Kdug

I voted for TJD for MVP of game 1. I thought it was close between him and Malik, but Malik having 3 turnovers vs TJD having 0 made the difference to me.

It feels like every call goes against IU. McFadden last year vs cincy was bs as was whatever the refs did there. WKU basically got multiple cheap shots with no repercussions.

Illinois flops more than any analogy I can think of

Just now, D-BONE said:

Little behind, but you have to make the catch...

Yeah, that’s on the receiver. Hit him in the hands

Thoughts on the first half:

1. Bazelak looks decent. Missed a couple of throws, but was able to stretch the field. Seems like an improvement on what we had last year.

2. Our O-line and D-line do not look good at all.

3.These announcers are legitimately the worst football announcers I’ve heard in my life.

4. Can Camper looks awesome.

5. Big Lug makes some good beer.

3 hours ago, BGleas said:

It's a complete myth that IU/Woodson ran a "2 lineup system". It didn't happen. 

We're there times that we had 5 subs on the court together, sure, but Woodson never mass-substituted. He phased the bench guys in and then phased them out. 

5 bench guys would be in together for a few minutes at most and it was almost exclusively in the 1st half. 

Michael Durr didn't play in 5 games and numerous times didn't play in the 2nd half. JG had several games where he didn't play in the 2nd half and Bates had some too. Then you add in that Phinisee missed 10 games and Galloway missed 15. 

This two lineups/mass-substitution thing gets way overblown IMO. 

I was curious so I looked up how many minutes we had without one of XJ, TJD, or Race on the floor. It was 127 minutes. That's 3.6 minutes per game, and is almost certainly inflated by blowouts. With all 5 starters out, it was only 80 minutes where none were on the floor (2.3 mins per game). The mass substitutions is way overblown, and in reality just didn't happen to the degree many think it did.

12 minutes ago, tdhoosier said:

What's not being debated (for the most part):
-Players need rest (check)
-According to the 'macro numbers', our starters played a lot of minutes (check)

What I continue to debate:
-It's not that bench players received too many minutes, it's that Woody took all the productive players out at ONE TIME. Whether this came with one substitution or a few substitutions: there were many times that a bad line up was on the floor and cost us momentum, lost the lead, let our opponents back into the game. 
 

Because @btownqb said I needed to go back and watch the games. I did. I realized I still have them on my DVR. It wasn't really that hard because this 'bad line up' always is in around the 10.00 mark in the first half.

A 'bad lineup' is defined as one without one of our 3 best players on the floor: Race, TJD and X. 

Below are the games still available on my DVR.....
-Woody had the 'bad  lineup' on the floor every game except once. 
-The bad line up was always used around the ten minute mark
-In every situation there was a point swing not in our favor. And many of the times that line-up killed the momentum that we had gained prior to it going in. 

St. Mary's
*We were up 18-14 when the bad lineup went in. When one of TJD, Race or XJ came back in we were down 21-26
*Result: -9 point swing 

Wyoming
*Bad line up enters at 10.18 with IU up 11-8. IU is only up 13-12 when TJD and XJ sub back in at 6.48
*Result: -3 point swing. We only score 2 points in 3 and a half minutes. 

Iowa
One of our Big 3 (TJD, XJ, Race) remained in the lined up at all times during the first half. 

Illinois
*Bad line up enters at 11.57 with IU up 15-10. IU is only up 15-14 when TJD and subs back in at 9.56
*Result: -4 point swing. 

Michigan
*Bad line up in at 9.05 with IU down 10-19. IU is down 14-25 when TJD subs bak in at 7.04
*Result: -2 point swing

Purdue
The early game on ESPN ran late, so the IU game cut in on my DVR with 8.00 left in the first half. The lineup was at full strength at this point, but PU was coming off a 10-0 run. Perhaps somebody can remember who was in the game around the 10.00 mark. Based on a pattern you see forming, I'm betting that lineup didn't contain one of our best 3. 

Rutgers
*Bad line up in at 8.44 with IU up 21-16. Race checks in at 6.06; IU is only up 18-21
*result -2 point swing

 

Fair critique. Although I think this shows a lack of depth rather than poor substitutions. We were at our best when X and TJD were in the game together, especially at the end of the year. If we’re trying to make sure one of them (or Race) is always on the floor, we’d have less time with our most effective duo. IMO that might help us during these stretches, but hurt us when we don’t have X and TJD playing together as much.

26 minutes ago, 5fouls said:

Would be interested in the breakdown of competitive conference games vs. cupcakes in the preseason.  It stands to reason the top players are not going to play big minutes in 30 point blowouts.  That will pull their average down

IU top 3 vs top 100 opponents:

TJD: 83% of minutes

Race: 74% of minutes

X: 70% of minutes

All high majors that are above 87.5% of minutes vs top 100 goes from 10 to 17 players with Wendell Moore (Duke), Ryan Hawkins (Creighton), and Collin Gillespie (Nova) being on tourney teams. There were 149 players vs top 100 that had at least 75% of minutes (30 mpg) vs 129 players when looking at games against all teams.

