BGleas

Haven't seen an update in a while, but when he had the surgery I believe they said a February return.

That is a very tough loss for the NBA community and specifically the NBA Media community. I'm not going to claim that I knew Sekou well or anything, but part of my role with the Celtics was to manage the media credentials and make sure home and visiting media had everything they needed, so I got to work with him each time the teams he covered came to Boston. Everything that's being said is absolutely true. A magnetic smile and personality. He was the type of person in the media room that everyone gravitate too. Super nice guy. Thoughts are with his family and the NBA community.

Yeah, there is no way the Lions are trading Stafford for a single 1st round pick and an aging wide receiver.

Oh, that's definitely fair.

That would have been a nice get. It's just odd it took two full recruiting cycles after Phinisee to get another point guard and it was one we had to convince to come a year early. It wouldn't be a huge issue if Phinisee had developed into an upper echelon Big Ten point.

Completely agree, I'd even drill it down further to lack of recruiting big time point guards. He got Phinisee and then it was 3 years until he landed Lander, who as we all know was really a kid in 2021. IU has had really bad, to average at best point guard play since Archie got here, and you'd think point guard would be a position he'd be able to nail, being a point guard himself. He's basically struck out on every high level (by high level I mean top 50-75ish) point guard he's gone after until Lander. We always explained it that recruits figured Phinisee would have the position locked down, but unfortunately Phinisee hasn't develop like many had hoped. Imagine this team with a Yogi at point guard?

He's a solid recruiter. That's what he is to this point. He's not great, he's solid. You don't land Langford, TJD and Lander, to go along with pulling Phinisee from Purdue country and, Jerome Hunter and Duncomb from Ohio if you're a bad recruiter. It's pretty clear that solid means good, but not great. Seems pretty clear to me?

You must not have seen many of my posts, because I haven't said any of those things. I literally started the convo after the Purdue game about our backcourt only having 1 player ranked above 120 in their class.

Completely agree, and yes we do see a lot of the same things. For probably all of those reasons IU is where it is. Whichever strategy was chosen on Sunday, it would have come down to player execution, and as you said that has been lacking. Ultimately something has been missing from this program for 4 years. It just has, and I can't really put my finger on it. I like Archie, I think he's really strong on the strategy and X's/O's stuff, he's a solid recruiter (I love our freshmen and sophomores), etc., but for some reason it just hasn't come together, and its the same issues over and over.

That's my point. I'm not arguing for the way Archie played it or saying that he was right. I'm saying he wasn't wrong. Player execution is why the way he played it didn't work.

The other way required a lot of things to work as well.

Who are these 'people? This board is littered with countless threads and posts ripping the coach, calling for his firing, as well as posts talking about how lowly ranked IU's backcourt is, how we don't have enough bigs, how our starting guards are bench players on any good team, etc., etc.

I'm not sure on the odds specifically, but it did work. We had a good defensive possession and forced them to miss a tough shot. But as all game long, Rutgers outworked and out-toughed our players and got the rebound. That wasn't a strategy/coaching failure. Could fouling have worked better? We don't know. But Archie's strategy worked until the players didn't do their job.

I don't disagree with those saying that extending the game against Rutgers could have been the way to go, but at the same time what Archie did worked. IU stopped Rutgers on the possession, the problem is the players didn't execute and allowed Rutgers to get the offensive rebound. Race, our 2nd best rebounder didn't get position to box out and our wing on that side didn't help him by pinching on Johnson. The plan worked, the players didn't execute.

Langford has been recovering from surgery on his hand/wrist since the bubble. Should be back in February. It's unfortunate because he would have been getting a lot of minutes here early in the season.

Well, you can say about Brady that he's the hardworking guys that nobody thought would amount to anything and then worked himself into the GOAT. He was literally a 6th round pick. I think the Belichick/Brady debate is ridiculous. Brady making the Super Bowl in Tampa doesn't say anything about Belichick on way or the other. They were in completely different situations this year. NE was already downtrending before this season, and Brady went to a team a QB away from competing. Totally different.

Brady is the unquestionable GOAT! He's gone to the Super Bowl 52.6% of his seasons as a start and 43% of his total seasons. In 21 seasons his chances of going to the Super Bowl are higher than Steph Curry's chances of hitting a 3-point shot.

Yeah, and it seems like the opposition always scores right away out of that timeout. Makes no sense.

I've never understood why college coaches call timeout so often right after they score? Why would you do that?

I'm going to make some generalizations, but I feel like some of the hardcore anti-Archie posters come off as having IU tunnel vision and haven't watched a lot of these other teams. I'm not saying IU is perfect or that Archie has been great. But especially offensively, if you watch the rest of college basketball, outside of a few teams (Iowa, Michigan, Gonzaga), offense and shooting is really bad in college basketball. It's not just an IU thing. @IU Scott is someone who has been vocal about this. He watches a ton of college basketball and pretty consistently has said what ailes IU ailes a lot of teams in college basketball. Again, this isn't meant to say Archie has done a great job and doesn't need to do better. But, there has been YOY improvement, albeit not as quickly as we'd like, and our issues are largely issues across college basketball.

Definitely agree, he's a good coach for sure and he seems to have really found a comfort level in what he does and how he does it over the last 6-8 years. He's also another example of patience paying off.

Haha, yeah ho took about 10 of out in Indy one night on a playoff trip where we were there for 3 days, the bill was a few grand. He had some UK stories, was hilarious.

I dont feel bad at all. I hope they implode and will enjoy watching it. The only thing that could possibly make me pull for them is if they do get to the Finals. As a Celtics fan, I can't have the Lakers getting title #18.

Also interesting is that while Harden did have another triple-double, in Kyrie's return Kyrie took 28 shots and Harden only took 14. I didn't see the game and maybe they're using Harden more as a facilitator, but that is something to watch. I can't imagine Harden would be happy for long taking only half the shots as Kyrie if they're not winning.

I don't see what one has to do with the other? WIth that said, don't talk bad about my guy #8. Maybe didn't pan out fully, but he was still a 3-time All-Star and was a starter on the first D-Wade team that won a title in Miami. Good dude too! He always got to know the front office staff and would get to know us, take you out for dinner on the road, etc. Not many guys do that.