Maedhros

Khristian Lander and Western Kentucky up on 2-seed Marquette, coming up to halftime.

Then they miss an actual out-of-bounds call and give the ball to Northwestern without going to review when it was needed. What the hell?

I'm going to hear "and the officials are going to head to the monitor" in my sleep at this point.

How do you screw up a baseline OOB call, when no player nor the ball ever crossed the baseline?? lol lmao

With so many names going in, it's tough to know who's been mentioned and who hasn't. Scrolling Twitter since the games tipped today, I saw Borzello mention a couple: JP Pegues, guard from Furman. First team all So-Con, 18.4 points, 4.8 assists, over 36% from 3 Jordan Sears, guard from UT Martin. First team all OVC for two seasons. 21.6 points, 4.6 rebounds, 4.5 assists. Lots of guard talent out there, hope we get some.

This is what burns me. College basketball officials will go to the monitor for damn near anything. It's exhausting. College basketball is too often a bad product, not because of the play but because of the constant stoppage. And here they have a legitimate call that needs reviewed and overturned, yet they can't act. If we're going to be overturning goaltending calls, changing three point shots to twos, let's make sure we get something this consequential correct as well. By itself, it's such a perfect example of what's wrong with college basketball officiating. They don't call what happened, they call what they expect to happen. It's why Malik gets called for a charge when the defender runs into him with a foot in the circle, and it's why the Big Ten DPOY gets rewarded with a tie-up call, despite raking Xavier Johnson on the arm on a breakaway.

The situation with Woodson set aside, I take no issue with skipping the NIT. We started out with ten returning players: three already transferred, one is surely going pro, one is on a medical redshirt your two senior guards are both injured. I like having Indiana games, and would have tuned in to watch, but I don't think there was much to be gained by having Cupps, Reneau, and Mgbako as the only guys building for next season.

I like that when you say to someone "Indiana's rival just lost to a double digit seed in the first round again", you have to specify which rival. 😄

Mike Woodson will be back next year. Will Cal be back at Kentucky? 👀

It was 56-39 with just over seven minutes left. Gave up a 24-4 run to end the game, and lose by 3.

Alford with an all time collapse.

NET had Indiana down bad because of games like our 1 point win over Morehead St. At halftime, Morehead St is one point behind the NET's 13th ranked Illinois.

Love it. I might go have his burger to celebrate.

Every player reacts that way on the court. This is Reneau after the season ended to Nebraska. I'm rooting for this kid:

My least favorite effect of a losing season is the compulsion some feel to then shit all over absolutely everything connected to the program. As though there is nothing of worth to be found from the wreckage. Some of y'all need to be better at holding two thoughts in your head at the same time. We're calling for Malik Reneau to transfer? Really? The kid has flaws in his game, sure. This is college, everyone does. He'll be the first to tell you he fouls too much, as anyone who saw his post game interview can attest. He's also just a sophomore, took a leap last year, and there's no reason think he won't continue improving. Already he was comfortably our second best player last season. If you're worrying about all the spots we have to fill in the portal, why would you want that guy to leave? There are rumors Malik might transfer, and it's because he's getting serious offers from other schools. Programs that see the value he has and believe he can contribute to winning. But y'all want to cut him loose, I guess because we lost a lot of games in a season where everyone knew our backcourt was going to be a concern. You want players who stick at Indiana for multiple seasons? You want players who develop and improve? Then you want Malik Reneau.

Just committed to Arizona, in the '24 class. I'm going to be real curious to hear whatever it was his handler wanted that we weren't willing to give, but Arizona was.

I knew it was coming, but that's still a lot of empty space.

Peegs reports Gunn is in the portal too.

Finally filling out brackets, and it's amazing how poor a job this committee did. The East has three teams I would have picked for the Final Four, all of them ranked in the top 5 on Torvik. Meanwhile Purdue gets an injured and down Kansas, Rick Barnes, and a Creighton team that lost four of its last five, getting blasted by Cincinnati.

I'm having trouble understanding this one. What is the complaint here? Just scrolling through Joe Tipton's twitter, I see us linked with Michael Ajayi (3rd on 247), Amari Williams (4th), Frankie Fidler (9th), Dakota Leffew (10th).

A familiar name:

New pinned tweet. Possible commitment date?

If I can step away from Purdue for a moment... It's very funny to me that Ohio State is hiring Diebler. They fired Matta the same offseason we fired Crean, and for largely the same reason: recruiting had dried up and earlier successes seemed unattainable. They then hired a mid major coach from the next state over (I know Butler is in the Big East. I said what I said). Now they're hiring a former player with no prior head coaching experience; not an alum himself, but the brother of one. It's the same playbook, maybe tilted a few degrees.

Dusty might kill it here, I can't say he wouldn't. But the skillset to make something out of nothing at FAU is very different than what is demanded at a place like Indiana. Here, a coach has to command all those resources he doesn't have in Boca Raton, and craft teams which consistently contend at the highest level. All while under immense scrutiny and expectation, which will require him to hit the ground running. On the court the sport is the same. Everything that happens off the court makes it a categorically different job.

Reports tonight Ohio State is going to remove the interim tag from Diebler. Won't have to worry about them scooping up May.