Kdug

Everyone is playing poorly tonight, but it’s felt like Malik has had a string of poor games to end the season - including tonight. Really feels like he’s been committing a lot of silly turnovers and forcing up very difficult shots, and his defense has been poor.

Just now, 5fouls said:

We win ugly games.  Nebraska is definitely not playing ugly tonight.

As much as I want to hate it since it’s against us, that was some beautiful basketball on both ends from Nebraska. It might just be that they’re hitting a lot of shots, but they look even better than when we played them earlier in the year. Could be a dangerous tourney team.

Just now, SawatchHoosier said:

Nebraska is doing nothing different than what they did the first two games. We have made zero adjustments. 

It’s been a carbon copy of the previous games against them. The only difference is they’re hitting the tough shots in addition to all of the open looks we’re giving them.

How was that not a hook and hold and tomenaga? Seemed blatant and Leal was even asking for a review.

14 minutes ago, IowaHoosierFan said:

You're right on they handled worst competition better than we did.  But its not about them beating us by 9. Its Uconn beating us by 20, Auburn by almost 30, Nebraska by by 16,  Purdue twice by 20+, Wisc by 12,  PSU by 14, Nebraska again by 20.  And we had 5 double digit wins all year. 

While MSU lost 3 games all year by double digits and won 14 games won by double digits.

There is a difference in how they and we played all year and its showing up in the NET.  Regardless of the Quad wins/losses.  Some years, you barely keep your head above water.

my last opinion on this.  Not saying its right, but every single coach knows how the NET works.  Win better, lose better = Better NET

 

Spot on. The one thing I’d add is that if IU would have picked up several big wins, that could make up for poor Effie my metrics. Rutgers 2 years ago was able to make the tourney with bad efficiency numbers because they picked off a bunch of wins against high level teams. This year’s IU team doesn’t have that - we don’t have the efficiency or the resume.

2 minutes ago, 5fouls said:

By the very same metrics you are defending, before today's games MSU's Quad 1 record was the same as IU and their Quad 2 record was worse.  So, I'm not sure where you are coming up with the idea that they have 'better' wins than us. 

This all comes down to them beating Directional U by 25 in November and us beating them by 9.  

That may be how it's designed, but that's not the way it should be.

The quads are just a way of sorting, not the end all be all. A neutral court win vs Baylor is much more impressive than a home win vs Wisconsin.

42 minutes ago, 5fouls said:

MSU lost today.  If IU wins today and tomorrow, but loses to Purdue on Sunday, who should get the 6th B1G bid?

We might have a case then, but the B1G isn’t necessarily entitled to 6 bids, especially with how mediocre the conference did in the non-con. I think there’s a better argument for MSU being out than us being in.

Just now, Maedhros said:

Even in Strength of Record, we're sitting at 51. MSU is at 46. KPI likes us the least of the resume metrics at 60, with MSU 39. 

Meanwhile the NET has us 94 and MSU 24. For both teams, those ranks are within just a few spots of their efficiency metrics at KenPom, Torvik, and ESPN's BPI. It's very apparent the NET is weighted toward efficiency, not resume.

Somehow the NET has Indiana ranked lower than we are anywhere else, including KenPom, Torvik, BPI, Massey, EvanMiya, WAB, SOR or KPI.

The NET is meant to be an efficiency metric. My point is that even the resume metrics would have us 10-20 spots outside of the tourney assuming 40ish at large bids after the auto bids. We just really don’t have a case at this point whether you look at resume or efficiency.

If we beat Nebraska and Illinois, our resume would probably be more comparable to a bubble teams. But then the issue is we’ll be compared to other bubble teams with similar resumes, but likely better efficiency.

6 minutes ago, Maedhros said:

My problem with the NET is its not being used in a manner consistent with the way it was designed.

It's clear from this season that NET ratings are weighted heavily toward efficiency metrics. Those measures, like KenPom and Torvik, are predictive. They tell you what you should expect from teams going forward, even project spreads in a matchup between any two teams. What those measures don't tell you is what a team has accomplished over a season.

