Taking the Long View

[Parakeet Jones]

35 minutes ago, Leathernecks said:

I am so tired of coaching comparisons.  Every situation is apples to oranges.  Without looking these up, somebody tell me everybody who was on Duke's roster Coach K's first few years.  How many injuries did they have?  How were his sub patterns?  Did they play hard every game?  What was their competition?  Who were his assistants?  

There are a lot of examples of coaches who had a disappointing first few years, but they don't get remembered because they got fired and are at crappy schools.  What other coaches did at other schools during other decades couldn't mean less.  And I don't really care what Beard is doing at Texas Tech either, but I'd much rather have a coach overachieve early on than underachieve.

I only care about the product that IU puts on the court.  This year's product was disappointing.  Apparently so was Coach K's 2nd year.  So was John Groce's.  Mike Davis's 2nd year was an overachievement.  Billie Gillispie overachieved when he took Texas A&M from 0 conference wins the year before he got there to an 8-8 conference record in year one, 10-6 in year two, and 13-3 in year three with a Sweet 16 appearance.  Then he underachieved when he got fired after 2 years at Kentucky (probably because of off the court incidents, but nobody was sad to see his coaching leave).  Sucked in his one year at Texas Tech.

I hope coaching comparisons die off.  Archie won't be good because Coach K struggled at first, and he won't be bad because John Groce struggled in year 2.  He'll be good or bad because of his ability to instill his culture on this team.

Probably my favorite post ever. 

[rico]

3 hours ago, FKIM01 said:

If anything, that illustrates that K's record would have been even more dismal if he's started with a typical rebuild.  I'm not sure I get this point either.

K didn't have to rebuild.....that is my freaking point.

[IU Scott]

16 minutes ago, rico said:

K didn't have to rebuild.....that is my freaking point.

The others point is that even some of the top coaches struggled early on and has nothing to do with what they started off with.

[FKIM01]

25 minutes ago, rico said:

K didn't have to rebuild.....that is my freaking point.

That only strengthens the idea that new coaches need time to implement their systems.  K even needed time with better players.  Again, if anything, that just strengthens the point.

...and with that, I'm done on the subject.  Like others debating the issue of when to expect success, I expect further improvement next year even without Morgan and Langford.  Jackson-Davis is coming and we should get our first look at Jerome Hunter and despite the scoring loss, IU also loses two of it's worst outside shooters.  I see 23 wins.

[StLHoosier]

One thing that I’ve been thinking of is scheduling.  Since the committee admitted that it used wins vs losses more that the NET, will that make some coaches consider an easier ooc schedule?  With the BIG moving to a 20 game conference schedule, will CAM consider this?  Something to think about.

[rico]

33 minutes ago, StLHoosier said:

One thing that I’ve been thinking of is scheduling.  Since the committee admitted that it used wins vs losses more that the NET, will that make some coaches consider an easier ooc schedule?  With the BIG moving to a 20 game conference schedule, will CAM consider this?  Something to think about.

When it come to K think about these things.  64 teams did not get into the NCAAT.  The NIT was on a big stage then.  The ACC was stacked with UNC, NC State, UVa, Maryland, and Wake....They only had 9 teams in the conference......you had to finish top two to be assured minus the conference tournament.

Now pay particular attention to this part....K inherited a team that had made the EE the previous year and had achieved the #1 ranking for a time.  Now pay close attention again, he had 3 starters returning from that team.  And once again pay attention, those 3 were future NBA players.

So what point is furthered?  I can go on.

[FKIM01]

10 minutes ago, rico said:

When it come to K think about these things.  64 teams did not get into the NCAAT.  The NIT was on a big stage then.  The ACC was stacked with UNC, NC State, UVa, Maryland, and Wake....They only had 9 teams in the conference......you had to finish top two to be assured minus the conference tournament.

Now pay particular attention to this part....K inherited a team that had made the EE the previous year and had achieved the #1 ranking for a time.  Now pay close attention again, he had 3 starters returning from that team.  And once again pay attention, those 3 were future NBA players.

So what point is furthered?  I can go on.

I thought it was pretty clear, but I'll repeat it once more...

"That only strengthens the idea that new coaches need time to implement their systems.  K even needed time with better players."

 

[StLHoosier]

50 minutes ago, rico said:

When it come to K think about these things.  64 teams did not get into the NCAAT.  The NIT was on a big stage then.  The ACC was stacked with UNC, NC State, UVa, Maryland, and Wake....They only had 9 teams in the conference......you had to finish top two to be assured minus the conference tournament.

Now pay particular attention to this part....K inherited a team that had made the EE the previous year and had achieved the #1 ranking for a time.  Now pay close attention again, he had 3 starters returning from that team.  And once again pay attention, those 3 were future NBA players.

