Agreed, this has run its course. I think it's mostly out of boredom of not playing any meaningful games for 3 straight weeks every December.
*** Official Morgan State vs #3 IOWA STATE Game(Day) Thread ***
- Thread starter CycloneRulzzz
- Start date
Speaking of that (and to get us away from the minutes-distribution-in-blowouts debate), although I'd still like at least one additional "meaningful" non-con game each season. Maybe we'll have consistently good program long enough to get some one-off neutrals, maybe an occasional home/away. We'll need one of those type anyway, to replace B12-BE Battle.
At least with Big 12 going to 20 games from 18, this season at least wasn't as bad for string-of-cupcakes compared to 2023-24. There were two sets of four straight buy games last year. That's overkill.
Yeah, it would be nice to get a home/home in early November before the Thanksgiving tournaments. I think we did that with Oregon St once and Michigan came to Hilton once I think.
I think with the Big12 going to 20 though it probably won't happen. I think this year 5 out of 10 against good teams is probably enough.
I think it’s pretty clear, Watson isn’t getting in any meaningful minutes without major injuries.
The year you are referring to we had 4 players averaging 30 or more min per game. The year before that 3 players over 30 min per game. This year we have zero, none, zilch.
How do those year have any relevance to this years team?
Agree. Assuming those guys would get minutes in the event of an injury, we can afford to play them some extra time in blowouts.
There’s also merit to giving guys we want to return, like Nojus and Rock, some PT, although in this era of college athletics, perhaps keeping them off of tape is just as valid
If true that is great news. ISU has played great at times with him not looking like all big 12 pg expected. Hard not to believe that with a healthy Tamin they would be #1 ranked right now as he could have swung that Auburn game with better offense
Maybe because their game schedule has been extremely light and playing extra 2mins not going to exhaust them when they play 3 guys off bench major mins
And 2 mins of garbage time is not going to test Watson, he's been in important mins before.
You’re absolutely entitled to your opinion no matter how wrong it is
We all know this crying is about Watson. I like Watson and appreciate his effort. The reality is he’s a rotational guy on a decent to good Big XII team. He isn’t on this team. Offense is just too limited and the guys that play ahead of him are NBA guys.
Agreed. Can we please stop talking about him?
Nojus and Watson are break glass in case of emergency for the rest of the year.
It’s not wrong, defensively we got shredded. Obviously we won but I know TJ wasn’t happy with the effort defensively in the first half.
Offensively we played well, Curtis and Tamin balled out the second half. This team will be taken as far as its defense takes them. The nice thing about this year is we have the offense to keep up while defensive adjustments are made.
Regardless of your feelings, we did not "get shredded". 2 guys had good games and scored over half of their points. Basically no one else on their team did anything.
I wouldn't expect the defense to be top 10 this year like it has been under TJ but as long as it is top 25 adjusted (currently 14) and offense is top 15 adjusted (currently 4), they will have the pedigree to win a national championship. Every NC winner in the Kenpom era (since 2002), except for 2014 UCONN has had, both, a top 25 offense and defense.
And just to put into perspective for those who may forget, ISU has had 1 team with their offense and defense in the top 50 together in a season (2019), but never close to both being top 15.
I listened to TJs postgame. He didn’t nor had he ever questioned this team’s effort
Wait... tj has a different opinion than posters on this message board?! I'm shocked. Maybe if he followed the posters, he'd clearly have made the final four.
Whar omaha!?!
The team played with great effort. The guys were just sloppy and not locked in, as can be expected in a game before the break vs an overmatched team. This happens to a ton of good teams. There are a lot of blowout scores but there are also a lot of these games that are closer than they should be.
I think people are really overthinking this. TJ’s got a clear rotation of 8. Every game matters for seeding, so you want those 8 to be a well oiled machine from game 1 in the Bug 12. If one of those 8 get injured, it would be a rotation of 7 plus stealing some minutes from Nojus or Watson if short term. If a long-term injury one of them will work into rotation minutes. But you don’t change rotations or minutes planning for a long term injury. This is an all-in type of season. Lock in your rotation and get them to be at their best.
