BobSaccamanno

Cupps has been playing damn good defense. Walker is sluggish. Comes in and we struggle immediately. How bad is Banks that he can’t get ahead of him? His future is all but certain.

Boo Bouie. Nice player but the all time push off guard in the B1G. Like Csonka’s stiff arm.

Had the easy pass to MM. Got to be smart.

That’s an extremely bizarre call on Cupps.

Loyer really getting exploited on defense. Painter brought in Morton. Without Edey covering him in the lane, he’s going to have issues next year.

If you play four out and one in, Reneau, MM and McNeely is a good start.

Battle seems to be streaky but boy that’s a nice, quick release. He doesn’t need much room either.

I’m not a fan of coaches talking to other teams’ players in the heat of the battle. Players play. Coaches coach their team. Stay in your lane.

Love having some DB’s with height. Usually get you good range. Decent radius to break up passes too. Can’t wait to see the player development.

We need a player personnel department with energy. Woody can’t be expected to know who some player is in Finland. But the importation of foreign players is not going away and is in the first inning of the trend. We can’t continue to ignore this. I am betting we get an announcement on a redo of our player personnel department with substantial investment and maybe more analytics too. We can’t continue to pretend that the NET isn’t a thing. This isn’t the NBA where your seeding is based on record. I’m tying the two because you may keep the coach and turn around the infrastructure around him. Reorg.

I hope you’re right. I think Cherry will be damn good but it may be awhile. The jump from high school will be massive. Tayven will get really good coaching but he needs a makeover and we will just have to see. Lowry is a complete unknown. Let’s see what the staff can do. They are very good with QB’s. Having said that, the B1G is very tough and after QB1 I am not we can get bowl eligible with the others. Would love to see a huge jump.

If QB1 stays healthy, I think our offense will be very solid.

Love the use of the word "violent" in relation to football. As impressive as CCC is, a big part of it is his staff. CCC knows what he wants everywhere but he also knows the importance of the staff. Top to bottom, this seems like a very well thought out staff. I have been watching the interviews and he relies on them but he also has a hand in things. It's interesting that CCC is in his 60's yet he has a staff of young, energetic, smart guys. Not a bunch of guys his age who are his cronies. Top to bottom he has developed an impressive coaching staff working in concert. And I love his loyalty to his staff.

Post of the year bwahahaha

Imagine this scenario. SF defers. KC kicks a FG SF kicks a field goal. You are now in sudden death KC kicks a field goal and wins Shanahan gets skewered for getting too cute. You get the ball first, you potentially get more possessions. I think Shanahan is a great coach and they didn’t lose because of the call. Shanahan is innovative and developed a brand of football emulated all over the league. They lost because they didn’t make the plays. My scenario above was just as likely if their players made plays. I don’t see this as some all time dummy thing like with the Falcons blowing the lead or Seattle not running on the goal line. Media likes to create these narratives.

Moving screens are another problem, at least in the B1G. Ok, fine you set a screen. If the defender gets around it, so be it. Shouldn't be allowed to drag the screen for as long as it takes. It's ridiculous and outside the spirit of the rule. Freedom of movement is part of basketball and the B1G gets killed in this area.

You have to credit Woodson for closing on every single recruit we’ve landed. I don’t think that’s the issue. I think he’s good with the players and parents.

💯. Can’t disagree there. And MM has ability and can get better. He just needs to do things differently IMO. Maybe he will.

I agree. I doubt we pull the upset with Northwestern but who knows, maybe we flip the switch. We’d have to play pretty well. They will be very confident coming in against us. Hopefully TG leads us to glory. He will fight.

I think he just means being over ranked.

There’s nothing in IU’s history that tells you that they’d make a play for Beard, Oats or Pearl. Quinn may have brought us Woody and Dolson tried to put in guardrails with Matta and Fife. But Woody was the guy who made Dolson fly to him for the interview and Fife and Matta didn’t take. That’s the picture that formed. When I was a kid my grandmother had two dogs, a big muscular one and a tiny one. The little one had a temper and acted like it was going to go berserk every time another dog would come by. The big dog stayed calm. The little dog knew the big dog was there for him. Woody has had Quinn. But Quinn’s character can never be questioned. He’d never treat IU like his personal playground for a buddy. It’s way bigger than one person and he knows it. I think he will know when it’s right. But will they switch to going after a flamboyant guy like Pearl or a guy like Beard? I will believe it when I see it.

Also it’s not shooting percentage alone. It’s volume. That’s the real issue. Lot of guys can make threes if they wait until they are wide open and have as much time as they want to get it off. It’s an entirely different thing to be Steve Alford.

Defense for sure is a huge issue. Motor, defense, smarts (along with shooting). I made a comment some time back in another thread that 35% in college is like 40% in the pros.

May did go to one final four and was very competitive there. I saw his team beat Arizona this year. They run a good style of ball on both ends. No comparison to Archie. Bless his heart but Archie doesn’t have the horsepower schematically or with adjustments etc. May runs a form of motion and uses Knight principles on D too. It’s far more pleasurable to watch than what we do. Let’s see what May does this March. But after watching them beat Arizona, I doubt anyone wants to see them then.

MM was theoretically a five star recruit. I think we can all agree that’s an over ranking. We can debate whether he’s a high 3 star or a low 4 star. He is also not exactly a poster child for high school coaching in NJ. He has not been exposed to the quality of coaching he’d get throughout Indiana. Big difference. Why do I bring that up here? Because Sisley is the guy we’d need, not MM. If he goes to Purdue and we are stuck with MM, nothing highlights more how much we have lost our way. MM is not a winning player (at least now). He’s the type of guy who would be at Michigan or someplace like that and we would kick his ass with the Sisley type of guys who know how to make winning plays. Now it’s upside down. Hopefully MM gets better but let’s be honest with ourselves.