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Welcome to The Final Four Is Not on the Schedule discussion board. A forum for the serious and casual MSU fan. Opinions welcome – stay respectful.
Two games into the schedule already and we have two upsets (both on the road). Maryland continues to look tough taking out a good Illinois team and Rutgers brought the hammer on consensus pick Indiana.
I think this is a reflection of not the relative weakness of the top teams in the league (but maybe Indiana isn't great?) as much as it is the league is just pretty deep with teams that can hurt you on most nights.
In our preview shows Rod said the although he picked IU #1 he didn't think they'd win the league. Way too early to say what will happen this year but I think it is going to be really hard to predict and more importantly, MSU has to take care of business at home and beat up the bottom of the league whenever it has a chance. That means they should go 2-0 if they want to have a good chance in the Big 10 this year.
I will be curious to see how Purdue’s freshmen guards hold up during conference play. I believe their freshman PG is undersized, so he might struggle.
With the Indiana/Rutgers game, I wonder if that was a case of a good coach beating a less proven one.
Although not conference related, Purdue plays Davidson soon. I look forward to watching the Loyer brothers compete against each other.
@hazelmotes where I wonder about Purdue’s young guards is the defensive end. Neither is a particularly good athlete and that combined with youth could spell trouble. However, so far it’s working and the team looks much better than last season…much more like a usual Painter squad.
With RU/IU, I’d take Pikiell in a coaching matchup any day of the week but I don’t think that was it today. I think IU’s guard play is still a legitimate question and today, X Johnson was awful in all respects. If your guy is going to go 2-11 from the floor and turn it over 6 times…tough to win on the road in this league. I’ll begin to believe in IU as a legit title contender when I see them play far better in games like today’s.