So what point is furthered?  I can go on.

What does any of this have to due with using him as a comparison for someone who struggled their first few years with a program?  It doesn’t.  Are you trying to say he severely underachieved?  The counter argument to our claim is the fact some people have great success right off the bat.  Your counter argument is someone struggles their first 3 years, yet walked into a powerhouse program?  Like @FKIM01, I’m going to bow out of this subject.

[Hoosierhoopster]

How much patience is needed, or should be expected to be needed, to me is the question.

I don't think it's fair or necessary to take the position that people who see reason to have more patience are "making excuses." They're not making excuses. They're looking at reasons why we didn't make the tourney this year -- those reasons are pretty clear. They certainly include the multiple injuries and health issues, pretty well documented chemistry issues that blew up right before the losing streak, the lack of outside shooting (in part due to the season-ending health situation with Hunter), and to the OP's point, the lack of veterans and a team built with the current coach's players.

It's also pretty clear we missed the tourney despite all of that by one game. If we had beaten OSU, we most likely would've been tourney - bound, despite the losing streak, etc.

On the flip side, how well CAM will run IU's offense remains to be seen. There are reasons to question how effective the O will be when he has his team built his way. Man do we need outside shooting. But maybe we'll see Hunter back and with a real outside game, and maybe Demez will make a legit frosh to soph jump.

For me, I want to see us make the tourney next season, but I'm just not sure that's realistic. Losing Morgan and Romeo are big hits. I don't buy into the we'll be better because Morgan was undersized view. He was a fantastic, dynamic player for us. However, if Hunter is back fully healthy as expected, and we get a grad-transfer as anticipated to shore up the front line, I can see guys like Smith making a real jump with the experience of this season under CAM. We've got good incoming players who look to "fit" this team well.

I see reason for optimism, and reason to expect next year will still be a struggle without more veterans and with no legit NBA-to-be player. Let's not forget the real turnaround for Crean came with Cody's first season, and Vic's development. Two top-5 draft picks. That team was really well built/recruited and developed. I think we can be good next season, but I'm by no means in the camp that not making the tourney next year would mean failure. That's just not realistic.

Also, how about the teams that are playing for the championship? CAM's building a defensive - focused, tough team. He's bringing in his recruits to build that culture.

[FKIM01]

2 hours ago, Hoosierhoopster said:

I think we can be good next season, but I'm by no means in the camp that not making the tourney next year would mean failure. That's just not realistic.

Blasphemy!!!

[JWoolsey]

I've been as critical and as vocal of Archie as anyone but there's not a chance in hell you fire Archie until after year four. You have a coach that's damn close to implementing the defense necessary to winning a title. You can't quit on that and start over. It's too hard to find. The offense is abysmal, truly it is, in a championship sense but the defense is close.

[PoHoosier]

7 hours ago, JWoolsey said:

I've been as critical and as vocal of Archie as anyone but there's not a chance in hell you fire Archie until after year four. You have a coach that's damn close to implementing the defense necessary to winning a title. You can't quit on that and start over. It's too hard to find. The offense is abysmal, truly it is, in a championship sense but the defense is close.

Totally agree on the defense.  Though the offense needs work, I believe we were mostly lacking open looks falling and even many layups not going down combining to make the offense look worse than it was.  Almost like a football team racking up 500 yards and getting 5 field goals to show for it.

[JWoolsey]

5 hours ago, PoHoosier said:

Totally agree on the defense.  Though the offense needs work, I believe we were mostly lacking open looks falling and even many layups not going down combining to make the offense look worse than it was.  Almost like a football team racking up 500 yards and getting 5 field goals to show for it.

Completely agree PO. I'll go ahead and drop the comment in this thread...

 

I have had a theory that good devonte / bad devonte isn't a real thing, especially to the degree that's accepted. This was kind of brought up again in the Devonte thread so I bought that analytics subscription to find out if that was true. Turns out he's pretty damn consistent for somebody who doesn't start and who's just a very good player, not a great one. I didn't want to say this in the Devonte thread and call him out but Rob was the one who is wildly inconsistent and cost us a tournament bid. He has games where he absolutely no shows on offense. Wichita State, OSU twice, Minnesota, and others. 

 

I'm not worried about that at all though and honestly it's pretty good news because that just means that there's room for quite a big leap to be made in year two.

[rico]

6 hours ago, PoHoosier said:

Totally agree on the defense.  Though the offense needs work, I believe we were mostly lacking open looks falling and even many layups not going down combining to make the offense look worse than it was.  Almost like a football team racking up 500 yards and getting 5 field goals to show for it.

Love the football analogy.  But I also wonder how many times IU worked the clock down only to get a desperation heave?