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BSC Week ending 11/13.

GrizBall

Well-known member
I am a big KenPom fan, so I will reference his site frequently. Below is where each team ended the week and whether they went up or down from the beginning of the week based on the games they played (Games from Mon 11/7- Sun 11/13).

For those of you who are not familiar with KenPom, He basically makes a prediction on a game and then compares it to the actual score (and other game data) and then does a comparison of the results to every other D-1 team’s performance on the same metric (There’s a lot more to it but you get the drift). All done by an algorithm. No games are actually watched. This also takes competition into consideration. If you were predicted to lose by 50 but only lost by 30 you would likely improve and vice versa (rankings based on Sunday evening numbers).

I also broke them down into tiers using the scientific “Eyeball Test”).

Tier 1
1. MSU (150 up 23)

Tier 2
2. UNC (210 down 28)
3. Griz. (215 down 33)
4. EWU. (238 down 56)
5. WSU. (239 down 8)

Tier 3
6. NAU. (254 up 7)
7. SAC. (260 even)
8. PSU. (287 up 7)

Tier 4
9. ISU. ( 334 up 11)
10. Ida. (350 up 2)

Team of the Week (and THE! 2023 Big Sky Champs) - Montana State. Joining UNC and Sac as the only BSC team to have a D-1 win, their win over Long Beach was the most impressive of the week. If not for a horrific 2nd half meltdown against Grand Canyon in which they coughed up a 17 point halftime lead, they would have had the two top BSC wins for the week. They are the most complete BSC team and too be honest I don’t think it’s close. Size, shooting, defense, depth and ball handling. They have it all. Save the it’s too early stuff. They return both the Conference’s POY and 6th Man of the Year, contributors from last year and then dipped into the portal and picked up players that were successful at other D-1 schools from better or equivalent conferences (emphasis on D-1). This week a date at Oregon awaits with the Ducks coming off an embarrassing home loss to UC-Irvine.

Disappointing Team of the Week- EWU. They went 0-3 against Santa Clara, Yale, and Hawaii. All good D-1 competition but not exactly a P-5 Murder’s Row. However, I am willing to give them a little bit of a pass because they played 2 games in Hawaii and history has shown some teams just can’t focus in Hawaii and you see weird results especially against Hawaiian teams (Does Ralph Sampson’s #1 ranked Virginia team losing to then NAIA Chaminade ring any bells? This after they had already beaten Ewing’s Hoyas and Phi Slamma Jamma).

Preseason 1st Team All-BSC Steele Venters is struggling. He is now the #1 guy on the EWU scouting report. It’s a big adjustment. Is he up to the task? EWU’s only game this week is against Miss. Valley State (KP’s 2nd worst team in the country) likely won’t answer that question.


Player of the Week - I’m going with MSU’s Rayquan Battle. The reigning co - 6th man of the year had 24 pts in MSU’s big win. He had his biggest game in the Conference’s biggest win.

Honorable mention
DT
Jalen Cone - NAU
Cam Parker
Zach Chappelle - Sac


The Lee Corso “not so fast my friend” award - UNC. I crushed them for losing by 50 to Houston. If I had an AP vote Houston would be my #1 team after watching them totally dismantle St. Joe’s, so I was then willing to give UNC a pass. However, they then barely beat something called Texas A&M - Commerce (KenPom #306) by 3 points at home. I thought they could challenge in the BSC but now I am having second thoughts. Kountz and Johnson are good enough to pull them through in most BSC games. A little concerned about supporting cast. I do like Knecht and Caleb Shaw looks to be an outstanding freshman addition. They will be good, but a contender? I’m skeptical.
 
Some thoughts on the Griz’s week:

Xavier is very, very good team and I believe Duquesne will greatly outplay its pre-season prediction. This has led to a lot of “wait until the Griz play lower competition to evaluate them.” I look at it differently. For that crowd, here are the questions I would ask:

1. In what areas did you see noticeable improvement in each of the returners?

2. Other than DT, which newcomers do you see improving the team? (My personal opinion is that you can use the adjustment to D-1 theory for Nap, I just don’t think it applies to 22 year-olds that have 3-4 years of college basketball at any level under their belts).

3. If the Griz score 100 points, how many points come from the bench? Ignore the trick question aspect. It’s simply for easy math purposes.

As I have stated before, I think this team is talented but poorly constructed. For example, I think Whitney is a very, very good player but I don’t see playing PG to be his strength. Which then actually takes him away from his strength which is a slasher from the wing position.

I think Moody is an elite 3 point shooter that in most scenarios is probably best suited coming off the bench and providing an offensive spark. I just don’t think trying to make plays of the dribble is his strength.

My intent is not to knock anyone. Every player has their strengths and weaknesses. The key is putting players in position to play to their strength and I think the construction of this team doesn’t allow for that.

And finally, my skepticism around DT was wrong. I wasn’t sure if he was a talented player on a team with extremely talented players or whether he was best suited as role player. I think we can say it was the former.
 
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