tdhoosier

*Doogie Howser music playing in the background*

Dear Diary,

What does IU Basketball collectively do as a team that would be considered good?

The only thing I can think of is getting to the free throw line, but we are the worst in the conference at making free throws.

Some of my fellow fans like to point out that many teams and coaches have down years and they are 100% right. But in those cases a down year is not performing up to the program's expectations. Those teams still have an identity and foundation to fall back on. They still may perform well in some aspects of the game, giving the coach only a few things to clean up on in the off-season, which ultimately gets the program back on track.

This is more than a down year. This is close to rock bottom. We don't need to clean up a few things. We need to clean up ALL the things. And as we dig ourselves deeper into a hole I'm asking myself, as a proponent of keeping Woody another year, how realistic will it be for this staff to fix so many things in a single off-season? 

As a fan my bare minimum expectations is: just make the tournament. Today, I find myself coming to the realization that a huge success for this staff will be to make it back to the tournament next year. In other words, my 'bare minimum expectation' just morphed into to what I'd considered a huge success. 

That's just F'd up. 

There’s bad. And then there’s BAD. 

We’re way past a ‘down year’. 

1 minute ago, John S said:

Add Ware, Gunn, Walker to that list.  

I’m still waiting for Ware to dive for a loose ball. 

We are getting run off of our own court by a bubble team who has yet to win a road game. 

Let that sink in. 

Just now, IowaHoosierFan said:

Well I went for drinks with a coworker. Looks like I missed a good game so far

Yeah. Tominaga has been great.

Serious question: Does Mgbako know what a defensive stance is? 

This team has absolutely no grit. The opponent hits a 3 to shift the momentum and they go crawl in a hole. 

Damn. That was a good play out of the time out. 

Just now, Milehi Fan said:

Yes!! We are only down 6 to Nebraska at home!!  Storm the court!!!

Oh man, that would be something. Haha. 

1 hour ago, IUCrazy2 said:

 

Look familiar?  I am not expecting any changes that will matter.  Woodson is doing what he knows.

I wonder what are possessions used percentages look like.

1 minute ago, NotIThatLives said:

Man I really hope so.  The odds are tremendously stacked against him.  I can't remember if it was posted here but i read an article about that injury.  Evidently you have to push through severe pain in rehab for iirc over a year up to 2 years.  And most guys can't.   I think with more and more research and techniques of mind and body training, things such as daily ice baths, this meditation stuff, pain management,  I do have hope.  Now to expect him to contribute next year, even if all that has fallen into place.  No.  He's like the 13th scholarship of expectations.  

I was looking for that article a few weeks ago. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see Newton ever wearing an IU uniform. 

10 hours ago, IU Scott said:

Just saying what he has done hasn't help either so make a change to see if it helps. Basketball players don't need the same kind of workouts as football players.  There to be to much emphasis on weight training over working on agility and other things basketball players need to work on.

There are different ways to weight train. Just because an athlete lifts doesn’t mean that they’ll turn out like a linebacker.

First, linebackers have a certain body type and basketball players have a body type. They are completely different from each other. 9 times out of 10, no matter how much a 6’7” basketball player lifts they’ll never look like a linebacker. Without steroids, it’s pretty much impossible. 

Secondly, there’s a way to lift for ‘show’ and there’s a way to lift for strength. Bodybuilders lift for show. They purposely put on mass and bulk; they lift until failure with much heavier heavier weights and lower rep counts. You’ll also notice that they tend to be more stiff/less mobile. Typically athletes are lifting for strength. Yes they’ll put on mass but it doesn’t come at an expense of their mobility. They don’t lift until failure and do higher rep counts. They also weight train with specificity - do exercises specific to the movements in their sport. And there’s most likely a whole bunch of more boring recovery/mobility exercises that aren’t cool enough to brag about on TikTok. 

I coach swimming. An efficient stroke requires a high degree of mobility. You do no want much mass on a swimmer or it will slow them down. YET, weight training is a major part of pretty much every single division I program and every Olympic athlete’s training regimen. Trust me, if it’s safe for swimmers to lift, it’s definitely safe for basketball players to lift. 

This is not knowledge I’ve gotten any certification or degree for - it’s just science. And I’m sure Cliff Marshall, with all his education and accolades, understands the difference between lifting for football and lifting for basketball. 

46 minutes ago, Fkfootball said:

You guys are acting like Reneau will be here! He may transfer!

I’m listening to Hoosier hysterics places and they said a national guy (can’t remember who) was saying that Queen wanted playing time and it was actually the possible return of Ware that helped sway him towards Maryland. 

Not sure if I believe it, but interesting. 

I think Queen will be a great player, but he was going to force us into more two man buddy ball. We need to break the cycle. This is a blessing in disguise for our program.
 

Again, this is not sour grapes - I’ve been saying this for the last few months. All my respect to Queen and his decision. 

11 minutes ago, Indykev said:

 

Is Jared lurking on here?

1 minute ago, btownqb said:

TG is a considerably better basketball player now than he was a FR, and before CMW took over. I am not sure how anyone could think otherwise? 

FT%? Malik is like 5 total makes away from his percentage last season.... worried about FT % with Ware? I don't follow. Dude has improved quite a bit. 

Malik's improvement has been pretty crazy, compared to last year, as well. 

I don't understand why your reply is relevant to my post. I was specifically replying to the post about free throws, not overall development. 

