B1G Way Too Early Power Rankings

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MennoSota

MennoSota

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#12 Minnesota

No Big Ten team has had a worse offseason than the Gophers. They fired their head coach Richard Pitino. Then there best player Marcus Carr entered the transfer portal. Most recently role player Jamal Mashburn Jr. decided to transfer to New Mexico to follow Pitino to his new stop.

This all happened to a team that really struggled to end last year. After a huge win against Michigan at home, they fell apart, missed the tournament, and basically looked like they quit on the season.

New head coach Ben Johnson has a lot of work to do and this first year may be rough. They don’t have a lot of talent coming back and will have to replace their most dynamic player and top scorer.

The Barn will always be a tough place to play, but if the Gophers don’t have a lot of talent it won’t matter much. Johnson looks like a good hire but he needs to prove that he can recruit to Minnesota and get them back to the top of the Big Ten. This year won’t be that year.

bustingbrackets.com

Big Ten Basketball: Way-too-early power rankings for 2021-22 season

Big Ten Basketball burned in the past NCAA Tournament but returns a ton of talent for next season. How do the programs currently stack up with each other?
bustingbrackets.com bustingbrackets.com
 

Basically looked like they quit on the season...

There wasn’t any room for that roster to withstand injuries. Effort wasn’t the issue.

No doubt expectations for 2022 are low.
 


Pretty lazy article that mentions the Mashburn as the major loss over Liam & Gabe. They also have Penn State predicted to be 11th while saying that Micah Schrewsberry was their interim coach last year...

Depending how the roster fills out with the last couple spots, I still think the gophers finish around 10th. That’d be considered a success imo as long as they continually get better throughout the season.
 

HitMeAgainIAmStillMoving said:
So the prediction is to finish better than last year.
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Yup. And I could see it too:
This team is elite will be able to win a few games. And winning 3-5 games might be enough to put them ahead of Northwestern and Penn state (especially if the wins are against northwestern and penn state)

The top 11 is gonna get like 48 wins against the bottom 3 next year.
 


Lol this is hilarious!
With this team and staff currently we are clearly finishing last by a ways. If we win 7 total games next year we should be excited. 0-2 big ten games would be a great accomplishment. We have landed one power 5 guy. We lost real big ten players Carr Liam Mash. U replaced them with mid majors who u beat up on in none conference and u think u got better omg. U don’t even have a center yet. Boy some people are going to be greatly disappointed.
 

Seriously, did his editor give him 10 min to write up these rankings? No homework done at all. I quit after he claimed Penn State hired it's interim coach... huh?

Also, very lazy Nebraska outlook. McGowens' 5-star brother joins, along with two other 4-stars. That team is not finishing last.
 

gopherhoopsguy said:
Lol this is hilarious!
With this team and staff currently we are clearly finishing last by a ways. If we win 7 total games next year we should be excited. 0-2 big ten games would be a great accomplishment. We have landed one power 5 guy. We lost real big ten players Carr Liam Mash. U replaced them with mid majors who u beat up on in none conference and u think u got better omg. U don’t even have a center yet. Boy some people are going to be greatly disappointed.
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What is your deal? Nobody expects big things from the team next year. But it also isn't going to be the doom and gloom you are yelling about.

You are making a lot of assumptions about the guys we signed simply based on where they played last year. Just because they didn't play at a power 6 school last year doesn't mean they can't play.

No one thinks we will be in contention for the Big Ten title next year. But it also isn't a guarantee that we are going to be the worst team ever the way you seem to think either.
 




SnoopDonkeyKong said:
Basically looked like they quit on the season...

There wasn’t any room for that roster to withstand injuries. Effort wasn’t the issue.

No doubt expectations for 2022 are low.
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From what I saw before the injuries kicked in (Don't forget the Maryland, Indiana and Illinois stretch!) and killed the season for good, there were some effort issues.

In a sense, Pitino lucked out and was able to 'blame' injuries at the end, which of course he did.
 

DanvilleGopher said:
From what I saw before the injuries kicked in (Don't forget the Maryland, Indiana and Illinois stretch!) and killed the season for good, there were some effort issues.

In a sense, Pitino lucked out and was able to 'blame' injuries at the end, which of course he did.
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I don’t think they quit on the season.
but people need to remember the team just wasn’t that good. There were enough losses in the conference where it was jan 10 and the team already had too many losses to win the conference.

on February 4 the team was 4-7 with losses to the teams finishing 6th, 7th, and 8th in the conference. This was a below .500 team from the start. Enough talent to win some games and upset some people. Not enough talent to be consistent.
 


Some guy said:
I don’t think they quit on the season.
but people need to remember the team just wasn’t that good. There were enough losses in the conference where it was jan 10 and the team already had too many losses to win the conference.

on February 4 the team was 4-7 with losses to the teams finishing 6th, 7th, and 8th in the conference. This was a below .500 team from the start. Enough talent to win some games and upset some people. Not enough talent to be consistent.
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You don't think better coaching would have gotten them a few more wins?
 



There are teams that lost as much as we did. I'm liking what Ben has done in putting together a roster. I know he's struck out on a few guys, but you can see what he's going for. We're not going to be contending for the title, or even be a top 6-8 team, but I'm thinking we finish above where we did last year and win more games in the B1G (which was 6 last year).
 


PMWinSTP said:
You don't think better coaching would have gotten them a few more wins?
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Staying healthy would have too. But the ceiling for this team was probably being a little over .500 in the conference.

