Kdug

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.

Idk, Gunn is still borderline unplayable most of the time. I guess he’s better, but to me going from unplayable to borderline unplayable doesn’t count as developing a player. I also don’t agree that JHS improved a lot, he was just really good from the get go. To me I look at development as substantially improving enough to change a players role. I.e. benchwarmer to rotation player, rotation player to starter, starter to all big ten, etc. From a guard perspective, only Galloway fits that mold imo.

Bigs have developed, but guard development has been bad imo. Gunn and Banks have shown little improvement. XJ has got worse each year, though injuries probably played a part there. Bates improved a little his sophomore year, but he really blew up after leaving IU. Galloway and Kopp are really the only two guards or wings who I’d say meaningfully improved the last 3 years.

The fan base excuse has always been ridiculous. Plenty of other big ten teams like Maryland under Turgeon, Purdue with Painter, Illinois with Underwood, Wisconsin with Ryan and Gard, even Iowa with Fran are able to make the tourney on a year to year basis. There’s no reason IU shouldn’t be able to do the same.

Getting blown out by almost every tournament caliber team is just exhausting. If we had this exact same record but managed to play closer games I’d be willing to give more leeway to this team. But this is just unacceptable. As to this game, it felt like a carbon copy of the home game vs Purdue. We tried to pound it inside like we normally do, almost like we didn’t realize they have a 7’4 dude down low. It’s frustrating because Ware feels like the perfect center to take advantage of Edey’s weaknesses. On offense it would’ve been nice to see some pick and pops with Ware (who is now shooting 45% from 3 on the year) to make Edey close out on shooters, which he’s clearly not comfortable doing. It also takes the best rebounder in the country away from the rim. Also, just like last game Woodson went with the 2 fouls auto-bench in the first half for Ware. We went from down 4 to down 12 by half, and Ware ended up finishing the game with 2 fouls. Not sure how many times this needs to happen for Woodson to realize that he’s letting games slip away by artificially fouling out his own players.

I really don’t think the refs have been bad. Nothing to get a T for outside of how his team had played

Yup, this feels eerily similar. Who cares if he doesn’t foul out if the game gets out of hand in the first half

It’s too bad Ware fouled out of the first half. We could really use him right now.

Definitely the depth, but even the starters. A guy coming off a major injury and had been inconsistent in XJ and Galloway who’s always been a role player was expected to step up into a lead role. There were big questions with both.

I get your point, but even before the season our guards looked like a weakness, albeit I didn’t expect it to be this bad. Bates was our best bench guard last year, and he left. We were relying on big jumps from Banks and Gunn them despite both having bad freshmen years. Cupps and Newton weren’t very highly rated recruits, and Newton missed significant time from injury in HS - so I always assumed he would take time to catch up developmentally. It was tough to imagine relying on either of them too much. Even XJ was coming off a major injury and had been inconsistent before that. XJ being as bad as he’s been when healthy wasn’t something I expected, but the rest of our guards aren’t too far off what I could’ve reasonably expected coming into the year. Having one player play poorly from expectations shouldn’t be something that tanks a season. We really needed Walker’s equivalent but as a guard.

There’s a difference between being mentally sharp and being willing to do the grind that’s required to be a successful college coach.

I understand that’s a flagrant by rule, but that just tells me the rule needs to change.

He was fantastic at Penn State, and Bray pretty much tanked ND basketball in his last year, so they’re basically a full on ground up rebuild. They have 4 freshman and 3 sophomores in their top 8 players in terms of minutes. I’m pretty sure ND has actually improved on their preseason kenpom ranking, which just shows how little they had coming into the year.