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Utah State had Craig Smith in 2021, Ryan Odom (now at VCU) for two seasons, and Danny Sprinkle (now Washington) last year. I don’t think the current coach would have agreed to a big buyout with that kind of stepping stone history.

Love this. Suggestion (perhaps too on the nose): this should be updated on Wednesdays…

I know you're the resident Illini guy - that's a great team when everyone's available. But I want to bash the Hoosiers here. Ok, so they're missing Reneau - that still leaves them with a monster in the middle (Ballo) who they ought to be able to exploit in the paint against just about...

1. As I said prior to the game, MD is going to turn you over - you just need to accept that and limit the damage. That came out about as expected. 2. They took only 9 of their 36 2P FGAs from midrange, and that is a really big improvement. Yeah 12-27 from the lane isn't good - that may have...

Dude... google that name.

That effort allowed MN to move up to #108 on Torvik this morning, which puts them ahead of Washington at #111. Not last!!! Well, analytically not last...

When it comes to NIL/paying players, the new arrangement with the B10 (which I don't completely understand) will put the Gophers ahead of most non-B10 schools. Brinks truck is already en route, at least theoretically.

The idea of moving to a pro sports type of organization for college sports - at least the big ones - might be inevitable. MN could be on the forefront by bringing in a basketball GM between now and the end of the season. Won’t probably happen, but would be ahead of the curve.

I was going to make the same point about Painter - he only had one season as head coach at SIU before joining Keady as assistant for a year. Painter went straight from playing to coaching at some really low levels. He’s only 54 and has been head coach for 20 years now.

Yes, that was probably the best they’ve played this year against a real opponent. Maryland’s MO is to turn you over, so that stat was as expected - but the Gophs did much better on non-turnover possessions than normal. And a lot of that is about making the FTs like a normal team.

Maryland is very good at causing turnovers and not turning it over themselves. Rebounding is above average on both ends of the court. They also play a lot better at home. They are also #1 in the country in not getting their shots blocked, for whatever that’s worth. I’m not finding a lot of...

Yep, I am in the coaching matters group. Can you explain how Northwestern has remained competitive? Or Wisconsin, who got hit just as hard (probably more) by portal losses? Even PSU manages to be a hard team to play against. Oh, they all whine about their disadvantages with NIL, too, but there...

Well, I won't argue that they're bad, but we'll disagree that those coaches wouldn't have been able to get them to play together. Yes, it is unpopular. Also unsupported by evidence. But, it's fine to have a dissenting view. SMH. You've bought into "poor Ben" and that personnel is the only...

Maybe not along the same lines, but I thought Garcia's quote (paraphrasing) about "this is our livelihood and how we pay our families" was also telling. Cronin and Barnes are good coaches, full stop. They also have boatloads of NIL to play with, and that has - perhaps unconsciously - changed...

I don't disagree with any of this at the individual level. However, defense is much more about 5 guys playing as a team. Being a good one-on-one defender doesn't help you with the other 80% of offensive players on the floor - having a defensive system/rules is a great equalizer for talent...

You're confusing production vs. talent. Collins put those players in a position to develop and produce. Martinelli had no other P6 offers and flipped his commitment from Elon (the college). Barnhizer was a 3-star. Leach spent 4 years at Fairfield, which is in the same league big Frank came...

Northwestern’s talent is about equivalent. You can argue that, but it’s not wildly different. They even lost a college-level superstar in Buie, and remain competitive. Hmm, what lets them do that? I can’t think of anything.

Agree to disagree - not about the talent so much, but that coaching matters. It’s all speculation, but if this group were coached by any of the top ten coaches in this conference, it’d look a lot better. They look like a group of disconnected individual players for a reason.

Odukale is quoted in the full article, The first half competitiveness probably had more to do with Wisconsin playing poorly than the Gophers playing well. Water finds its level - the triple-digit ranked MN defense was extremely unlikely to keep the Badgers’ top ten offense shooting at only 32%...

Established statistical precedence undefied.