2021-22 B1G Basketball Season Preview... previously: Season preview podcast, Power Rankings Lower Half

Yesterday we covered the lower half of the B1G and ranked teams 14-8. Today we will be doing the same but for the upper half of the conference, talking less about despair and more about hope and pivotal questions that could define the seasons. Our first entrant in this article is also a new face in the conference: 

7. Indiana

Projected starting lineup:

• G, Xavier Johnson
• G, Parker Stewart
• F, Miller Kopp
• F, Race Thompson
• F, Trayce Jackson-Davis

Mike Woodson takes over in Bloomington and if he wants to begin his era off on the right foot, making the NCAA Tournament is a good way to begin. Luckily for him, the Hoosiers have a high floor by returning Trayce Jackson-Davis, who is a B1G Player of the Year candidate. TJD is an elite rebounder who gets to the stripe at an incredibly high rate, in addition to soaking up a ginormous volume of possessions. Indiana leans on him heavily, but whether the Hoosiers wind up in March Madness probably depends on whether or not they find impact players besides TJD.

Race Thompson returns as well, a slightly smaller and far less used version of TJD. He rebounds, blocks, and gets to the line just like the IU star, but his usage is indicative of a role player and not a star. Thompson should be in line for a bigger job this season, but if he is, then you have a situation where both of IU’s two biggest pieces can’t shoot from outside, which raises relevant questions about floor spacing and the ability of this team to pack the perimeter punch. Rob Phinisee returns as a guard off the bench, but he certainly won’t add that three-point shooting (career 29.8%).

The rest of the roster consists of new players that Woodson has imported to Indiana. Xavier Johnson is a high usage PG from Pitt who will be expected to run the offense but he, too, has struggled from three in his career and could best be described up to this point as a “turnover machine”. Perhaps a reduced role akin to Mike Smith last year could reign some of the wildness in and make him take better shots. Parker Stewart sat out last season after transferring from UT-Martin and is supposed to be the sharp-shooter that this roster lacks. Miller Kopp could bring some perimeter shooting from the wing position if he’s more 2019-20 (39.6%) than 2021-21 (32.0%), after arriving from Northwestern. Tamar Bates also should play a role as a top 50 recruit off the bench. 

To me, Indiana starts out as a bubble team. They won’t be terrible, because of TJD and to a lesser extent, Thompson. But outside shooting is the crucial factor as to whether IU is another Archie-style bellyflop or a genuinely encouraging 8-9 seed type team, which is mostly a function of how well all the offseason shopping this program did in the transfer portal really went. Though Woodson has no recruits of his own on this roster, we’ll get a decent temperature of how he is as a B1G coach in year #1 based on how well he can integrate the fresh faces.

6. Michigan State

Projected lineup:

• G, Tyson Walker
• G, Max Christie
• F, Gabe Brown
• F, Joey Hauser
• F, Marcus Bingham

Michigan State missed Cassius Winston like a baby misses its pacifier last season, cycling through a number of PG options and never really landing on one until their season ran out in the NCAA Tournament’s play-in game against UCLA (haha, losers, what kind of team loses to UCLA?). Tom Izzo thinks he may have solved that problem by reeling in PG transfer Tyson Walker from Northeastern. Walker was a magnificent player in the Colonial Athletic Association, winning that conference’s POY award after posting 19 a game with 5 assists, shooting 35% from deep on humongous usage. Walker is a little undersized and of course there will be transition costs, but he could be a big addition (for the record, the CAA is roughly ranked akin to the Sun Belt and Ivy League in KP’s conference rankings).

The other big addition is five-star SG Max Christie, a 6’6” prospect who profiles as a knock down shooter with skill and poise, not unlike Michigan’s addition of Caleb Houstan. Considering that MSU couldn’t buy a three last season, adding impact shooting perimeter shooting is big. The big question for the Spartans is who whether Walker and Christie are ready to gobble up a high volume of possessions, because losing Aaron Henry, Rocket Watts, and Josh Langford means that three of MSU’s top four usage guys from last season are out the door, including their top two.

The question increases in importance when you remember that the other pieces, though familiar, have refused to take charge offensively. Lanky stretch forward Gabe Brown has been a useful option, but he’s allergic to playing an active role in the offense, and the same can be said for big men Malik Hall and Marcus Bingham. Which is why MSU’s season hinges on Joey Hauser. The Marquette transfer was not the big splash addition that Spartan fans had hoped for last season, shooting just 34% from three and 61% at the line for a 103.8 ORTG. That represented a big turn from the promising player that Hauser had seemed to be in 2019 for the Golden Eagles.

