November 8, 2007
Big Ten Preview
Teams, Part One

by John Gasaway

ILLINOIS

What Illinois did well: Play outstanding defense; employ defense attorneys.

Last season was nothing if not eventful for the Illini. Fans of the orange and blue watched with steadily increasing apprehension in 2006-07 as their team endured a rash of injuries (Brian Randle, Jamar Smith and Chester Frazier missed a combined 18 games due to injury), stumbled into multiple brushes with the law (Smith and Rich McBride missed a combined 12 games due to suspensions) and suffered the defection of prized Indianapolis shooting guard Eric Gordon (who had previously given a verbal commitment to Illinois) to Kelvin Sampson and Indiana.

Still, one thing stayed constant even amid last season's tumult: as in previous years, Illinois played excellent defense. Bruce Weber's teams consistently defend. Last year, the Illini allowed just 0.92 points per possession in conference play, making theirs the best defense in the D-heavy Big Ten. True, these glittering numbers were compiled against a notably forgiving conference schedule. Illinois played both Ohio State and Wisconsin just once, both at home...and lost both games. As much as one who traffics in stats may hesitate to say it, the Illini defense was likely helped along by plain luck: Weber's men played excellent perimeter defense last year, yes, but no team can expect conference opponents to miss more than 71 percent of their threes every season.

Nevertheless, Weber's track record of dependably strong defense suggests a coach who's more than just lucky, he's good. Year in, year out, Illinois opponents struggle to make shots and record very few offensive rebounds. Both trends continued and indeed peaked last year, aided and abetted by the length and strong defensive rebounding of Shaun Pruitt and, perhaps somewhat more surprisingly, the now-departed Warren Carter. In fact, the good defense only got better as the season progressed, and was even on emblematic display in the Illini's first-round tournament loss to Virginia Tech, a 62-possession game in which Illinois allowed just 54 points. Ordinarily that level of D will translate to a win. The fact that it didn't says a good deal about the Illini's struggles on the other side of the ball last year.

What we learned in 2007: Coaching is important, but talent is essential.

Hop aboard your way-back machine and think back to 2005. Illinois, undefeated all the way to early March, made it to the final minute of the national championship game before falling to North Carolina. They'd been blessed early in the season by John Wooden himself ("One of the finest performances I've seen in a while," he said after watching the Illini dismantle Gonzaga), they were sharing the ball and, most importantly, they were hitting their shots. Stories in the press lauded Weber and his old-school Norman Dale-like shooting drills. This emphasis on the basics, it was said, fueled the astonishingly efficient Illinois attack, an offense that recorded an absurd 1.18 points per possession in Big Ten play.

It turns out it wasn't the drills, it was the players. That 2005 backcourt featured three players who were gainfully employed by the NBA in 2007: Deron Williams, Dee Brown and Luther Head. Over the past three seasons no Big Ten team has shot as well in-conference as did that 2005 Illini team.

Fast-forward to last season. Diligently performing the same practice drills as their predecessors, the 2007-edition Fighting Illini set new standards for futility in shooting. Indeed, over the past three seasons, just two Big Ten teams have shot as poorly in-conference as did last year's Illinois team. It was an abysmal, and surprising, performance. In retrospect, it's remarkable if not amazing that Illinois was able to make its eighth consecutive NCAA tournament.

What's in store for 2008: Illinois will continue to defend, but until further notice the assumption here is that their struggles to score will continue as well. Scoring will be low and the pace will be slow. Frontcourt starters Pruitt and Randle return for their final seasons, joined by starting point guard Frazier. That's a good defensive nucleus right there. Among returning Big Ten players, only Brian Butch and Marquise Gray are better than Pruitt on the defensive glass. This is also, however, an offensively-challenged core group that highlights Weber's need to find some scoring.

It won't be easy. One-time shooting guard Jamar Smith will redshirt this season. Smith was charged with driving under the influence after his car slid off a snowy street and hit a tree late on the night of February 12. Teammate Brian Carlwell was a passenger in the car and was hospitalized with a concussion. After serving a suspension for the remainder of the season, Smith reached a plea bargain with authorities in May that resulted in two weeks of jail time, an $850 fine and community service in exchange for a guilty plea on the charge of felony DUI. Smith remains on the roster, however, and could return next season.

