Kdug

I just want a close game that’s entertaining throughout. I feel like that’s not too much to ask, but not confident it will happen

Agreed all around. The thing is I could see Woodson realizing he needs to build a roster differently. But based on his comments, I struggle to see him realizing he needs to modernize our style of play. For me, Dolson also needs to know what candidates are interested in the job. If there’s a coach who’d be a clear upgrade, make the move. Using an example from the MLB, just look at what the Cubs did this offseason. They had a manager who was average, still under contract, and done an acceptable but not great job. However, one of the best managers was available and interested. So they fired their manager to make a clear upgrade. It’s cutthroat, but those are the types of moves an AD at a big program needs to be willing to make if available.

I agree with your sentiment, and this might be an unpopular opinion, but I’d switch Ware and Cupps on your list. I can’t really say that Cupps is a mentally strong player when he looks terrified to do anything on offense. I think he hustles and always gives great effort, but I don’t understand why everyone is in love with him. With Ware I think you could call him physically weak because he’s so thin, but I think he’s one of the few players where you know what you’re going to get on a night to night basis. He’s also the only one who seems interested in grabbing a rebound. To me those are signs that he’s more mentally strong than most of our other players.

There’s no way a coach would lose a lawsuit for not playing a player. He will play him because he’ll help him win and now the school isn’t suspending him, but he could not play him if he really wanted to. Not saying he should or shot play him.

I really hope he doesn’t. Feels like he’s starting to grow into the scorer role. The portal makes it so hard to know what to expect year to year

Kicking him off would certainly make us better than we’ve been 3 out of the last 4 games. I’d be fine with doing that and start developing for next year. But that’d basically be waving the white flag on this season. Do you have the lineup stats for those 5 you referenced? I can’t find anywhere that has them for free. It’s tough for me to buy that’s one of the better lineups in the country when one of them is the 3rd worst offensive player in the big ten by offensive rating.

Hard to feel remotely confident in this one. Even good IU teams can’t win at Wisconsin. In my opinion, it feels like we need XJ to start acting like a 6th year senior if we want this, and most of our remaining games vs good competition, to be close. He feels like our best chance at getting impact guard play. Unfortunately that really just shows how big of a weakness our guards are.

Certainly possible. But that doesn’t seem like an attractive option for a freshman with NIL now. A G League deal would have to be a two way deal for it to remotely be attractive, and it probably wouldn’t be guaranteed if he goes undrafted. Going overseas would be a tougher route to making it to the NBA if that’s his goal. I just have to think he’ll be back in college if he doesn’t think he’ll get drafted. With the portal that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be back at IU though.

Mbagko isn’t on any of the latest draft boards I’ve seen. So he’d either have to finish the year very strong or transfer to be here just one year.

Thanks for sharing, the first point is eye popping. Honestly the only thing I’d disagree with is that it made sense for JHS to shoot so many long twos last season. He was good relative to other players, but still was only at 0.85 points per shot. That’s not good relative to other types of shots. He shot 33.3% from three, or 1 point per shot. The staff should have worked with him to make him more comfortable shooting threes and/or attacking the rim.

For the next two games I’d say I expect the team to fight for their season. I know nobody will give them much of a shot, including me, but winning both of those could flip the narrative to a certain extent. If the next two games go the way everyone expects, I’ll be mainly interested on how the young guys develop over the rest of the season. Can Cupps develop any sort of offense? Will Malik get better at passing and not forcing up shots through multiple defenders? Can Gunn shoot more consistently? We’ll need the young guys to get better if we want next year to be any better. I’d also like to see some stylistic changes, which I think a lot of that falls on Woodson. I’d mainly like to see a more modern approach where we focus more on the perimeter and getting to the rim (on both ends). I’m sick and tired of seeing that out of bounds play that we run to get CJ Gunn a tough midrange shot. If you’re going to run that play, make it a 3. In the offseason, I want Queen and then every other spot to be filled with a guard, preferably multiple veteran transfer guards. Post play hasn’t been an issue even going back to the Archie teams, but we’ve lacked dynamic guard play for quite awhile. The staff needs to do everything they can to get good guards coming in for next year, because I can’t see anyone that I’d feel good about starting at guard next year. The staff and players have a lot of work cut out, that’s for sure.

Eh, I don’t think the officiating is targeting IU in particular. I just think they’re incompetent.

Well 3 thoughts on that: Worst officiating in an IU game I can ever recall. It completely dictated the first half, and essentially handed Purdue a massive lead. I think it would’ve been a fun game with an even whistle. While the officiating was horrible, Woodson needed to put Ware and Mgbako back in the first half. Ware finished with 3 fouls and Mgbako finished with 2. No need to foul out your own players, especially when the game is slipping away. It’s hard to make much of a determination from that “basketball” game due to the refs. But it still feels like we aren’t a good team due to a lack of consistent guard play and perimeter shooting. It’ll be interesting to see how we look in the next 2.

At this point refs just call stuff on XJ because of his reputation lol. Loyer pretty clearly pushed him

Feels like we ran out of steam

Galloway came to play this half. Ware has played fantastic defense vs Edey. Need to keep it up

This is a different game if Mgbako and Ware don’t get in foul trouble. I put part of that on Woodson, there’s no rule that says you can’t play them if they have 2 fouls in the first half.

I’ll admit I definitely overestimated XJ. But I also think people remember JHS being better than he was, primarily because of his game at Purdue. He was solid, but his best skill was knocking down mid range shots, which isn’t a super useful skill in modern basketball. He had the lowest effective field goal % and lowest offensive rating on the team of the guys who actually played last year. Not meant to knock him, I thought he was good for a freshman. Just hadn’t developed efficient 3 point shooting or finishing ability.

Man what a dumpster fire all around. Starting with IU’s play, I thought we started off strong. As soon as Ware and Mgbako went out we struggled. It felt like we missed a ton of open threes, and we took way too many deep twos (looking at you Gunn and XJ). I usually think the complaints about Woodson benching guys with 2 fouls is overblown, but today it’s warranted. Who cares if they make it to the 2nd half with 2 fouls if the game is out of reach That being said, that first half was probably the biggest ref show I remember seeing. It’s incredible how different the game was called on the two ends. The funniest (or saddest) example is Edey lowering his shoulder on just about every play and not getting called for anything, then XJ does the same thing trying to block him out and it’s a flagrant. It’s tough to tell how bad we’re actually playing - and I do think we played poorly - because of how much the refs took over that half.

Xavier gets an F1 for something Edey does on every single play? This is just funny at this point

Yeah, a lot of them are good looks too. Need to keep shooting and hit those if we’re going to have any chance

Offensive foul on Edey missed. Forearm right to Malik’s face to clear room to shoot. Unbelievable what they let him do.

Reneau guarding Edey is a terrible matchup on D. Best offensive rebounder in the country vs a guy who struggles to block out. At this point I’d risk it and bring Ware back in before it gets out of hand.

Wtf is happening with these calls. It’s an absolute slugfest when we’re on offense, on defense it’s just constant ticky tack fouls. Just officiate it consistently on both ends, is that too much to ask?

I don’t understand hook and holds. Edey slams into Sparks and it’s a flagrant on Sparks?