This one surprises me. MSU finished 9-9 in conference, a 4-way tie for 4th. They lose 3 of their 4 top players. It's also worth noting that 4 of their B1G wins came in games with Korie Lucious, who's also now gone.
I think Gopher fans have learned the lesson that counting on players who've never played a minute of Big Ten basketball to significantly improve your team is dicey. And that's what MSU is going to have to do with Dawson and Wood. Losing Lucas and replacing him with a guy who had a 0.8 assist / turnover ratio (Appling) seems like a pretty big downgrade to me.
First, I understand where you're coming from. Your comments are reasonable and the majority would agree with you. On Michigan State, I'm higher on them on most, and not as high on Wisconsin. (The rankings don't show it, but I also think Indiana could wind up anywhere in a wide range of the standings, Nebraska could surprise and the Gophers could really struggle this season.)
Some of my views on Michigan State that probably differ from yours:
- I'm VERY high on Keith Appling. You're not including him as one of their top 4 players from a year ago, but he's big time. Lucas was great - that's a big loss to the team, but Appling will have a lower turnover rate this year - I don't think the trade is going to be a big downgrade because of the sophomore coming through.
- Brandon Wood is legit. People are overlooking how good he is. Wood is far better than anyone the Gophers have brought in.. not comparable.
- Similarly, BJ Dawson is on another level. And the most impressive area of his game at this point, rebounding, should translate into the college game a lot better than than other areas generally do for freshman. Sure, he will be a freshman, but I have little doubt about him being a big time player in the making and believe he'll help on the beards this year.
- Lucious was brutal. Sure, they won 4 conference games with him playing, but they also lost 3. In their last victory with him, he was 0/8 from the field and turned it over 3 times. That was his third to last game. His final two games were road losses, and he went 3/15 in those. They'll survive without him.
- The team shot poorly - the worst Izzo has seen in recent memory. Combine Lucious with Durrell Summers and you've got 230+ two-point shot attempts at less than 41%.
- Nix and Payne will be greatly improved.
Overall, I'm projecting a lot of progression from their players (Appling, Nix and Payne), a good contribution from a freshman (Dawson), and an impact transfer (Wood) -- so I get why others may not share my view. However, I don't think any of the projections are a stretch and the conference lacks multiple great teams.
I didn't think much of MSU last year either, remember? I fully expect that Michigan will finish higher than MSU this year - Beilein has really done a good job and Izzo's team has lost their typical quality depth. Wisconsin is probably an NCAA team along with Michigan. But after OSU, UM and UW, there is a host of teams that it's hard to guess who exactly will be an NCAA tourney team - surely not everyone out of the group of the Gophers, MSU, Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska, Purdue and Illinois will make it, but there will be probably 3-4 of them that will. I think Northwestern and PSU are most likely to be in the NIT - just can't expect NW to make the NCAA tourney after losing Juice Thompson, who was a pretty tough customer for a guy his size, although they may belong in the group of seven I mentioned above on paper, they will probably not make it in the end because they are like the anti-Wisconsin (i.e., they always find a way to not make the tourney).