Discussion with a friend tonight....

[station19]

Does anyone here think the '13 team was exposed as not having a consistently productive inside threat - like the '97 team - enabling the consistent outside threats room to operate?

'97 in a landslide right now. And I love Rodney's game. He would benefit big time with a bruising John Thomas or even Trevor Winter. TM is missing something right now. He had a bad first half vs. Michigan, despite his final stats. Shot blocking is better on this team. Toughness is not. "How to win" is not.

I think a lot of that has to do with the current teams lack of perimeter players that can break down a defense with the dribble drive to set up the inside guys. Dre can to some extent but Mich gave a text book example of how to do it(especially with Burke).

 

[JDGopher]

Not even close right now. Hard to compare stats because perimeter guys (jackson, jacobson, lewis, etc) scored more, and there was a ton more depth. James and Thomas dominated inside defensively. They just punished other teams and eliminated any inside game. They also passed the ball really well - specifically James. Also, they always showed up, which I can't say for Rodney, and haven't been impressed by Trev the past two games. He's been way too lazy holding off his guy offensively in the post.

Anyway, I don't think it's close. Trev and Rodney have done nothing in the Big Ten yet. John and Courtney won it, played well consistently, and went to the final four. I really hope as the Big Ten season goes on I feel different.

I agree with you about Rodney, but Trevor has played extremely well in my opinion. He's down there battling with the bigs all alone, because we all know Rodney (our 4) is not helping out.