Welcome back to Year 2 of trying to write team previews that don’t suck. You can find your per-game stats, a roster roll call, and the typical coachspeak in any of the preseason magazines. Those are great for telling you the who and the what. I’m going to project each team’s final KenPom ranking, their conference offensive and defensive rankings, and delve into the why. If you enjoy what you read, tell a friend and drop your e-mail address to sign up for free to get new pieces in your mailbox as soon as they’re live.
Penn State Nittany Lions
Projected Final KenPom Ranking: #92 (+17 from last season)
Projected Final Big Ten Rankings: 10th offense/11th defense
Penn State’s 7-13 team last season looked a lot like their 7-12 team from 2021, but the record masked a big dropoff in offensive efficiency, at least relative to the rest of the league. They fell from 7th to 13th, just barely ahead of Nebraska in the Big Ten basement. About the only thing they did well was grab offensive rebounds and now they lose John Harrar who was one of the ten best in the country at that each of the last two seasons.
It’s really hard to see how Penn State gets better with him leaving. I mean, I get a team would do it: replacing him with somebody who isn’t as good of a rebounder but can do the things Harrar couldn’t. Penn State has not done that. Their plan at the 5 spot appears to be a pair of freshman: Kebba Njie and Demetrius Lilley. Njie is a four-star prospect but rated outside the top 100, and Lilley was rated #263. Going from supersenior John Harrar, who had a relentless motor and terrific basketball instincts to a pair of true freshman is a frightening thought.
The obvious counter-argument would be that the athleticism will be better and what they lose on rebounding they’ll make up for in rim protection. To that I say: Penn State had the best two point defense in the league last season! There’s only one way to go from there. To be clear, Harrar was not the reason behind that. That was Micah Shrewsberry putting his fingerprint on the defense:
Interestingly it wasn’t as though they stopped going for steals entirely. They rated 264th nationally in that category. They were an order of magnitude worse at non-steal turnovers than everybody else in the country.
That sort of futility is going to be hard to repeat, which is a point in Penn State’s favor. But I don’t think there’s a defensive scheme any coach could cook up to lead the conference in two point defense with two freshmen in the middle. There is experience elsewhere in the frontcourt in Mikey Henn. He’s been in college since 2017 but has played for UC Davis, Cal Baptist, Portland, and Denver. He’s started for the last three and all of them had below average defenses in their league.
With all that said it’s no major surprise that Penn State will be built around its backcourt, particularly Jalen Pickett. He drew some NBA buzz back at Siena but is now entering his fifth year of college. He’s a nice player but his shooting numbers have come down since his sophomore breakout when he shot 52% from two and 37% from three. Last year with the Nittany Lions those numbers were 48% and 32%. Even with those somewhat pedestrian percentages he was an efficient asset, so with an uptick he can burst through and become an all-conference caliber player, although the team’s glacial pace will suppress his overall totals.
He’ll be playing next to Camren Wynter, a Drexel transfer who I like more as a player than as a fit for this team. He’s a true point guard, the CAA’s leader in assist rate the past two seasons. The issue is that Pickett is also at his best when he has the ball in his hands — he was also his conference’s assist rate leader at Siena. Wynter is a better distributor than Sam Sessoms was so the good news is that the Nittany Lions should have better offensive flow. But Sessoms also hit 42% of his three pointers last season. Wynter’s outside shooting numbers have been all over the map, but that’s a really tough number to replicate.
Myles Dread on the other hand is the perfect fit for this offense, a wing shooter who’s taken fewer and fewer two point attempts each year of his career. That culminated in 135 threes and just 23 twos last season. He’s back to run around the three point line and try to get open, though his 40.7% mark last year was a career high. While Penn State loses Sessoms and I worry about Dread repeating that mark, their shooting overall should be better because also departing are Greg Lee and Jaheam Cornwall who combined to shoot 18-88 (20.5%). Major addition by subtraction there.
Seth Lundy is also back to shoulder the scoring load, which is another issue I take with the offense. He was excellent as a role player for the 2020 team that had Lamar Stevens, Myreon Jones, Mike Watkins, and Isaiah Brockington. Since then he’s been an empty calories double-digit scorer, solid but not outstanding, and hasn’t been able to expand his game as a playmaker for others. But Harrar attempted nearly 200 shots and that slack has to go somewhere. I’m not enthused about Lundy and others’ ability to replicate his efficiency.
