with bigger guards, but he needs to be ready to play. Can't be what we've seen so far.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I've seen a player switch teams mid season. I have to think there's a rule in place that once you take the court for one team, you cannot do it for another within the same season. I think @hhcmatt had this a while back

Semester already ended. He'd basically be ending his college career if he did that. I think he'll get another opportunity this season, he just needs to be ready.

Good job on this. Getting KSU and MSU up to Q1 wins will certainly help a lot. Going 4-4 with those Q1 games may be unreasonable but getting a few of those should be on the table. Plenty of opportunities in front of us. Need to sweep q3/4 though. Maryland away is the one that concerns me a bit.

Michigan State is helping us in the NET. They jumped to 33 from 42 after beating down Stony Brook last night. Without playing a game, we jumped from 60 to 56. Sweet spot will be MSU jumping to top 30 so we can put that in as a Q1 win, which would be first on the year.

I've keyed in on boogie on the sidelines a bit and in pre game or half time, and very uninterested is putting it politely. He will get a shot at some point this year inevitably. Just need to be ready, and right now it does not seem like he is preparing to be ready. Credit to Fred for ripping the band-aid off. If ulis doesn't put them in this position, we don't have to take boogie.

I was at the game the other night, and energy was very lacking in the first half. Found a way though. Thank you CJ for backpacking in the first half. -one thing that stood out to me was diop not getting minutes in the second half. I'm not sure if it was discussed, but his minutes were not SUPER impressive in the first half. Got beat on box outs and got attacked a bit on defense. That's a team a guy with his athleticism should be able to do very well against, but his head may have been out of it due to Christmas break. Notable though imo. -allick first half vs second half was such a stark difference. First half he was playing hard, but out of control. Second half, he was able to find control and find his spots. One thing about allick I've noticed so far is he will play 1000 mph no matter what, and that can be a detriment or good. Just depends if he can reign in the control. -very very happy to see Lawrence see some shots go down. He needed to get going a bit. I love the way he pushes the pace still and some of the passes he makes in the half court, he just needs to find his footing consistently at the PG spot. I liked omot for ND quite a bit. Think he could definitely play at the HM level. His jumper could use some work and he would need to get up to 200 lbs to make it work, but the talent is there. SC State should be a easier game I *hope*. IU is currently struggling very hard and they cannot shoot. Should be able to take care of that, but the 4/5 battle on both ends will be fun to watch.

Good point on regular redshirt. Would be in play in this scenario for sure. I just went to medical due to it being a medical issue. If they redshirt, I'd think they'll decide on it sometime in January. Depends how his ankle responds and how much he trusts his body

Unrelated to main topics being Lloyd or mast. We're approaching the mid way point of the season, and keita is still injured. I think giving him a medical redshirt at this point and letting him recover would be best. Hard to get ramped up in the middle of big ten play while not completely trusting your body.

I think it was a case of him or arop that off-season, with neither really getting a ton of minutes with shamiel and lat mayen coming in. Cross probably wanted minutes to develop and he found that.

All in all gritty performance. MSU punched back a few times and shot like their season depended on it, which it kinda did. -i know Brice gets a lot of flak, but I do appreciate the calmness he approaches the game with. The dho between him and mast that was essentially the go ahead bucket was a great read and react by those two. Defensively I thought last night was his best performance. Needs to be locked in on that end, because the tools are there. -great all around game by mast. He needed a game like that under his belt in the big ten to gain confidence. -lawrence is going to be up and down most of the year with him taking over full time PG duties. Ideally get the down parts out of the way now so he's peaking by February/March. He needs a game where he goes for 15 plus, just for self confidence. Still turnover prone at times, but he makes plays like the look ahead to CJ under the bucket with his man sealed. He's growing in this role. -sam hoiberg was instrumental. I liked the nod of him/Brice as backup ball handler over boogie because of MSUs guards. All the guards are very quick and straight line drivers. Not a great matchup for boogie, even if he was playing well. -didn't see anything about Gary getting hurt. Ice his shoulder over the week if it's bothering him so he's good by KSU, because he'll have his hands full with their front court KSU is very hard to get a read on in my opinion. Went to OT vs a 5-5 North Alabama team, but followed it up with two wins vs LSU and Nova. They've played in 4 OT games to start the year, 2 HM and 2 mid major. KSU will probably be favored, and that's who I think I'd pick. Will be interesting though

I thought I was having a psychosis trip. "wait, weren't we up 3 points? Is this how I lose my mind? This is it huh?" I also did not hear shit pertaining to it.