NCAA Tournament selection is supposed to be about your resume. Who did you play. Who did you beat. Who beat you. Yes, we need a way to sort teams, a way to identify which games are quality wins and which are bad losses. That's a fine use for efficiency metrics. But efficiency doesn't care if you won or lost. As long as it's going to depend so heavily on efficiency metrics, a team's own NET ranking shouldn't be used a proxy for the worthiness of their resume.

I'm as much an advocate for analytics as anyone, but wins and losses have to matter. Six wins in a row over lousy teams still wins you a National Championship. And the thing is, we have statistics that measure resumes. We could use Wins Above Bubble or Strength of Record. By WAB, Indiana started the day at 53 and Michigan St at 52. Those numbers make a lot more sense, based on actual outcomes, than the two teams being ranked 70 spots apart.

I have no problem saying that on a neutral floor, Michigan St would be the favored team. That's a categorically different thing, though, than saying MSU is more deserving of an NCAA Tournament bid.

They use both resume and efficiency metrics, with resume metrics historically be given more weight. IU is poor in both, which is why we aren’t in the conversation. MSU is slightly higher in the resume metrics they use (KPI and SOR) and has good efficiency, which is why they’re considered in as a 10 seed

2 minutes ago, Hoosier82 said:

People were making similar comments about Tamar Bates last year and all he did was go to Mizzou and average 14pts while shooting 50% from the floor, 39% from beyond the arc. Not to mention, 93% from the line. Not everyone is going to round into form as an underclassmen

Bates shot 37% from 3 and 93% from the line last year. Bates had showed that he could actually provide some positive production while Gunn and Banks never have. He’s definitely improved this year at Missouri, but he showed signs of this last year and was one of our better bench players.

1 hour ago, 94hoosier said:

I get the margin of victory but not for 70 spots. We played in the conference played the same teams have the same record. 70 spots behind is ridiculous. We have 4 losses to the top 6 net teams and 3 more to top 22 net teams

thats 7 of the 13 to top 22 net teams

wins over 2 top 25 net teams. 

Not saying we belong in.  But we should be in the conversation. Overall record and win quality stack up to other bubble teams. 

Again, I think there’s a substantial gap in overall efficiency (which is what the NET is) between MSU and IU. 70 spots doesn’t seem all that off from what I’d expect when looking at the results. Pure wins and losses we’re closer to MSU, but even then MSU has wins over some top tier teams like Baylor and Illinois, while IU’s best win is probably vs MSU or Wisconsin (and basically nothing after those 2), who are mid to lower seeded teams. There’s also a reason MSU is in the bubble conversation, and that’s because their resume isn’t as strong as their efficiency numbers. IU is very weak in both areas.

And I don’t know that citing IU’s losses to top teams - almost all of which we got blown out in - is a good argument for us being in or close to being in. Who cares if you played good teams if you can’t compete with them. If anything that shows that we can’t compete consistently with good competition.

3 hours ago, 5fouls said:

It's not neceassarily where we are ranked, but where we are ranked in relation to our peers from the Big Ten.  You say we cant ignore the first 3.5 months.  I say you cant ignore the last 3 weeks either.

A win over MSU in Sunday should mean more than struggling against Army in November.  It just does.  

 

Ageeed, you don’t ignore the last 3 weeks either. Which is why I said we’ve played like a tourney caliber team during that stretch. But that’s only 5 games out of the 32 we’ve played. You can’t just ignore the other 27 games, or 85% of the season, of mostly mediocre to bad basketball. If we would’ve played like this most of the season, we would be in the tourney. Unfortunately we didn’t, and we dug a hole too deep both in terms of wins and losses and efficiency metrics.

I’d bet most of the top 100 teams have a stretch of games where they’ve looked tourney caliber. But it’s about doing that consistently throughout the year, not just the last 5 games of the year.

Just now, IUFLA said:

Except on the court last Sunday  

A home win by 1 point doesn’t prove anything lol. And you can’t use head to head when evaluating 360 teams or you’d end up in a never ending loop. Penn State is 2-1 against us, but I’d bet we’re closer to an at large bid than they are.

1 hour ago, 5fouls said:

You cant make this shiat up.

We have the same overall record as MSU

We have the same Quad 1 record as MSU.

