I had some concerns about Auburn because they would have had the best player on the floor in Jabari Smith. They didn’t always know how to use him, but he could have been a serious problem in a one game matchup, particularly because we didn’t have a great option for defending him - probably use a combo of Agbaji, Braun and Wilson, but he could get any of those three in foul trouble, which could have hurt us.
Duke obviously was a fear, because Coach K would have gotten every call in the national title game, plus Williams and Banchero would have been matchup problems for us (particularly Banchero). A healthy Villanova team could have been a problem as well. That’s a matchup that happened but didn’t really ever happen. Probably Kentucky was the only other fear because we didn’t have a good way to matchup with them.
Our biggest issue was that we didn’t matchup against highly talented PF because Wilson is really undersized to go against a traditional 4 like Tshiebwe, but with Smith and Banchero also having good size to go along with their mobility, that really put us in a bind. Iowa could have given us problems for that reason as well. And Villanova just gives us problems because Jay Wright finds a way, but they didn’t have enough weapons available for that game.
