Arkansas Postgame Thread

[13th&Jackson]

6 minutes ago, dgambill said:

McRoberts gives more effort than anyone on the team and that doesn’t mean he has any business playing.

Zach was big in limited minutes. He energized them in 1st half. We don’t win without him

[dgambill]

2 minutes ago, IUFLA said:

I normally agree...everyone has bad games on occasion. I'm always in their corner after a bad game hoping they'll come back in the next game and have a good one.

I can live with the occasional out of control drive and the questionable shit selection.

But after seeing the total lack of effort and selfish attitude on Justin's part today, if he never plays another game for IU, I'm ok with that.

It’s fine I’m done...the kid played a poor game but If he didn’t play against st Francis we wouldn’t have even been in rd 2. Sure he played poorly...and sure he probably pouted on the bench but he was out there playing hard. I can critic his poor play all day long but to call for the kid to leave the program....if only some of our fans would...wanting Archie to sit someone is one thing...wanting a kid to leave the program that hasn’t done anything wrong...that’s just wrong in my eyes but hell who am I. I hope the kid redoubles his efforts and comes back and leads us next year and makes every single ungrateful fan eat their words.

[IU Scott]

33 minutes ago, hoosier_exotics said:

This games over!  How about the possibility of Mighty Mighty Marshall rolling into B town!  Gets to audition for Archies job on our court..  woohoo, I know a few of you fellas will be torn on who to root for 😂😂

I for one wanted Marshal but that doesn't mean I will not being rooting for IU because I don't root for coaches or players but the name on the front of the jersey.

[dgambill]

Just now, 13th&Jackson said:

Zach was big in limited minutes. He energized them in 1st half. We don’t win without him

Yes..Zack played wonderfully today. I was happy for him. I am always happy when he plays well because of him sacrificing for the program but honestly for the most part this year his body didn’t allow him to really have any business playing. He has a bad back...yet he is playing. Props to him...but all of these kids have worked their butt off all year...all offseason in the weight room but just because they don’t perform as well as some like people want to tear them down.

[IU Scott]

It is not whether a player plays a bad game because that happens but it is the poor attitude and ack of energy that he displays in a lot of games.

[FWIUFan]

2 minutes ago, dgambill said:

It’s fine I’m done...the kid played a poor game but If he didn’t play against st Francis we wouldn’t have even been in rd 2. Sure he played poorly...and sure he probably pouted on the bench but he was out there playing hard. I can critic his poor play all day long but to call for the kid to leave the program....if only some of our fans would...wanting Archie to sit someone is one thing...wanting a kid to leave the program that hasn’t done anything wrong...that’s just wrong in my eyes but hell who am I. I hope the kid redoubles his efforts and comes back and leads us next year and makes every single ungrateful fan eat their words.

Agree with this.  I want nothing more than for each of these young men to grow and succeed.  For all the vitriol directed at JS, I still think he can come around similar to what we're seeing with Green.  I'll gladly take my chances as coach to transform young men like Justin and Devonte over those with the attitudes like "what's his name" that chose to go to pUKe recently.  

[BADGERVOL]

1 hour ago, ChiHoosier said:

"basketball IQ of a box of match sticks". Can I see your name on a D1 college basketball roster? 

Not even worth responding to...

[BADGERVOL]

9 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

It is not whether a player plays a bad game because that happens but it is the poor attitude and ack of energy that he displays in a lot of games.

Exactly.

[dgambill]

5 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

It is not whether a player plays a bad game because that happens but it is the perceived poor attitude and ack of energy that he displays in a lot of games.

Let me fix that for you. Because i didn’t see a kid that showed poor attitude on the court or lack of energy on the court...I saw a frustrated kid that was out of sorts and played poorly but like many kids his age can pout but he is very young..he can grow and he has bounced back many times this year. I mean the kid got benched this year out of the starting lineup and how did he respond??? He came back and played the best stretch of the year for him...if he was a quitter or selfish or lazy Justin would have packed it in long ago.

[BADGERVOL]

It’s ironic that so many of us fans are sick and tired of not winning and then we sit around with players who decide when they want to play hard and when they don’t and then cop bad attitudes when held accountable and yet we say “give him a tenth chance.” Enough already. I’m fine with mistakes and I’m fine even with lack of effort IF we see a trending of a better attitude overall. This kid is a coin toss.

[FKIM01]

I rarely wish kids gone.  There are some things that apparently happened during the season that don't belong on a public forum that may well explain Justin's outlook. Before you crucify a teenager and wish him gone, understand that there may be issues that he didn't ask for messing with his mind.  If Archie thinks he can work through it and wants him to stay, I'm all for giving him that chance.

