Maedhros

Guys. Holy shit. You don't know what Armond Hill does during games. You don't know what he does during practice. You didn't even know he was, or what he had accomplished, until someone jumped in to tell you. Yet you're throwing rocks at the guy and questioning his worth just because you saw his face on screen a few times when the cameras switched to Woodson. Literally out there catching strays. Some of y'all are so invested in your own discontent you're now making up ways to be upset about this staff.

Currently at 49, Butler is up fully 70 spots in KenPom from where they've been ranked each of the past three years. That's impressive improvement.

That's definitely still true. At 15.75 attempts per game in conference play, we're firmly last, more than two full attempts behind the next lowest team. Which is surprisingly Iowa. Ten of the fourteen B10 teams are above 20 per game, with Nebraska leading with 24.8 per.

Funny how narratives get formed and stick. In Big Ten play, Indiana is holding teams to just 31% from three, best in the conference. They're shooting 34.4% from three themselves, right in the middle of the pack at eighth in the conference, and a mark would be 162nd nationally, above the median.

But tonight it beat Ohio State at their place. Sports is a disappointing hobby so much of the time. Find joy where you can, or else what's the point?

Maybe this time they'll get to hire Archie Miller like they wanted.

The receipts from this one are going to be fantastic.

Ranking matters insofar as a lower ranked team is going to have a lower Adjusted Efficiency Margin. Efficiency metrics are predictive. Any hypothetical matchup between the two would have a predicted spread, based on their current efficiences. Beat that spread and your AdjEM improves. Underperform that spread and your rating will drop. Even in a win. That's why our rating and rank dropped like a rock after playing Army.

Also sitting this one out, because Peacock, but every road win in college basketball is a good win.

A few years later Matt Painter went 5-13 in the B10, finishing dead last, and losing 12 of his last 14 games, BTT included. Red flag, right? Fireable offense? To bring this around to Mike Woodson, coaches need to be allowed to fail. Even at Indiana. Seasons like this aren't much fun, but it's how you adapt and work to fix the problems that matter. Painter has been open about he changes he made, both in recruiting and in coaching, in response to those lean years. Can Woodson do the same? That's what matters, more than one season where the roster didn't come together the way you envisioned in the offseason. I want to see what happens next, now that Woodson knows he needs to adjust, and that story hasn't been written. I have no interest in firing Mike Woodson, or entertaining the thought, until then.

Over at Torvik, you can filter player rankings for, among other things, FR/SO in mid major conferences. Not a bad starting point: https://barttorvik.com/playerstat.php?link=y&yvalue=FrSo&cvalue=Mid&year=2024&minmin=0&start=20231101&end=20240501 You can also filter by role, though not by backcourt generally. Malik Mack jumps to the top of the list for the pure PG role.

Love to make a post about Indiana fans wanting to fire their coach at the first sign of failure, then have that point illustrated to perfection. Chef's kiss.

When do you fire Crean? Surely not after the first two years, when he had to start a roster from scratch without the portal and immediate eligibility. Year three showed real progress, back in the top 100 on KenPem, the win over ranked Illinois, and Cody Zeller committed for the upcoming class. The next two years were the best Indiana team since the Cheaney years. So those guys leave and your next team can't shoot, but you're bringing in James Blackmon and Robert Johnson. Then Fischer and Vonleh leave and that team has no size, but still gets back to the Tournament and you're bringing in Bryant, Morgan and Anunoby. You win the Big Ten again, with a new roster than before, and knock off Kentucky in the Tournament. Then just one down season later Crean is fired, with a team that finished 44 in KenPom, better than any Archie team except the one in '20 that didn't have to take two losses in the postseason, and better than two of Woodson's three teams thus far. That guy was on the hot seat the majority of his tenure here. Grumbling about his job started at least in year three, and basically continued except for the Zeller years and for a few months in '16. Probably those same voices are envious of how Painter has it rolling at Purdue right now, yet Painter accomplished less in his first nine years than Crean did. Davis bought some time with the 2002 run, but was perpetually on the hot seat thereafter. Some of that is unstandable, being the natural consequence of following a legend. Some of that is because by his own admission Davis was in over his head. Bob Knight had down years too. In the post Knight era, we've had two season where we started out ranked top 15 in the preason and were unranked in the final poll. Those were the years Sampson and Crean were fired. Bob Knight had six of those seasons (79, 82, 85, 88, 90, 95). Obviously he did some great stuff in between. But even after peaking with some incredible squads, he too fell into valleys before he could reload. And Knight is at worst one of the top five coaches in the history of the sport. I wasn't an Indiana basketball fan until I arrived in Bloomington as a freshman for the '01-'02 season. Bob Knight had already been fired, made possible only because fans were grumpy after six seasons of not seeing the second weekend. It's been a generation now, and but for a handful of season's I can count on one hand, this fan base has been calling for their coach to be fired ever since. It's all I've ever known, and it's getting exhausting.

