WTKA Roundtable 10/24/2024: Ball Don't Stick

Things Discussed:

• Dusty May's recruiting: A+. Grady should be Wisconsin-level hateable. Oscar Goodman has the most beautiful line in a shooter's scouting report: good not great athlete. These guys will be around 3-4 years
• Craig: Grady has some Roddy Gayle, can shoot a midrange. Have pole position in the recruitment of impact Trey McKenney, fighting UNLV and BYU for a center who does everything they want.
• Oakland Exhibition takes: The ball does not stick on this team. Three guys are point guards, and then Danny Wolf also sees the court. It got a little sloppy as they got to know each other.
• Roddy Gayle's defense stood out. Sam Walters stood out, role this year is going to be a JAS.
• Question: do they wear out their centers? If you want to play fast you're going to wear out your bigs, which is fine if you're going to play Wolf at the five for 15 minutes, but now you need a four. Think that will be matchup-based whether they roll with Walters or Tschetter or Jones in those situations.
• If someone gets in foul trouble they can weather it. Weird to see a guard foul out (Cason) and not be worried. Means they can play more aggressively. Defense was impressive. They did play drop, but being able to flat hedge is important, and having huge guards is going to feel very different. So many arms!
• Another takeaway: Wolf's rebounding is very underrated.
• Toledo preview: they're a five-out team with a 6-7 center so we'll get to see a different configuration against a different challenge than Kempe's big guards.
• Babalola: Good to see Sherrone Moore's recruiting is what we hoped it would be. Way more athletic than most guys we've had, reminds me of when the early internet sent around a video clip of Jake Long dunking.
• Illinois review: Offensive line was better, Gentry had a couple of pressures given up (PFF missed one) but he moved people and it's hard to understand why he wasn't playing over Link. Crippen it's more clear why they were trying Giudice because Crip tends to get bulled back. Wasn't terrible. Tuttle was—some of his mistakes weren't on him but he fumbled, had two HORRIBLE interceptions, can tell he hasn't practiced much this year.
• They found a major: split zone. Then they went away from it. When they play-action they get the reaction they want, but can't complete the pass. Game over.
• Who's QB: doesn't matter.
• Illinois had a good gameplan, but defense was good. Game was lost on offense, which is 94% the quarterback, so it's hard for us to break this down. Everybody can see this.
• Special teams is the other issue: Doman's punts are giving up 30 yards on the exchange. Everybody knew Illinois was going to fake near the 50 except this team.
• Defense: Got a better Wink. Starting to build blitzes around his players, and they're more effective.
• Michigan State: Michigan has better players, MSU has better coaching. They got Chiles to not turn the ball over against Iowa and suddenly they look good. Fancystat numbers are based on horrible interceptions; down to down they're a decent offense. Marsh is a dangerous WR, wish we had a healthy Will Johnson. MSU's OL is not good, especially on the right side.