tdhoosier

Yep. I think the writing is on the wall. The NCAA can't enforce anything - UNC showed colleges the way. Just wrap them up in law suits and fight with their unlimited resources until it all goes away. It sucks from a competitive standpoint, but in a billion dollar industry where the athlete's are the product, the NCAA can't realistically stop athlete's from receiving money that another party that wants to pay them without running into antitrust laws. When conferences are signing 100 million annual TV contracts, paying coaches millions a year, building multi-million dollar facilities, etc., 'amateurism' is just a spec in the rearview mirror.

Not sure if it was mentioned yet, but isn't it fun when we are the better rebounding team?

Come on Pete. It's Attorneys General. 🤦‍♂️

The NCAA seeing this happen.....

I don’t think it’s trivial. When they play, their mistakes make them a liability. They put up bad shots and are loose with the ball. I think they’re relatively good one on one defenders, but not good system defenders. Despite Leal’s lack of athleticism, he can pretty much coach that team. He knows where to be. IF he continues hitting shots at a good enough clip to spread the defense, he’ll take a lot of their playing time.

FUN GAME. - A lot of reviews, but beyond that the officials actually let a good flow to develop. It was actually……entertaining. - I was one of the doubters, but beyond happy to see Leal get his moment. - Ware put this team on his shoulders - that kid wanted to WIN tonight. - So hard to watch XJ writhing in pain. - Hope Malik comes back soon, if not, let’s look at the silver lining and hope it inspires smaller lineups more often. - Can this team learn to close out the first half in the near future???? The turnovers, bad shots, mental mistakes and bad fouls. It seems like it was the 10th time in a row that happened. On to the next.

If Kelvin wasn't fired, would grades have plummeted? Would he be able to clean things up himself? i guess we'll never know. The team GPA was at a 2.89 until he was fired - it looks like a revolt and an unraveling after. I'm not defending anybody or actions, just playing devil's advocate. That said, I know at least a few players on subsequent IU teams have been big weed smokers. One, I bet you totally could guess. lol No doubt Sampson was dumb to get in trouble for the same exact thing again he did at Oklahoma - it inexcusable. It sucks that it's not even a rule now and we exploded our program because of it. All that said, has Sampson had any major issues at Houston? What i could find on google is that he suspended one player a game on 2021 for biting a Cincinnatti Bearcat - Sampson called the the UC coach to apologize. And then another player got suspended a game in 2017 for playing a game in a church rec league. Maybe I'm missing others. meanwhile, we've had a player who got hit by a car driven by his team-mates. A player refusing arrest outside Taco Bell. A player driving 90 down Walnut. Almost an entire team missing curfew in Evanston. All were pretty much forgiven by our fanbase and the blame was not put at the feet of their coaches. And while I have absolutely no evidence to support it, I'd bet money that guys on this team smoke weed and play video games. Are we being hypocritical? Again, I don't know.

Good question. As fans, we like to give the benefit of the doubt to people who are still on our side, and make enemies and/or scapegoats to those who aren't. No doubt there were problems with Sampson's players and maybe those issues stemmed from the crappy situation they found themselves in. I don't know. But there were also player issues post-Sampson.

I don't think anybody is saying that a program can't have a down year. But in the case of Wiscy or Purdue or MSU, if they have a down year, it's a pretty safe bet to say that year is an anomaly and not a trend. They have their identities and know what they need to make their program successful. On the other side of the coin, it's not fair to say our current down year is a trend, but you also can't say it's an anomaly. The truth is: we don't know because we really don't see an identity that we can build upon. The reason for most of our pessimism is this uncertainty. That's why in my point above, I ponder if the argument about player personnel is short sided. We don't have a consistent and successful system, and without that, how can the staff identify the players that they need???? That is the difference between our down year vs. Wiscy, MSU, PU, etc. Arguably, a down year for the latter teams is that the issue is solely personnel. Our issues go a lot deeper than personnel: it's a lack of college coaching experience. We don't have proven system/identity to fall back upon. And while the coaches for the programs mentioned above have had many years to develop their systems/identities, they were also long time assistants in big programs. All 3 of them carried over the culture that they learned under. The question I ask myself is how long Woody should get to become successful? What is fair? In my mind, it's definitely more than 3 years. BUT if it takes him 5 years, how much longer will he be coaching after that? Will he retire in year 7 and we are back at square one? I think that's why many fans like myself are in an 'irrational' rush to see success. As a program, we're not really in a great position long-term. We're between a rock and a hard place. And as I Monday morning QB, I can't help but think the hire was really short-sided. How fair was it to assume Woody would adapt to the college game so quickly?