3 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

I didn't say we need to play 35+ minutes from the starters but if needed I don't see a problem with that. My main complaint about this year's team was trying to play 10 players

 

We really didn't try to play 10 players meaningful minutes, especially at the end of the season. When you look at the box scores after rob came back (excluding St Marys since there was a lot of garbage time), we typically would play 9 players with 1-2 players getting 5-10 minutes and 1 player getting less than 5 minutes.

3 minutes ago, 5fouls said:

Some teams can do it and be successful.  IU in 21-22 was not one of them.  I need to look it up, but pretty sure 'Nova had a very tight rotation, even before the Elite 8 injury, and made the Final Four.

I saw 35 mpg referenced, so I decided to look up how many good teams actually play anyone that many minutes. Of the high major teams, only 10 players total played at least 87.5% of their team's minutes (equivalent to 35 per game). Of those 10 players, only Eli Brooks played for a tournament team.

With last year's team TJD played 80% of the teams minutes. That's about the most I'd expect for any player once you factor in fatigue, foul trouble, etc. For our other two best players, Race played 71% of the available minutes while Xavier played 67%. Race played less down the stretch due Geronimo playing better than him in a few games, while Xavier played less earlier in the year due to foul trouble and inconsistent play. There's nothing wrong with the rotations, we just didn't have anyone outside of TJD that consistently earned playing 30+ mpg throughout the whole year. In the stretches where Xavier or Race were playing well, they were also getting around 30 mpg.

I legitimately can't understand why anyone thinks TJD, Race, and JG playing together last year would've worked better than the lineups we used. Our biggest issues on offense were shooting and spacing. Taking MK out for JG would've made both of those worse, not to mention downgrading our perimeter defense. JG also struggled with fouling too much (averaged 4.6 fouls per 40), which would've just been worse if he had to guard quicker perimeter players that he certainly would've struggled to keep in front of him.

2 minutes ago, 13th&Jackson said:

Didm’t see this posted elsewhere, but longtime MSU assistant Dwayne Stephens was named head coach at Western MI. Maybe that’s why Fife to Butler wasn’t a done deal

I keep seeing people reference fife to butler. Is that just because him and Matta were at IU this last year, or is there some other connection I’m not aware of? I’d think fife going to W MI would make more sense since he actually coached with Stephens for several years.

IU made his top 5. No idea what our chances are, but would be a huge get.

IMO this isn’t severe enough to kick him off the team, but ultimately it’s up to Coach Woodson.
 

The other thing I will say is that we used to have a coach that repeatedly did much worse than this, yet nobody called for him to be fired because he was winning.

2 minutes ago, dbmhoosier said:

The other site is saying he was doing 140 in a 50 😬

Not sure what kind of car he drives, but I don’t think most cars can even get up to 140

6 minutes ago, Zuckerkorn said:

True, patience is called for as all the "moving parts" align.  BUT, each week I wonder to myself: "What did we do this week to get better?".  Obviously, it's early but thus far nothing.  As days, weeks, months pass it will become apparent what our immediate trajectory will be.  I still maintain that if we only take incremental changes, it will lead to incremental (read:modest) improvements.

At this point, none of the impact transfers have committed anywhere. Maybe you could say the 2 Murray state players going to LSU were impact players, but LSU also lost their whole team. So to this point, there’s not really any team that’s done much to improve for next year. It’ll take awhile for the portal to sort itself out. But agreed that we need to add an impact player (or 2-3 impact players if TJD and/or race leave) if we want more than incremental improvements.

1 minute ago, Coach Robby said:

MR is number one on my wish list. Has tools and teachable. Plays hard too

He looks very good. Absolutely dominating the first half of the championship game

18 minutes ago, Drroogh said:

Playing again right now I ESPN1

He looks like the best defender on the floor. Hasn't really looked for his shot, but has done a good job facilitating the offense.

1 hour ago, BGleas said:

I hear what you're saying. I think the difference there is that Hulls was just a bad defender due to several factors (not effort) regardless of his height. Yogi as a freshmen wasn't a good defender regardless of his height. 

I don't know what kind of defender Pack is, but XJ is a solid defender. If Pack is solid on that end, then I'm not too concerned. 

Plus, assuming in this scenario TJD back then he helps alleviate a lot of that with his shot blocking. 

I just watched St. Peter's beat Purdue and Kentucky with basically a 3-guard lineup. 

