Dick Vitale's Conference Breakdown

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Zales04

Zales04

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Dick Vitale posted his Super Six conference predictions. He's got us 6th in the Big Ten behind Wisconsin. I'd prefer to flip us and Wisconsin, but I'm biased. Interestingly enough, he has Cory Joseph listed as the Diaper Dandy of the Big 12.

Not much substance to his article, but he thinks MSU and OSU will make the Final Four, and it should not surprise anyone that he has Duke repeating as champs - and he has Kyle Singler of Duke as player of the year. I bet he thinks Coach K will be coach of the year too. Anyway, I thought some might be interested if you haven't seen this already.

Click me baby with a capital C!
 

Quickly skimmed over the article but did notice a couple of things... 1. Is the ACC down this year? He has VT taking 3rd place in that conference. 2. Has Kansas ever taken 5th or lower in the B12 in the past 10 years? He has them taking 5th this season but does say he would have them higher if Selby were eligible. Still surprising.
 

Zales04 said:
Dick Vitale posted his Super Six conference predictions. He's got us 6th in the Big Ten behind Wisconsin. I'd prefer to flip us and Wisconsin, but I'm biased. Interestingly enough, he has Cory Joseph listed as the Diaper Dandy of the Big 12.

Not much substance to his article, but he thinks MSU and OSU will make the Final Four, and it should not surprise anyone that he has Duke repeating as champs - and he has Kyle Singler of Duke as player of the year. I bet he thinks Coach K will be coach of the year too. Anyway, I thought some might be interested if you haven't seen this already.

Click me baby with a capital C!
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Disagree that OSU will finish that high. Even though they have great freshmen, I think the loss of Turner is huge to overcome. I see 4th place for them, behind Purdue, Illinois and MSU. I say we finish 5th.
 

Read through the whole thing with his voice wracking my brain. (How does he do that without even speaking?) Seen our Big Ten/ACC Challenge, Virginia, foe is picked last.
 

Gopherholefan said:
Quickly skimmed over the article but did notice a couple of things... 1. Is the ACC down this year? He has VT taking 3rd place in that conference. 2. Has Kansas ever taken 5th or lower in the B12 in the past 10 years? He has them taking 5th this season but does say he would have them higher if Selby were eligible. Still surprising.
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VaTech is a very good team with all five starters from a 25-win team back. Malcolm Delaney is legit and so is Dorenzo Hudson and Jeff Allen. Delaney scored 20 a game and Hudson and Allen where both in double-figures for sure.
 


Juicer said:
Disagree that OSU will finish that high. Even though they have great freshmen, I think the loss of Turner is huge to overcome. I see 4th place for them, behind Purdue, Illinois and MSU. I say we finish 5th.
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i think OSU has the best starting five in the league and could easily win the conference. I agree with Dick on this one...
 

The top 6 of the big ten are all potential 5 seeds or better.
 

Dickie V is can be an entertaining commentator but he is a terrible analyst.
 




MaroonGopher said:
i think OSU has the best starting five in the league and could easily win the conference. I agree with Dick on this one...
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Lighty is legit as is Buford, but we don't know anything about the others yet. Let's see if the freshmen can adjust to the Big 10 before they get annointed. Also, who the hell is going to play the point for them? Turner was their point guard last year (for all intent and purpose) and that's a huge loss for them.
 

Agree. When Turner was out last year, their offense looked TERRIBLE. No flow whatsoever.

I think they have a talented team, but without solid point guard play, I'm not as high on them as some others are.
 

I watched the Illini this morning and wasn't impressed at all. Way too many turnovers and not enough rebounding to be considered in the top 4 of the Big Ten. The only player that showed me anything was Tisdale. McCamey was putrid.
 

OSU was average last year when Turner was out, that was because they didn't have any good players on the bench who could come in and pick up the slack in the starting lineup. It's not an accident that the bench played less at OSU than any other school in major college basketball last season. The starting five last year with Turner was a great blend of talent that could collectively do it all, had the right blend of a star and four high quality role players around him. Without him, they didn't have enough scoring/leadership - they didn't have the star they needed to be a great team. Now they have Jared Sullinger to replace ET's star power. IMO Sullinger is a little better player than Turner, so I think he's going to have a similar impact talent-wise to what Turner had last season, be that star to build the team around. Sullinger he plays more like a 5th year senior than a freshman, so his class is pretty much irrelevant. The bench options are more talented with Thomas, Craft and Sibert compared to Madsen, Hill and Simmons, although the bench guys are more like typical freshmen and will have some growing pains here and there. By the end of the year the bench freshmen should produce more & be more effective than the bench from last year, and Thomas has the talent to move into the starting lineup and (eventually) pick up the slack in case a starter gets injured. They have plenty of guys who are solid ballhandlers and passers, so PG isn't really an issue unless they lose two or more of those guys to injury. Realistically, Sullinger is the key. They will go as far as he takes them, and I think he can take them anywhere.

