Fullbacksympathy

TM could learn something from OSU about calling timeouts to stop runs. Great start to the half though.

Shot will fall at a higher clip this half. That’ll change things.

Brady needs more minutes in general. Kid is a player and does a lot of little things well, including altering shots and rebounding. I like Roby at the 3 as well. Glynn JPJ Roby Cope Brady ^^ that would be my second half starting lineup. Tom could be our scorer with the second unit. How many friggin threes has Nana missed in a row now over the last few games?! That’s been a huge loss for us as far as bench sparks go.

Can’t blame offensive coaching so far. Make a friggin bunny someone.

I agree with this to an extent, but mainly with Roby. If he forced the issue as much as JPJ he’d score 20 a game. I think Cope has been great all year offensively, and Watson has been pretty good as well. The problem is that JPJ has clearly been green lighted to shoot at will, but he has largely earned that right, so it’s probably tough to bring a guy like that back into more of a role after demanding he be an alpha. Hot take: Tom is our most natural scorer.

He needs to stop trying to be our best player and be one of several very good players. When he plays within the system (move the ball, move without the ball, be active on defense), he still gets his. Look at the first half when we were destroying RU. JPJ was calmly within the flow of the game and getting about a point a minute. We piss down our leg when he forces the action. I don't like the "selfish" labels just like I didn't like them for TP, and JPJ has won a shitload of games for us by being aggressive. But I remember a lot of quiet 15 point games out of him last year, and we were usually winning handily when he showed up in the stat book that way, because it meant 3-4 other guys were probably in double figures. We need more of those games. And, yeah, the team needs to get ice back in their veins at the line. Yeesh.

Obviously some red flags were raised last night. Some perspective, however: right now, what feels like rock bottom is like a 9 seed. Have a little hope.

This. We’re going to be ranked in a few weeks and that win may end up being one of two or three resume boosters for MSU making a case for a 1 seed. We’re underrated because the start of conference play was very difficult.

Their point guard is elite—probably the best college PG in the country. That’s the difference between this MSU team and a lot of the other teams mentioned. They haven’t had a PG that savvy since Cleaves. I actually didn’t think MSU played very well either. They had a ton of completely uncontested threes clang off. But their team defense in transition and in the half court was a clinic.

One word for my feelings after watching: proud. We showed up and fought to the end. There have been more top heavy MSU teams talent wise to come through here, but man... that group plays unbelievably well together. They’re my pick for the NC straight up, and they have the best coach in the country. For perspective: that’s only the second conference game anyone has stayed within single digits of MSU, and closest game they’ve had so far. They’ve been beating the piss out of everyone. We out rebounded them and had less turnovers. We were tough all night. Hard for me to complain about that.

The Wiscy hype train is a joke. Same with IU and OSU. We have way more talent than those three teams. If we were any of those names, we’d be AP Top 15-20 range week in and week out even before we kicked IU’s ass.

Ohio State’s ranking is completely unearned. We have a better tournament resume.

I like our chances in this one. Indiana is a mirror talent wise, but we have an edge in experience. If our bench shows up, we win.

Part of the rebounding problem of late has been the lack of support from the guards. Toward the last ten minutes, Tom and Glynn started showing up on the defensive glass. You have to rebound as a team, particularly when we have two bigs who are good shot blockers. We blocked 8 shots Thursday night to their 4 and allowed 64 points while basically meeting the spread. If we get more rebounds, that’s a more comfortable win. Having said that, Watkins and Reaves are no joke in the front court, and Reaves is very versatile. Had Cope been making threes, it would’ve offset the physical mismatch down low. I thought Cope needed more spot minutes Thursday. Heiman looks to me like he could do fine at the 4.

Despite their record, Penn State is clearly a Clemson-Ass team.

Good win against a team that is way more talented than their record. Roby was who we thought he was tonight. Best game of his career so far. He was an absolute terror. Watson was extremely clutch and ran the show when things got tense. Loved his leadership tonight. Another solid game from Tom. Kid is a natural and has a very high IQ and knowledge of his role on both ends. Our guards outplayed theirs tonight. We had a TON of deflections not go into our hands. That really hurts JPJ’s game as he is so good in transition as a scorer. He’s gotta chill in the half court sets and move the ball. He also needs to get some defensive urgency. Cope got got leaned on and outmuscled all night, but that was to be expected a bit based on the matchup. He had some great looks from 3 that didn’t drop. If those go in, he would’ve had a similar perimeter impact on his matchup like Roby did. Off nights happen, even for our most consistent player, and he still managed to help out with some timely midrange shots. Really glad lad to see Amir back. Need Nana to find his stroke again. We need him to be effective as a stretch 4 off the bench. I thought Brady’s height could’ve helped defensively in spot minutes tonight, but Roby was such a beast and kept his fouls low. Hard to complain about his minutes. Again, good win. PSU has talent and impressed me tonight. They’ll ruin some nights for a few teams now that Watkins is getting his legs back.