...but yes...he played a lousy game today and was definitely struggling with his confidence. Archie did what he had to do and didn't play him a lot of minutes after it was obvious he was struggling.

[BADGERVOL]

7 minutes ago, FKIM01 said:

I rarely wish kids gone.  There are some things that apparently happened during the season that don't belong on a public forum that may well explain Justin's outlook. Before you crucify a teenager and wish him gone, understand that there may be issues that he didn't ask for messing with his mind.  If Archie thinks he can work through it and wants him to stay, I'm all for giving him that chance.

...but yes...he played a lousy game today and was definitely struggling with his confidence. Archie did what he had to do and didn't play him a lot of minutes after it was obvious he was struggling.

It totally goes without saying and I agree that Archie knows 99.9999% more about him than a poster like I do. I admit I’m really ticked off about this bi-polar attitude of this team and I’m tired of 10th and 11th “chances.” I suppose at the end of the day I DO want Archie to do whatever he thinks is going to help this program get back. I’m fully in Archie’s corner but we better right this ship or some of us are off. I just sure hope he doesn’t anchor himself to kids he shouldn’t. I’ll leave it at that.

[MSHoosier]

1 hour ago, dgambill said:

It’s fine I’m done...the kid played a poor game but If he didn’t play against st Francis we wouldn’t have even been in rd 2. Sure he played poorly...and sure he probably pouted on the bench but he was out there playing hard. I can critic his poor play all day long but to call for the kid to leave the program....if only some of our fans would...wanting Archie to sit someone is one thing...wanting a kid to leave the program that hasn’t done anything wrong...that’s just wrong in my eyes but hell who am I. I hope the kid redoubles his efforts and comes back and leads us next year and makes every single ungrateful fan eat their words.

totally agree.  Experience is a great teacher.  Justin had a bad game against OSU but bounced  back against St. Francis. Hope he continues to improve.

[PoHoosier]

How about the bench play.

6-10 for 17 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks.

[IU Scott]

2 hours ago, dgambill said:

Let me fix that for you. Because i didn’t see a kid that showed poor attitude on the court or lack of energy on the court...I saw a frustrated kid that was out of sorts and played poorly but like many kids his age can pout but he is very young..he can grow and he has bounced back many times this year. I mean the kid got benched this year out of the starting lineup and how did he respond??? He came back and played the best stretch of the year for him...if he was a quitter or selfish or lazy Justin would have packed it in long ago.

You don't have to fix anything for me because I stand by my remarks and a lot of the year he has not had good body language and has not played hard.

[IU Scott]

2 hours ago, FKIM01 said:

I rarely wish kids gone.  There are some things that apparently happened during the season that don't belong on a public forum that may well explain Justin's outlook. Before you crucify a teenager and wish him gone, understand that there may be issues that he didn't ask for messing with his mind.  If Archie thinks he can work through it and wants him to stay, I'm all for giving him that chance.

...but yes...he played a lousy game today and was definitely struggling with his confidence. Archie did what he had to do and didn't play him a lot of minutes after it was obvious he was struggling.

I am not saying I want him gone but he needs to be able to bring the same energy every game.  Coach Miller has to be able to rely on layers every game and with Smith it is to much hit and miss for me.

[FKIM01]

(not directed at you, Scott...been writing this for awhile...)

Again, I'll express my distaste at seeing IU fans wishing current players would transfer.  I don't see anything positive that can come from such public proclamations.  Archie doesn't care what you think about a particular player and ultimately, the decision for a player to leave is either mutual, player-driven or coach-driven.  I can't think of a single example where a coach was influenced by a fan forum to get rid of a player, although I'm sure some players have left at least partially due to overly negative fanbases. (see "wish granted" - Devonte Green)

Keep in mind, not long ago, a bunch of you were wishing Devonte Green would transfer...the same Devonte who scored a double double today and was critical in propelling IU past Arkansas.  Not the first game he's been critical to an IU victory either.  I'll remind you that Devonte is a junior and Justin Smith is a sophomore.  Many of you are too young to remember him , but Knight was absolutely at his wits end with Landon Turner too.  Then a switch flipped in Turner and he became a beast for IU before his unfortunate car accident.

Verdell Jones and Christian Watford were complained about regularly until they both became important parts of very good teams.  There's a reason that Archie wants to get older and stay older.  If fans are going to give up on every young player who doesn't perform exactly as us fans feel they should, IU will never get older and stay older as Archie wants his team to do.  It's fine to be disappointed with a player's performance.  Odds are, the player and coach are at least as disappointed as you are.  I just get so frustrated when I see our fanbase again and again publicly wish young players gone.  It's damaging to the psyches of the current players under attack and it's a big turnoff to potential recruits reading how fans treat the players at the school he is considering.  It doesn't matter if "every school has fans like that"...these recruits are seeing YOUR school badmouth players.  They may or may not see that at other schools, or at least not nearly as much, particularly if competitor schools are doing relatively well at the moment. 