I'd agree that Illinois hasn't looked real good so far.
 



Just to clarify - the issue with OSU last year when Turner went out wasn't really PG play, it was the fact that they didn't have the talent to score and defend well enough to win consistently in the Big Ten. Adding Sullinger alone to the 4 returning starters would make this team similar to what they were last season (provided none of the starting five would get injured).
 

While it might not have have been poor PG play specifically, OSU really struggled to get into any sort of offensive flow when Turner was out. He was the lynchpin on offense, and I'm not sure Sullinger provides the same. I haven't seen Sullinger play much, but isn't he primarily someone who plays in the paint? (where Turner was more on the perimeter)

Jumping from high school to B10 play for a post player is a huge leap, considering some of the talent at the post this year (Johnson, Green, Roe, Mbakwe, etc.).

OSU certainly has talent, but I'm just not sold on banking on Sullinger replacing Turner and getting the same results.
 

Buford could be a first team all-conferece player this season. He is the leading scorer, rebounder and assist man from last season.
 

glovedgopher said:
I watched the Illini this morning and wasn't impressed at all. Way too many turnovers and not enough rebounding to be considered in the top 4 of the Big Ten. The only player that showed me anything was Tisdale. McCamey was putrid.
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Down with Goldy's blog talks about how the Illini were straight up bad in their exhibition game against Lewis University and were down 10 in the 1st half. They came back to win it by 10 in the end though. Could be a frustrating year for the Illini.

http://downwithgoldy.blogspot.com/2010/10/big-ten-wrapup-1112010.html
 

Exhibition games (grain of salt)

I wouldn't read too much into exhibition games. Michigan State got beat by Grand Valley State in the 2007-08 season, but that didn't prevent Sparty from reaching the Sweet 16 that year.
 

Turner was by far the best player in the country last year. You think someone who has never played a minute of college bball is better? I guess you're expecting him to have better numbers than Blake Griffin did his sophomore year.

OSUfan said:
Now they have Jared Sullinger to replace ET's star power. IMO Sullinger is a little better player than Turner, so I think he's going to have a similar impact talent-wise to what Turner had last season, be that star to build the team around.
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SelectionSunday said:
I wouldn't read too much into exhibition games. Michigan State got beat by Grand Valley State in the 2007-08 season, but that didn't prevent Sparty from reaching the Sweet 16 that year.
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I hear ya but they have struggled in 2 exhibition games.
 

Maybe I've been fooled by his great performances in HS all-star games and the like, but I truly believe Sullinger will average about 20 ppg and 9.5 rpg and shoot over 60% from the field this season. Hey, Kris Humphries averaged 20/10 as a frosh - don't say it can't be done!
 

A-Town Owl said:
OSU certainly has talent, but I'm just not sold on banking on Sullinger replacing Turner and getting the same results.
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Agreed. Sullinger=/=Turner. I don't doubt that Sullinger is good, but he's a post player, whereas Evan Turner was a SF I believe, and so he could play makeshift PG, and I don't think Sullinger will have the all around excellence that Turner had. Sullinger probably won't be shooting 30%+ from beyond the arc, he probably won't be as fast, and he also won't have the experience Turner had. Turner was a junior last year when he just lit it up, and he was good as a sophomore, but not a world-beater. Sullinger is a freshman, and he is a post player, as opposed to a 1, 2, or 3, and I don't think Sullinger will replace Turner; they just serve different purposes on the team.

I think Turner was like Kobe, and Sullinger is like Shaq. They're both very good, but Sullinger is probably good at what he does (and hopefully a little more adept from the freethrow line), as opposed to Turner being good at everything.
 

20/10 as a frosh can be done, but Hump certainly didn't lead the team to many wins...

If I was a OSU fan, I wouldn't want to compare Sullinger to Kris
 

I'm not saying that the numbers aren't possible. I'm just saying that the chances of a freshman coming in being better than last year's unanimous player of the yr is highly unlikely. I wish I were that confident about an incoming freshman but unless it were a high school player hyped like Lebron, I don't think I could say that a frosh is already better than the previous year's national POY.

OSUfan said:
Maybe I've been fooled by his great performances in HS all-star games and the like, but I truly believe Sullinger will average about 20 ppg and 9.5 rpg and shoot over 60% from the field this season. Hey, Kris Humphries averaged 20/10 as a frosh - don't say it can't be done!
Click to expand...
 

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