Great stuff from Seth Davis

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Wisconsin: I don't really respect the way they play. Jordan Taylor likes to run and grab you, and then throw his head back and try to get a call. If you set a pick, they take a dive. They cheat the game. Everybody raves about this defensive juggernaut, but that's bull. They dribble the clock out and mug you out of the building. Part of the reason they lost to Cornell and Davidson is because when you get into the tournament, refs outside the Big Ten don't fall for that. Taylor is kind of struggling, but they're always going to be in the game because they're not going to shoot until there are six seconds left on the shot clock. Then they give it to Taylor. That's their offense. They don't even run the swing as much as they used to. Taylor plays no defense because he's trying to save his energy. Jared Berggren, Josh Gasser and Mike Bruesewitz have all had fabulous seasons, and Ryan Evans has really taken his game to the next level. They're going to be in every game because of the way they play and the fact that they have a lot of weapons.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20.../29/scouting.reports/index.html#ixzz1nyn7FqVM
 

Reading the report on Sullinger, it correlates with how I'm been leaning-he's going to be an underwhelming pro.
 

Yep, whoever the coach was talking about Sullinger had him pegged perfectly. A flopper and always begging for calls. Every time someone breathes on him he acts like he's been shot. To the officials' credit, I think they've started to catch on. His act has gone stale.
 

Sullinger probably loses 6 points per game by flopping instead of just powering through and making a basket. Scary how good he could be.
 


This article was really awesome, and I wish we had more of this type of stuff in sports reporting. This, in particular, made me crack up:

Connecticut: The Huskies don't run offense. I mean they literally don't run a fricking offense. They never have, but in the past they always had players that were better than you.
 

I couldn't agree more on Sullinger and Kraft...Both are over-rated in their own way. Kraft is a liability because of his poor shooting and poor vision on offense. He's Rubio without the assists. Sullinger has been getting waaaaaaaay too many calls and I think the refs are starting to get a clue on him.

I'm not sure I agree about Taylor not playing defense. It almost appears that Bruzewitz has been non-existent this year...Maybe its just me or maybe its just his lack of hair, but I haven't noticed him nearly as much.
 

Moses87 said:
It almost appears that Bruzewitz has been non-existent this year...Maybe its just me or maybe its just his lack of hair, but I haven't noticed him nearly as much.
Click to expand...

It's because he's not any good. Leuer helped that team so much offensively.
 

Moses87 said:
I couldn't agree more on Sullinger and Kraft...Both are over-rated in their own way. Kraft is a liability because of his poor shooting and poor vision on offense. He's Rubio without the assists. Sullinger has been getting waaaaaaaay too many calls and I think the refs are starting to get a clue on him.

I'm not sure I agree about Taylor not playing defense. It almost appears that Bruzewitz has been non-existent this year...Maybe its just me or maybe its just his lack of hair, but I haven't noticed him nearly as much.
Click to expand...

A. Are you allergic to spelling names correctly? It's Craft, not Kraft.

B. How can you say "Kraft" has poor vision, and then compare him to Rubio? Assuming that you were alluding to "court vision", Rubio has a preternatural gift to see the floor possessed by few players in the history of organzed basketball. If you truly meant vision, I would think that's something he would address with his opthalmologist.
 



Craft is a really good defender.
OSU has so many offensive weapons that he doesn't need to be a scorer on offense this year.
As a sophmore, he still has time to develop an offensive game.
 

Craft is shooting 54.4% on 2s and 40% on 3s. He is not a poor shooter.
His assist rate is 24.7, meaning about 1 in 4 baskets made by his team while he is on the floor are the result of an assist from him. This does not indicate poor court vision.
His steal rate is 14th in the country. You know, 14th out of about 5,000 division one players.

He gets to the line more often than Sullinger, which is certainly impressive.
 

scher215 said:
Love this

Wisconsin: I don't really respect the way they play. Jordan Taylor likes to run and grab you, and then throw his head back and try to get a call. If you set a pick, they take a dive. They cheat the game. Everybody raves about this defensive juggernaut, but that's bull. They dribble the clock out and mug you out of the building. Part of the reason they lost to Cornell and Davidson is because when you get into the tournament, refs outside the Big Ten don't fall for that. Taylor is kind of struggling, but they're always going to be in the game because they're not going to shoot until there are six seconds left on the shot clock. Then they give it to Taylor. That's their offense. They don't even run the swing as much as they used to. Taylor plays no defense because he's trying to save his energy. Jared Berggren, Josh Gasser and Mike Bruesewitz have all had fabulous seasons, and Ryan Evans has really taken his game to the next level. They're going to be in every game because of the way they play and the fact that they have a lot of weapons.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20.../29/scouting.reports/index.html#ixzz1nyn7FqVM
Click to expand...

Taylor just drives me crazy. He is a killer when it comes to making big shots, and I am not going to claim he isn't good (he is), but I hate the way he grabs people and it makes it hard to agree when announcers give him so much credit. Nice to hear it from Big Ten coaches.
 




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