Ultimately, I'd love to have a backcourt of 6'4" guys that can shoot, create and defend, but at the end of the day I'm tired of not having multiple playmakers, shot makers and creators. 

FWIW, Evan Miya has transfer portal rankings that rates every transfer on both offense and defense. No idea how accurate he is, but he has Pack rated very poorly on defense...The flip side is he has the 2nd highest rating on offense

8 minutes ago, btownqb said:

2013 is the last time I truly remember there being multiple top tier teams in the B1G. 

I’d argue 2019, but mostly agree outside of that. Not unrelated, 2013 is the last time IU was an elite team.

3 minutes ago, btownqb said:

The problem is... those were the expectations. And that isn't exclusive for this year. 

Eh, I’d disagree that it’s a consistent issue. last year there were 4 1 or 2 seeds from the big ten, and then everyone but Michigan severely underperformed. 2019 had MSU in the final 4 and PU in the elite 8. 2018 Michigan made the finals. Point being, there’s usually at least one top tier team in the big ten, if not a few teams. That just wasn’t the case this year.

I really think it’s being overstated how bad the big ten was in the tourney this year. Here’s a summary of each team:

Wisconsin - 3 seed, R32; underperformed by 1 game. Really shouldn’t have been seeded that high, had mediocre efficiency metrics for a 3 seed

Purdue 3 seed, R32; met expectations. With the way the bracket shook out, you could argue they underperformed. But St Peters has shown they’re no fluke.

Illinois - 4 seed, R32; although according to the seed line, they should make the S16, they had the worst possible 5 seed in Houston. According to efficiency metrics, Houston should’ve been a 1 or 2 seed. I’d say they met the tourney expectations, and just got a really bad draw.

Iowa - 5 seed, R64; underperformed by 1 game. Seems worse than that since they were a popular pick to make a deep run

Ohio St - 7 seed, R32; met expectations

Michigan St - 7 seed, R32; met expectations

Michigan - 11 seed, S16; exceeded expectations by 2 games

Rutgers/IU - play in 11/12 seeds, R68/R64; grouping IU and Rutgers together since both were in the play in games. Play in games are supposed to be close to a 50/50 matchup, so you’d expect 1 of 2 teams to win. Combined met expectations.

So based on the seeds the big ten got, it basically matched expectations with a few higher seeds underperforming by a game, Michigan over performing by 2 games, and everyone else doing exactly what they were supposed to based on the seeding. The big ten just didn’t have a top tier team this year, even though Purdue looked like they were going to be early in the year. There was just a lot of depth in the conference.

4 minutes ago, IU_Realist said:

Both at the three:

Kopp isn’t quick enough to guard threes. He doesn’t handle the ball well enough to be a three.  He also doesn’t shoot it well enough to offset those deficiencies:

Geronimo - see above.

Analysis: Neither should be playing the three. 
 

Both at the four:

Kopp would make a nice four and handles it better for this position.  Can guard on the perimeter for this position. Problem is he cannot rebound and is kind of a wimp in the post. 
 

Geronimo was probably best at the four. Kid can rebound and use his athleticism.  Showed good at the high low.  Think he will continue shooting well.

Analysis: Thought our best lineups at the end included Kopps butt on the bench and Geronimo at the four with TJD or Race.  Analysis means dump having two bigs that can’t shoot because this isn’t 1970 and the Big Ten needs to reevaluate all the crappy things it does.  Also dump Kopp or make him a bench player 10-15 minutes per game 
 

 

I agree with a lot of this, but 2 comments on Kopp:

1. I think in the right matchups, he was a better defender than most give him credit for. He did a particular good job at chasing pure 3 point shooters and limiting their open looks. He’s definitely not the quickest, so he can struggle with athletic wings.

2. Although he’s known as an offensive player, he was pretty bad on offense this year, mainly because he was horrible at shooting 2s. He shot 35% from 2 and almost shot as many 2s as 3s. He either needs to get better from 2, or he needs to be a pure 3 point specialist. If he’s a 3 point specialist, he’s definitely a bench player at this point. If he develops a pull-up game and can shoot 2s at closer to 50%, I think he can be an adequate starter. If he doesn’t do either, I don’t think he should get many minutes at all

6 minutes ago, IUwins0708 said:

My fear is we have to settle either in the portal or for some flyer freshman that isn’t as good as what we let go.  Not saying the talent didn’t need an upgrade because it did, but hopefully there was some promises from players that want to commit or we could be screwed. Again not saying I hate what’s going on but it could easily back fire as well.

I liked all of our players last year, so it is sad to see them go. But here are the offense ratings of the players that have left so far: KL - 78.5, RP - 83.5, MD - 89.9, PS - 102.0. For reference, an average player in the big ten would have an offensive rating of 107 or 108. None of the players we have lost thus far were particularly productive last year on offense, and I'd argue rob was the only good defender out of the four. In addition to that, all of the players but Khristian had been in college at least 4 years, so I wouldn't expect huge jumps in production next year. It's tough because they all seem like really good people, but this team needed to shake things up a bit if we want to be good next year.

