AxnJxn

And yet we scored more points in the second half, when they were primarily playing zone, than in the first. I really, really, really wish we would have had XJ on the court last night. He likely would have gotten that entire family tossed out of the game. If you don't know, Fran's wife has also been tossed out of a game in the past ... from the stands.

I'm sorry, but this is not a good take. You can't just discount injuries when we've lost (1) our senior starting PG who was honorable mention B10 last year and arguably the best PG in the league this year, (2) our 5 star freshman for some games, which was after XJ got injured, forcing TG to play point, (3) a clearly lingering back injury for our big man who is an AA candidate, and (4) another senior starter and leader last night, who also could be lost for the year. In addition, Trey has been out a few games and there have been other nicks and whatnot. TJD played 38 minutes last night, tops on the team, and was grabbing at his back for most of the night. This team has played, what, a handful of games at full strength? And yeah, it's silly to expect to get through the season with no serious injuries, but there are very few teams in the country that are going to absorb injury losses like this and still be successful. Making any sort of definitive conclusion on "intestinal fortitude" or whatever term you'd like to use on a team losing this much to injury is kind of ridiculous. There has been very little opportunity in game play to gel as a unit, to come up with a consistent rotation, and it's clearly taking a toll, not just physically, but mentally. Watching two senior leaders literally get carried off the court while the third is clearly struggling physically on the court tends to do that. If you're grading this team, I don't think you can give anything other than Incomplete.

Really need early season Reneau to return, at least partially. Otherwise, it’s small ball the rest of the way, with very little rest for TJD.

You’re completely and totally wrong. No one touches him, not on the shot, not after. Putting you back on ignore.

Not. Touched. At. All. IMG_4476.MOV

Nope. He wasn’t touched at all, he just took a dive after the shot.

I really don’t understand the play call with about 16 seconds left. TJD has already fouled out their biggest defender inside, instead of getting him a touch and taking advantage of an inevitable double or letting him work inside, JHS drives with significant time left and Murray has a relatively easy block from the weak side. I certainly hope there was more drawn up for that play. in other news, I can’t stand the entire McCaffrey clan.

That Mellencamp show in, what, 1986? That's one of my favorite concert experiences ever, from camping out for tickets and then the actual show, which was just brilliant. Pretty sure that's the only show I've seen where someone's grandma opened it, and we went absolutely bonkers for her. For anyone interested, here's the setlist: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/john-mellencamp/1986/memorial-stadium-bloomington-in-bdb5d22.html As for the rest of Little 5 memories, it's just a blur of drinking and parties.

Couple of notes on Kopp: 1. He's not "putrid" on defense. He's probably average at best, but he does a good job of keeping his man in front of him, cutting off angles, and closing out. Admittedly, he seems to struggle with rebounding, but that's not a huge deal if you have guys like Race, TJD, JG, and others on the court with him. 2. IMO, he's clearly a leader on this team on and off the court. Seems pretty obvious on the court, as he's one of the first people to try to calm everyone down and get them huddled up and focused, and all indicators are that he is very well liked off the court. Starting Kopp isn't that big of a deal, particularly early in the season. It gives the younger guys a chance to ease into the intensity of next level play, and ideally, you can eventually move Kopp into more of a reserve role if the younger guys really start to show production, and I would wager that he would be ok with whatever role you ask him to fill. In short, there are some valuable intangibles with a guy like Kopp, particularly if you aren't pairing him with someone like Stewart, who was essentially the same player in a number of ways.

It depends on what part of Walnut. Unless things have changed, it's still Walnut north of 17th street, and there is plenty of space out there to get up to that speed with ease. I believe there's also a section between 17th and 10th where there aren't any stoplights. Once you get over the hill and past 10th, though, it's a whole series of stoplights. I also haven't seen where this incident happened on Walnut, so that could make all of this moot. Source: delivery driver and relentless speeder in Bloomington for 7+ years.

I'm wagering that was supposed to be Stewart.

Is there good reason to have concerns defensively if we add Pack? XJ is kind of an average height for a G, and we'd have both of them on the court for a significant part of the game. Matching up with the size of Rutger's guards, for example, could be difficult on the defensive end.

I carried a lot of kegs as a pledge, but wasn’t carrying that particular one. I do remember seeing a car flipped over and a couch on fire. People do some weird stuff when they celebrate. Showalter was one big mass of humanity playing king of the mountain to get to the top. I made it once or twice, but got dragged back down pretty quickly. Someone stole a couple of those mermaids or fish or whatever from there, too … apparently, they weighed a couple hundred pounds each, so pretty impressive. I think they were returned at a later date.