Andrew Funk was brought in from Bucknell to add depth on the wing. He was the lesser Funk available in the transfer portal (Taylor Funk from St. Joe’s is headed to Utah State) and his career numbers scream “Just A Guy.” Against Patriot League competition he’s topped a 100 offensive rating in just two out of fours years, and Bucknell had the country’s third-worst defense. Not saying Funk was the cause of that, just noting that Funk was on the floor 90% of the time while it happened.
If I’m wrong and Penn State climbs back toward the top 50 (which, amazingly, they’d done four straight seasons despite the 32-47 Big Ten record) it’s because I’m overrating the loss of Harrar but his energy and rebounding are going to be sorely missed. He was a perfect college basketball role player who knew what he could do and did it extremely well. The backcourt is strong by Big Ten standards but I’m not positive about how Pickett and Wynter fit together. I think the offense will be better but that’s not a given considering how many missed shots Harrar grabbed. Defensively they can only be worse on the interior, and it could be much worse. The same is true for the glass on both ends, and even improvement from the veteran core isn’t enough to overcome that.
Purdue Boilermakers
Projected Final KenPom Ranking: #11 (+3 from last season)
Projected Final Big Ten Rankings: 2nd offense/1st defense
Here they are, my Big Ten champion pick. I would still pick the field over a specific team, but somebody’s gonna win the league — I am 99% sure of that fact. But really: why not Purdue? I’m allowed one vibes pick, right?
I know, I know, the defense. It was bad last season. Matt Painter’s offenses have lately been ahead of his defenses but from 2008-2011 they ranked in the top three in the league. It’s not like he forgot how to coach defense. I’m counting on him to scheme a better one around Zach Edey, which should not be a difficult assignment. Do you want to drive into the lane against a 7-4 dude? Me neither. Meanwhile the perimeter is stocked with long athletes who should be disruptive and switchable and minimize the amount of time Edey has to spend defending outside of the paint. Purdue was the best defensive rebounding team in the conference last season (not a surprise) and they limited opponents’ trips to the free throw line.
The defense was bad for the very boring reason that teams made shots against them. It still doesn’t click in my brain that they were 10th in the conference in two point defense. Surely that’s got to improve. Because… [gesturing at the roster]. Mason Gillis is a proven rugged defender who, by the way, canned 45% of his three pointers in league play last year. Caleb Furst is 6-10 former top-75 recruit. Trey Kaufman-Renn is a 6-8 former top-50 recruit who redshirted last season. Very few teams are going to match their length, which should help them cause at least a few more turnovers after they ranked 346th in the country a season ago.
Jaden Ivey and Sasha Stefanovic are gone but I’m not worried about the offense because, again, it’s Purdue. Edey is so good offensively that even if he’s only playing 25 minutes a game he’s a huge difference maker. He was the best offensive rebounder in the country and only one player drew more fouls. He had a better two point percentage than Hunter Dickinson, Trayce Jackson-Davis, and Kofi Cockburn, and a higher usage rate than all of them (in fewer minutes, to be sure). The way he needs to be guarded opens the perimeter for everyone else. It’s probably too hot-takey to call Stefanovic overrated, but I’m not concerned about Painter’s ability to create an offense that will knock down shots.
The lead guard spot was a soap opera this offseason with Ivey going pro and Isaiah Thompson transferring (while his brother remains on staff, which we can all agree is weird). They struck out for a while in the portal, most notable with Nigel Pack, before coming up with David Jenkins, who is not really a point guard. He’s a shooter and a microwave scorer, which means that the point guard duties are going to rest with 5-10 freshman Braden Smith. I can’t say I love that but I think between Jenkins and Ethan Morton and Brandon Newman there’s enough acceptable ballhandling to pick the slack.
Obviously without Ivey or anyone of his ilk the offense is going to look different. There won’t be a greased-up bowling ball in the lane every possession but you can do a lot worse than surrounding a very very tall man with a bunch of shooting. I do think it takes a bit of time to come together but their schedule is favorable. They play Minnesota and Nebraska as their December conference games, a good chance to bank a 2-0 start before they really crank it up in January and February.