Speaking of absent shooting guards, 6'3" freshman Quinton Watkins, a two-guard out of Compton, Calif., was declared academically ineligible by the NCAA clearinghouse over the summer. Watkins wasn't necessarily going to be the Illini's most heralded freshman--that distinction likely goes to Demetri McCamey, a 6'3" point guard from greater Chicago--but he does play the position at which Illinois is neediest. Weber will now have to find some threes from a backcourt rotation that will include not only Frazier and McCamey but also veterans Trent Meacham and Calvin Brock; 6'5" junior Steve Holdren (a Champaign product and South Dakota State transfer); and 6'0" freshman walk-on Jeffrey Jordan (yes, the son of Michael).

Down in the paint, Randle will look to avoid both fouls and, more importantly, injuries. He underwent surgery immediately following last season to repair a torn abdominal muscle, his second such surgery in six months. Randle and Pruitt will be joined by 6'7" junior college transfer Rodney Alexander, the 6'11" and now-recovered Carlwell, and a trio of freshmen: seven-footer Mike Tisdale (from Riverton, IL), 6'9" Peoria product Bill Cole, and 6'8" forward Mike Davis (Alexandria, VA). The first order of business for Pruitt, Randle, and company will be simply to make shots: in relation to the respective applicable conference averages, Illinois' two-point shooting in Big Ten play last year was almost as bad as its more visibly impotent three-point shooting.

INDIANA

What Indiana did well: Thrive outside the arc.

Three-point shooting fueled the Hoosiers' run to a third-place finish in the Big Ten last season behind conference oligarchs Ohio State and Wisconsin. Indiana launched a lot of shots from beyond the arc in conference games--devoting more of their attempts to threes than any other Big Ten team except Northwestern--and hit 41 percent of all those treys, best in the league. The now-departed Roderick Wilmont teamed with a healthy A.J. Ratliff and newcomer Armon Bassett to rain threes on opponents struggling to contend not only with all these perimeter threats but also with IU big man D.J. White. Indeed, Indiana thrived outside the arc on both sides of the ball, holding conference foes to just 32 percent three-point shooting.

That was crucial, because inside the arc the picture was much less rosy. Conference opponents made a little more than half of their twos against the smallish Hoosiers, while Kelvin Sampson's men made a little less than half of their own. Remember all of the above--domination outside the arc, mediocrity inside it on both sides of the ball--when we get to the discussion of 2008.

What we learned in 2007: When perceptions and facts collide, bet on perceptions.

When Sampson arrived in Bloomington in 2006, he brought along a well-earned reputation for coaching a "hard-nosed" style of basketball. Sampson's Oklahoma teams may not have been things of beauty, but they won games with tenacious defense. It seemed reasonable to expect more of the same at Indiana.

Instead something much more interesting took place last year. The Hoosiers' defense, allowing 1.03 points per possession, was just the Big Ten's seventh-best during the conference season. IU won games thanks to an excellent, even beautiful, offense. This despite rumors to the contrary promulgated by sportswriters (in March one national commentator termed IU "a pretty deficient team offensively") and even by Sampson himself (also in March: "We're not an offensive juggernaut").

Reality begged to differ. The Hoosiers' offense, scoring 1.12 points per trip, was the Big Ten's best in conference play last year. Better than Ohio State's, Wisconsin's or anyone else's. True, Indiana couldn't score any points against UCLA in the tournament. Then again, neither could Kansas.

What's in store for 2008: On October 14, Indiana announced that a number of penalties will be imposed on the basketball program by the university. Several phone calls to recruits made by Sampson's staff violated NCAA limits on how often a player can be contacted. Other calls ran afoul of restrictions placed on Sampson in particular in the wake of previous (and similar) violations during his tenure at Oklahoma. Indiana will lose a scholarship in next year's recruiting class and Sampson will forfeit a $500,000 bonus. It's the third bonus he's lost in the last three seasons due to recruit-contact violations.

