Like you ****in guys think the marginal impact of Mawot Mag is more than five times the average difference between a Purdue player and a Minnesota player and then have the gall to say I'm engaging in acrobatics lmao.
What do Purdue and Minnesota have to do with Rutgers and Mawot Mag? What does the average player on the average team have to do with a specific player on a specific team against specific opponents?
Back at the start of the month, you said: "I bet you that both UConn and Ohio State will perform better over the remainder of the season than you expect." How did the efficiency math work out for the Buckeyes? They've gone 0-5 since then with an average loss margin of 15 points.
I think Rutgers is also a bit of an edge case. Our strength this year had been a delicate balance that relied on being "connected" on defense (the buzz word through most of the year) and scoring just enough points to win against competitive programs (while blowing out bottom feeders). We don't have a roster built to absorb the loss of starters - we're ranked 266th in bench scoring for the season (441 points in 28 games.... 135 from Simpson and 113 from Hyatt, who is now a starter leaving our bench even thinner).
In 8 games this season that we entered down a starter against Q1-Q3 teams, we're 2-6, averaging 61.9 points and giving up 67.1. In the 13 games against Q1-Q3 opponents where we tipped off at full strength, we're 8-5, averaging 65.0 and giving up 61.2.
Mag is the focus right now because he's out for the season... but we'd have been in a similar bad place losing any of our other starters. We saw what happened to our offense when Mulcahy went out earlier in the year, too.
Going forward, we need everyone in the top 6-7 of the rotation to give productive minutes, and for at least one player to play well above their average level (whether it's Mulcahy going off in the second half vs. MSU, or Spencer going off on Wisconsin). There's just no margin for a bad night from anyone, and even if everyone plays to their season average each of our remaining games will be a dogfight.