Kdug

I still think a lot would have to happen for them not to win it. But there is a little more pressure now. The only game they have remaining that I’d classify as “easy” is home vs Ohio State. The issue is IU (or any of the 5 loss teams) basically has to win out for a realistic shot at catching PU.

Haha, he certainly came alive there at the end.

Yeah, and both losses were road games against the #19 and #21 Ken Pom teams, and both were relatively close

Northwestern’s second half defense has been impressive.

It’s hard to win games when you shoot as poorly as they have. 2/18 from three, woof

Audige has been horrible. Hope he plays like this against us.

Torvik has a ton of free advanced statistics, so I typically use his info. Here's where I found the SOS info from: https://www.barttorvik.com/conf.php?conf=B10&year=2023. There's other sources for SOS like kenpom, but I'd imagine most would show a similar story.

I know it's just the luck of the draw, but you really couldn't have designed a more difficult schedule for IU if you tried. With how the teams are currently ranked, IU has the 3rd most difficult schedule, behind only Minnesota and Ohio State (they don't get to play themselves). Here's how the other top half teams SOS ranks: Purdue (13th), Rutgers (11th), Michigan (10th), Illinois (14th), Iowa (8th), Northwestern (4th). If IU is able to get a double bye in the BTT, it'd be all the more impressive considering how the schedule turned out.

Tennessee losing is definitely surprising, but West Virginia was actually a 2 or 3 point favorite vs Iowa State from what I saw. The Big 12 is absolutely brutal this year.

Tennessee with a bad loss at Vandy on a buzzer beater

Ah, that’d be the only thing that’d make any sense. I thought I was going crazy

Did I miss something or did the refs get the first jump ball in the 2nd half wrong? Rutgers got the ball to start the 2nd half and I think they also gave them the ball after the first jump ball unless I missed something.

I see we’re in the tackle basketball phase of the game

Agreed. I don't think he necessarily takes any bad/forced midrange shots, it's just that it's an inefficient shot to begin with. I think it's fine if he takes some midrange shots, but I'd also like to see him attack the basket more, especially when his shot isn't falling.

It’ll be interesting to see how the committee handles some of the lower half big 12 teams this year. With how strong the conference is, they could have some teams with decent resumes that racked up a lot of losses. West Virginia is a good example. They’re probably expected to go 4-4 in their remaining games, which would put them at 18-13 (7-11 in B12). They’d have no bad losses, and 6 or 7 Q1 wins. All but 1 or 2 of their losses would be Q1, with the remaining being Q2. That’s a lot of losses, but seems like the resume of a tourney team.

Agreed that it was a CAM issue, and I'd imagine it won't be an issue with Woodson. Just pointing out that we really don't have many recent examples of successful NBA players, mainly thanks to CAM. Don't think it's a big negative considering Woodson's NBA background, but I'm sure it doesn't help when other programs can point to recent draftees.

The only post-Crean player on an active NBA roster that I'm aware of is Romeo. I'd imagine it's absolutely a negative when we're going after the top tier recruits.

That has to just be a coping mechanism after a tough loss by your Purdue friend. I wasn't very confident going into this game, but this showed how the game needs to go for us to win. Keep the TJD vs Edey matchup relatively close, then win the other matchups where we have better size and athleticism. Still think winning at Mackey will be tough, but we've definitely got a shot. Role players at home vs on the road would swing a few things Purdue's way, but on the other hand I doubt they can get more offensive rebounds than we get defensive rebounds again. Should be another good game.

That’s how a top 5 team that’s 11-1 in the big ten takes care of business on the road vs their rival that’s 6-5 in the big ten.

The last time JHS and X played in a full game together was vs UNC. It’s not a coincidence that we were playing like a top 10 team up until that point.

I like your optimism. I’m not too confident in this game, mainly because I’m expecting the refs to not call fouls on Purdue like they‘ve been doing all year. The times I’ve seen Purdue play, they get away with a ton of stuff that their opponents don’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if the officiating in the Maryland game looks good in comparison.

Agreed that there's no reason to overreact because of a road loss, but that game illustrates exactly why we need XJ in order to be a top 15 team. With him out, we only have 2 playmakers. If one of them is having an off night like JHS last night, we have nobody else that can fill that secondary playmaker role. Also, XJ is by far our best perimeter defender, which we sorely needed last night. I just think without XJ we have a significantly lower ceiling, though are still a tournament level team. With him (and a healthy TJD and JHS), I think we have the potential to be a very good to elite team.

It drove me crazy how we’d break the press, then stop and let them get their defense set. The few times we attacked them immediately after breaking the press, and before they could get their defense set were some of our best offensive possessions.

With JHS shooting as poorly as he was, a healthy XJ would’ve been big in this game. When he’s back (as long as he’s 80%+ of what he was) that’d give us 2 guards we could go to in support of TJD, which is big so one can take over if the other is off. Also, a healthy XJ is our best on-ball perimeter defender by far. We could’ve used that tonight as well.

Kopp had 5 points in the first half. As a role player, he wasn’t the issue on offense in the first half