However many phone calls they received, this year's newcomers are indeed impressive. Indianapolis shooting guard Eric Gordon is joining a team that already scores points in abundance, thanks to excellent perimeter shooting. IU's pre-Gordon offense in general was close to being-and its three-point shooting in particular already was--as good as it can get. So this particular McDonald's All-American will allow Indiana to continue doing what it already does well: score.

Gordon is widely assumed to be on track for a one-and-done career in Bloomington. If this is indeed the case, he'll be doing well during his brief stint in an IU uniform to perform at the level set by Wilmont last season. No one paid much attention, but Wilmont took a lot of shots and had an outstanding year in 2007. In fact, the even more impressive year that Drew Neitzel had on offense for Michigan State last season could be summarized as simply "Wilmont plus assists." This year Wilmont's shots will fall to Gordon; Hoosier fans should be thrilled if Gordon hits about 40 percent of his threes and takes obsessively good care of the ball, as did Wilmont. Same performance, way more hype--it could happen.

Of course, Gordon won't have to be a one-man show. One of the most striking aspects of Indiana's offense last year was its balance. Wilmont and White took most of the shots, yes, but opposing defenses had to cover the floor: Ratliff and Bassett both made more than 40 percent of their threes last season and are back for more this year. (True, Lance Stemler struggled from outside, hitting just 33 percent from beyond the arc.) While White may not be what you'd call a low-post scoring machine--his 2FG percentage last year was ten points lower than the likes of Carl Landry and Greg Oden--he's yet another legitimate scoring threat on a team blessed with many such weapons.

In short, this offense will be very good and, unlike last year, people will realize it. The question for this team is defense: it ranked seventh in the Big Ten last year and it's not readily apparent how the inside-outside combination of White and Gordon is going to be a defensive upgrade over White and Wilmont. Though just 6'4", Wilmont was better Gordon Watt or Greg Stiemsma on the defensive boards last year. If, like Wilmont, Gordon is both his team's best offensive player and a significant contributor on defense, this team will live up to its advance billing.

Then again, if 6'9" shot-blocking freshman Eli Holman can merely do no harm on offense, it won't matter what Gordon does on D, because Sampson will have everything he needs on the floor with White, Gordon, Holman and any two additional players. Holman's reported abilities give him a chance to contribute on a team that had quickness in abundance on offense but lacked for size on defense last year. See, for example, Mike White: a true competitor and undeniably the owner of the conference's most impressive set of shoulders but, alas, just 6'6" and thus not terribly effective on the defensive glass. With the possible exception of Iowa's Kurt Looby, D.J. White combines the threat of shot-blocking with strong defensive rebounding better than any returning player in the Big Ten. He just can't do it alone.

In addition to Gordon and Holman, the Hoosiers will welcome an infusion of Chicago Public League talent, including 6'5" guard Jamarcus Ellis (reigning national junior college player of the year), hefty 6'8" forward DeAndre Thomas (Ellis and Thomas are both from Chicago Westinghouse by way of Chipola JC) and 6'7" forward Brandon McGee (Chicago Crane). Add in Detroit product Jordan Crawford, a 6'4" combo guard being groomed for duty at the point in Bloomington, and Sampson figures to have some depth on hand as his team sees how far it can go with Gordon and D.J. White together for one year only.

IOWA

What Iowa did well: Exceed expectations.

For a team that said goodbye to Greg Brunner, Jeff Horner, Erek Hansen and Doug Thomas in 2006, the Hawkeyes fared pretty well in 2007. Steve Alford's team was in contention for an NCAA berth all the way to the last day of February, when a loss at Penn State effectively sealed their fate. (The Nittany Lions' win that night marked the end of a 13-game losing streak.) It was a surprisingly feisty performance from what was supposed to be, Adam Haluska notwithstanding, an undermanned group.

Even more surprising was how Iowa did it. Despite losing two of their three leading scorers, the Hawkeyes actually improved significantly on offense. Last year's team scored more points than their predecessors did for a simple reason: they got more shots. Turnovers were down and offensive rebounds were up in 2007. As a result, Iowa scored 1.05 points per possession in Big Ten play last year, versus 1.00 in 2006, despite their accuracy from the field declining slightly. Last year's performance thus gives new coach Todd Lickliter a ready-made parable: simply holding on to the ball can offset a lot of missed shots. Not that Lickliter needs any enlightenment on this particular subject: his Butler team last year had the lowest turnover percentage in the nation.

