B1G Media: IU 9th

[BGleas]

1 hour ago, 5fouls said:

Add to that. Everyone saying we could finish anywhere between 2nd-9th based on talent, does that mean if we do finish 9th then the coaching was substandard.  It would be like finishing 8th in a 8 horse race.  How is that acceptable?

It's not necessarily the coaching, it's how the talent breaks and matures. This team has largely untapped talent. Robert Johnson was atrocious the second half of last season, and now he's being asked to be the leader of the team and potentially go-to guy. Morgan, who I really like, has shown a capable complimentary player, but now for IU to reach it's potential he's going to have to be much more consistent especially on the perimeter with his shooting, and that wasn't the case last year. How are Hartman's knees going to hold up and how effective will he be? Who knows? 

Will CuJo be the guy he was against Kansas, or the inconsistent, unsure of himself guy that took a lot of bad shots he was the rest of the year? Will Davis have the stamina and ability to stay out of foul trouble to stay on the floor? If he doesn't, who backs him up at the 5? I mean, I've actually heard people say Freddie is a capable back-up 5. Based on what? Will Green develop into one of those point guards everyone else in the league will hate, or will he still be wildly out of control and a turnover machine? 

Outside of Hartman, there's literally nobody on this roster that's ever really played the role they'll be asked to play this year at this level. Nobody. If all those things in the previous two paragraphs above break IU's way, then yes this can be a top 3-5 team in the Big Ten. If they don't, then I can see IU finishing 8th or 9th. Some of those things Archie can help with good coaching, some of them just simply come down to the skill set and talent of the player. 

This roster has a lot of talent, but a TON of question marks. 

[Stlboiler23]

1 hour ago, KoB2011 said:

I understand why you feel that way, it just doesn't seem like your roster is that different than IU. The biggest difference, to me, is Davis has the highest ceiling of the group. 

I'll flip the question on you, when has Purdue won at a high level under Painter with a solid senior class and no studs? It's fair to say he hasn't had a team like this where he lacks a stud but has multiple solid upperclassmen, but it's not like this is a formula Painter has proven he can win with. 

And for me personally, I think Mathias and Haas are going to struggle a lot without Swanigan. Edwards will be fine, but he isn't really and efficient scorer anyway. 

He hasn't had a team like this before so I don't think you can knock Painter for not proving it since it's up in the air due to no sample size. I don't think Mathias will struggle. Haas I could see but not Mathias. 

[KoB2011]

1 hour ago, Stlboiler23 said:

He hasn't had a team like this before so I don't think you can knock Painter for not proving it since it's up in the air due to no sample size. I don't think Mathias will struggle. Haas I could see but not Mathias. 

I think it's perfectly fair to say the greatest common denominator between Painter's really good teams is having really good talent, not experience.  That's why the Baby Boilers and Swanigan's team won big, despite the best players being young.  Now, having a fairly talented team that is experienced could change it, but the burden of proof on experience making the difference needs to be shown by Painter, not the other way around IMO.  It's also fair to question how good some of these guys were, or if it was a result of playing with a guy like Swanigan.  We see it ALL THE TIME in basketball that one player makes a major difference in the play of their teammates; both good and bad.  

 

[rico]

3 minutes ago, KoB2011 said:

I think it's perfectly fair to say the greatest common denominator between Painter's really good teams is having really good talent, not experience.  That's why the Baby Boilers and Swanigan's team won big, despite the best players being young.  Now, having a fairly talented team that is experienced could change it, but the burden of proof on experience making the difference needs to be shown by Painter, not the other way around IMO.  It's also fair to question how good some of these guys were, or if it was a result of playing with a guy like Swanigan.  We see it ALL THE TIME in basketball that one player makes a major difference in the play of their teammates; both good and bad.  

 

And Yogi says hello.

[KoB2011]

1 hour ago, BGleas said:

It's not necessarily the coaching, it's how the talent breaks and matures. This team has largely untapped talent. Robert Johnson was atrocious the second half of last season, and now he's being asked to be the leader of the team and potentially go-to guy. Morgan, who I really like, has shown a capable complimentary player, but now for IU to reach it's potential he's going to have to be much more consistent especially on the perimeter with his shooting, and that wasn't the case last year. How are Hartman's knees going to hold up and how effective will he be? Who knows? 

Will CuJo be the guy he was against Kansas, or the inconsistent, unsure of himself guy that took a lot of bad shots he was the rest of the year? Will Davis have the stamina and ability to stay out of foul trouble to stay on the floor? If he doesn't, who backs him up at the 5? I mean, I've actually heard people say Freddie is a capable back-up 5. Based on what? Will Green develop into one of those point guards everyone else in the league will hate, or will he still be wildly out of control and a turnover machine? 

