Vote on the best Conference

[tigers4ever]

I do not know how you can say SEC is better than Big 12 when Big 12 is smaller conference with 3 teams ranked vs 2 teams for SEC. I agree that other than South Carolina what does SEC have right now? LSU is ranked high based on a horrible schedule. They have played 2 ranked teams and lost badly to one. I think the jury is still out on how good LSU really is,

Let it go. It's a thread about conference strength. If your want to argue SEC is weak, talk about teams 3-14. LSU is not the team dragging SEC down.

 

[Bone Dog]

I am not sure the Cardinal would win the Big 10.

I think you’ve put your finger on what I find disappointing about Stanford. I’d been struggling to find a way to express it. They may make it to the final four, but only because they’ll get a 1 seed’s golden road.

 

[GoChips20]

I think you’ve put your finger on what I find disappointing about Stanford. I’d been struggling to find a way to express it. They may make it to the final four, but only because they’ll get a 1 seed’s golden road.

Their guard play was a major question mark heading into the season. For the first half or so it seemed they’d figured it out and now it appears to be an issue again. The team is inconsistently offensively.

 

[TheFarmFan]

Their guard play was a major question mark heading into the season. For the first half or so it seemed they’d figured it out and now it appears to be an issue again. The team is inconsistently offensively.

Indeed. In theory, we have all the pieces we need for a championship run: solid ball handling (Lepolo), creating off the dribble (Jones and Nivar, Bosgana), perimeter guard defense (Emma-Nnopu), shot blocking (Brink, Prechtel), three point shooting (Jump, Demetre), and reliable scoring ability and rebounding in the paint (Iriafen, Belibi, Betts).

The problem is that we don't have all those attributes in the same 5 players. Assuming Jones, Brink, and Jump are locks, you need better perimeter and guard defense than either Jones or Jump can provide, but if we go with any two of Lepolo, Emma-Nnopu, Bosgana, or Nivar, that leaves no room in a starting rotation for a second big, and that leaves an insane amount of talent (Iriafen, Belibi, Betts, and Prechtel) to come off the bench. And that's to say nothing for Demetre, who is a great shooter and distributor but neither fast enough to guard speedy guards nor physical enough to post up on defense.

I've kind of just come to acceptance that there's no way to fit these puzzle pieces together in a way that forms a reliable lineup, so Tara just has to McGyver her line-ups from game to game depending on the personnel on the other side -- notice that our two weird losses, to U$C and Washington, both came in the second games of the weekend, when there was less time (from Friday late night to Sunday morning) to practice defense based on a scouting report.

That approach could very well get us to the final four, but I honestly just don't think we have the right personnel to make a championship run. Kind of the definition of "the total is less than the sum of the parts." C'est la vie...

 

[Bone Dog]

Indeed. In theory, we have all the pieces we need for a championship run: solid ball handling (Lepolo), creating off the dribble (Jones and Nivar, Bosgana), perimeter guard defense (Emma-Nnopu), shot blocking (Brink, Prechtel), three point shooting (Jump, Demetre), and reliable scoring ability and rebounding in the paint (Iriafen, Belibi, Betts).

The problem is that we don't have all those attributes in the same 5 players. Assuming Jones, Brink, and Jump are locks, you need better perimeter and guard defense than either Jones or Jump can provide, but if we go with any two of Lepolo, Emma-Nnopu, Bosgana, or Nivar, that leaves no room in a starting rotation for a second big, and that leaves an insane amount of talent (Iriafen, Belibi, Betts, and Prechtel) to come off the bench. And that's to say nothing for Demetre, who is a great shooter and distributor but neither fast enough to guard speedy guards nor physical enough to post up on defense.

I've kind of just come to acceptance that there's no way to fit these puzzle pieces together in a way that forms a reliable lineup, so Tara just has to McGyver her line-ups from game to game depending on the personnel on the other side -- notice that our two weird losses, to U$C and Washington, both came in the second games of the weekend, when there was less time (from Friday late night to Sunday morning) to practice defense based on a scouting report.

That approach could very well get us to the final four, but I honestly just don't think we have the right personnel to make a championship run. Kind of the definition of "the total is less than the sum of the parts." C'est la vie...

There’s hope on the horizon — I mean the recruiting horizon. Nunu Agara is an excellent 2-3 in the style of Jones. Maybe even a bit quicker.

 

[DefenseBB]

The new poll is out for week 16 and the score for all the teams receiving votes is:
6-Big 10 has #2, 6, 7, 12, 16, 25
7-ACC has #9, 10, 11, 22, 23, 30, 31
4-Big12 has #13, 19, 20, 28
6-PAC12 has #3, 8, 14, 17, 21, 37
4-SEC has #1, 5, 31, 37
4-Big East has #4, 15, 29, 34