A simultaneous, and dramatic, decline in defensive effectiveness meant last year's team was less successful overall than in 2006. No shame and no surprise there: Iowa in 2006 was one of the top defensive teams in the nation. In 2007, though, the Hawkeyes were beaten to a pulp on the defensive glass and allowed conference opponents to make more than half their twos.

What we learned in 2007: If you hire a hot young coach to take your program to that proverbial "next level," history is not necessarily on your side...unless, of course, you're in Gainesville, Fla.

Alford arrived in Iowa City in March of 1999 with what seemed to be impeccable bona fides. That month his 12th-seeded Southwest Missouri State team, since renamed Missouri State, beat fourth-seeded Wisconsin and fifth-seeded Tennessee to reach the Sweet 16, falling there to one-seed Duke. Most promisingly for Hawkeye fans at the time, Alford's team made it as far as they did with punishing defense. The score of the Wisconsin game was 43-32. If Alford could do that with the recruits he had in Springfield, Mo., the thinking went, just imagine what he could do at a "major"-conference program.

Iowa fans have since found out what Alford could do: not much. After a 1-3 record in three NCAA tournament appearances over eight seasons, Alford is the head coach at New Mexico. The Midwest hasn't been kind in recent years to young coaches at mid-level programs in major conferences. Alford at Iowa, Quin Snyder at Missouri, Dan Monson at Minnesota, Tommy Amaker at Michigan...all arrived between 1999 and 2001 with high expectations. All left in 2006 or 2007 with low win totals. So maybe Wisconsin was on to something in 2001 when they hired the not-so-young Bo Ryan.

It raises the question: what was the last program that achieved top-tier success with a young coach who lacked the advantage of building on previous success? Well, absent any hoops tradition to speak of, Florida seems to have been pretty good lately. Kudos to Billy Donovan.

What's in store for 2008: Clearly something has to give stylistically. Threes accounted for just 32 percent of Iowa's shots under Alford last year. Under Lickliter, conversely, threes made up 49 percent of Butler's attempts. Can outside shooting fuel another 2007-style run in Iowa City this year?

Anything is possible, of course, but the challenges faced at the outset by the new Iowa coach shouldn't be glossed over lightly. Granted, the defense may well improve--it has room to do so. This year's offense is, on paper, an assembly of role players looking for a scorer. Alando Tucker and Brian Butch aside, no duo in the Big Ten took a larger share of their team's shots while they were on the floor together last year than did Adam Haluska and Tyler Smith. Both are long gone. Haluska was picked in the second round by the New Orleans Hornets; Smith transferred to Tennessee. Where will the points come from now in Iowa City? No one knows, least of all Lickliter. Haluska was more than Iowa's leading scorer, he was the Hawkeyes' most efficient offensive weapon. This year's team will likely find it's much easier to replace Haluska's shots than it is to replace his points.

Three starters return this season: point guard Tony Freeman, forward Cyrus Tate and big man Kurt Looby. Freeman suffered a foot injury in the Hawkeyes' exhibition game on November 1 and his status is in doubt. Last year Freeman dished a lot of assists but coughed up almost as many turnovers and posed little outside threat to opposing defenses. Tate is a capable defensive rebounder, but his performance on offense--frequent turnovers, rare shots, rarer makes--has not impressed. Incoming freshman Jarryd Cole, a wide-bodied 6'7" power forward from Kansas City, may have an opportunity to earn minutes through good work on the defensive glass. Looby's value to Lickliter, which is considerable, will be on the defensive end, where the senior figures to be a fair rebounder and very good shot blocker.

The question marks continue when Lickliter looks to last year's bench. Seven-footer Seth Gorney was and occasional starter and Iowa's most efficient offensive player, but in a supporting role. If 6'6" wing Justin Johnson can keep hitting 45 percent of his threes and merely make as many twos as he misses, he'll find himself suddenly attracting headlines and eminently foreseeable bad puns ("Justin time," etc.). Johnson will likely vie with Freeman, assuming he returns from his injury, and freshman Jake Kelly, a 6'5" shooting guard from Carmel, Ind., for the shots previously taken by Haluska.

