Hoosierdave

Ehhhh that’s pretty debatable. Are they the two best players on the team? Sure. Unfortunately, their skill sets are what’s holding the offense back the most. Neither are big and strong like Edey, Cockburn, Key, Williams, Omoruyi. Neither can force other teams out to the perimeter like Dickinson, Bingham, Crowl, Wahl, Liddell, Brown, Murray, Harper, Gillis, Furst. Not going to win many games relying on contested shots from 5 feet and out rebounding your bigger/stronger opponents.

The biggest issue for me is not the loss (I can deal with losing in OT on the road to a ranked opponent without 2 of our top 8 players) but the fact that we are getting worse at the worst time. I can objectively deal with puzzling loses early in the season with a new staff and group of players figuring it all out. But we continue to deal with the same issues from the beginning of the season: -Inconsistent PG play -Lack of discipline (poor shot selection, cheap fouls, unnecessary technicals and flagrants, missing curfews/player suspensions) -Players standing around on offense, no off ball movement or curling around a screen with authority and purpose. Not understanding mismatches (ex-every team knows to attack Stewart or Kopp for an easy bucket) -Terrible substitution patterns (putting too many bench players in at once) -Not using a TO to stop other teams from going on runs -Inability to make smart decisions to close out games -Too many guys that have one skill and one skill only. (The only guys who make an impact on both sides of the court are TJD,Race, and Galloway). We still have 3 winnable games. Win those and win 1 big ten tourney game (not a big ask) and that’s 20 wins and should be able to squeak in. Remember, UCLA was a last 4 team in 2021 and made it all the way to the final 4 and it completely changed the direction of their program. If miss the tourney, my cautious optimism is our recruiting. JHS will start and has all the tools to be the PG we’ve needed since Yogi. Kaleb Banks is an athletic stretch 4. Gunn has shown an ability this year to score at all 3 levels. Cupps and Newton make plays on both ends. Hopefully one of Bates, Galloway, or Geronimo can take that leap during the off season and turn into an NBA caliber player. I appreciate anyone who plays for IU but hopefully we can use the transfer portal to get rid of some of the dead weight on this team.

So many mental errors it’s sickening

What does the staff see in Kopp? At least Stewart can score occasionally

Hopefully them playing so much recently will catch up to them. X needs to get others involved, every team knows if he shoots more than anyone, they’ll win. No need to play Kopp, showing he can’t shoot or defend.

Not great that Baylor and Nova have been established teams and are also doing well this year but Miro did mention he enjoyed the idea of returning IU to its glory. I would be really optimistic about IU moving forward if we could have Little,JHS, and Cupps on the same team.

We’re projected to win 4 of the last 6 and I think we have a great shot at 5 with Ohio St and their schedule so this game could really help turn things around. There’s no big time bruisers on Wisco so TJD and Race need to assert themselves and get back to the “buddy ball”. That should free up shots and I’m hoping with a home game that guys like Stewart, Kopp, and Bates will show up. I think the key will be X and his decision making. We can’t afford to have Coach rely so heavily on Galloway to run point. We also really need to get back to pushing the ball out in transition because our half court offense isn’t cutting it lately. I think we win a close one.

That came from someone with 7 followers. Tom Brew, who covers IU basketball for SI, is suggesting this is baseless.

It’s a lot more common than you think. I won’t name names because it’s unnecessary but I know for a fact there are guys on Creans roster that smoked but also won conference championships and went on to play in the pros or overseas. Just something you’ll easily look past when your team is successful.

Hopefully it’s just a false rumor. Kopp was taken in a cop car outside the sample gates a couple months back and it turned out to be nothing

Happy that he’s keeping that final 3 if he’s deciding in the spring. Like our chances!

Also showed that Woodson can have 2 point guards on the floor at the same time and make it winning basketball. Idk if JHS is a 1 & Done type player so it’s important to show they can have 2 elite PGs work together

Deliciously ironic that they complain all IU fans do is talk about history but they’re doing the same thing to make themselves feel better about losing to us when TJD played 10 minutes.

We have the second largest alumni base in the entire country only behind Penn State. You can also see we have like 2-3x the amount of followers as those schools on social media platforms like Twitter and IG. We have all the potential to be the leader for NIL opportunities when it comes to a basketball school.

Considering that Nebraska had McGowens back and TJD was out for an extending period of time/had to finish without him, I’m pretty happy with the result.

Kill some clock, get the ball in the post for a high percentage basket. Just be the smarter team for the next 3 minutes

Nebraska is so bad. Just take care of the ball and dont shoot yourself in the foot.

USC’s dual threat 5-star freshman entered the portal. Wonder if we’ll reach out since we wanted a younger QB on the roster

Still think we could benefit from another dual threat QB. Just don’t see him getting enough time in the pocket to show all his skills. Hopefully our depth at RB and upgrading to more speedy receivers will help offset our weak OL.

Maybe that Hoosier Hysterics interview resonated with him and felt that Illinois does in fact suck lol.

Think I saw somewhere that suggested Ole Miss was likely going to recruit Caleb Williams hard. Might help with our chances with Ward since he seemed high on Ole Miss.

Ironically, sometimes a recruit observing what a team is lacking/the massive role they can play can help. Worked with Langford and Lander.

Exactly! Sure plenty of basketball but we’ve watched them be a bubble team the last 3-4 years because of some head scratching loses that come back to haunt us like this. This is a REALLY bad loss. We werent even receiving votes in the AP Poll and losing to the worst team in the conference is only making the NIT seem more likely at this rate. It was barely a road game, they had like maybe 500 fans there.