AxnJxn

I hear ya. For me, it's not as much as favorites that I want to come back, but I'd like to see some cohesion from this year to next, and bringing in 6 new players is turning over almost half the roster.

That's 6 guys that have to leave to open those spots, right? Who are you taking away from this current group to do that? I'd say Stewart, Kopp, and one or both of TJD/Race are kind of obvious, but that leaves at least 1 and possibly 2 others that would have to go.

Agreed. If I had my preference, it would probably be for Race to return, since he's able to open the offense a little more with his (improving) outside shooting, but losing both would be pretty rough for our interior defense and rebounding.

You didn’t call people clueless, but the poster whose posts you were clarifying did.

I think most here are choosing to focus on the 80% of the game where we dominated completely, instead of the 20% when we clearly took our foot off the gas and Minny hit some difficult shots. People aren’t “clueless” for choosing that as their takeaway.

I haven't the slightest idea what a senior is in these days of "let's give everyone an extra year post-covid." Is anyone a senior? Are there no seniors?

Looks like I can catch it on HBO, so will check it out. Thanks!

I hear ya, but I made my peace with it awhile back. I'm mostly interested in the psychology of it - what causes a human to do such extreme things to others, what we've learned from that behavior, that sort of thing - but I also have a dark side when it comes to movies, shows, and whatnot. My wife doesn't care, except that I messed up her Netflix suggestions algorithm when she added me to her account. I mean, there are worse things to be into ... Purdue and/or Kentucky immediately come to mind.

I'm with you on the serial killer thing and wondering if I'm a wacko, and Ozark is brilliant so far (I'm nearing the end of season 2), so definitely would recommend it. Agreed that Mindhunter is also extremely well done, and the guy that plays Kemper in a couple of the episodes is brilliant. There are a number of docuseries on Netflix on SKs if you haven't gone there yet, too - Green River, Bundy, Night Stalker, and some others. You might want to pass along to your future DIL (congrats, btw!) a podcast called True Crime Garage that touches on some serial killers (and there's an episode on Lauren Spierer, too - that's how I found it).

Good W. I know people are freaking out about the last 8, but meh. You could also say that we made plays and hit FTs down the stretch that won us the game. We built a huge lead on the road against a dangerous team in the B1G - that's a positive no matter how the game ended, and we clearly let up on the gas a bit, and it can sometimes be difficult to put the pedal down again. I also have to say that probably my favorite possession of the year came in this game on the defensive end. Minnesota was moving the ball crisply around the perimeter, trying dribble drive penetration, and we completely shut down everything, either by quality defensive technique and taking proper angles on the drives, or help defense, or simply protecting the rim (possession ended with a TJD block). It really is a treat watching this team play defense. Get the home W against Rutgers, maybe pull another W in the BTT, and we should be dancing, which could be absolutely huge for the program and CMW going forward. I think you accelerate the rebuild/retool/whatever you want to call it if we can get in the tournament this year, vs going to the NIT.

He's made a behind the back pass to the post in a game earlier this year, and I believe it led to Race getting an easy bucket. But, yeah, agreed that it was a really poor choice this time, and Woody certainly let him know it, and he didn't even have to open his mouth to show his displeasure. Anyone who has gotten a look like that from a coach, well, it's not good times to have to stand in a huddle with that staring at you and no words being said. I'm wagering Kopp got the message.

That kid got Billy Joel’s looks instead of her mother’s. Talk about depressing.

Good W, lots to like about it. XJ has the ability to be brilliant, as he was tonight, so hoping he can build from this and finish the season strong. I think we need to get Rob or Trey or both back if we’re going to win the rest of the games we need to win to make the tournament, though.

Ah, I didn't go that far back, so apologies there. With that being said, I don't think we have someone that can turn into Keegan by next year if Race/TJD are gone. Agreed on Bates with respect to his outside shot, but I think he also is going to add the ability to drive and better defense than Bohannon. I'm basing this solely on TV observances, but he hit a nice runner in the lane against OSU, and he seems to be taking a bit of a leadership role in huddles and whatnot, too.

Bohannon - Bates Keegan - Race (if he returns) Chris - Geronimo? Trey?

I think it would really be more about the ability to create his own shot, and a lack of fear of taking the big shot, which is what this team really needs, but the outside shooting wouldn't hurt, either. I mean, the guy's gone, I have no idea why he chose to leave, so it doesn't really matter, but I don't think we were able to replace what he could have brought to the table, and it seems to rear its ugly head every game.

Irrelevant. No way to know what he could be doing here. The one thing we saw from him when he was here was that he could create his own shot and he even hit at least one game winner, IIRC.

I didn't say anything about morally. If morals were important, Mark Turgeon and Tom Crean would be the best coaches in the country. I'm talking about a school that took a chance on a coach, who then broke the rules (again) causing the program to be completely decimated, isn't going to turn around and hire someone that has the same issues or worse. It has nothing to do with IU not wanting to hire a big name coach, it's just a really bad idea, PR-wise, logic-wise, however you want to look at it.

Gotta admit, this has absolutely crossed my mind as a possibility more than once.

Yes, there's only one way to win in this game, and that's by doing what those guys are doing. Give me a break. I'm sure Calipari would have sprinted to this job, considering the shenanigans he was getting into at Memphis at the time. Scott Drew, he of "commit or I'll have you deported" fame? Bruce Pearl, I don't even know where to start with that one, or Pitino. Meanwhile, there are plenty of coaches that have succeeded without any of that - Jay Wright, Boeheim, Izzo, Beilein, Tony Bennett. But, hey, according to you I guess it's impossible to win without hiring one of the "everything that's wrong with college basketball" people to run your program.

JFC, this can't be a serious post, can it? The reason they didn't want those guys is just because they didn't want a big name? Can you think of ANY other reason that is a common denominator among those 4 coaches that might be another reason why the administration didn't want them? I mean, there's dumb posts, but this is on another level.

I think we kind of had one blossoming, but he transferred to UVa. Question is, who is going to fill that role next year? Geromino still seems really raw, Trey doesn't have an outside shot, how about Bates? Is there a freshman coming in that has the mental strength to take the big shots and immediately fill that role? I think that's more my concern than anything - not sure I'm seeing the guy that will be ready to fill that role next year, at least not at this point.

Was that game annoying? Absolutely. Am I that bothered by it? Not in the grand scheme of things, because I wasn't expecting a win, anyway. Positives are that we were in position to win this game, and the same issue keeps rearing its head, in that we simply don't have a go to guy at the end of games. Nice resiliency to come back from down double figures to get to that point, though. We also, unfortunately, have one of our worst FT shooters going to the line the most, which gets really hard to watch. If we can win the upcoming games that we should - Maryland, Minny, Rutgers - and pull at least one W in the BTT, then I think we are dancing. Not ready to throw in the towel on this season yet.

You can’t just tack 3 points on at some random point and assume everything stays exactly the same and we win. You clearly haven’t seen Back To The Future.

Two reason why I continue to watch IU basketball: 1. It's a joy watching this team play defense. If there's one thing that's clearly on the right track, it's that end of the court. 2. I'm interested to see how this team mentally handles each game, especially since the WC5 stuff went down. Will OSU try to get in our heads, like MSU and Wisky have successfully done the last two games? Have we learned anything from those games? I think the Rutgers game is the biggest of the remaining ones, but how this team responds mentally tonight could be a mental building block for the RU game, too.