In short, the prospects for the near term in Iowa City are fuzzy if not foreboding. Still, Lickliter has already given hints of good things to come. Just days after arriving in Iowa City, he persuaded Washington, D.C.-area point guard Jeff Peterson of DeMatha High School to sign with the Hawkeyes. Peterson, recruited by Alford and signed by Lickliter, fills a hole in the class at point guard left by the departure of former signee Dairese Gary, who elected to follow Alford to New Mexico. If Lickliter can continue to attract "his" kind of player--high-assist and low-turnover--future teams in Iowa City may at last give long-suffering Hawkeye fans some of those elusive tournament wins.

MICHIGAN

What Michigan did well: Repeat the past.

Last year Michigan once again entered the season with talent, experience and length, and once again they parlayed all of the above into yet another excruciating season on the bubble, falling just short of an NCAA tournament berth.

Now Tommy Amaker is at Harvard. The veritas hurts: in six full seasons under Amaker, more than long enough for the aftereffects of previous programmatic misdeeds to blow over and for a coach's own recruits to cycle through, the Wolverines were unable to get to the tournament. During those same six seasons nine other Big Ten teams, all save Northwestern, made at least one NCAA tournament appearance. (Yes, even Penn State.) Michigan posted its share of 20-win seasons over that span, to be sure, but nevertheless remained on the outside looking in when it mattered most: March.

John Beilein was lured away from West Virginia to change that.

What we learned in 2007: Beilein has a distinct and effective style.

We had inklings along these lines before 2007, but last year confirmed the hunch. Coaching a West Virginia team that had lost Kevin Pittsnogle and Mike Gansey, Beilein's offense operated at a level of efficiency that belied its youth and lack of athleticism. Credit the coach and his unique offensive scheme, which does away with offensive rebounds almost entirely in exchange for minimizing turnovers and shooting a lot of threes; more threes than twos, in fact, in conference play last year. Beilein landed in the Big Ten by achieving SEC ends (we'll outscore you tonight and worry about the defense later) through Missouri Valley means (X's and O's) in the Big East.

A few Michigan fans have fretted that Beilein will install a Northwestern-style offense in Ann Arbor. Few words instill more fear in Big Ten fans than "Northwestern-style offense." Peel back the layers on that particular worry, however, and one finds that it concerns not the preferred number of threes or offensive boards but rather pace of play. Well, fret not, Wolverine fans: last year in Morgantown Beilein's Mountaineers played conference games at a pace (64 possessions per 40 minutes) that was only a hair slower than the Big East average, which has been right at 65 or 66 possessions per 40 for the past three seasons. Northwestern, by stark contrast, crawled along at just 57 possessions per 40 minutes, well off the conference average of 61.5. Beilein's teams may play a somewhat unusual style but, unlike the Wildcats in Evanston, they do so at the usual speed.

What's in store for 2008: Bringing a radically new style to a program is a challenge under any circumstances, whether said style is being sold to veteran players used to their own system, or simply being taught to young players recruited by a different coach. It's the second challenge that Beilein will face, for Michigan lost four starters in Dion Harris, Courtney Sims, Lester Abram and Brent Petway. The lone remaining starter is point guard Jerret Smith.

If Beilein's style is the irresistible force, Smith might be the immovable object. Among Big Ten players last year, only Minnesota's Kevin Payton and Michigan State's Idong Ibok turned the ball over more frequently per individual possession than did Smith. This will need to change if Smith wants to be Beilein's starting point guard. In a system with no offensive rebounds, turnovers are deadly: Beilein's 2006 West Virginia team posted the second-lowest turnover percentage, 13.2, of any Division I team over the past four seasons. Freshman Kelvin Grady, a 5'11" point guard from Grand Rapids, will be waiting in the wings if Smith can't mend his ways.