If Hauser can re-find his Marquette form, then a good campaign from Christie and Walker may be enough to boost MSU into the top four of the league. But, those are all sizable question marks considering you’re talking about one player transferring in from mid-major basketball, another who’s never played a collegiate game, and a third who struggled mightily in his first B1G season. For now, we keep State in the middle of the B1G.

[AFTER THE JUMP: More transfers!]

EJ Liddell is gonna be a problem again [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

5. Ohio State

Projected starting lineup:

• G, Jamari Wheeler
• G, Cedric Russell
• F, Justice Sueing
• F, Kyle Young
• F, EJ Liddell

The last time we heard from the Buckeyes it was when Duane Washington Jr. shot them out of the tourney in a humiliating 2 vs 15 upset at the hands of the Oral Roberts Fighting Televangelists. The game represented a depressing end to what had been a very nice campaign for OSU, who finished in the top five of the conference in the regular season and then made the BTT title game, seeing tremendous performances from Washington and EJ Liddell. Washington departed for the pros, while Liddell, as you can tell by the fact his name is bolded, returns.

Getting Liddell back is a massive boost, because the 6’7” forward blossomed into one of the conference’s best players as he suddenly gained a deadly three-point shot. After shooting 19.2% from distance as a freshman and starting last season 3/18 from behind the long line, Liddell turned it on, shooting 39.2% from three in conference play. That breakthrough opened up so much for Liddell, because his package of talents is tantalizing. Liddell finished top ten in the B1G in block rate and free throw rate, and the improvement in his perimeter shooting gave him a 114.2 ORTG in conference play on the 8^th highest usage clip in the conference. He will be one of the top players in the B1G again this season, barring significant regression.

The Buckeyes’ season hinges on whether or not they can find a proper replacement for Washington. As good as Liddell was last season, OSU got a #2 seed because of the number of times that Washington bailed them out of games by making tough jumpers off the dribble. The difficulty of shot lowered his ORTG, but he took 29.4% of OSU’s shots while on the floor, ranking in the top five in that metric in conference play. It will not be easy to replace a player that important.

There are candidates, though. Jamari Wheeler transfers in from Penn State and Cedric Russell arrives from UL-Lafayette in a re-made backcourt. Wheeler is a hounding defender who has struggled as a perimeter shooter and offensive player in his career, while Russell looks like the closer analogue to Washington. For the Ragin’ Cajuns, the 6’2” guard played 83.1% of their minutes, took 27.6% of his team’s shots while on the floor, and knocked down 40.3% from three. Of course, with any transfer PG, it will revolve around whether those numbers translate to power conference competition, and doing exactly what Washington did in the clutch was an art.

The other pieces in the starting lineup return from last season. Justice Sueing is a useful piece who can pitch in everywhere. He can handle the ball in the ball screen, knock it down from three (36.7% last season), finish at the rim, rebound with a passion, and of course, throw the ball away so the opposition can score a game-altering easy bucket. Kyle Young continues to put up implausibly good ORTG’s on almost no usage. The probability that he does a lot more, now that he’s in his 5^th season, seems low.

The bench features familiar faces, including Just A Shooter Justin Ahrens, stretch forward Seth Towns, and physical forward Zed Key. Towns could be a significant piece to the puzzle if he can ever get healthy. The one wild card is Top 40 freshman recruit Malaki Branham, a product of St. Mary’s St. Vincent, a school you may remember from when all their games were on ESPN in 2003 because of a kid named LeBron James.

In total, I think Ohio State has a potent squad with a few impact players. How good the Buckeyes is probably determined by how their transfers click and whether someone besides Liddell emerges as a late-clock option to take big shots.

4. Maryland

Projected starting lineup:

• G, Fatts Russell
• G, Eric Ayala
• G, Hakim Hart
• F, Donta Scott
• F, Qudus Wahab

The other team who you might think is Michigan’s actual rival if you follow B1G hoops discourse is Maryland, who turn into this Dril tweet the moment Hunter Dickinson mentions that Mark Turgeon didn’t bother to recruit him:

All that aside, I actually like the squad that the Terps have this season. They brought in a pair of interesting players and there may not be a more “interesting” player in the entire B1G this season than Fatts Russell. Though his name sounds like a pioneering 1920s blues artist, Fatts is actually a 5’11” PG transfer from Rhode Island who has long been on the radar of CBB junkies for his career progression and messy stats page. He first popped up as a freshman helping to lead URI to the tourney in 2018 but since has piled up exciting counting stats that look less good when you go under the hood and see a career 28.2% three-point clip and an ORTG that’s hovered around 100. Russell’s 2020 season looked like he was progressing towards putting it together, but he regressed hard as a lead guard in 2021. Now Russell comes to Maryland and is likely the swing piece for this Terps team.

