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BSC Week ending 12/4

GrizBall

Well-known member
KenPom’s current ranking and how much they are up or down from the beginning of the season (I make up the Tiers).

Tier 1
1. Cats 177 (-4)

Tier 2
2. UNC 215 (-33)
3. Griz 234 (-52)
4. PSU 239 (+55)
5. EWU 242 (-50)


Tier 3
6. Sac 253 (+26)
7. NAU 269 (-8)
8. WSU 284 (-53)


Tier 4
9. ISU 312 (+33)
10. UI. 331 (+21)

UNC has perhaps the conference’s best win to date (beating Colorado St. at CSU) as well as having perhaps the conference’s worst loss (losing at home to D-2 Colorado Christian). Yet they are pretty easy to figure out. When Knecht, Johnson and Kountz are scoring well they can beat anyone, but because UNC is allergic to defense (one of the worst 25 defenses in all of college basketball) they can also lose to anyone when 1 or 2 of their Big 3 is not scoring well. I think they miss their big man (Kor Jongkuch now at Temple) more than anyone would have thought.

Weber seems to be a team is disarray right now. Their only D-1 win this year comes against a pretty good Abilene Christian team in a game in which their best player Dillon Jones didn’t play. This week they barely bothered to show up losing to Utah Tech (fka Dixie St.) at home. They are running dangerously close to a sub-300 ranking. They are awful on both defense and offense. Not sure why they don’t start Zahir Porter. I think he can be the dynamic playmaker they need.

PSU is the team that so far appears to be outplaying its pre-season ranking by the most. BSC coaches and media had them in 7-8 range. Right now KenPom and BartTorvik has them #4 and Haslametrics has them #1. PSU runs one of the fastest offenses in country (top 7) but also leads the country in fouls per game. This results in chaos both offensively and defensively that many teams have difficulty adjusting to. PSU seemingly takes on the personality of their coach who famously made national news in his opening press conference by declaring he has no heat or A/C in his car because he wants to always be uncomfortable.

PSU’s top 5 scorers weren’t on the team last year so there could be some upside as the season progresses. With games against Gonzaga, West Virginia, Portland, Seattle and Oregon State (2x) they have played one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country and will be we battle tested come conference play.
 
Griz Week:

Only played Southern Miss, a game in which at no point did I think they were going to win.

This got me thinking about a couple of things:

1. Is this team better than last year’s team? Currently #234 KenPom and trending in the wrong direction and last year finished #248. Granted teams change, but last year they beat Southern Miss and Air Force fairly easily at home, but lose to both on the road this year.

2. Lon Martin is a wild card. Coaching staff seems to really, really love him. Last year he starts the first 9-10 games of the season (jumping over several returners), but we are now 40 games into Martin and I am not sure what my expectations should be. His career averages are 6.6p/2.7r/0.9a on 35%FG/34%3Pt. He can score 18 against Southern Miss but not score a point against Duquesne. He went to IMG and then 2 years of JC and now 2 years for the Griz, so maybe he is who he is. But for this team to have success they need more of the Southern Miss Martin and less of the Duquesne Martin.
 
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