Beilein will also be looking for better things from DeShawn Sims, who had a tough season last year as a freshman. While having to cope with tragedy off the court--his younger brother was shot and killed in Detroit in Novembe--the 6'8" small forward averaged just nine minutes a game. Sims managed to cram a ton of shots into those fleeting moments; taking 30 percent of his team's shots during his scarce minutes, Sims' willingness to pull the trigger was exceeded only by that of Alando Tucker, Adam Haluska and Drew Neitzel. The only problem is that Sims wasn't Tucker, Haluska or Neitzel. His 33.3 effective FG percentage was the lowest posted by any of 101 Big Ten players last year. (More bad news for Beilein: Sims' nearest competitor for the most hapless shooting in the conference was teammate Jevohn Shepherd.) Every shot Sims took--and we've seen that he fired away like he was playing garbage time in an NBA All-Star game--was good news for the opponent. Now Sims stands to inherit minutes in abundance, but his shot selection and accuracy will have to improve dramatically if he wants to stay on the floor for his new coach.

In addition to Sims, the main recipients of all the suddenly available shots figure to be senior Ron Coleman and freshman Manny Harris. Coleman improved his effective FG percentage last year over 2006. Harris, following in the footsteps of Dion Harris, will be Michigan's second consecutive two-guard from Detroit Redford High School named Harris. Additional depth at wing will be supplied by K'Len Morris (who sat out his freshman season last year after suffering a shoulder injury in late November) and redshirt freshman Anthony Wright.

Beilein's defense will be built around 6'10" sophomore Ekpe Udoh, a true specialist who does one thing and does it quite well: block shots. Greg Oden and the aforementioned Ibok were the only Big Ten players last year to post higher block percentages than Udoh. A shot-blocker is handy to have, of course, so long as the rest of the team can do the rebounding and ball-hawking. In the Wolverines' case they'll need to, because Udoh's defensive rebound percentage is strikingly feeble for a player his size. (On the other hand, he's a fair offensive rebounder.) So Michigan will look for help on the defensive glass this year from Zack Gibson, a 6'10" Grand Blanc, Michigan, product who sat out last year after transferring from Rutgers.

Still, defense doesn't figure to be this team's strong suit. If the past is any guide, Beilein's team will go as far as its threes and lack of turnovers can take it. The first year may be rocky but under Beilein's tutelage the X's and O's may well sort themselves out before too long in Ann Arbor.

MICHIGAN STATE

What Michigan State did well: Everything, with one glaring exception.

The Spartans were young, eager, and somewhat surprising in 2007. Projected as a bubble team before the season, Tom Izzo's men made the NCAA tournament with something approaching ease. Though they went just 8-8 in conference play, MSU received a nine seed and recorded a dominant first-round victory over Marquette before falling to one-seed North Carolina. For such a youthful team, Michigan State displayed remarkable balance. They shot with exceptional accuracy; only Indiana recorded a higher effective FG percentage in conference play. They were strong on both the offensive and defensive boards: first and fourth in the Big Ten, respectively. They forced their opponents into woeful shooting both from inside and beyond the arc.

Drew Neitzel was at the heart of this exemplary performance. Neitzel took a lot more shots last year than he did in 2006. That was predictable, given that he was no longer playing alongside Paul Davis, Maurice Ager and Shannon Brown. What was surprising, however, was that Neitzel didn't just score more points, he scored more efficiently. Hitting 41 percent of his threes, taking prodigiously good care of the ball and dishing assists more frequently than any other non-point-guard in the conference outside of Tim Doyle, Neitzel had the best year on offense of any player in the Big Ten.

Still, Neitzel was hardly a one-man show. Marquise Gray proved he's arguably the best all-around rebounder in the conference. Goran Suton is excellent on the defensive glass yet passes with the skill of a guard; no other player in the Big Ten can make both claims. Travis Walton showed he's the closest thing to Mike Conley among mere mortals, playing tenacious perimeter D while recording assists at a higher rate than any player in the conference outside of Conley and the aforementioned Doyle. Raymar Morgan has more potential than all of the above. Now Izzo has added three highly-touted freshmen to the mix in the backcourt and on the wings. So what's not to love about this team?

One thing. One very big thing….

What we learned in 2007: Exceptions matter.

Michigan State's inability to hold on to the ball last year wasn't just glaring. It was historic.