I'm rambling, so I'm going to stop with this word of advice...please stop and consider how damaging your words here can be...and stop telling yourself it doesn't hurt anyone.  That's simply not true.

[Zlinedavid]

"poor body language"

Really? Really? Know what saying "poor body language" about a 20 year old kid says to me? It says "I just don't like this player and am looking for something to criticize."

99.9% of us have never even met Justin Smith in person, let alone know him well enough to understand his personality. And I'm also going to guess that 99.9% of us aren't licensed psychologists qualified to make such a judgment without knowing someone.

So criticize his shot selection. Criticize the speed he runs back on defense. But "poor body language"? Quit grasping at straws.

 

[5 championships]

5 hours ago, psychobat said:

What good does it do to have a 48” vertical when you have a piss-poor attitude?  He rarely plays hard yet gets opportunity after opportunity.  Would not hurt my feelings at all if he wasn’t here next year.  I will gladly eat crow if he actually makes a turn around next year and uses his athletic ability on a regular basis.

I second this. Sick and tired of Smith’s attitude!

[5 championships]

4 hours ago, dgambill said:

I see we are back on ragging on Justin. Smh. He may have had a horrible game but I just get sick of people wishing him gone and hating on him. Romeo Langford has similar body language sometimes but no one says a peep. I don’t know why we eat our own. Let the kid grow...only a sophomore.

Cuz Romeo averages 17 a game the production is still there. Smith is terrible most of the time and then his attitude makes it that much easier to pick on him. He does himself no favors 

[Zlinedavid]

Y'all remember we won, right?

[IUCrazy2]

I was at the game, to me it looked like Smith got frustrated with the 2 charging fouls and the fact he could not get anything going.  I think sometimes guys get in their head that they need to step up more and that can cause them to try and do too much.  I think Smith gets lost in his own head sometimes.

Look, it was a bad year.  I was as hard on some of these guys as anyone but at least we are still playing.  These are learning experiences for most of the guys that were playing today that can carry forward to next year.

Also, we had about an 80% full, boisterous house today for an NIT game.  The fans are not the problem with this program.  Never have been.

[bluegrassIU]

20 minutes ago, Zlinedavid said:

Y'all remember we won, right?

Yeah, but not happily dangit!

[BADGERVOL]

14 minutes ago, IUCrazy2 said:

Look, it was a bad year.  I was as hard on some of these guys as anyone but at least we are still playing.  These are learning experiences for most of the guys that were playing today that can carry forward to next year.

This about sums it up for me. I loved the first year Crean coached and that team. I watched almost every game and loved how hard they fought and you could tell it was NEVER EVER a lack of effort and heart it was being out matched. I’m 42 and I’ve remembered that the over whelming number of teams I’ve watched were proud to be Hoosiers and played with deep respect for the Jersey they wore. 

Admittedly I am SO dang sick of excuses and I’m so dang sick of bad effort and I’be read behind the scenes and heard from enough about stuff behind the scenes with a handful of guys on this team and I’ve run out of ALL patience with them. Get it together or leave. 

Mans no I do think there is a time where it’s appropriate to hope a kid leaves or wish they’d leave. It’s completely debatable if we’ve gotten to that point, but for instance if it became clear that players were thumbing their noses at rules and regulations, ripping the team a part, and wrecking it for the rest of the team then yes I hope they leave and honestly I don’t see that as bad.

now do I have ANY say in that at all? OBVIOUSLY not. And as I said before I trust Archie...but in the end He also has to win. So if he thinks the best thing to get there is hooking his truck to certain players then hook up. Next year I think the WHOLE fan base expects a very different team and mindset. So I guess time will tell who grows up. I hope they all do. But my faith in that notion is thin as tissue.

[Shooter]

Forgetting the effort discussion for a minute. Smith is just not a good offensive player. One play in the first half summed it up - passed up a wide open three, tried to straight line drive to the basket, ran right into some dude's chest for a charge. That wasn't lack of effort. It was lack of shooting / ballhandling / playmaking skill. Not giving up on him by any means, his career is not even half over. He really has to get better this offseason though.

On the positive side, Green was really good again today. Maybe he is the starting 2 next year? He's been pretty impressive playing alongside RP lately, and both are plus defenders.