1 hour ago, IUCrazy2 said:

Probably last thing I will say on this because some of the replies are getting silly to the point of condescension.

1.  If Fife did everything he is being accused of exactly as has been portrayed, it is a bad look on him.  I don't think anyone is disputing that.

2.  If Fife did all those things, it would lead one to wonder how on earth he has lasted in the business this long, including 10 years at an in conference rival that has been arguably the standard bearer of the BIG since Knight was fired.

3.  Given those things, I believe this is not as black and white as most of the people here are portraying.

4.  The statement attributed to Woodson and released by Indiana was about as "aggressive" of a "we are parting ways" statement that I have seen.  Yeah, he is part of the Indiana Family (no duh, he played for the team and made an NCAA Final game, nobody can take that away from him) but they made sure that everybody knew he was fired.

5.  Rabjohns tweet was a hit.  It did not have to be released because some fans on a message board were questioning things.  That is such a cop out.  Rabjohns does not say anything like that without go ahead from IU.  It went over like a lead brick and someone called him and told him to delete.  That is all strategic though.  Just posting something for a minute gets that message out there.

6.  You can read some other guys (like Tom Brew) who are also "connected" to the program and they deliver a different picture that is more grey.  Woodson being uptight about the Coach in waiting deal.  Woodson not utilizing his own assistants.  Woodson trying to run things like an NBA team.  

7.  We all want Woodson to succeed and I was ok with how the season ended but we were 1/2 away from the NIT just 2 weeks ago.  We had 15 losses this year.  We were like 2-11 against the BIG teams with a pulse.  There were stupid roster management decisions all year long from the substitution patterns down to who got minutes.  We fell apart late in a whole bunch of games.

8.  Dakich was right in the Indiana way.  We dispose of people and character assassinate them on the way out.  And that comment hit at me too.  I have done that to players before.  And here we are doing it to another IU guy over what looks like 2 big egos that could not get along.  People go out of their way to make sure a guy like Romeo Langford was protected a few years back from comments and now they are on the pile on Fife train.  

9.  Fife was asked to come here.  Sounds like he was told things.  He is brutally honest and the honest truth appears to be that there were some things Woodson was doing well and there were some where he was lost.  Fife's mistake was believing that he could talk about that kind of stuff in confidence when this whole program from the AD, to the media, to the fans has all got to have their piece and say.  So we ran off a "member of the family" who left a 10 year job to move he, his alumni wife, and two small children here (and that happens sometimes) but then we character assassinated him on the way out.  IU is toxic.  There is a reason we have not been good for 20 years.  Coaches have come and gone but the AD culture and program culture remain the same.  

10.  This absolutely will be a "we should have seen" moment in 3 years IF things don't work out.  For all our sake, I hope that is not the case.

These aren't numbered in any particular order, but figured I'd respond to some of your thoughts since several people have seemingly been saying some similar things.

1. I have no idea what event actually happened, but at this point most of the stuff about Woody is pure speculation. It all boils down to there were some leaked rumors that he is stubborn and hard to work with. People keep complaining about IU leaking stuff about DF, but leaking info is a 2 way street. At this point, it seems pretty clear where the leaked info about Woody is coming from. 

2. Some of the info about DF is also pure speculation, but some of it came directly from DF tweets. He publicly (drunkenly?) tweeted about his former school having a better student section - which is not a big deal imo, but still a bad look. More importantly, he tweeted some negative comments on NIL. Whether he was trying to get a different point across or not, having the perception of being an anti-NIL will kill recruiting high level players. If you're an anti-NIL school or staff, you are immediately out of the running for almost all 5 star and a lot of 4 star recruits. Whether you like NIL or not, it's here to stay and IU needs to take advantage of it.

3. If that was an "aggressive" parting ways announcement, I'm assuming you don't follow sports very closely. That was about as benign as it gets. Also, more broadly speaking, I disagree with some that say IU should have said it was a mutual parting of the ways. I prefer an organization actually have the courage to say what happened. It sends a strong message internally and externally about what expectations are and what happens when expectations aren't met.

4. We have our most successful season since 2016, and now all of a sudden Woody can't coach because he let go of a liked former player/assistant? Come on. I have no idea if Woody will be the answer long term, but this is as optimistic I've been about IU bball since the start of the 2017 season. Also not sure which two of the following B1G teams are the ones with a pulse: Purdue, Ohio State, Michigan, and Illinois 

5. Rabjohns is not an IU employee. He does not need to ask for approval to post stories/messages about what he has heard.