Everybody you mentioned is shooting free throws at a lower percentage when compared to last season. And in the case of Galloway:

1 minute ago, DireBump said:

To be fair, Mgbako was shooting like 100% for a bit. He could only regress from there.

for sure. But in the beginning of the season you can count on him making both FT's on most trips to the line. Now I expect him to go 1 of 1. And after hitting 20 something in a row to start off the season, hit percentage has slipped to 82% (he's 76% in conference play). 

5 minutes ago, Indykev said:

 

I think this is why people get frustrated with Woody's comments. The replies people want to hear are: "from one reason or another, we aren't performing well in this area. Rather make excuses, our staff needs to find new ways to remedy our free throw shooting woes, and we will. We won't rest until we get this improved.' 

At this point, this is not a 'throw your hands up in the air' issue. They are FREE throws. It can't generally be chalked up to a bad mindset.

I'm going to paste here what i posted in another thread:

I have no idea what IU does at practice, but I don’t buy we just happen to be bad at free throws years after year and other programs just happen to be good at free throws year after year. Yes, the players share responsibility, but when each player is not improving, or in most cases getting worse, the problem is systemic. 

Malik and Ware have a worse FT% this year than they did last year. 
Gallo has progressively gotten worse every single year he’s been here. 
Mgbako has progressively gotten worse as the season has progressed.
Cupps shot 77% in high school - he’s shooting 61% this season.

That, folks, is our starting line up, our top 5 in minutes played and they account for 87% of the free throws attempted on this team.

Everybody in the starting lineup magically lost their mindset when they got to IU? If they did, then the issue is much, much deeper.

12 hours ago, HoosierDPU95 said:

This feels like as good a place to post this as any.

Free throws...

I've always felt the players should shoulder the majority of responsibility here. Outside of the staff providing some coaching around form and calling out guys to get their @$$ in the gym and work on it outside of practice, what else should be expected from a coaching staff? 

I don’t coach basketball, but a coach for any sport would probably agree that reps are reps unless you do them with specificity, you do them with focus, and you do them until the little things become good habits. On even the most basic of fundamentals you try to mimic competition settings. Maybe in the case of free throws (again, I’m not a basketball coach), do them fresh, do them tired, do them when something is on the line (create a consequence if they don’t make x number of FT’s in a row), etc. 

I have no idea what IU does at practice, but I don’t buy we just happen to be bad at free throws years after year and other programs just happen to be good at free throws year after year. Yes, the players share responsibility, but when each player is not improving, or in some cases getting worse, the problem is systemic. 

Malik and Ware have a worse FT% this year than they did last year. 
Gallo has progressively gotten worse every single year he’s been here. 
Mgbako has progressively gotten worse as the season has progressed.
Cupps shot 77% in high school - he’s shooting 61% this season.

That, folks, is our starting line up, our top 5 in minutes played and they account for 87% of the free throws attempted on this team. 
 

9 minutes ago, IowaHoosierFan said:

IMO, we're not getting any high end point guards.  And honestly, we need to pick up 2 or 3 PG/SGs out of the portal.  I could care less what they were ranked and more about can they shoot, score and take care of the ball.   Unfortunately Galloway is SG that can't really shoot (Every year but last year) but brings great energy and passion to the floor.  Need him first off the bench for 1-3.  Cupps is going to be good, probably still needs to come off the bench next year though.  

We can be good next year.  Are we going to be, don't know?

I get it. But if Woody does focus on getting more shots for everybody not name Malik, then you do have two 3 point threats (MM and McNeely) along side Gallo. Gallo had too much responsibility this year. He shot better last year because his role was to solely shoot open shots and drive the ball. This year he's also the point guard, distributor and playmaker. If we let him play the role he thrives in, lessen his responsibility, and MM/McNeely open up the floor for him to drive, I think he could settle into the 2 just fine. But that's a WHOLE lot of IF's. 

2 minutes ago, IUJoe said:

If that’s our lineup, McNeely and the point guard will have to combine for 20 rebounds per game.

That is definitely true. However, my fear is that if we get somebody like Queen and Mgbako stays, we are going to be forced into.....

Malik playing the 4 when he should be a 5.
Mgbako playing the 3 when he should be a 4
McNeely playing the 2 when he should be a 3

I don't know. I just don't see a quick way out of this for Woody. Our statistical best player in Malik pushes everybody out of their natural position because somebody thinks he's a 4 when he's really just a poor rebounding 5. 
 

Just curious to see what everybody thinks...

IF our starting line-up next year consists of....

Malik
Mgbako
McNeely
Gallo
high end PG transfer

On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you that we will run something that resembles more of a 4 out 1 in scheme? 

I think I'm at a 4.

6 minutes ago, Victobmyboy said:

My daughter says “it eats”. I’m 49 but love IU doing these things. Adidas is just trying to stay relevant. It’s working. Liam and others tweeted these. JHS is porting fear of god stuff too. 

Is ‘it eats’ good or bad? And did she say that about the uniforms? Haha. 

9 minutes ago, Victobmyboy said:

I like them. The shoes look great but that’s because I’m not 65 and still wear Levi 505’s and NB boomer shoes. The recruits and former players love them. JHS was sporting them yesterday. 

Haha. Nothing like a bunch of middle aged dudes debating fashion on a sports forum. We’re hip on all the trends. I believe we are the ones that, what the kids say, have RIZZ. Did i use that term right? 😆

Yeah, it’s probably a good sign that these uniforms are getting bad reviews from the 40-60 year old demographic.