AxnJxn

In the end, I'm not overly concerned about this L. You could chalk it up to a number of things, but it stings a bit that Maryland played so poorly and still beat us by double figures - as much as their fans like to think differently, the XFinity Center isn't all that different than most B1G arenas and crowds, so we kind of missed an opportunity to get a road W. I also won't be overly concerned if we lose a close one to Purdue, since that's a rivalry game and all that. I'm very, very, very interested to see how we play in the Rutgers game, though. They've had our number for a few years now, one of their players basically called us soft earlier this year, and this game will be at home. Lay an egg in that one, and the concern meter ramps up a significant amount.

Agreed. This was kind of an ugly and head scratching loss, but get a W on Saturday and this loss doesn't mean much overall.

Most definitely. For whatever reason, we don't seem to attack the middle of the full court press or the 2-3 zones we've been facing. And yeah, putting Race in that ball handling role was not a quality decision - I think that was abandoned pretty quickly. I'm sure part of it is just a lack of quality ball handlers - Bates and Gallo are still a little suspect, so that leaves JHS as our only quality guard in that aspect. Still, kind of weird that we're not attacking the middle of these defenses.

From what I saw last night, they used token full court pressure to take a good 8 seconds off the shot clock, pretty much on every possession. Then, we're working the ball around to get it to TJD in the post, the double/triple comes, and by that point, you're under 10 seconds on the shot clock and rushing things a bit. I believe Iowa employed a similar strategy. Dunno what the fix is for that if we're not going to try breaking that press quickly and getting easy scores off of it, especially without XJ.

Just got home from the rock fight. Yuck. What a terrible game. We played some brilliant ball for about 4 minutes. The rest was just awful to watch on both sides. My major concern is that guard play like this is an absolute death wish when tournament time gets here. Better clean something up soon, and hope XJ gets up to speed quickly when he gets back. In the end, it’s a road loss and not an entirely unexpected one.

Don't hold your breath. RMK was complaining about this all the way back to that triple OT Wisconsin game a billion years ago.

Cripes. I'm never buying tickets for the Maryland game in advance again. Weather is cold and rainy here, so I can't imagine this place will be anywhere near full.

They've been pretty confusing all year. Started out winning their first 8, got run out of their own building by UCLA and again at Michigan, close losses to Tennessee and Purdue, blew out Wisconsin at their place. New coach, new system, kind of hard to get a feel for what kind of team they are, but they're generally tough at home. Tricky game, and certainly potential for a trap game with a fairly important game coming up on Saturday.

We got our tickets in the 100s for something like $70, but that was back in November, when IU was ranked in the top 15. Maryland tickets are just weird. I've waited until day of and gotten a deal, and also gotten burned waiting that late. Weather won't be too bad, but it's a 9:00 start, which can be tough for some.

“The Carnegie Hall of college basketball.”

I know the first portion of the Wisky game, there were a number of "you gotta be kidding me" shots, and it seemed like there were an inordinate number last night, too. I guess it just feels like we're playing even better defense than is shown in the stats, at least from the start of that Wisky game. Yah, Hummel, and I really enjoy him on the broadcasts, but also didn't agree with him on the 50/50 opinion. I think last night is one of those games where you don't really learn anything, and that's ok because you escaped with a W.

Completely agree. Seemed like the effort was there all around, and it felt like we were just getting unlucky with a lot of the 50/50 balls and whatnot. I don't know if there's a stat for this, but it feels like we're also getting a little unlucky with teams hitting really tough shots on us, but that could just be my bias showing. Also agree on JHS, which is a major problem because our backcourt, especially in the ball handling department, is pretty suspect. On the plus side, we play really physical defense, as evidenced by the recent foul discrepancies in games, and the refs seem to swallow the whistles in the BTT, so ...

You pretty much always take a win on the road, but I'd have to agree with others that some of the sub patterns were kind of bizarre, and that was a strange game overall. Even going with a small lineup, you still have to find a few minutes for Malik and JG in the second half - Malik was eating their bigs alive and one of their bigs was in foul trouble, and they only had, what, 7 players total? I dunno, just seemed odd to leave that energy sitting on the bench. I also don't really understand why we can't figure out a way to flash Kopp or someone to the foul line against these zones, where it's pretty much wide open for a jumper. Guess that's part of the disappearance of the mid range jumper from the college game? It's just weird that we get completely baffled by a basic 2-3 zone - it's not like it's Syracuse out there running it. Props to Minny for doing more with less, but they were throwing in some crazy stuff - my favorite was when the guy grabbed the ball behind his teammate's head and just tossed it towards the rim. Naturally, it went in. Feels like there are a lot of very difficult shots going down against our defense lately, all the way back to the Wisky game, but we're stacking Ws, so keep on keepin' on. OSU and Maryland on the road will be good litmus tests for this team.

Awesome. Now, maybe they can show how we missed XJ, especially during the part of the game where we had Gallo and Bates as our primary ball handlers.