If this projection falls flat I won’t be shocked. There are valid questions about the guard play and what Edey can do outside of the timeshare with Trevion Williams. But in this year’s Big Ten you’ve got to shoot your shot with somebody and I’m going to buy the Purdue stock.
Rutgers Scarlet Knights
Projected Final KenPom Ranking: #44 (+33 from last season)
Projected Final Big Ten Rankings: 9th offense/2nd defense
The Scarlet Knights’ 2021-22 season is going to be studied by historians for decades. Every team that started 3-3 with a Quad 4 loss is going to say “yeah, but Rutgers” and they’ll have a point. When they lost their Big Ten opener by 35 to Illinois it was unfathomable that they’d rally to make a second straight tournament but that’s exactly what happened. Can they make it three despite losing program cornerstones Ron Harper Jr. and Geo Baker?
Despite an honorable mention All-American season from Harper Jr., the Rutgers offense was still only 9th in the conference. His 42% mark from three carried the team as they failed to rank in the top half of the league in any other categories. So losing him is a bad place to start from if you’re some dude on the internet predicting that the offense won’t take a step back.
The biggest problem last season? Turnovers. Paul Mulcahy was outstanding in February when they knocked off four consecutive ranked teams, but he battled the turnover bug all season and the issue crept back up near the end of the year. During the four game winning streak, he played 142 minutes and turned it over 12 times. In the next four games, he played 118 minutes and turned it over 17 times. He fouled out of one of those and had four fouls in two others. He tried to do too much at the exact same time that defenses were keying in on him more.
He’s a capable ballhandler who can navigate his way into the lane to make a play, but he often gets too ambitious trying to force a pass. With Baker gone and inexperience behind him at the point guard position, Rutgers needs Mulcahy to be safer with the ball and sacrifice one brilliant pass to save two confounding ones.
Some failed lob attempts are understandable because it feels like there’s no ball Cliff Omoruyi can’t jump up and jam. His improvement with turnovers was encouraging and part of an overall breakout over the final two months. In his first ten league games he turned it over 19 times; in the last ten he did it just 9 times. Omoruyi’s rate stats compare well to the other top bigs in the league but he was featured far less.
When Dickinson, Jackson-Davis, or Edey are on the floor, opposing defenses knew the ball was going inside but those three still score at will anyway. Omoruyi was a secondary piece of the Rutgers offense, working his way open for Baker or Mulcahy to lob it up or pass it off to him for an easy dunk. What Omoruyi can do when more offensive possessions start with a pass into the post is going to be critical for the Scarlet Knights’ offense. He’s the best pure athlete of those four but that alone won’t elevate him to their echelon. Can he body his way to his spot and get defenders off balance? Can he make post moves over both shoulders? Can he show touch in addition to his ferocious dunks? He’s shown flashes in all three areas but doing it consistently all game long is what sets Dickinson and TJD apart.
Another key is if he can become even a mediocre facilitator from inside. It’s not something he’s been asked to do but without Harper and Baker the team badly needs others to step up and make plays. He had 12 assists all season, though three of them came in their tournament game against Notre Dame. Twice they got Omoruyi the ball at the top of the key and he was able to make the right play, once lobbing it for Harper and once on a baseline out of bounds play where Baker inbounded it and used a screen from Harper to get a handoff from Omoruyi, who also used his body to free Baker for an open jumper.
They’ll need a lot of more that this season. Like all big men, the big thing he’s worked on this offseason is expanding his range. How effective that’ll be is anyone’s guess but he’s been willing to take an open shot outside of the paint, so teams at least need to respect that and guard him away from the basket which can open other things up if he can read the defense and make the right passes.
Caleb McConnell also needs to give them more offensively, and Loyola Maryland transfer Cam Spencer will be counted on as well. McConnell has shown glimpses of that — he’s been especially good in the team’s three tournament games over the past two seasons, and he tallied 11 assists in two games against Purdue last season — but his overall shooting numbers come with a NSFW tag: 28.2% on 213 career three pointers, and 43.9% on two pointers. He started last season making five of his first 30 shots. If he tries to replace some of Baker’s scoring by playing Baker’s game and taking pull-up jumpers, this team is in trouble. He can be a secondary ballhandler to get the ball up the floor but he’s not the same kind of passer or shotmaker. Instead he needs to make things happen by cutting to the basket and outmuscling other 3s for rebounds and putbacks.
