This team can’t do anything against an athletic team that kinda tries on defense. That’s pretty much it.
Fran’s offense/style is generally entertaining as hell, but it’s kinda like B12 football offenses suddenly getting their shit pushed in against a decent defense.
Could be worse. Could be better. Here we are.
This is a good narrative but easily refuted over the last couple years.
-Illinois is really athletic with a top 20 defense. We scored 83 on them in a 72 possession game.
-Indiana is athletic and 13th in defense. We scored 83 in a 72 possession game.
-Depending on how you classify Wisconsin, we scored 78 on a 71 possession game against the 35th best defense.
Iowa State was bad, Purdue was 70 points in a 76 possession game but that was just missing open 3's. Every other area was good.
Go back to last year and we were held under 1 point per possession 4 times in 31 games. Put up huge offensive numbers against Purdue, Illinois (once), MSU, Ohio State, Rutgers and Wisconsin.
You can't have a top 5 offense playing in the Big Ten if you get shut down by every athletic team that tries on defense.