I have no idea how you interpreted what I typed based on this commentary, but to be clear: I’m glad expectations are high as they are proof of program improvement. We aren’t underperforming. This is, to date, Miles’ best year ever. I agree that the losses we have (all Q1) aren’t bad losses. I think TM is doing a great job with the program and will earn an extension based on the results of this season. I care about results—all of them so far—and on the whole, we are meeting most people’s high expectations so far this season. Am I missing something?

I was going off beginning of the year, and Kenpom definitely had us losing to Minny. I checked. Fair on points A, B. On C, I think we're going off of different sources at different times, which is fine. I was negating that by saying either way it shows undeniable improvement as a program over the course of the last two seasons, and I don't see that trend changing under Miles given his proven recruiting abilities.

That's a fair critique, but Vegas isn't trying to be accurate--it's trying to make money by slightly manipulating perceptions one way or the other. The metric predictions (which I inherently trust more) I remember seeing, like Kenpom, had us 1-3 during this stretch including a loss to Minnesota. To evolve our convo, though, I have a question: even if we are favored to win by 1-2 points on the road and lose a close, hard-fought game, is it really a cause for concern? The fact that we're favored at all should be a fantastic indicator that major progress is being made over the course of the last two seasons. We're about to set a record of 20 straight home wins (our last loss was 1pt against KU) and every road game is a toss up. Isn't that a new level of college basketball around here?

"-esque" would be the less humorous and more technically correct semantic term. However, the incessant amount of Clemson-esque teams on our schedule has resulted in the aforementioned "-ass" morpheme. So, instead of saying, "This team is Clemson-esque in terms of their overall talent," the language has evolved into, "Oh God, another Clemson-ass team on the road."

This. We weren't favored to beat Maryland or Iowa (who was ranked higher than us) on their home court. I don't remember Minnesota but we aren't going to be favored more than a point or two on anyone else's court save maybe Rutgers or Illinois.

I still think Moos made the right call, and I still think TM is taken care of after this season's inevitable (yes, I said it) success. If we make the tournament, Moos would be a complete moron to do anything other than extend the contract handsomely, particularly with dudes like Jervay, Dachon, and some very good freshmen in the wings. I am not convinced there is any available coach out there who can out-recruit TM at Nebraska, and the whole aw-shucks-good-coaching-with-no-talent method has been tried and failed miserably, so it had probably better be TM. Hoiberg is the only one available who is worth a damn and Matta is fully retired. TM is an elite recruiter and made leaps and bounds last year as an in-game coach. Hopefully his Xs and Os will continue to trend up. Overall, this season, the team has looked quite a bit better than last year. We were supposed to go 1-3 to start the B1G slate by virtually all oddsmakers. We're going to beat the piss out of a lot of teams at home.

And by that I mean there are more Clemson-ass teams (fairly talented slightly above bubble opponents who are difficult to beat on the road) on our schedule than I can remember in recent past. I keep looking at the schedule thinking to myself, "Oh... here's another Clemson-ass team." Clemson Seton Hall Creighton Oklahoma State Iowa Minnesota Indiana Wisconsin Maryland Ohio State (they haven't shown me enough to merit that ranking) . I suppose this is the feeling one gets when our SOS is so high. Every one of those teams is a very tough out and requires a very good game to come out with a W, but they all look the same in terms of their decent overall ability. It's like playing Kansas State (the ultimate Clemson-ass team) every week. I feel as though every one of these teams is a win at home and a toss-up on the road. That's why I don't feel any panic at the moment.

I think we miss Amir way more than some may realize. He helps us a lot as a long, fast perimeter defender and ball handler.

Good effort. Maryland got hot. They are a tough matchup inside for us at home. Hard to complain too much about a lead in the last minute on a quality oppenent’s home court. We were in a good position to win the game.