Kdug

At this point option B isn’t really what the keep Woodson scenario looks like though since 5 of those 6 guys aren’t committed. I’m also not sure how we could expect legit guards to come in for ‘24 when that’s exactly what we needed this last offseason and we whiffed. Honestly, if all of those guys were committed, I’d bet there would be a little less heat on Woodson since there would be something to point to.

On your PU comment, they run way better offense than we do from what I’ve seen. They’re post up heavy like us since they have Edey, but their guards are constantly moving which is why they get so many open 3s. We tend to get it into the post and just stand around, which is incredibly easy to defend. It also doesn’t help that when Malik gets the ball he is only looking to score and constantly misses wide open teammates. And agreed the injury to X doesn’t help with the guards, but we were pretty bad at the beginning of the year when X was still playing. And if we were relying on Newton to play meaningful minutes after he missed basically a full year due to a serious injury in HS, that’s just wishful thinking.

Good matchup tonight with Iowa St playing at Houston. Should be a defensive showcase with Houston having the #1 defense and Iowa St having the #3 defense per kenpom. The most points per possession Houston has allowed at home this year is 0.932 which is just insane. I really need to watch some good basketball after yesterday.

We haven’t won a game by 20 all year, even against the early season cupcakes. This is probably our best shot at a win the rest of the way, but we’re probably still going to be underdogs.

Generally speaking I’d say it’s not worth listening to anything Dakich says. But in this case, he is an expert in being a terrible coach, so he’s got that going for him.

That might’ve been our worst half of the year. It’s just so frustrating watching the lack of fundamentals. This team just doesn’t do any of the little things that help win games.

Lol, who cares what a guy did before he got to a school? IU fired a guy who had (6) 20 win seasons, including (3) 25 win seasons from 2014-2020.

Yeah I never like the argument of “this really good player made the coach look good”. That’s true for every coach.

You will never know who’s actually contacted in any coaching search. If we’re going to give Ohio State credit for a list of coaches from a burner account - and it wasn’t even coaches that the account said were contacted - then I’d give some credence to the rumors from the last IU coaching search. But fair point, we don’t really ever know who was contacted. But I’d be surprised if Dolson just reached out to Woodson and called it a day during the last search.

I know the metrics still liked them relatively speaking, but they won 5 big ten games. They were bad. Also, that’s simply not true that #49 is a decent IU season of the last 30 years. IU was ranked 44th in the year Crean got fired. Even in the Archie years that’d still be an average season.

Idk, I don’t give credit to a school for reaching out to a coach and have them say no. By all accounts IU did that the last time around. I do think the last two guys you mentioned are realistic though. Will be interesting to see who they get.

I know Trilly is supposedly plugged in, but I don’t see any reason why Oats would leave Bama for OSU unless there’s a big pay increase. And any pay increase could easily be matched by Bama. Feels like that might just be a play by his agent to get a raise at Bama

To be fair, they did wait another year. OSU was terrible last year and it sounded like a lot of fans wanted him gone, but he still got this year. They’ve been on a downhill trend since losing to the 15 seed 2021

Eh, I’d wait before saying Scheyer is doing a good job. They were a 5 seed last year, which is the 3rd worst seed Duke’s had in the last 25 years. It’ll be telling how they look once he gets into years 4+ and the Coach K momentum is mostly gone.

Mac definitely isn’t ready, but Ware is. Maybe he comes back to improve his draft stock, but I’d wager he goes pro. Honestly Ware going to the NBA doesn’t concern me. Big guys aren’t our problem, it’s the guards that worry me.

The NBA drafts on potential, not college production. There’s a reason Edey isn’t a projected first round pick. Also, I thought Ware was good in both games against Purdue. Unfortunately he had 2 fouls in the first half in both games, which at IU means you have to sit the rest of the half. I don’t think he’ll be back barring injury.