Spencer is going to start the 2 and will be counted for more scoring. In just over two seasons at Loyola (he missed almost all of the 2021 campaign recovering from hip surgery) he’s a 39% three point shooter and last year he became their do-everything centerpiece. He led the team in points and steals and was second in rebounds and assists. He couldn’t come off the floor and wound up leading the conference in minutes played because of how badly he was needed. With him, they scored 1.02 points per possession. Without him, they managed 0.79.
The step up from the Patriot League to the Big Ten is huge, so many of the same concerns that apply to Sam Griesel on Nebraska apply here. I’m confident the outside shooting will translate but if Spencer is just a shooter that’s a problem. Mulcahy is going to be the engine of the offense but he can’t do it all. Spencer’s going to need to show he can get into the lane and draw attention against much better defenders than he faced in the Pat League. Rutgers’ offensive ceiling depends a lot on how much Spencer can do.
Defensively, we know the floor is high under Pikiell. McConnell is the best defender in the league, leading in steal rate the past two seasons. He’s long and disruptive, limiting his man even if he’s not taking the ball away. Check out how three first round NBA picks fared against him:
There’s a reason he’ll be on the floor no matter what he does or doesn’t provide on offense. His ability to neutralize players like that makes it easier for everyone else. Spencer will get some anticipatory steals but neither he nor Mulcahy is a great one-on-one defender. Having Omoruyi as a backstop helps with that. He gets off the floor as quickly as anyone in the country to block or alter a shot.
Omoruyi’s defense has room to improve. Nobody is going to beat him physically — he did as good a job as anyone against Kofi Cockburn — but he struggled with Dickinson and TJD and their refined post games, and Rutgers had no answer for how Notre Dame attacked them with Paul Atkinson. Last season, Omoruyi too often overplayed one shoulder or got too eager trying for a block and got beat for a rebound.
I wrote last fall that the rebounding was going to improve from 2020-21 and it did but not nearly as much as I thought (and not nearly enough to make Pikiell happy): from 9th and 13th in the conference (offense and defense) to 8th and 10th. I would again expect improvement based on Pikiell’s track record and the lengthy personnel, but last year only being a baby step is at least worth noting.
Even with too many second chances allowed, Rutgers tied for the league’s #3 defense. Harper and Baker had years of experience in the system so their departure isn’t nothing, but both were counted on so much offensively that I felt sometimes they needed to recharge their batteries on defense. I’m fairly sure that the reason Jalen Miller’s redshirt was taken off last year is because the team needed his energy on that side of the ball. With McConnell and Omoruyi back, projecting them up to 2nd doesn’t feel farfetched.
The Scarlet Knights enter the season with reasonable tournament hopes but they need to figure out where their points are coming from. They’re not going to replace the individual prowess of Harper and Baker on a like-for-like basis; it’s got to come from smoothing down the edges: more efficient play from McConnell, a bigger role for Omoruyi, fewer dumb turnovers as a team. It doesn’t need to be a dynamic offense, just a passable one in order to play meaningful February basketball. Oh, and maybe try not having have the country’s single worst loss on your resume this time around.
Wisconsin Badgers
Projected Final KenPom Ranking: #56 (-19 from last season)
Projected Final Big Ten Rankings: 11th offense/4th defense
The Badgers were one of my biggest misses last season and maybe I should just join everyone else and say, well, it’s Wisconsin, they’ll be there. If they can significantly outperform my projection again then I promise I will submit next season and put them in the top 40. But I’m just ready to buy that this a bulletproof program.
The 2018 team went 7-11 and ranked #70 at KenPom. That happened. The 2020 team was 13-10 (6-6) with losses to Richmond and New Mexico before going crazy at the end of the year. The computers loved the 2021 team but they went 10-10 in the league. Last year was the inverse, a 24-6 (15-5) season in which they never made it higher than 25th at KenPom.
They were one of the worst shooting and offensive rebounding teams in the Big Ten last season, ranking 12th in both categories. Iowa rode a low turnover rate to greatness; Wisconsin rode theirs to acceptability. The combination of Johnny Davis and Brad Davison took exceptional care of the basketball and as a team they turned it over on just 12.7% of possessions. Mostly this was because their offense resorted to giving Davis the ball and getting the hell out of the way, which was probably the right idea.