I think Rutgers and Wisconsin both has better rosters than MN and they both went 10-10

We overachieved a little in moments in spite of pitino’s coaching
We also underachieved.

Im not sure why people can say Pitino completely held the roster back in the season as a whole when pitino had awesome plans to beat Michigan state, Ohio state, and Michigan. I don’t think he is some genius. But there aren’t any coaches going top 5 in the big ten with a roster who’s 4th best player is a 3 and D guy who can’t shoot and 3rd best player is a MAC transfer who went for 8.9 a game who went 6-46 from 3 in all the games excluding the Iowa game (which he won for the team).

I couldn’t even tell you who the 5th best player was.
 

DanvilleGopher said:
From what I saw before the injuries kicked in (Don't forget the Maryland, Indiana and Illinois stretch!) and killed the season for good, there were some effort issues.

In a sense, Pitino lucked out and was able to 'blame' injuries at the end, which of course he did.
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I think the Indiana game was Gabe’s first game out, and Indiana was over 50% from the field in the second half as I recall.

I agree they did seem to be trending down before the injuries hit, but Gabe and Liam got injured right before what should have been some of the easiest games of the season. If they don’t get injured, I think there’s a decent chance they’re able to beat Northwestern, Nebraska, Rutgers, as those were all at least close, and maybe Penn State, but they lost that one by almost 20 from what I remember.

I think without injuries, they could have gotten to 9-11 and possibly 10-10, which could still be called a disappointment after early wins against Iowa, Ohio State, Michigan State, and Michigan, but may have been enough for a tournament appearance.
 


Some guy said:
Staying healthy would have too. But the ceiling for this team was probably being a little over .500 in the conference.

I think Rutgers and Wisconsin both has better rosters than MN and they both went 10-10

We overachieved a little in moments in spite of pitino’s coaching
We also underachieved.

Im not sure why people can say Pitino completely held the roster back in the season as a whole when pitino had awesome plans to beat Michigan state, Ohio state, and Michigan. I don’t think he is some genius. But there aren’t any coaches going top 5 in the big ten with a roster who’s 4th best player is a 3 and D guy who can’t shoot and 3rd best player is a MAC transfer who went for 8.9 a game who went 6-46 from 3 in all the games excluding the Iowa game (which he won for the team).

I couldn’t even tell you who the 5th best player was.
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They lost some leads they never should have...epic second half collapse. A lot of that is on the HC.
 


Cayman said:
You seemed confused as to why SelectionSunday was sharing the tweet, so I clarified that he’s sharing the tweet because it’s his own. He’s just posting his opinion on a message board.
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Has like 1000 followers.
 

Some guy said:
Staying healthy would have too. But the ceiling for this team was probably being a little over .500 in the conference.

I think Rutgers and Wisconsin both has better rosters than MN and they both went 10-10

We overachieved a little in moments in spite of pitino’s coaching
We also underachieved.

Im not sure why people can say Pitino completely held the roster back in the season as a whole when pitino had awesome plans to beat Michigan state, Ohio state, and Michigan. I don’t think he is some genius. But there aren’t any coaches going top 5 in the big ten with a roster who’s 4th best player is a 3 and D guy who can’t shoot and 3rd best player is a MAC transfer who went for 8.9 a game who went 6-46 from 3 in all the games excluding the Iowa game (which he won for the team).

I couldn’t even tell you who the 5th best player was.
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I agree with this. I don't think Pitino's issue was coaching in general. It mostly talent acquisition and developing players outside of the top 5 players on the team.
 

PMWinSTP said:
They lost some leads they never should have...epic second half collapse. A lot of that is on the HC.
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Do you credit the coach at all for good plans in wins? No doubt he hurt in some games. Other games he helped.

meanwhile his initial game plan built the lead they blew
 

Johnnyboy18 said:
I agree with this. I don't think Pitino's issue was coaching in general. It mostly talent acquisition and developing players outside of the top 5 players on the team.
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He just never really built a team. He assembled rosters.

I’d rate him:
Game planning - B
In game adjusting - D
Roster management - F
PR - A

and I actually think his inability to build depth is why his in game coaching looked so bad. When teams adjusted we couldn’t counter very well because we only ever had 2-3 good options.

I mean, we have this epic comeback against Iowa....but is that because we had a talented team? Or is that because a guy got lucky to go 8/9 from 3 when in all the other games he is a terrible 3 point shooter.

For people who think we have a good roster last year. I’d ask you to tell me who the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth best players.

in my mind, the gophers only had 4 guys who would be regular rotation players for any of the top 7, maybe 9 teams in the conference.
 

Some guy said:
Do you credit the coach at all for good plans in wins? No doubt he hurt in some games. Other games he helped.

meanwhile his initial game plan built the lead they blew
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He was a total failure as a coach here. Never built a identity , terrible defense,terrible record. Very poor defensive fundamentals. Of course he had good fame plans once in awhile. Nothing consistent. Fired !
 

builtbadgers said:
He was a total failure as a coach here. Never built a identity , terrible defense,terrible record. Very poor defensive fundamentals. Of course he had good fame plans once in awhile. Nothing consistent. Fired !
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Nobody is debating that. I wanted him fired in 2019 when one of our up years was sub .500 in the big ten
 

Some guy said:
Do you credit the coach at all for good plans in wins? No doubt he hurt in some games. Other games he helped.

meanwhile his initial game plan built the lead they blew
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He could no adjust. Period. Do you think U should have kept him?
 


If you can't win B1G games in February, you can't keep your job. Neither Pitino nor Tubby could do it. I liked them both, but you have got to be able to win in February.
 


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