Iowa and Big Ten gettin smoked!
- Thread starter Titanium999
- Start date
It looks like 2v5 out there for Iowa on offense at times. Oregon's top 5 look way better than Iowa's.
And even Michigan is not guaranteed as they are without their best player. One thing that is obvious to me watching these games is that, much like football, the BIG does not have the athletes that some of these other conferences have. For example, we still have these old-fashioned big lumbering centers, whereas other teams go smaller, but have guys that can defend all over the floor and get to the rim.
In football top teams in the Big Ten can work enough athleticism into the team to at least come close enough to matching on team speed.
With basketball only 5 guys on the floor and playing both ways, you just can't cover up the difference in team speed.
Oregon flat out looks way more athletic as a team.
I'm not necessarily buying that narrative. Loyola is certainly not a faster team than Illinois, and Oral Roberts was not superior athletically to Ohio State. Wisconsin was certainly not as quick as Baylor, but they're not as quick as a lot of B1G teams either. Sometimes you just get outcoached, outplayed, and beat.
That said, while the B1G and Big 12 were busy woofing about who was the top conference, the Pac 12 is making a strong statement that it might be the best. The old "we don't see them on ESPN as much" bias crept in. The ACC, which isn't as good as either the B1G or the Big 12, is really in the cellar.
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Oregon has 2/3 seed talent, but didn't play a game with their full rotation until mid-February due to various injuries/Covid issues (they still aren't technically full strength since their starting C tore his ACL in December). Ever since they got everyone back, they've been pretty dominant other than laying a big egg against Oregon State in the Pac-12 tourney. I don't think they were necessarily under-seeded based on results, but it was a tough draw for Iowa.
This really concerns me for NU. I thought part of our problem was that we had to play such top talent all year. But now all those teams couldnt beat anyone in the ncaa tournament. That places us even lower apparently. We are really bad 