IUCrazy2

So it isn't just me then. I have started to get that feeling myself. The school is generally tight lipped about injuries so at a certain point you start to question the severity of the injury. He has been out 4 weeks at this point. High ankle sprains usually go 6 to 12 weeks. 12 weeks is February 8th.

There are high school transfer rules. They aren't always super strictly enforced but there are instances where kids have to sit.

Yeah, but contracts aren't as hard. Think of the Big 2 breaking away from the NCAA. They can agree between themselves that players get 1 chance to leave and from there no poaching. A kid is free to attend the University if he transfers after that but they become ineligible players in the new Big 2. They can go play in whatever is left of the NCAA but their access to the big money is cut off. Eventually the schools will make moves to protect themselves.

All I am saying is that these players are pushing things far enough that they are getting close to the "Find Out" side of things. The NCAA or the colleges are eventually going to call them on this stuff. They want to be paid pros without the "rules" that accompany that. Eventually the schools that actually control the market are going to clamp down.

They are going to set it up where schools are going to start making them sign non-compete clauses. If you are my employee and can leave anytime....

What percentage was he against Michigan, Connecticut, and Auburn? Maybe add Maryland. Those games are likely to be better indicators of future production than the 5 games against teams that are going to be worse than just about every Big Ten team we will be facing after Kansas and a few more duds.

Maybe to get him back in the flow for a few games but you ultimately need "Good X" in the starting line up.

Kind of stand alone, I think the defense was a big issue but even with our scoring I still think the offense is a problem.

I am hoping that the "You rank em, we spank em" mojo is in effect. We could really use that W.

From what I saw the early betting lines opened at 5.5 and the ones that are accepting bets have ballooned to 18 to 22. When was the last time we were a 20 point dog at home?

We were 3 games out. If we won the Big Ten by 3 games do you think we buy Purdue "competing" with us for the title because they happened to be built just right to beat us? No way. We would say they were no where near the title. That isn't dogging the program or the players or the coaches. That is just looking at that situation realistically. Nobody really competed with Purdue for the title last year. It was them up here, like 10 teams a ways down here in the middle, and then 3 more teams waaaay down there.

Guess it depends on how you define compete, much like this year appears, it was kind of Purdue and everyone else. We were 3 games back in the conference standings. So I guess we "competed" but they won the conference pretty comfortably. To put in perspective, Purdue had 5 losses and the next 7 teams had 8 or 9. With uneven scheduling, there really wasn't a clear cut second best team (or third or fourth or....) ETA: to put it another way, as many losses separated 1 from 2 as separated 2 from 11. Nobody was much competition at all.

I think the answer was posted earlier in the Kansas pre-game. We need to tighten up the rotations. The only time we should ever see those hockey substitutions are against the Army and FGCU's of the world. Right now Ware, Reneau, Galloway, and Cupps should be getting 30 to 32 minutes a piece when we play tournament quality teams like Connecticut, Auburn, Kansas, and Michigan (and probably Louisville and Maryland too although they haven't been very good).

Personally, they both come off bad.

They are both realistic views is what I am saying. I hope we do get it turned around. I still think we have a ton of work to do in spite of the 7-2 record.

According to Kenpom we are currently #76 and are the #1 luckiest team....

That is an optimistic way to view it though. Another way is to say that in those 7 wins we averaged to win by about 8 points against teams with an average NET rating of 201. In our two losses we averaged losing by 29 to teams with an average NET of 14 (I will round down to be nice). We are 1-2 in games where the other team had a pulse. We won one of those by 3 on the road against a team that has moved to Q1 but is currently 5-5, but that is a solid win. There are things you can point to and say, see, still 7-2 and there are things a pessimist could point to and say, yeah 7 and 2 buuuut.... We find out more this weekend, then have a couple of games that do nothing to move the needle one way or the other and then we see how accurate our current NET of 123 is. We only passed 1 of our 3 tests so far. 2 of them we failed about as bad as you could. We have 1 more test, be nice to pass that one. If we don't we are behind the curve the rest of the year.

No, I watched a bit into the second half from home (I gave up when it was clear the game was over.)

For the schools, yes. For the fans it is simply this: the team got their @$$ kicked and that made for a bad event (from an IU fan perspective). Once that narrative starts to play then everything else you had a problem with that day gets amplified exponentially. If we won or the game was a hard fought and close loss, nobody is talking about cheerleaders. Negativity tends to compound.

It costs money to get all that other support there. Auburn could put them on some busses and we probably would have to fly them and their equipment down. The University probably felt it was more cost effective to not send all them down there. An accountant could probably make that argument. Someone doing PR would probably argue differently. Also, just want to add that if we had won the game, none of this other stuff would be talked about at all. When things go bad on the court it tends to accentuate the negatives everywhere else. "I spent several thousand dollars to see my team get blown out by nearly 30, look like they gave up, and the school couldn't even send the $#@$%&^ cheerleaders to the game?" That sentiment takes hold really quick when you have 50 to 60% of the people at the game with you whooping it up.

If that doesn't start getting rectified quickly, things are going to get ugly around the team again.

I think it is worth being here. It may have happened at one game but it also kind of signals some discontent with the University's approach on the whole. The game is THE most important thing for these travel events. I think the biggest impact to how much "fun" someone has at one of these events is how the team performs. Even close losses involve quite a bit of "fun" as a competitive team gives quite a bit to cheer for during the game. We haven't been close in the vast majority of these destination games for awhile. That is the biggest issue. Much less significant is the aesthetics around the game. Auburn approached the game like it was in March and Indiana appeared not to give a crap. When you have that many fans show up at a game that is an 8 to 10 hour drive away from most points in your home state, along with all the expenses related to doing at least an overnight stay on top of the game, it helps if the school looks interested in that support. The team laid an egg and was getting knocked for effort. To the people there, I saw social media posts saying it looked like fans cared more than the team. Once that thought kicks in, then all the other stuff the University didn't do starts to take on a bigger significance. That is just psychology. Bottom line, college sports expect a larger and larger investment from fans to support the school's teams. From season tickets, to traveling to these events, to regular donations to maintain points for tickets, to NIL donations to fund the actual players, all the way down to needing to invest in an ever growing package of multimedia options to see games. Quite a bit is asked of a fans pocketbook these days. You HAVE to look like you respect your customer. Auburn delivered for their fans from team performance on down. Indiana appears to have failed on everything they had input in. Not a good look.

With the way they follow people these days, I just did by posting it. 😜

Not filling that last scholarship with a guard was basically criminal malfeasance. Our players are dictating how we play, which on its face is a good thing, the problem is that we haven't recruited the whole team like a top power has. Guards should be about the easiest positions to fill. We have an elite front court and a mid-major level back court right now (if that, I bet you could pull some MAC backcourts and put them with Ware and Reneau right now and have a top 15 team.) IMO Galloway and Gunn are 3's, Mgbako is a 4 and we don't have any 2's. Johnson wasn't playing all that well before he got hurt but having him as the starting PG would put Cupps in a more comfortable spot. Asking him to run the point right now against the top tier teams is a hard ask.