IUJoe

They also diminished some of their goodwill in the NE part of the state when they pulled the Mad Ants out of Fort Wayne. Given that this area already had its fair share of fans that go to Pacer games and root for the opposing team (Celtics, Lakers, etc.) as well as the growing numbers of Purdue, Michigan, and Michigan State basketball fans up here, the Simons might want to do a better job reading the room in this part of the state if they expect any return on their investment to realized from here.

The funny thing is I am at Trine’s football field watching Fort Wayne Carroll v. Penn boys lacrosse

Vegas uses systems almost exactly like the NET to develop their pointspreads

You make a good point about winning close games. As someone who produces metrics, I struggle with determining how much weight to give that, to be honest. KenPom completely ignores it and calls in “luck” in a separate column. Some teams just have a knack for winning close games, and some teams just have a string of good luck. So if you account for it, you run the risk of overrating lucky teams.

This is actually spot on. They had a result-based metric with the RPI and people didn't like that, either. The bottom line is people like metrics that help their cause and don't like metrics that don't help their cause.

There are a few on the team where I would believe it if someone said they didn't show up in practice. Leal isn't one of them.

Oh, the good ole days were Mark Aguirre, Terry Cummings, and Clyde Bradshaw, lol

Amazing how well we started the season, to absolutely go in the dumpster so fast. Wonder what happened.

Something is horribly wrong when we can't keep a top recruit but Rutgers keeps two of theirs.

I think it was KenPom that had us 86

We moved up from 97 to 93

Brownstown Central played a significantly tougher schedule than, say, Heritage Hills.

Just for fun, my metric's predictions: 4A: East Chicago Central 60, Mishawaka 54.....Crown Point 56, Warsaw 48.....Fishers 64, Kokomo 57.....Fort Wayne Wayne 69, Fort Wayne North 59.....Lawrence North 64, Avon 48.....Ben Davis 64, New Palestine 57.....Jeffersonville 60, Evansville Harrison 58.....Center Grove 57, Franklin 53. 3A: Hammond Noll 54, Fairfield 49.....South Bend St. Joseph 72, John Glenn 48.....West Lafayette 63, Peru 62.....Delta 51, Fort Wayne Concordia 41.....Guerin Catholic 61, Indianapolis Washington 49.....Danville 65, Northview 54.....Scottsburg 60, Batesville 44.....Evansville Bosse 55, Southridge 53. 2A: Westview 48, Wabash 46.....Gary 21st Century 64, North Judson 40.....Wapahani 60, Tipton 58.....Fort Wayne Blackhawk 60, Lafayette Central Catholic 49.....Park Tudor 80, Irvington Prep 48.....Park Heritage 57, Northeastern 50.....Forest Park 65, Switzerland County 52.....Brownstown Central 70, Sullivan 45. 1A: Marquette Catholic 53, Demotte Christian 50.....Elkhart Christian 56, Tri-County 49.....Liberty Christian 56, Seton Catholic 55.....Fort Wayne Canterbury 65, North Vermillion 48.....Greenwood Christian 54, Oldenburg Academy 41.....Bethesda Christian 51, Clay City 45.....Barr-Reeve 55, Christian Academy 45.....Evansville Christian 75, Trinity Lutheran 44.

I could see a really great year or an absolute disaster, and probably little chance of anything in between.

Yeah, that makes no sense

Quinn should see an issue with being “8 and 10 in this f*****g league”

Exactly the way I was afraid this would unfold, unfortunately

So has Purdue. Find me one that hasn’t.

Ironically, he played for Pepperdine and was their head coach twice. And he’s 65.

Nobody that currently has a job is going to be announced for another job until that coach’s season is over.

I haven’t heard him publicly say that. People close to him have said it. And I’ve heard there’s an IU escape clause in his contract, but I haven't personally seen his contract to confirm that.

Agreed on Steve Alford. Maybe Brad Stevens is a better example. And I'm not saying May would necessarily be butthurt. But then again, people do get butthurt all the time, lol.

As you get older (Dusty is 47, will be maybe 55 or so when Pearl would theoretically be done here), you sometimes recognize that dreams you had were unattainable, and your new reality, where your feet are now, becomes your dream. See: Steve Alford. Again, I hope you're right and we see him coach here someday, but sometimes that happens when you tell a guy he isn't good enough for you.

Hope you're right. On the other hand, if I had just built a low-major program pretty much from nothing, won 35 games and gone to a Final Four, and my dream place to coach decided someone else was better, I might have a new dream: take a job in their conference and beat the hell out of them.

Lol. No matter how “nice” Purdue fans and posters are, it always eventually comes back to this, doesn’t it? Just for the record—and I can’t speak for the younger generations—those of us my age (pushing 60) and older are not jealous. I’ve seen IU win 3 championships and go to 5 Final Fours (I don’t remember the ‘73 Final Four). For those too young to have witnessed those, maybe there is some jealousy. Only they know. But the thing for us older folks, we understand that even elite programs have down periods. Kansas stunk when I was a kid until Larry Brown brought them back. Alabama football was down for quite a while. UCLA basketball. It happens. No doubt, Purdue is really good this year. Better than last year. They could win it all. But they entered this season with only two consecutive 20-win seasons, just like us. But one would never guess that from all the talk. When you have 50 years of college basketball in your memory bank, the past couple years seem like 5 minutes. It doesn’t really move the needle, as folks here like to say. To me, the comparison to Alabama football is instructive. Alabama went through many coaches over a couple decades. Auburn, their rival, got to talk some smack for a while. They even won a title. I think we all know when Indiana decides to pull its head out of its hind-end like Alabama eventually did, things will be back to close to the way they were. And I bet when that happens, Purdue is going to realize what an opportunity they missed. Because at least Auburn won a championship.