Kdug

Each of the last 3 games have theoretically been the easiest games left on the schedule, and we lost all 3 fairly convincingly. I’d bet we still win one more even though we’re underdogs the rest of the way, but I think we finish 15-17.

Missed free throws and lack of threes on offense. Penn State getting basically whatever they wanted while IU was on defense. We’ve seen this exact same game on repeat for most of the season.

Even though Mbako missed, I loved that last play. I just don’t understand why we don’t see more of that

You’re on fire today. I got a good chuckle out of both of those comments.

Yeah, but that virtually never gets called. Not a smart play by Ware to put himself in that position with no benefit, but that’s never called a foul. And Baldwin threw his head back for no reason which is the classic sign of a flop.

That one was a pure flop. I like that he didn’t pull him with 3 though.

As a percentage, the free throws are actually relatively even, which is a win for this team. PSU just has one extra possession from committing 3 fewer turnovers minus the 2 extra offensive rebounds we have. The threes, as usual, are what is killing us.

Absolutely, but I’ve just given up on that. Seems like that’ll only happen if we’re absolutely forced to

Yeah he had the auto bench too, but I was ok with it for him in this instance because it forces us to go a bit smaller, and he wasn’t playing particularly well. Ware was dominating the game on both ends.

IU was up 27-25, Ware picked up foul #2 and we had the auto-bench, Penn State outscored IU by 9 the rest of the way. Feels like we’ve seen that same story many times this year

There will always be other programs hiring coaches, it doesn’t matter if it’s this year or a future one. There will also be brand new coaches who pop up as popular candidates every year (Dusty May was just starting to pop up as a hot coaching name this time last year). What Michigan and Ohio State do doesn’t concern me in the slightest, and should have very little if any impact on what IU does IMO.

One last point, this isn’t just a down season, this has been a historically bad season. That’s what makes me more frustrated than I otherwise would be. IU this year is scoring 72.8 pts/gm and giving up 74.9 pts/gm, for a net avg margin of -2.1. If you go back all the way to the 1970/1971 season, there are only 3 seasons with a worse margin than this. 2008/2009 (-10.5), 2009/2010 (-5.3), and 2003/2004 (-2.7). That’s 54 seasons, and this is statistically the 4th worst, with 2 of the other seasons that were worse being heavily influenced by sanctions. This season isn’t over and is trending in the wrong direction, so 2003/2004 could still end up better. A step back from last year was expected, but this has been much more than a step back.

Those schools are where they are because they have a culture, identity, and their administration/new coaches did a good job of carrying that over from their great historical coaches. IU has none of that. It has nothing to do with firing an underperforming coach like Archie, or fans being upset that this year’s team is ranked outside of the top 100. Purdue and Wisconsin would also not accept those types of performances, but they’ve put themselves in a position where those performances don’t happen.

I love to dump on Purdue as much as the next guy, but they’ve missed the tourney 3 times since Painters second year. Wisconsin has missed the tourney 3 times since 98/99. And you’re telling me they’d be ok missing the tourney 3 out of 4 years? Absolutely no chance.

Who’s saying they expect final fours? That’s just a straw man argument. The criteria is that you can’t have a season where we’re literally one of the 2 or 3 worst teams in the league. If you do, you better have a great recruiting class coming in that can turn it around quickly. We have neither of those things as it currently stands, which makes a lot of fans worried that this isn’t a one year blip on the radar.

I mean even if you count the Covid year as a tourney appearance, which is fair, Archie’s results were terrible. One double digit seed in 4 years (which is what we would’ve been that year), with 0 winning conference seasons is not acceptable.

At least you could argue the final Archie/Crean teams were a win or two away from the bubble. This team is a win or two a way from the NIT bubble.

I don’t know where this came from, but I’m loving this.

I mean I don’t know how much a guy who has 0 head coaching experience and minimal assistant coaching experience plus a guy with basically no coaching experience at all would improve things. Especially since they’re already on the staff. But if you go that route you’re not worried about this year.

As an interim coach? That’d make some sense. As actual head coach and assistant coach…that’d be the worst idea I’ve ever heard

I know there are different circles of IU fans, but I remember the early Crean years very well and most of my friends and family are IU fans. I don’t remember a single person wanting him gone, and I remember just about everyone being pleased with the direction he had the program going. Crean took over a dumpster fire with a self imposed death penalty and was playing walk ons, and most IU fans understood it would take time. Woodson took over a top 50 kenpom team returning an all time IU player.

Malik has to either contest that shot or just go for the box out. Can’t try to slide in for a charge while the guy is in the air shooting. Not a smart play

Well what does our strength and conditioning coach have to do with any of that? I don’t know if he’s good or bad relative to what other schools have, but I do know that the teams lack of ability to shoot has nothing to do with Clif. At this point we might as well start blaming the tutors for our lack of rebounding

Yeah, it worked in those games. But you’re not mentioning at Maryland where it killed any chance we had in that game, or at PSU, or home vs Iowa. It’s easy to remember the good, but you’re missing the bad. Again, I think it’s an issue of offensive scheme, not anything in particular with JHS.

I definitely give Woodson credit for getting JHS and turning over the reigns to him once XJ got injured. But I honestly don’t think the staff did a great job or developing and maximizing his talents. They should have got JHS comfortable shooting threes and attacking the rim instead of letting him shoot so many pull up midrange twos. He had the worst effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage on the team last year, and it’s solely because of the way he was used. And with XJ, I really am not going to give anyone credit because he had a good 7 game stretch 2 years ago. Part of XJ not living up to the potential he showed in those 7 games is injury related. Even still, it’s hard to say he’s developed at IU when his best statistical season was his last year at Pitt.