I know MM got some time against at the 4 against IL, but it was with that weird line-up that had Walker playing the 5, right? Did we see the line-up some of us have been salivating at the possibility of? Cupps XJ Gallo MM Malik

Maybe take the Cignetti approach. Who cares what they are rated. Get guys in the portal that play during the crucial minutes in a game and demonstrate the ability to execute the role you need to fill. If those guys are ranked high, great. If those guys aren’t ranked high, but you believe in them, also great. But I think the challenge for any staff is being confident enough in your system to clearly define the roles that need to be filled, and then identifying those guys to fill them. Purdue and Wisconsin know what they need, it’s why they have been successful. I think Woody is still trying to figure out his system and the personnel he needs to make it work. It looks to me like there has been a lot of trial and error going on these last 2.5 years. This is not so much a criticism of CMW, but an example of an inexperienced college coach trying to figure out what schemes work in CBB and the caliber of athlete he needs in terms of athleticism, fundamentals, basketball IQ, etc. Thus, he’s not only trying to figure out which pegs fit in the holes, he’s still trying to figure out what shape the holes need to be. Our issues are two-fold when it comes to personnel.

The lack of rebounding drives me crazy too. Honest b-ball question though. Is it possible to be a good rebounding team that ALSO gets out in transition? I always though it was more of a 'one or the other' situation. Guards aren't focused on boxing out because they need to get out in transition, which leads to the front court being over-whelmed on the boards. I'd think that in order to implement this somewhat successfully you need 2 VERY good rebounding bigs.

I actually think that Malik is doing what he’s told to do. If Woody doesn’t want the post bucket then he’ll not make Malik option a and b on most of the possessions. We always a) look to the post first, then b) look for a hockey assist to get the ball in the post, then c) look to drive and then d) look to shoot. And rarely ever do we get a good action off a cut for an open shot on the perimeter or a drive to the hoop unless it’s an in bound play. It’s not only Malik whose not getting the ball to open shooters/drivers. I don’t know where we rank in the B1G in assists, but I’m guessing we’re at the bottom.

The loss is tough because we played pretty well, but with the way we play offense, there’s just no room for error. We basically have to play lights out defense (which we can’t) or just hope that our opponents are going to have a bad shooting night. There was a point in the game when Hummel asked “What will happen first? Will IU attempt their first 3 or will IL make their first 3?” It ended up being the latter. The styles between the 2 teams are drastically different. IL will kept shooting until they start making some and erased an 8 point deficit in like 2 minutes. They had the confidence to hit clutch shots at the end of the game. We got afraid to shoot it and didn’t make a 3 the rest of the game. It’s been said to death, but I really wish we could run some action for our shooters. I know many say (including myself) that it’s a personnel issue, but Mgbako can shoot, Gallo has been shooting better, Gunn can get hot, Cupps can shoot. Malik. Ware. If we create a Venn diagram of our shooting woes, I have to ask: how much of it is personnel? How much of it is the system not creating good looks for shooters and/or inspiring confidence in shooters (assuming that shooting is usually option b). I posted the below stats on another thread. Wouldn’t we like to have this guy on our team? Add him to our personnel? ….We did have this guy on our team. His name is Tamar Bates. Did he really get that much better at shooting or is he just in a system that is more beneficial to shooters? If you’re a shooter in the portal, is this something that crosses your mind and is this why we struck out last Spring on good shooters? If we plug McNeely into this roster would it really make that much of a difference? I know I’m running into that ‘chicken or the egg’ debate again, but this is the stuff that crosses my mind.

Let’s bring in Crean as an offensive coordinator.

Yes, there are open looks, but our shooters never seem to be ready. It is a bit concerning that Tamar started shooting at a much higher percentage on Mizzou. I fear our offense doesn’t inspire confidence in shooters because they don’t seem to shoot in rhythm. Tamar is very efficient this year….

They played hard. They didn’t back down. I just wanted this team to show something and they did. They almost look like they’re getting over the hump.

Yeah, but not a second option. The shot wasn’t there. The step back was awkward. Definitely not executed well. .

Wow. No made three.

We’ll, it was a game. We were competitive.

That couldn’t have been the call out of the timeout

We had this. Missed free throws. Bad calls in critical situations.

That shitty tech, really amplified now.

Charge!!!