Outside of Hartman, there's literally nobody on this roster that's ever really played the role they'll be asked to play this year at this level. Nobody. If all those things in the previous two paragraphs above break IU's way, then yes this can be a top 3-5 team in the Big Ten. If they don't, then I can see IU finishing 8th or 9th. Some of those things Archie can help with good coaching, some of them just simply come down to the skill set and talent of the player. 

This roster has a lot of talent, but a TON of question marks. 

Every team, sans MSU, has a TON of question marks.  Iowa, Maryland, Purdue, Michigan and Wisconsin all had bigger losses than IU from a talent perspective.  We've seen how some of our guys actually thrived without one of the guys we lost.  

Why isn't Freddie a capable backup 5?  He is an ELITE rebounder and a good defender.  He is long, strong and athletic and finishes as the rim.  Why can't he be a serviceable backup 5?  

I get that we are asking guys to step up to new roles, but so is just about every team in front of us.  Are we really going to pretend guys like Jok, Trimble, Swanigan, Koenig and Hayes were not far great positive impacts on their team than James Blackmon and Thomas Bryant as a sophomore?  I find that to be a somewhat absurd claim, considering Bryant and Blackmon didn't play defense, didn't lead, possibly caused many chemistry issues and were not good at making others better on offense.  

[KoB2011]

1 minute ago, rico said:

And Yogi says hello.

Understood.  I think Yogi is a great proof of why teams like Purdue, Maryland, Iowa, and Wisconsin are overrated.  They lost their Yogi's and we can see good and well what that does.  We didn't lose anyone like that.  

[rico]

12 minutes ago, KoB2011 said:

Understood.  I think Yogi is a great proof of why teams like Purdue, Maryland, Iowa, and Wisconsin are overrated.  They lost their Yogi's and we can see good and well what that does.  We didn't lose anyone like that.  

Agreed.  It happens all the time at the collegiate level.  I don't care if you got 4 starters coming back, but you take out that one instrumental cog and things tend to go south.  Not saying it is gonna happen to Purdue, the jury is out on that.

[5fouls]

9th place simply is not an acceptable finish given the nature of the conference this year.  I sure hope the team does not see it that way.

[rico]

8 minutes ago, 5fouls said:

9th place simply is not an acceptable finish given the nature of the conference this year.  I sure hope the team does not see it that way.

I completely agree.  Actually, IMHO, the door is wide open for them to flourish.  I got faith that they will.

[Guest]

Well,Sports Illustrated has us 8th.

[NCHoosier32]

hey!  i'm definitely not saying 9th is acceptable or what i expect.  i'm just saying it's tough to look at 9th place predictions and expect us to be 3rd-5th.  i sure hope and think that we can be better than 9th though!  and good points about Johnson, Davis, Morgan, and Jones.  they were fairly highly touted coming out of HS and are still around.  

[dbmhoosier]

Anywhere between 2-7 is possible.   5 spot is probably a good bet with this team. 

[rico]

I look at it and see 4 teams that "should" finish ahead of us.  MSU, Northwestern, Minnesota, and Purdue.  Now that being said, we don't know how this team is gonna look when they hit floor in true game competition.  We know changes and adjustments are being instilled by Cam.  And we don't have any idea how the freshmen are going to fit in at all.  The thing is you just never know about anything once the season starts.  And keep in mind injuries play a big part as we all well know.  

[5fouls]

Injuries are certainly a wild card, but sometimes we overlook that they can happen to other teams in addition to IU.  We hot bit last season when OG went down.  But, what happens to Purdue this year if Edwards gets hurt.  Or, to Northwestern if McIntosh goes down.  At that point, if IU goes injury free, then there could be more teams that we SHOULD finish ahead, instead of ones we just MIGHT finish ahead.

[rico]

1 hour ago, 5fouls said:

Injuries are certainly a wild card, but sometimes we overlook that they can happen to other teams in addition to IU.  We hot bit last season when OG went down.  But, what happens to Purdue this year if Edwards gets hurt.  Or, to Northwestern if McIntosh goes down.  At that point, if IU goes injury free, then there could be more teams that we SHOULD finish ahead, instead of ones we just MIGHT finish ahead.

I was talking injuries in general about every team.  And absolutely there are teams that I think are above us that could suffer devastating losses.  All of the four teams I mentioned are prone to it.  The caveat here though, for me, is I aint sold on little Ricky at Minny.  

[FKIM01]

7 minutes ago, rico said:

I was talking injuries in general about every team.  And absolutely there are teams that I think are above us that could suffer devastating losses.  All of the four teams I mentioned are prone to it.  The caveat here though, for me, is I aint sold on little Ricky at Minny.  

I think he's a lousy coach skating on his name, but he does have talent on this team.  Wouldn't surprise me that he ends up like Tim Miles at Nebraska...a couple of good years then back to the bottom of the league until he gets fired.