With the two of them gone, the offensive focus falls to Chucky Hepburn. He had some clutch moments last season including a banked-in three pointer to beat Purdue and guarantee a share of the league title, but I must point out he shot 2-9 at home against Nebraska in a game that could’ve given them the outright title. It was that sort of season for Hepburn, which is not unexpected for a freshman, but now he’s going to have a much bigger role and my worry is that it’s a year too early to put that weight on him and get great results.
He’ll be in the backcourt with Wofford transfer Max Klesmit, the Davison replacement. Klesmit’s numbers in the Southern Conference look like what I would’ve guessed Davison would do in that league. He was particularly efficient inside the three point line: 58% in two seasons is an outstanding number for a 6-3 guard. The SoCon is one of the better mid-major leagues but that’s certain to take a hit going against Big Ten defenses, the question is how big of one. His outside shooting has been good but not great: 34.5% in his career, better as a freshman than a sophomore.
This was the biggest problem for the Badgers last season. Davison and Hepburn were decent at near 35% and the rest of the roster was a black hole. A brick hole. This remains a large concern. Some improvement is expected simply because a few of the small sample numbers were SO bad (Ben Carlson was 1-21, Carter Gilmore was 1-13, Jahcobi Neath was 4-22) that positive regression is inevitable. Carlson departing for Utah doesn’t hurt either.
But we have three years of data that says Tyler Wahl, who looks like the team’s primary offensive weapon overall, is not a good shooter. He’s 22-101 from behind the arc in his career and there hasn’t been any year-to-year improvement. He flourished last season inside the arc, demonstrating a nice variety of post moves, cuts, and even an ability to put it on the floor and get to the basket. They’ll need even more of that, though again without a player like Davis to loosen up the floor I wonder if he can be quite as effective.
I like the frontcourt of him and Steven Crowl, who at 7 feet is capable of stepping out and hitting a three (only at 32%, but that’s enough to help a lot with the floor spacing). He was also efficient inside in a cleanup role; this year we’ll get to see more of what he can do by himself.
It’s the depth where the question marks about this roster emerge. Behind Wahl and Crowl in the frontcourt are Markus Ilver and Chris Hodges, two 6-8 second-year guys. Ilver played 28 minutes last season and Hodges redshirted. Last year Gard had 7-footer Chris Vogt, a fifth year senior, to plug in. Whatever Ilver can provide as a shooter and Hodges as a banger, they’re smaller and infinitely less experienced than Vogt. There’s going to be an adjustment period.
Johnny Davis’ twin brother Jordan provides depth on the wing or in the backcourt — or maybe starts. It’s unlucky for him that there’s another twin following in their brother’s footsteps (Kris Murray at Iowa) because the comparison will be drawn, but Kris has shown a lot more promise than Jordan. I’d write off Jahcobi Neath’s season under Danny Manning at Wake Forest, but he’s since played for Steve Forbes and now Gard and been unable to contribute offensively so I don’t see why that would click this year.
Freshman Connor Essegian could see some action. He’s billed as a sharpshooter but how ready is he defensively for the Big Ten? And on paper the transfer of Kamari McGee from Green Bay is just bonkers. Green Bay was one of the worst teams in the country and McGee was their (inefficient) leader. He shot 28% from three and 43% from two, had more turnovers than assists, and is listed at 6-0 tall. An unrated prospect who had that kind of season is suddenly a high major player?
Look, it’s Wisconsin. They’re going to run their offensive system and take care of the ball, but I’m concerned without Davis and Davison that’s an above-average trait and not an elite one. The outside shooting will be better but they could take a hit inside without Davis drawing all the attention. Davison’s leadership on the floor is gone. Wahl and Crowl are good players but I’d be surprised if both replicated or improved on their offensive ratings this season. And the depth is either unproven (Essegian, Ilver, Hodges) or the results have been poor (Neath, McGee).
It’s not such a different situation from Rutgers except that you’d take the Scarlet Knights’ three returnees (Mulcahy, McConnell, Omoruyi) over the Badgers trio of Hepburn, Wahl, and Crowl, plus Cam Spencer is the best player being added to either roster. So go ahead and save this post for when Wisconsin pulls their voodoo magic and hears their name called as a 9 seed on Selection Sunday. I’ll be the guy saying “yeah, but, come on” right up until that happens.