It’s my belief—though I’d love to be wrong—that we may be headed for an early exit in both tournaments. I don’t see us beating Michigan State, and while it’s less likely, we could even drop the first game to the Gophers. In the big dance, I have a hard time seeing us getting past the second round against a 1 or a 2 seed. Those are some really strong teams, and I’m not fully convinced our wins against high-level competition are as solid as they looked at the time...“sus,” as the kids would say. Purdue turned out to be not quite as good as we initially thought, and the other two wins came against teams playing the second game of a long road trip.
Yes, I know we’ve also lost our share of those types of games, and it probably evens out in the end. I just don’t think this team can consistently compete down low. The shift to a smaller lineup has given us a bit of hope, and we’ve improved in some ways, but I think really good teams will eventually expose that weakness.
I know some will think I feel this way because of my recent take that it's time to part ways with Cronin, but I have really felt this way about this team since early in conference play. Even before the season, I thought we had a Sweet 16, Great 8 ceiling. Just trying to be realistic.