We have a better Quad 2 record than MSU.

We own a head to head win over MSU.

We are 70 spots behind MSU in the NET.

The quads have 0 impact on the net, so not sure why referencing them proves anything. It’s pretty simple to see the difference in MSU vs IU. MSU has a lot of blowout wins, including over solid to good teams like Butler, Baylor, and ISU. They also only have 3 double digit losses, with none of them being by 20+ points. They also blew out every single 100+ rated team on their schedule.

IU has almost no blowout wins, and as we all know struggled in almost all of the games against inferior opponents. We also have 8 double digit losses, including 4 by 20+ points.

Any objective evaluation of MSU vs IU would show that MSU is the better team (which is what all the metrics show) with the better resume (which is why they’re in the tourney and we are not).

Might be unpopular, but I agree with the NET, kenpom, and other advanced metrics assessment of this IU team. For 75% of the year, we played like one of the worst big ten teams, and really one of the 10-15 worst power conference teams. This last stretch we’ve played tourney caliber basketball, but you can’t ignore the first 3.5 months of the season. Even with this stretch, we’ve still probably only beat 2 at large tournament teams the whole year.

Better late than never, but this improvement in play needed to happen at least a month earlier if we wanted any shot at an at large bid.

14 minutes ago, IowaHoosierFan said:

He could decide to go G League and get paid to develop.  I don't think he will.  Its more likely he would transfer than do that.  More than likely, he is back and out best player on next years team.  He has been pretty good all year, other than defense. 

I’d imagine the G league would be a paycut vs what he’d get in NIL. Agreed with everything else.

1 minute ago, dgambill said:

His desire to be OAD was stated from the start. I’d put money on him going late second as a prospect or taking a g league contract. Could be wrong but that’s how I felt coming into the season and that’s what I still think now. 

He won’t be drafted if he goes, and I feel very confident saying that - unless he puts up some crazy numbers in the BTT. He’s not on any draft board, or even top 100s. Sure, he could declare and go undrafted, but I don’t think that’s likely.

17 hours ago, dgambill said:

How many openings will we have. Trey, Leal, Walker, XJ graduating…Ware/Mgbako likely nba…open scholly makes 7 gone minimum…leaving 5 left and Banks, Gunn very likely to transfer…wow Woodson has work to do.

Mgbako is not even in consideration for the nba this year. He’s either back or transferring.

31 minutes ago, dbmhoosier said:

 

 

I never got this argument. Yes Archie got a 4th year, but his 3rd year was his best so you could argue things were trending in a positive direction. His 4th year also was a disaster that became very toxic, so no idea why that’s pointed to like it was a successful example. If anything, it’s an example of what it could look like if things go poorly.

22 hours ago, Seeking6 said:

Last year with UConn work? Of course it's how the person phrases it. UConn, Purdue, Gonzaga over the years all use inside out. Difference being the out guys have to make the shots.

A little behind on this thread, but wanted to reply to this. You kind of get at it at the end, but those teams use the inside part to setup the outside part. Uconn was top 70 in 3 point rate last year and made a lot of those. Purdue is more inside focus, but that’s because Edey is one of the most efficient scorers that’s played in college in awhile - and even they’re 234th in 3 point rate with the 2nd best percentage.

Really since the start of Archie IU has been inside in. We throw it inside, and if that doesn’t work we still force inside. That style has become more extreme under Woodson. Archie at least had a few teams that were top 300 in 3 point rate. Woodson’s first year was the highest 3 point rate at 322. I think a big part of the issue is that Woodson’s teams seem to use deep 2s as the “outside” part of the offense, which is just a losing strategy.

Probably the best game we’ve played since Minnesota, or maybe Iowa? Either way, tonight’s win was needed.

What was that foul Malik?

1 minute ago, KoB2011 said:

Why no Reneau?!?

Truthfully, I feel like we’ve been better with him out tonight. More ball movement and more of a focus on Ware.

Ware with 26 points on 11/12 fg, 5 blocks, and 11 rebounds. Sheesh, what a game so far from him

2 minutes ago, SawatchHoosier said:

Late to the party cause I live in Mountain Time. What's happened?

Kel’el Ware happened