I only watch Indiana games, but I was at the Fieldhouse for the Harvard game and watched Malik Mack tear us up. I'd approve if he decided "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em":

Lets not do that here. This thread is about the transfer portal and not coaching. Plenty of places you can grumble about that.

In a world where Ware goes pro, but Mgbako sticks with it another season, I can actually see us turning this around fairly quickly. Reneau, Mgbako, McNeeley is a frontcourt that gives you spacing. The key is going to be landing effective guards in the portal. Galloway if he comes back, and Newton if he's available, are drivers instead of shooters. Cupps might still be a year away. Gotta go all out for shooters and ballhandlers in the portal, but if we can do that I'll be real excited for the upcoming season again.

Few things in basketball as aesthetically pleasing as Sara Scalia shooting free throws.

Gotta just keep firing coaches. If you cut a guy loose the first time he falls, eventually you'll end up with a coach who never fails. That's just science. Running a college athletic department is just a game of roulette. Spin to win, baby!

Y'know, there's a coach out there right now with power conference experience, a couple conference titles, and took two different schools to the second weekend. Sure seems like an experience was we'd all sign up for right now, doesn't it?

Lol, greggggg sticks a finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing, then runs as far as he can in that direction to try and stand out with his take.

This is where the myth of Indiana Basketball actually hurts the program of today. IU didn't just win because we had one of the five greatest coaches in the history of the sport. We also needed dudes. From '77 to '94, Knight was bringing in a McDonald's All American in nearly every class. Most of those guys were from Indiana, but not all. And when the state doesn't provide, you need to go else where. If Archie did anything well, it was recruit the state. Look where that got us.

Great news. No harm done while she was out, and the run for bench players like Lenee, Lexi and Jules could pay off down the line for this starter-heavy team.

Dustin Dopirak had some recent comments on Twitter that I've been thinking on ever since: This thinking seems to explain what we've seen as well as anything. Woodson has brought in some talented guys: Tamar, Hood-Schifino, Reneau, Ware, Mgbako, even convincing Trayce to stay. Where it seems we've struggled has been in developing that supporting cast. I've been puzzled by our recruiting for a few years now. We didn't land many prep targets in '23, with the explanation we were conserving resources for '24. But then that class rolls around and we again hone in on a select group of guys at the very top. When we don't get them there's not really a plan B of guys in that 40-100 range who will contribute over multiple years. In fact, we actively stop recruiting those guys because we're trying to land bigger fish. This is an adjustment to the college game Woodson needs to make that was perhaps overlooked in discussion at the time of his hire. Kids don't need NBA potential to still contribute on winning teams at the college level. This familiarity with what NBA players can do also explains some coaching decisions. There's the infamous quote that it's not his job to get Miller Kopp shots. Might ring true in the NBA, where guys are freaks and can mostly do whatever you ask. College players are less skilled, and I imagine needing of more structure in support. Maybe Kopp is doing all he can, but when players are still growing, still learning what they can do, and trying to find who they are as a player - like every other college kid - maybe they don't think of passing out to Kopp unless you actively coach it into being a habit. Guys in the league are closer to fully formed. Guys in college need more guidance. I actually don't think Woodson is necessarily stubborn. We've seen a lot of changes in Xs and Os strategy over the years, and this season alone. The lack of use of the three point shot remains puzzling, but perhaps this is best explained by ossification. The NBA is still what Woodson knows best. A season like this, which demonstrates all the ways college is different, might be just what's needed to prompt a new approach.

Huh. I thought the thing about Anthony Leal was he was supposed to have good judgment.