The rest of the lineup looks very good to me. The other transfer is the highly efficient post scorer Qudus Wahab from Georgetown, who averaged 13/8 for the Hoyas on 59% from the field. Wahab’s presence in the paint allows Maryland to slide Donta Scott over to PF, where the 6’7” stretch forward is better suited. Scott is a switchable big that allows Maryland to be versatile defensively, while providing knock-down shooting from all over the court (44% on threes, 60.2% eFG last year was 5th-best in the B1G) that unlocks the offense.

Eric Ayala remains a rock who orchestrates the offense and should help take some of the weight of responsibility off of Russell’s shoulders compared to his days at Rhode Island. Ayala could be in line for a big season, too, with Aaron Wiggins and Darryl Morsell departing, leaving the senior guard calling the shots. The bench could be thin but between Hakim Hart, talented underclassman James Graham III, and transfers Ian Martinez and Xavier Green, Turgeon should be able to cobble together a good enough rotation to have this team towards the upper end of the conference. I don’t see Maryland as a title contender or a Final Four team, but I like them in my #4 slot because the starting lineup should be great, with versatility on both ends of the court.

Part 2 of this saga is coming soon [MG Campredon]

3. Illinois

Projected starting lineup:

• G, Andre Curbelo
• G, Trent Frazier
• G, Da’Monte Williams
• F, Jacob Grandison
• C, Kofi Cockburn

If you follow B1G hoops on twitter, you may be under the impression that Illinois is Michigan’s most hated rival. For this basketball season, they might as well be. Fans in Champaign are still #salty about Michigan being awarded last year’s B1G title outright, and they seem to have a squad in 2021-22 with the potential to make another run at the crown. That squad is anchored by gargantuan center Kofi Cockburn, who rather surprisingly returned to the Fighting Illini after flirting with the NBA and then the transfer portal (I guess Brad Underwood was the highest bidder for Kofi’s services). Cockburn was 7th in the KP POY rankings last year after putting up a sizzling 117.9 ORTG on 27.5% usage. He posted 18/10 in the counting stats and shot 65% on 327 attempts from two (!), while being a defensive hulk. Cockburn’s junior campaign is the biggest reason to be bullish on Illinois.

The swing factor is the presence of Andre Curbelo, who you may recall toasting Michigan at Crisler last year (actually, you don’t recall that, because as we’ve always maintained at this site, that game never happened). Curbelo is a 6’1” PG whose freshman campaign had some good news and bad news. The good news? Curbelo is a saucy passer whose 34.6% assist rate led the league and was top 30 nationally, in addition to his ability to drive and finish in the paint. The bad news? His turnover rate was a ghastly 25.4%, worst in the B1G, and Curbelo’s three-point jumper was nonfunctioning, attempting only one per game and making them at a 16% clip. Curbelo could be the exciting point guard who distributes the ball well between his elephant-sized center and the other shooters who dot the perimeter, but he’ll need to reign in the wildness of his game and have a solution for what happens when the opposition dares him to shoot from outside.

The rest of the roster is built to complement those two players. Da’Monte Williams and Trent Frazier both shot >36% from three last season, with Frazier being an important defensive presence with a high steal rate. Transfer Alfonso Plummer from Utah looks to replace Adam Miller, and Plummer too shot 38% from three on high volume, plus prospects from the country’s #23 recruiting class should help fill some gaps. The floor spacing should be there, the star power of Cockburn should be there, it’s just a matter of whether Illinois has a secondary offensive option to replace Ayo Dosunmu. Curbelo is a fascinating player, but there’s a long way for him to go to become the player that Ayo was (110.8 ORTG on 29.5% usage). That may determine where the Illini finish in the standings and how deep into March they can travel.