Highest turnover percentages, 2006 & 2007, Conference games only
ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, SEC

Michigan State, 2007           26.0
Georgia Tech, 2006             25.8
Oklahoma State, 2006           25.7 

The Spartans turned the ball over more than once every four possessions in conference play last year, and that was the only thing standing in the way of this team. Had they been merely average in terms of holding onto the ball, Michigan State, even as young as they were in 2007, could have made things a lot more crowded--and a lot more interesting--at the top of the Big Ten.

What's in store for 2008: Can Izzo's players do better at taking care of the ball in 2008? It's hard to tell. Consider that, with the exception of Neitzel, every player on the MSU roster turned the ball over last year at a rate higher than the Big Ten average. Even more ominously, one of the worst offenders, per individual possession used, was Izzo's starting point guard, Walton.

Nevertheless, keep in mind the goal here isn't to suddenly become Wisconsin and reach some kind of extreme low-turnover nirvana. Given Izzo's personnel and scheme, that's not going to happen. The target instead should be mere mediocrity, to turn the ball over on one in every five possessions instead of one in every four. Last year, every turnover in conference play cost Michigan State about 1.4 points. Achieving mediocrity in the turnover department would thus have given the Spartans almost five additional points per game in the slow-paced Big Ten.

Cutting down on turnovers will be critical for this team because everything else looks good, if not excellent. The Spartans return all five starters from a team that played very good defense even though Walton, Morgan and Drew Naymick were all in their first years as regular starters. Indeed, the points for opponents may become even scarcer this season, for Izzo is now blessed with depth both in the paint and in the backcourt. Down low, Izzo's big men can both clear the defensive glass (Gray and Suton) and block shots (Naymick and Idong Ibok).

While it may seem like a stretch to expect defensive improvement based, in part, on three incoming freshmen all under 6'6", the arrivals of Chris Allen (6'3" shooting guard), Kalin Lucas (6'0" point guard) and Durrell Summers (6'5" wing) promise to help keep Neitzel, Walton and Morgan fresh all year. Note that Izzo's best group in recent years, the 2005 Final Four team, featured an unusually balanced distribution of playing time wherein his top seven players all received between 40 and 66 percent of the minutes. That won't happen this year--there's no earthly way Neitzel plays fewer than 30 minutes a game--but it's still suggestive. Izzo's best results of late have come less from stars and more from ensembles.

On offense, Neitzel may be hard pressed to duplicate the year he had in 2007, but the good news for MSU fans is he may not have to, because he figures to have more help on offense this year. For starters, big things are expected from Morgan. The sophomore from Canton has the look of past Spartans who've excelled on the wing, but with one key upgrade: he's 6'7". Now, the numbers from Morgan's freshman year don't necessarily support the optimism. For one thing he made less than half of his twos. Then again, he missed seven games in December and January with a "stress reaction" in his right shin. We don't know if we've yet seen the true Morgan. Gray, on the other hand, was a healthy and efficient source of points in the paint on those occasions, admittedly too rare, when he didn't give the ball to the other team. If he and his teammates, can just learn to hold on to the rock and stay away from Grand Valley State, look out.

MINNESOTA

What Minnesota did well: Mere programmatic survival.

It may seem hard to believe, but Minnesota is just two seasons removed from a 10-6 conference record and an NCAA tournament berth. Then again those glory days, relatively speaking, really do seem like a long time ago: the Gophers went 5-11 in-conference in 2006 and then lost five of their first seven games coming out of the gate last November. The day after Minnesota lost by 22 on its home floor to eventual NIT runner-up Clemson, head coach Dan Monson was shown the door and assistant Jim Molinari was named as his replacement on an interim basis. Molinari's men limped to a 3-13 record in the Big Ten and Tubby Smith was introduced as the new coach at a press conference in March.

What we learned in 2007: There are tough coaching gigs, even in the power conferences.

Until now, it hasn't been entirely clear what the template for success would look like at Minnesota, a team not particularly favored by either geography or tradition when it comes to recruiting high-school basketball talent. Smith is already making the right noises about keeping in-state talent "home," of course, and not without reason. Twin Cities product Cole Aldrich, to take one example, was a McDonald's All-American last year and will be a freshman at Kansas this year. Whether the state could truly produce enough talent to field an NCAA tournament team year-in and year-out is an open question. That's why Smith is already working hard to bring in the out-of-state talent. He recently landed a verbal commitment from Ralph Sampson III, a 6'11" big man from greater Atlanta.