[rico]

22 minutes ago, FKIM01 said:

I think he's a lousy coach skating on his name, but he does have talent on this team.  Wouldn't surprise me that he ends up like Tim Miles at Nebraska...a couple of good years then back to the bottom of the league until he gets fired.

I can't disagree with anything you said there.  But the Gophers aren't sneaking up on anybody this year.  Another thing is his name, did the old man teach everything?  Just sayin'

[tdhoosier]

Getting back to the talk of Colin's impact on the team, while listening to the Assembly Call I learned some nice info. On the episode they used Synergy's advanced stats to break-down our front court players (They also did this for the back court players on the previous episode if interested). They came to the conclusion, that based on the stats, they think Colin may be under-rated and over-looked in terms of his impact. Below is a time stamped link to when they start talking about Colin.  But if you have time to listen to the rest of the episode and episode 340 from the previous week, you'll learn that in many of the situational stats they break down most of our players rated average and below average. However, in Colin's previous seasons he was rated above average in many of those situational stats. 

....Just an interesting listen. Thought some who like to geek out on stats may be interested. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og48qIPRyAM&feature=youtu.be&t=2244

*should start around 37.20

[Hoosierhoopster]

13 hours ago, tdhoosier said:

Getting back to the talk of Colin's impact on the team, while listening to the Assembly Call I learned some nice info. On the episode they used Synergy's advanced stats to break-down our front court players (They also did this for the back court players on the previous episode if interested). They came to the conclusion, that based on the stats, they think Colin may be under-rated and over-looked in terms of his impact. Below is a time stamped link to when they start talking about Colin.  But if you have time to listen to the rest of the episode and episode 340 from the previous week, you'll learn that in many of the situational stats they break down most of our players rated average and below average. However, in Colin's previous seasons he was rated above average in many of those situational stats. 

....Just an interesting listen. Thought some who like to geek out on stats may be interested. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og48qIPRyAM&feature=youtu.be&t=2244

*should start around 37.20

Thx for posting -- Collin is definitely underrated, both for his play and for his on-court leadership. I hope he stays healthy, he's a savvy veteran and a floor leader, will help our team in several ways.

[snowling]

https://www.hoosiersportsreport.com/2017/10/indiana-opens-at-no-65-in-kenpom-ratings/

 

Go Hoosiers!

[CauseThatsMyDJ]

8 hours ago, snowling said:

https://www.hoosiersportsreport.com/2017/10/indiana-opens-at-no-65-in-kenpom-ratings/

 

Go Hoosiers!

Thanks for posting!

And 10th in the B1G. Archie is in a prime position to really prove his coaching acumen this season.

To add to this, KenPom thinks we are going 16-14 and 8-10 in the B1G. Wow.

[5fouls]

6 minutes ago, CauseThatsMyDJ said:

Thanks for posting!

And 10th in the B1G. Archie is in a prime position to really prove his coaching acumen this season.

To add to this, KenPom thinks we are going 16-14 and 8-10 in the B1G. Wow.

With all the doomsday predictions, I have decided not to watch the Hoosiers this year.  Going to focus all my available time watching the Rowing channel instead.

[CauseThatsMyDJ]

3 minutes ago, 5fouls said:

With all the doomsday predictions, I have decided not to watch the Hoosiers this year.  Going to focus all my available time watching the Rowing channel instead.

I would be curious to ask KenPom if he agrees with the prediction for IU that his formula spit out. Something tells me our intangibles are going to be stronger than what the raw numbers suggest.

[Hoosierhoopster]

15 minutes ago, CauseThatsMyDJ said:

I would be curious to ask KenPom if he agrees with the prediction for IU that his formula spit out. Something tells me our intangibles are going to be stronger than what the raw numbers suggest.

KenPom's early numbers mean very little, they're a work in progress taking last season into consideration. 

That said, this should be a good year to watch how the early prognostications measure up against the "intangibles" and experience that our Hoosiers bring to the floor. If we stay healthy and still finish 8th or 9th, that says something about how we, as fans, value our team against what neutral observers see early on. If we finish 5th or 6th or so, then it also says something about what early predictions mean, and how neutral observers tend to base their predictions on the prior season. What's the expression, past results do not necessarily guarantee future returns? 

[5fouls]

2 minutes ago, Hoosierhoopster said:

KenPom's early numbers mean very little, they're a work in progress taking last season into consideration. 

That said, this should be a good year to watch how the early prognostications measure up against the "intangibles" and experience that our Hoosiers bring to the floor. If we stay healthy and still finish 8th or 9th, that says something about how we, as fans, value our team against what neutral observers see early on. If we finish 5th or 6th or so, then it also says something about what early predictions mean, and how neutral observers tend to base their predictions on the prior season. What's the expression, past results do not necessarily guarantee future returns? 

5th or 6th is not the best case scenario.  To me that is the floor.  9th is a catastrophic failure.  And, no, I am not a delusional homer.