The two best teams in the B1G may well be featured in this picture [Campredon]

2. Purdue

Projected starting lineup:

• G, Eric Hunter Jr.
• G, Jaden Ivey
• G, Sasha Stefanovic
• F, Mason Gillis
• C, Trevion Williams

Everyone is high on Purdue because the Boilermakers return basically everybody. They lost Aaron Wheeler, which isn’t saying much offensively considering Wheeler’s inability to shoot the three, but otherwise return 91% of minutes from last season and then add a couple decent pieces out of the nation’s #38 recruiting class.

The big reason for optimism, besides experience, is having two players who should be among the B1G’s ten best, Trevion Williams and Jaden Ivey. Williams is still the mountain of mass who has hawked the paint in the B1G for the last several seasons and his stat line from 2020-21 is truly astonishing: he had a 35.4% usage (2^nd in the country) and took 36.7% of Purdue’s shots while on the floor (1st in the country). Williams is an exceptional offensive rebounder, but his propensity to soak up shots while only hitting 53% of twos and going 50% at the line left him with an only so good 104.8 ORTG. Williams’ titanic volume of use and relative offensive efficiency within that role still landed him 10^th in the KenPom Player of the Year standings, but the goal for the Boilermakers should be to cut back on having to use the big man as much.

The hope for doing that comes from Ivey. I am not as sold as some because much of the hype is speculative rather than substantive, but the breadcrumbs of hope are absolutely there. Ivey is an electric athlete who struggled last season at times but closed the year on a tear, scoring 26 in Purdue’s loss in the tourney to North Texas. He then tore up the U19s for Team USA and has many in the online scouting community salivating. My question for whether Ivey can go from possible rising star to certified Dude comes down to his three-point shot, and if he can become a high-end offensive player without one. Ivey shot 25.8% from three last season on 97 attempts… not what you want from a lead guard, which left his ORTG at 103.2. He either needs to up that clip to become a more dangerous perimeter player or show he can be a devastating passer and penetrator without the threat of the three to make the leap. It’s very possible one of those two happen, though.

Sasha Stefanovic is a classic Just A Shooter, while Eric Hunter Jr. is a veteran guard with good defensive chops but only a career 30.2% three-point clip. Zach Edey, famous for being 7’4”, will come off the bench and excel as the backup center. He was highly efficient from the field and didn’t gobble possessions at the same rate as Williams. Mason Gillis adds some 3-and-D ability as an undersized stretch four, and Brandon Newman and Isaiah Thompson are returners who add bench shooting.

To me, the optimistic case for Purdue as a Final Four contender is this: they went 13-6 in conference play last season with one of the youngest rosters in America and now get almost everyone back. They also have two probable high-end impact players. The more pessimistic case is that it’s not clear to me how the pieces fit together. They shot 33.3% from three last season, representing the second straight season in a lull and a massive come-down from the lights-out shooting of the 2016-19 era Purdue teams. I don’t see a lot of reason to think that will get drastically better, and with that projected starting lineup, you have three players in Ivey, Hunter, and Williams who don’t shoot the three well at all. Thompson and Newman will help off the bench but there are potential floor spacing issues that could hold Purdue back from having a dream season. They’ll be good though.

1. Michigan

Projected starting lineup:

• G, DeVante’ Jones
• G, Eli Brooks
• F, Caleb Houstan
• F, Brandon Johns Jr.
• C, Hunter Dickinson

I like Michigan at the top of the league because of the high end pieces, but also a deeper bench than last season. Michigan has to replace more minutes than either Purdue or Illinois but that’s where the #2 recruiting class in America and landing one of the top transfers in the portal comes in. Eli Brooks provides stability in the backcourt as a seasoned defender and plus shooter. DeVante’ Jones is not exactly the same player as Mike Smith, but he should be close to as good (if not better), adding improved defense and better two-point shooting, though Smith is the better three-point shooter.

Freshman Caleb Houstan profiles as a lethal shooter in year #1, while Brandon Johns Jr. is Michigan’s swing piece because Hunter Dickinson is as close to a lock for an All-American as you can get. That starting five is good and if Johns can shoot the three, the pieces should fit. But the bench should be considerably better relative to last year, with switch-everything big Moussa Diabate offering vastly better defense and floor spacing ability than Austin Davis did. I also love the possibility of Kobe Bufkin being a bench weapon in the back court and the hype for Terrance Williams as a versatile hustle guy with improved shooting just keeps growing.

We’ll delve into all of these elements more in the coming week leading up to the season opener, but this is where I have Michigan situated.