Watching in our fraternity. When the shot went down, I sprinted all the way to Showalter Fountain, and spent the next hour or two trying to get to the top (and succeeded for a bit). After that, down to Kirkwood for a bit, then I came back to the house and crashed on the floor ... for about ten minutes. Phone rang, and my buddy who was at Notre Dame informed me that a carload of them were on their way. Back to Kirkwood, and the rest was kind of a whirlwind of activity. I remember being very angry that classes weren't cancelled the next day, but I didn't go to bed until the next night, anyway. Highly recommend the experience if you ever get the chance!

Yah, fair enough, and agreed. Trey's shot seemed to go awry down the stretch, too, but it wasn't really all that great at any point this year, anyway. The rest of the guys really didn't get enough volume to make any sort of determination. Rob's issue just seemed to be one of confidence throughout his career, and it was kind of hard to watch down the stretch this year - he was 1-14 from 3 in the last 7 games. Oof. It's almost painful to watch when a guy is clearly struggling mentally, like Ben Simmons from the FT line in the playoffs last year, and it's even worse when it's a guy like Rob, who seems like a really good kid.

I appreciate your perspective, I just didn't see the same thing. Since that Purdue game, he was something like 3-21 from 3. Completely agree that things changed after the concussion, as he seemed like he was going to be a top notch PG by his senior year, and his defense has always been good to excellent, but IMO, he looked pretty awful on offense after that Purdue game. TBF, we had a lot of guys that seemed to completely lose the ability to shoot in the second half of the season.

Really? I like Rob, and certainly don't mean this as a dig, but I didn't really see much improvement in his game this year, outside of the one game against Purdue.

Yah, good questions, and similar to what I was thinking. There are a lot of guys in the portal, but do you snag what you need now and hope that someone better doesn't come along later? Is it like HS recruiting, where you're recruiting multiple people for the same spot, and FCFS wins? Just a hypothetical, but what if you fill your spots and then someone like Jaden Ivey enters the portal? Pretty interesting to watch this sort of wild, wild west situation as it develops.

JG also was in foul trouble in some of those games. I realize that everyone has fallen in love with JG and out of favor with Race, but JG still needs to improve on the defensive end and develop a handle. I don't really know what happened to Race the last handful of games, but he was very, very solid before that, and was even hitting over 40% of his 3s for a significant stretch of about a dozen games in the B1G season. There's some revisionist history going on here because of how he finished the season. If I had to choose one, of course I'm taking JG, because of the potential and the extra year of eligibility, but Race is still an very good player when he's on. He was also one of the first people off the bench cheering when JG was cutting into his minutes, and has been through a lot of adversity in his time at IU. There's significant value in those things, too.

Well, IMO, one of the things that has leveled the field between the mids and the P5s is with OADs, you generally have 3-4 year starters at the mids going up against younger players at the P5s. The difference in talent is somewhat neutralized by having experienced players who have been in the same system for a few years. This new system could reduce or even eliminate that advantage for the mids.

Indeed. I'm not familiar with the rules around NIL, but is there anything to stop, say, a big time booster from paying a top recruit big bucks to "endorse" whatever product they have at their school of choice? I mean, I'm happy players are being compensated, but this just seems like another way for the gray area schools to do the things they've been "illegally" doing for years in a "legal" manner. Cherry on top, we have the NCAA trying to enforce whatever rules there are around this, and that organization is a complete joke.

That's my ideal situation. I'm assuming TJD goes pro, so hoping Race and JG return from the frontcourt, we grab a wing or big (or both) in the portal, and then run it back. If the guys put in the work in the offseason - Trey works on his J, JG works on his handle, etc. - I don't see any reason why this team can't compete for a B1G title. Assuming XJ returning, and we get a wing who can knock down shots from the portal, we're in pretty good shape on paper.

Yep. It's like free agency in pro sports, except everyone is on a 1 year deal.

Gut punch. Taylor Hawkins has passed away. I remember taking my wife to a Foo Fighters show, and joking to her that Taylor might be more popular with fans than even Dave. When Dave would do the band intros, Taylor always got a huge response. Just a really good dude who will be missed. RIP, buddy. https://www.google.com/amp/s/variety.com/2022/music/news/foo-fighters-taylor-hawkins-dead-dies-1235215362/amp/

Same, although i didn’t play on the first two courts very often.