I’m personally enjoying being relevant again at basketball.
Tournament success is largely a numbers game. You work all season to get a decent seed and hope like hell for a good draw. Every hall of fame basketball coach in the modern era has had multiple early tourney flameouts. It’s the nature of the beast of a neutral court single elimination tournament in an era where there’s more parity than ever before.
I’d say there is reason to be concerned with Underwood’s failure to make it to the second weekend in the tourney but a couple of things need to be taken into consideration:
First, he has actually only underperformed to expectations once. He has also exceeded expectations once. Every other year was pretty much spot on with seeding and draw expectations.
Second, the draws the past three years have been pretty brutal. Loyola was a top 10 KenPom team ranked 17th AP and seeded 8 or 9. Ayo wasn’t quite the same guy after Sparty broke his face. Is that a game you need to win regardless? Absolutely. Should it have been a second round matchup? Clearly not.
Houston was criminally underseeded two years ago and we were physically shot heading into the tourney to boot. Then last year getting a talent laden Arkansas team that had some regular season rough patches but managed to dispatch #1 Kansas the round after they took us out.
I haven’t really seen anything in the tourney to indicate that Underwood can’t succeed in tournament play. If anything it’s more congruent with the B1G’s overall lack of tourney success going back years now. Roster construction and officiating are different in the Big Ten and we’ve fallen well behind other conferences in attracting top talent and putting guys in the NBA. That’s the big overarching issue and one we can hopefully break away from by continuing to get AA level players and getting more bites at the apple.
Until he can take this team or any team deeper into the NCAAs he is really just a pretty average guy. He is a second tier coach at the P6 level. Below average in game adjustment coach by any measure.
Sure someone else will hire him at the P6 level. I think we can find someone who can do better if they are given 7 years to do so. At this point most decent P6 coaches should be able to get us into the NCAAs most years if that is our expectation. I would like to think a S16 very 3 years or so would be the metric.
Better than Groce for sure, but that is a low bar.
We will see if donors and Whitman and the larger fanbase are satisfied if we do not advance in tourney once again this year. Maybe they are.
Most people don't care or even know that we are the tallest midget in a league the last four years that you admit is not competitive nationally and lacks elite talent.
Other than Purdue and then Wisky and us there is nobody who will likely be consistently in Top 25 this year. We should finish 2nd or 3rd this year it appears,but our only signature win barring an upset of Purdue will be FAU.
That was a very good win and we caught lightning in a bottle. We certainly might pull one of those type games out vs Purdue which would really help.
I see a mid level seed and a very challenging second round game this year. We will need to execute for 40 minutes.
I hope we break through. If he gets a S16 this year he buys a lot of time and goodwill and maybe we can get a legit PG in here one day through the portal or HS recruiting.
You do not get far in the NCAAs or have a top tier team without a lead guard.
The one we have right now has taken 1 shot in 45 minutes in the last two games and scored 3 points and we are firmly relegated to PG by committee mode this year each game. It's a problem each game to solve to see what is working,
We have one of the lowest Assist rates (327) and subsequently FT rates (270) in country. Makes it very hard to get good shots and manufacture points in halfcourt consistently against good defenses and execute at end of shot clock.
This has become a feature of UW offenses.
This board has their panties bunched up over taking 36 threes yesterday.
I actually like shooting a lot of threes TBH if they are in rhythm in an offense that creates makeable ones.
UW likes shooting a lot of threes also.
He might want to get a PG and a few more shooters in here and less guys we bulk up in the weight room with Fletch for BT rugby matches.
Recentwtf is wrong with the rig... by illiniray
WTF happened to the WTF h... by Reacher
A place to celebrate cele...
by murphstahoe WTF is wrong with the lef... by alum74
Total Members: 142