Add me to the camp that is completely baffled by Underwood's refusal to double TJD, or to even toss a zone at us at any point. Those are two things that have shown to at minimum slow our offense down, if not have it coming to a crashing halt. Really bizarre coaching there. Among all of the other quality play, I'm really enjoying watching Jordan finally seizing his opportunity, and growing in confidence. Malik is also showing some signs of coming back around, too, although that missed FT was really ugly (he made up for it by hitting the "nugget" FT, which was pretty hilarious). Those reps are going to be significant when we get Race back, as well as in future seasons. Finally, I'm not one to complain about the refs, but the foul discrepancy was absolutely ridiculous. Keep stackin' Ws, boys.

I’d say at least half of Wisconsin’s points were on very difficult shots due to the defense we were playing, too. Really nice to see, because i think the offense will continue to improve. I think one of the announcers said that none of them saw this coming. I’m in that same camp, but happy to be there. Big W!

This is starting to feel like a “player A slept with player B’s girlfriend” situation.

I mean, sort of? We lost 7 of our last 9 in conference, including double digit losses to Illinois and MSU and an 8 point loss to Northwestern at home (I guess at least that one is consistent). I honestly don't remember how those games went, so it's possible they were close and then got out of hand. I guess my point is more that there were issues last year that seemed to get ignored because of being able to cherry pick some positives, and it being Woody's first year. I really, really, really don't understand how we've been unable to shoot FTs through multiple coaches now. That part is just bizarre.

For those pointing to the loss of Fife possibly being the problem, I'd note that this same core group was below .500 in conference last year, and were getting blown off the court against Michigan in the BTT through the first half, and then the light went on for a few games. There were certainly positives to last year, but it easily could have been a situation where we were sitting home for the tournament after a bad loss to UM to finish the season ... and, let's face it, even with the short rest and whatever, the St. Mary's loss wasn't pretty. I have no idea what needs to change, but it's getting really old watching a program that consistently has more talent on the court getting completely waxed by average teams.

What's odd to me about this whole dustup is this meme really isn't even about the present team as much as it's about the past couple of decades, all the way back to some of RMK's teams in the late 90s. In that time, we've had one NC run in 2002, a few B1G titles, and a whole lot of underachieving compared to the talent that has been brought in. I mean, I still have one of those "We're Back" shirts from something like a decade ago that is stuffed in a drawer or box somewhere.

Can someone smarter than me (which wouldn't be that difficult to find) explain how we have been so bad on defense this year? I really thought this would be one of the better Ds in the country, considering how well we were doing last year, and essentially bringing the same core back for another year. TJD talking about issues with communication and whatnot yesterday just confuses me more. How is this an issue in year 2? Is it a situation where there have been adjustments made that we haven't countered? Cripes, we were even playing a zone at times yesterday which, to me, kind of seems a bit desperate.

I don't want to keep hacking on the guy, as he's taking plenty of heat on this thread already, but JG has got to get his ish together asap. He's simply going to have to see more minutes, and he really should be stepping into a fairly prominent role on this team at this point in his career. He's also more than likely going to get some time at the 5, especially if TJD's back issues continue to be an problem. It also completely sucks to waste a talent like TJD, especially in this day and age when it's so rare to have a player at his skill level come back for his final year. There's still hope, though. IF we can get into the tournament, and get XJ and Race back before then, I'd say there's still a chance for a run. Things are looking pretty bleak right now, though, and dropping a road game to a below average team in this conference isn't helpful.

Personally, I think Connor just said that to be an ass, which seems on par for him. Then again, Fran's teams aren't exactly known to play defense, so I guess giving up 61 more and 89 total is a positive for them. For whatever reason, we don't seem to have anyone that can flash to the FT line against a zone, where Iowa was giving up significant space. TJD tried it once, but he doesn't have the mid range to draw out the defenders, JG was there a bit, but his basketball IQ is off the charts low, and after that, we seemed to just stop trying to attack that way. I would have thought pulling Kopp in there to knock down a couple of open shots from 15 would have helped and then you open things up for TJD more, but maybe that's just not his strength. I mean, we learned how to break a 1-2-1-1 press and a 2-3 zone in middle school hoops. I could understand getting stymied by Syracuse's 2-3, but Iowa?

Was that the same year that RMK had Jadlow throw a fastball off the face of one of their defenders who was guarding the in bounds?

Not sure about Marshall's wife, but Fran's wife was definitely tossed: It's not the first time issues with officials have been a family affair for the McCafferys. In February 2006, Fran McCaffery, then the coach at Siena, was ejected from a game for what he said was the first time in his career. His wife, Margaret, was then ejected later in the game after a tirade at officials. https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/26089054/iowa-mccaffery-curses-official I mean, I could kind of understand not T'ing up Fran in that situation. Tempers were hot, officials are trying to calm things down, both sides are saying things. But, when his son then walks over to our side and start yelling at people after everyone has been separated, I have no idea how that gets ignored, especially when the whole family has had this reputation for literally over a decade.