If Smith can get quality recruits to come to Minneapolis, hiring him will turn out to have been nothing less than a coup for Minnesota AD Joel Maturi. Kentucky fans may have been saying good riddance, but Smith has coached a D-I national championship team, making him a member of an elite fraternity that includes just Smith and Tom Izzo among Big Ten coaches. Now he's chosen to take on the challenge at Williams Arena. If someone's going to make something of this program in the near term, Smith's as good a bet as any.

What's in store for 2008: The most famous Gopher this year is likely to be freshman shooting guard Blake Hoffarber. Yes, that Blake Hoffarber, the young man from Minnetonka, Minnesota, who made an incredible 18-footer quite literally from the seat of his pants after being knocked to the floor in the waning seconds of the 2005 Minnesota state high school championship game. The shot quickly became an Internet sensation and netted Hoffarber an ESPY award for Top Play of the Year. Not every college freshman, surely, can claim to have bested Tiger Woods in an awards competition.

As for returning players, everyone's back for the Gophers this year, but Coach Smith will find that with this particular group of veterans he faces an unrelenting paradox: almost without exception, any player he puts on the floor to help the offense will hurt the defense, and vice versa. In 2007, Minnesota was a lethal combination of small and passive, on both sides of the ball. Leading scorer and starting two-guard Lawrence McKenzie illustrates this paradox well. The 6'2" McKenzie, a Minneapolis product who transferred back home after starting his college career playing for Kelvin Sampson at Oklahoma, is a capable three-point shooter (38 percent last year) but he records fewer steals per individual defensive possession than any other backcourt player, starter or reserve, in the entire Big Ten.

This was precisely where Minnesota's defense foundered last year. Despite the fact that the Gophers actually forced opponents into a surprising number of missed shots ("surprising" in current Minnesota terms meaning "about average"), they nevertheless gave up a generous 1.08 points per possession in conference play because opposing teams never turned the ball over. That's not McKenzie's doing alone, of course. Fellow starter Jamal Abu-Shamala, an even better three-point shooter, was almost as ineffective at creating opponent turnovers. The fact of the matter is that Smith would dearly love to find at least one guard who can disrupt opposing offenses. Unfortunately his most promising candidate for such a role, sophomore point guard Kevin Payton, turned the ball over more frequently than any other player in the Big Ten last year. Again, such are the trade-offs faced by the new coach in Minneapolis.

Smith's most valuable defender might just be senior forward Dan Coleman, who at 6'9" is both the best defensive rebounder and the best shot blocker on a team with no really good defensive rebounders and no really good shot blockers. Six-foot-seven sophomore Damian Johnson can wrest this second distinction away from Coleman if he can just get the playing time.

The bad news wasn't restricted to the defense last year. In fact, the offense was even worse (scoring just 0.92 points per trip in Big Ten play) and the problems started in the paint. In 2007, the Gophers made just 44 percent of their twos in-conference, easily the worst such figure in the Big Ten. Don't blame that poor shooting from in close on 6'9" Spencer Tollackson; his 2FG percentage was respectable enough, though a broken bone in his hand forced him to miss half the Big Ten season. Rather, all those missed twos likely speak to something more basic and thus more troubling: the absence of any offensive threat, in the paint or out top, potent enough to create open shots for teammates.

If missing their shots weren't bad enough, the Gophers also struggled to get shots. Minnesota not only gave the ball away on 23 percent of their possessions during the conference season (next-to-last in the conference, above only Michigan State), they were also unable to get second shots even when they held on to the ball, rebounding only a little more than one in four of their misses (next-to-last in the conference, above only Northwestern).

In short, with the single exception of three-point shooting, Minnesota's offense last year was weak across the board. Rome won't be built in a day in Minneapolis, not even by a coach with a national championship ring.

John Gasaway is an author of Basketball Prospectus. You can contact John by clicking here or click here to see John's other articles.