HoosierDom

There big man looks slow footed and not exactly Cockburn strong - I think TJD is going to have a field day.

As much as we shouldn't be playing Tuesday, we outclass Wyoming and St Mary's. Put them in the BIG and they won't make the NIT. I'm not sure I'm too scared of UCLA either. They're not a bad team, but if MSU closes them out in last year's play-in game, and MSU had them beat, then the level of respect they have been getting all year never materializes and they aren't seeded where they are now.

If I get too optimistic, I'm sure Wyoming will hit 17 3's and we will air-ball free throws, but I'm pretty optimistic.

OSU, UM, MSU all have slightly favorable seedings. Hopefully that's a good trend for us.

Nothing more obvious than Michigan State being lined up with Duke.

Just now, rogue3542 said:

I think, from the Big Ten, IU and Iowa are playing the best right now

I agree.

Trevion Williams, and Eddy to a lesser extent, love to just slam into their defenders, I think they are going to find that won't fly starting next week. 

Is it ESPN or CBS that gets the bracket first?

14 minutes ago, KDB said:

The updated Bracket Matrix from this AM has Indiana in 133 of 143 brackets, and the last 11 seed.

It's a little better than that seems, too. While the matrix was updated this morning, the individual components that make up the matrix weren't all updated this morning, so a lot of those have not priced in the Illinois win. Those that were updated today have a noticeably better seed for us. 11 still sounds right, but a comfortable 11.

Looks like an 11 seed, I would consider us a favorite against anyone being listed as a 6 and I'm not scared of any of the 3 seeds. A blessing in disguise that we're not likely to move up to a 10 or a 9.

Didn't we learn our lesson the first time we played them? Race should not be a main press breaker.

Geronimo is up on his feet cheering, so seems it isn't too bad.

1 minute ago, John S said:

Some of those are questionable.  Tjd is getting hacked. 

Letting big men go at each other is pretty standard and has gone both ways - the push Kofi got away with was pretty egregious, though. The lack of calls on Curbello is not the way games are usually called and we are not getting away with the same garbage... as I am typing this they call a ticky-tack foul on Rob that they would not call on them.

Just now, KoB2011 said:

Looked clean honestly

It was a good no-call. He got the ball before some after the fact incidental contact.

You're allowed to take 5 steps when the ball is behind your back?

Somebody explain to me how the conventional wisdom still seems to be Michigan is in while we are right on the bubble? They are now one game ahead of us in conference, but have absolutely zero quality out of conference wins and some pretty questionable loses.

How does TJD not have enough awareness to just throw the ball off the guys foot?

TJD just has no touch. I guess it's not his fault, I don't know if you can learn it, he just doesn't have it.

Just now, BGleas said:

I think you're confusing what we're talking about. Nobody is calling him Steph Curry or even Nick Zeisloft. 

We want him to stretch the floor as a 4, not as a shooting guard or wing. They're completely different things. 

As mentioned, he's at 31.5% the last 18 games. If he can get to 33-35% (really anywhere in there) then he'd be doing his job. That isn't really that big of leap. 

Also, stretching the floor as a 4 doesn't mean he can't ever go into the paint. It doesn't want he can never post up or he can never be the screener in a PnR. 

But if he and TJD both come back, we need Race spotting up in the corner or top of the key, opposed to clogging the paint. 

Again 31% to 34% isn’t that big of a leap. 

If we just take the last 12 games (an admittedly arbitrary period of time specifically chosen because it supports my point) he is shooting 40% on 25 attempts. That's a number opposing teams have to respect.

35 minutes ago, 13th&Jackson said:

We would still be on the bubble, probably on the outside looking in. That would have been a Quad 2 win that barely moved the needle. It was no worse than the road PSU loss. OTOH, had we won the Rutgers game at home (they jumped us with that loss) plus any one of the road losses against WI, OSU or PU we'd be solidly in. 

That's where we are now. If you get rid of our worst loss (maybe 2nd worst) and replace it with a win, that changes things significantly. If you want to say it wouldn't have been an overly impressive win, then you have to acknowledge it was a bad loss.

25 minutes ago, Stlboiler23 said:

Can he come back next year or is this his last rodeo?

I think he's done after this one. He didn't actually play last year, but that still counts as his covid year. He has had 4 full years of college basketball, plus his freshman year that counted as a medical redshirt despite him playing some and plus last year he didn't play at all. 

14 hours ago, IU Scott said:

I just don't think had shown enough to be a starter. I can say that about the whole team except XJ and TJD if they come back.

He's not a guy that can create off the dribble (or off of anything, really), and I have a hard time seeing that change by next year, but I don't think it needs to for him to be an effective starter. If he can defend and rebound, he's already a likely starter. I'm assuming we won't have both Trace and Race back, so we are going to need guys that can do those two things. Add to that his energy on the offensive glass and if he can consistently knock down an open 3, which he has shown hints of, he is a very valuable role player. With any luck we will have more guys who can create their own shot next year (X, Hood-Shfino, Bates, Galloway (sort of), maybe even Banks) so Geronimo's shortcomings will be less needed and his strengths will be more valuable.   

3 minutes ago, kyhoosier29 said:

Think we need to win the 8/9 game and knock off Wiscy to have a shot. Would hope that would do it given the many close losses (no bad losses) we’ve had. Who knows. 

2 wins and we're almost definitely in unless there are a lot of bid thieves. One win and we have a lot of rooting to do but a reasonable chance.

10 minutes ago, OGIUAndy said:

Prediction:
Da Hoosiers 79 - rutgers zip

Sure, if mini-TJD plays, but what if regular TJD plays?

1 hour ago, dgambill said:

He has a nice stroke on his shot. Big's typically take awhile to mature and grow into their game. I thought once Durr was signed he was an immediate redshirt candidate from the start. Playing behind TJD, Race, Durr, and Geronimo just wasn't going to leave anything but mop up minutes for him.

I haven't come across a definitive answer as to whether he is still eligible for a redshirt, but if he isn't, the issue is he isn't even getting the mop-up minutes. He's played a total of 6 minutes in conference play. If he is in line to be a regular contributor next year, it seems like you have to find a way to get him some time, somehow. When Durr was suspended, Duncomb still didn't see action. It sure seemed to me that coach had some lingering issues with Durr, still no Duncomb.

30 minutes ago, IUCrazy2 said:

For sure, if you could get him up around 6 figures if he stayed, that makes staying one more year to work on draft position more attractive.  How often is it that a guy goes to Europe or the developmental league and ends up in the NBA?

If he wants to play in the NBA, he should stay in the US. Hopefully we have our NIL situation figure out so that Trayce will make more money at IU than the D-League. If he wants to go to Europe, I would assume he could get into one of the top leagues and be comfortably into 6-figures. We probably won't be able to beat that, but if he goes, I think there's very little chance he ever puts on an NBA uniform. So, it's a question if he's willing to give up that dream.

How do the transfer rules work now? For guys who used their one free transfer, can they transfer again without sitting out under the old grad-transfer rules? If not, Durr, Stewart, Kopp and X would all seem heavily incentivized to stay.