Kdug

Sheesh, right when we get an ounce of momentum we give up another offensive rebound and then a flagrant.

That’s why it’s so baffling. If it were that simple, it would’ve been fixed by now.

One additional thing, we have one of the biggest lineups in the country. It’s baffling how we’re such a bad rebounding team.

Well, thought we started ok, but things seemed to go bad on both ends after we turned it over on those 3 to 4 straight possessions early. Unlike some on here are making it seem, an 8 point deficit is far from insurmountable. But we need to come out and play a lot better on both ends.

Defense has actually been ok so far in my opinion when Nebraska hasn’t gotten out in transition from a turnover. Unfortunately we’re turning it over on what feels like every possession.

I think us being underdogs has more to do with Nebraska just looking like a better team so far and being at home than anything matchup related. I thought Michigan’s offense was an even worse matchup for us. They took threes at a high rate and made threes at a high rate. Nebraska takes threes at a high rate and makes them at a below average rate. Also, Nebraska has very large splits in their 2 point % allowed in the 5 games against top 100 opponents (52.12%) and the 8 games vs opponents outside the top 100 (39.33%).

Here’s a good long write up of each position group as it currently stands by Bite Sized Bison: https://bitesizedbison.substack.com/p/indianas-roster-after-winter-transfer The write up has me excited about our offense, feels like we have a lot of production and experience. I’d imagine we’ll still have a few more additions on the defensive side, but there’s a good start at DT and LB.

The NET is an efficiency metric, so yeah adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency are the only things that drive it. You’re referencing wins and losses, which are better reflected in resume based metrics. In KPI Alabama is 43rd and SOR they’re 58th

That throw by Penix was beautiful. Washington is what IU could’ve been with a competent O line. Penix with time to throw is unstoppable.

Team 1 has the best offense in the country. I think they’re a national title contender if they can just make marginal improvements on defense.

I don’t think the NET tracks that, but I know Trank does. He uses a weighted margin of victory, so scenario A is considered a better performance than scenario B. I don’t think that’d necessarily help us this year though. We’ve had a lot of games that were back and forth where we pulled away late.

Well, prepare to be surprised. Nevada lost by 25 to Arizona State, which significantly impacted their kenpom ranking.

I believe those are the KP rankings after the tourney. I think going in they were as follows: MS St: #49 Pitt: #77 Az St: #68 Nevada: #43

I mean their entire team basically opted out of that game. I think I saw that 91% of their season long production was out. Don’t want to go too off topic, but bowl games are meaningless for teams who have championship aspirations but don’t make it.

Florida Gulf Coast upsets #7 FAU. Should help us a bit since we beat them, but they’ll still rank as a bad team unless they go on a tear.

They play 48 minutes and a 24 second shot clock. They are also playing NBA teams that have several multi-dimensional players, unlike college. Compared to other NBA teams they aren’t good on defense. Compared to college teams, they’d be the best defensive team by a country mile.

Is your takeaway from the pacers game really that NBA defenses are worse than college? I see some insanely talented players making great plays and shots. The shot and play making vs college is night and day.

TJD with his first start tonight.

Maybe average wasn’t the right word, I’m thinking if we play defense similar to how we did vs Michigan we’ll have a shot. IMO we’ve had 4 mediocre to bad defensive performances since then, with the only good defensive performance being vs Kansas. Our offense has been better than our defense during this stretch.

Fair enough, and agreed. We’re in a weird spot we’re we’ve played a lot of really bad basketball, and are very lucky to not have lost some of those games vs bad teams. But we didn’t, so our “resume” is still in an ok spot despite having similar metrics to the 16-16 Nebraska team last year.

The eye test has also been proven to be just about the worst way to rank teams in just about every sport. That’s a great way to have a committee that justifies screwing good mid-majors over for mediocre P5 teams.

Efficiency metrics take into account pace of play by always being per possession or per 100 possessions. So giving up 80 points in 85 possessions would be considered better than giving up 64 points on 60 possessions.

That’s not true. Our efficiency metrics are bad, but our resume metrics are still ok. BPI and kenpom have us at 89th and 87th. KPI and SOR have us at 54th and 43rd. Historically speaking, the committee is more likely to include teams with resume metrics that are higher than efficiency metrics than the other way around. Imo if we get our resume metrics into the top 40 or so, we’ll make the tourney. Granted, I don’t think we’ll do that without improving our efficiency metrics into the top 60 or 70.

In Nebraska’s 5 non-cupcake games, they’ve been mediocre on D. The only game they were good on D against a top 100 opponent was vs K State. They have good metrics on defense because they’ve had 4 games vs sub 300 ranked teams where they dominated - which to be fair, IU hasn’t been able to do. I think this game comes down to the other side of the ball. If we can just be close to average on defense, I think we’ll have a decent shot to pull it out.

I’m not sure I agree with the bolded part, at least on offense. I think there’s been clear signs of improvement on offense from the first 5 games. I do agree that the defense has the same concerns, and at this point my only hope of improvement on that side of the ball is that maybe XJ changes things. I’m not very confident that we’ll make the needed improvement on defense to make the tourney.