Barstool College Hoops Mailbag: Mark Turgeon, Big 10 Tournament, Mid-Major Conference Tournament to Watch
Just another ho-hum week of college basketball in which there were plenty of upsets and crazy finishes. Oh, only this time we have conference tournaments underway which adds to the storylines tenfold. That said, we won’t waste any time getting into the weekly mailbag questions. Reminder this goes up every Friday and you can submit your questions via Twitter.
Go to your favorite establishment, drink a bunch of bourbon and then realize you’ll never experience a more wild loss than that again. Also, beat NC State on Saturday and that helps cure it too.
Yeah, I’ve gone back and forth on this lately. Part of me feels like there’s an advantage for teams like Purdue or Michigan State who get a week of rest before the NCAA Tournament and can heal up some lingering injuries. The other part of me thinks there’s a disadvantage perhaps for teams like Penn State or Nebraska, who are on the bubble and could get forgotten about in a sense depending what happens next week with other bubble teams in major conferences. There’s the advantage that all eyes are on you as well. Yesterday, the Big 10 was competing with the Big South, MVC, OVC and A-Sun Tournaments. People are tuned in to the Big 10. The disadvantage is the condensed schedule during the regular season, something that they won’t be doing going forward.
It’s a great idea for the sole reason of Steve Pikiell going nuts on the sideline to fire up the crowd. My proposal for the Big 10 (and other major conferences) is to have a 2-city rotation so for the Big 10 you play in Indianapolis and then when Indy gets the Final Four, Chicago gets the Big 10 Tournament. Then once every 5 years you play out East to build your ‘footprint.’ SEC rotates Atlanta and Nashville with St. Louis as the once every 5 years. Big East is always at MSG. Big 12 can do Kansas City and Dallas. Pac-12 rotates between LA and Vegas. ACC should rotate between Charlotte and Greensboro (because I love nostalgia) with Brooklyn being the option once every 5 years.
I avoid these questions because frankly they don’t make much sense. Nevada can win the whole damn thing or lose in the first round. Asking how far a team can go without seeing matchups is rather pointless. That said, Nevada has the talent to be a second weekend team although the loss of Lindsey Drew is significant. The way Nevada builds its roster with transfers and what not, scholarships are always a little weird. They are down to essentially a six, maybe seven man rotation. Granted, there is high-level talent there with the Martin twins, Jordan Caroline, Hallice Cooke and Kendall Stephens, it’s still asking a lot for a short bench like that.
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I hate calling for people’s jobs, it’s not a fun discussion or anything like that. But, with that in mind, has Maryland reached its peak with Turgeon? If so, can you get someone to get to the next step? Right now Turgeon is absolutely doing a great job recruiting and has built the program back up from some ugly times. However, there’s also been some failure. The year with Diamond Stone, Melo Trimble, Robert Carter, etc., should have been a contender. They were a Sweet 16 team but no one really took them serious outside of that. This year, you can talk about the injury to Justin Jackson, whatever, at best they were going to be an 8/9 seed? It’s not like they were dominating teams with Justin Jackson. The complaint is a lack of development, which is true. The teams and players don’t have significant development under Turgeon. If he does get fired (I don’t think he will based on contract and some other circumstances) the two most popular names you’ll hear will be Danny Hurley and Eric Musselman. I’d throw in John Becker, who has ties to Maryland and is just doing an absolutely awesome job at Vermont. I know it’s not exactly a sexy hire, but the guy knows how to win and is recruiting well at Vermont. Give him Under Armour and Maryland and the DMV and he’s recruiting even better.
Yeah, Marquette’s resume isn’t the best. They didn’t really do anything noteworthy in the nonconference, just getting a home win over Vermont. They swept Seton Hall and won at Creighton, which is essentially what they are banking on at the moment. But, that’s not enough to overcome losses to DePaul and St. John’s. Marquette needs a win this weekend to get to 9-9 in conference play. You have to win a couple games in the Big East Tournament still.
Conference-USA. You have 3 really good teams there with Middle Tennessee State, Old Dominion and Western Kentucky. MTSU won the regular season last night with a win over Western Kentucky. Out of the rest of the mid-majors, Middle Tennessee has the best case for an at-large bid if it doesn’t win the conference tournament. It’s going to be one worth watching and there are some entertaining teams when you throw in the likes of Marshall.
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This is pretty simple I think. Win at DePaul so you win the Big East outright then get to the title game. That should be enough to keep you in the top-4 if you’re Xavier. The loss by Duke and UNC help a ton and you’re going to get a loss by either Michigan State or Purdue. Just get to that step and you should be okay to still be a 1 seed.
If you’re talking about just on the court stuff, I’d probably go with Duke’s defensive jump the last couple of weeks. It’s not up to 15th in AdjD on KenPom. It was sub-40 not too long ago. The move to the 2-3 permanently and getting Javin DeLaurier in there with more minutes has gone a long way here. We’ve seen Duke do this before, but the jump came during the NCAA Tournament when it won the title in 2015. It’s sort of insane how much better Duke has gotten in a short period of time.