I disagree. He won’t go in and be an impact starter right away, but there are very few rookies who can do that (JHS and TJD both haven’t). He’s shown that he’s a good rebounder, good shot blocker, doesn’t turn it over, has 3 point range (even if IU refuses to maximize that skill), and is a good lob threat. He needs to put on muscle, but most 7’1 20 year olds do. He has a very unique skill set that is perfect for the modern NBA.

I hope you’re right. As to your NBA question, Kel’el has absolutely shown he’s ready for the NBA, and I’d expect him to be a 1st rounder. He’s answered a lot of the questions around him coming into the year, and I’d be shocked if he’s in college next year. And I do give Woodson credit for the first two years. All things considered they were solid seasons. But a GM of a pro team, and AD’s of college teams, should always be looking forward. So to me the question isn’t were his first two years good, but the question is will the next two years be good. Imo there’s a lot of negative trends that make me doubt they will be.

Honest question, what is there that makes you think things will be meaningfully better going forward? The thing that is concerning to me about this year is that there seem to be several negative trends that are continuing, without any positive trends emerging. Our defense has got worse each of the last 3 years (24th in 2022, 45th in 2023, and 91st this year). The heavy post up and mid range offense we saw in years 1 & 2 doesn’t seem to be personnel related since we’re doing the same thing again this year. We’ve been a bad rebounding team all 3 years now, and this year we have one of the biggest teams in the country. Our sophomores guards/wings haven’t improved, and our two freshman guards are either struggling our hurt. The lone bright spot seems to be with the programs ability to get production out of centers. We’re basically hanging next year on the ability to recruit multiple impact guards or for our existing guards to show significant development over the off-season. We essentially needed the same thing last offseason and that clearly failed.

Recruiting and roster construction are similar, but to me recruiting is about bringing in talent while roster construction is bringing in the right talent. The two full recruiting classes Woodson has been here for have been ranked in the top 3 in the big ten. This coming year is still tbd, but at least the one player he has committed is a five star talent. So he’s bringing in players that outside sources think are talented. The issue is the talent that panned out all seems to be with big guys, which is a roster construction issue to me.

With any new coach I think it’s important to show year over year improvement, and establish a culture/identity. I also don’t think there’d necessarily be a mass exodus, there wasn’t when Archie was fired - which is a credit to Woodson and the staff. So for me, I’d be looking for more foundational type stuff like player development, recruiting, fundamentals, modern offensive/defensive systems, etc rather than immediate wins and losses. That’s part of the reason this season is so concerning to me - it seems like a lot of the foundational stuff is not good outside of recruiting.

This is one of the worst years we’ve had in recent memory. But a rebuild at IU is completely different than at FAU, and a bad year at IU is very different than a bad year at FAU. With his FAU rebuild, the 4 years before May got there they averaged around a 275 kenpom rating. May’s first 4 years they averaged around 150. That’s a massive immediate improvement, and those were objectively good years by FAU standards. I don’t know enough about May to say he’d be good at IU or not, but I do know that he’s been impressive at FAU.

You’re omitting some major details. FAU’s record the 4 years before May: 14-15: 7-20 15-16: 7-24 16-17: 10-20 17-18: 12-19 Even May’s first 4 years were some of the better FAU seasons since they’ve been a D1 team. So no IU fans would not be happy with those first 4 year results, but the situation at IU and the situation at FAU are not remotely comparable.

The thing is we’re not far off from this year’s team looking like Michigan. Very similar kenpom ratings, the main difference being IU has managed to win almost all of our close games. Credit to the team for winning those games, but it’s not very sustainable. FGCU, Army, Louisville, Michigan, Morehead, OSU x2, and even Iowa very easily could have gone the other way. Kansas and Illinois are really the only close games that didn’t go IU’s way.

Imo Oates should be ahead of Pearl and Beard. He almost certainly says no, but if we reach out to those 3, I think Oates is the best coach of the 3. His teams are also a ton of fun to watch.