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Class of '66 Old Fart

IUBB at Wisconsin - 1/2/18 @ 7:00 E.T.

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5 minutes ago, Old Friend said:

Wisconsin had a hell of a lot less talent than we did.

1-12? Absolutely. But you can only play 5, and Wisconsin had 2 of the 3 (Happ, Morgan, Davison) best players on the floor, and Morgan only played half the game because of foul trouble. So essentially for half the game they had the two best players on the court.  

Probably some debate on Davison, but having seen him play twice (2nd time being last night) I would take him over any of our guards. 

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1 minute ago, BGleas said:

1-12? Absolutely. But you can only play 5, and Wisconsin had 2 of the 3 (Happ, Morgan, Davison) best players on the floor, and Morgan only played half the game because of foul trouble. So essentially for half the game they had the two best players on the court.  

Probably some debate on Davison, but having seen him play twice (2nd time being last night) I would take him over any of our guards. 

He certainly played harder than any of our guards and he knocked down some open shots (what a difference that can make). 

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11 minutes ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

He certainly played harder than any of our guards and he knocked down some open shots (what a difference that can make). 

He's also a leader. The announcers were talking about how as a freshmen he's the vocal leader of the team. They said he realized early on that Happ isn't a talker, so he stepped up to be the guy. You could tell on the court too, he's got that confident moxy that nobody on IU ever seems to have. 

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5 hours ago, Maedhros said:

I'm going to add to this. Crean had his head-scratching results to be sure: losing at home to Eastern Washington. Losing on the road to Illinois and Penn State. But those were all at least close games, where the team failed to execute in the closing minutes. Last year's loss to Fort Wayne was an overtime defeat on the road. This year's loss to Fort Wayne was a 20-point thrashing on our home-court, with the team getting boat-raced in the second half. And after we'd already been beaten by 20 at home by another in-state mid-major earlier in the season. Last night's second half looked a lot like those two games, or the first halves against Youngstown State, Tennessee Tech, and Michigan. This is happening far too often for me to not look in the direction of the guy running the practices. 

What do you think we would be doing better if Crean were still here?

One thing you can't really coach is shooting.

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7 minutes ago, BGleas said:

He's also a leader. The announcers were talking about how as a freshmen he's the vocal leader of the team. They said he realized early on that Happ isn't a talker, so he stepped up to be the guy. You could tell on the court too, he's got that confident moxy that nobody on IU ever seems to have. 

Bring back Tom Coverdale.

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31 minutes ago, BGleas said:

1-12? Absolutely. But you can only play 5, and Wisconsin had 2 of the 3 (Happ, Morgan, Davison) best players on the floor, and Morgan only played half the game because of foul trouble. So essentially for half the game they had the two best players on the court.  

Probably some debate on Davison, but having seen him play twice (2nd time being last night) I would take him over any of our guards. 

You know how much I respect what you say, but I disagree with you here.   At no point in that game did Wisconsin have an advantage in talent.  Especially if you also factor in experience.   Indiana's in big trouble.  I don't like it, but I can't defend Archie right now.  He announced he was going to come in here and play the pack line defense; and I see nothing from him that tells me he can adjust to the game, to an opponent, design an effective offense, or coach kids to do anything but be robots.  We look terrible right now; and unless we get great individual performances, we have no chance to win. Ohio State beat that team by 25 on Wisconsin's floor.  Indiana is in deep trouble unless some things change.

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12 minutes ago, HoosierX said:

What do you think we would be doing better if Crean were still here?

One thing you can't really coach is shooting.

Disagree with this, too.  Watch Johnson.  He floats.  He doesn't stick his landings.  One example; but that's a thing you can coach a kid away from

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18 hours ago, Magnanimous said:

The recruits for the most part are buying into what Archie is pitching as his vision for the program. He's got a different side to him that he keeps in-house, and it's an honest, no nonsense persona.

The guy has zero pieces in place for what he's trying to run. My only issue with him so far is not adapting his approach to the team he has. This isn't the roster to play a packline defense. When you try to fit a square peg into a round hole this is what you get. It's like trying to run Navy's triple option with Nate Sudfeld. It'll look worse than letting bad players fail at the system they're best suited for.

I have a feeling that something is going to fundamentally change in another two or three weeks with this team because he's not going to put up with this absent minded brand of basketball much longer. If we have more games like tonight, which we will, there's no point in keeping this roster intact the way it is now knowing at least half this group has no future with this program. Tighten the roster, go seven deep, and see who responds. We have three guys on this team who give a damn about showing up each night. Archie is no stranger to a short roster playing small ball. It worked for him quite a bit in 2014.

My thoughts exactly. He definitely hit the ground running in recruiting however hasn't shown he cares to deviate from his approach to what these players are best suited to do, which is run and gun, chuck it up, hope it goes in, and hope you score 90 before the other team. 

These players aren't used to a coach calling them out and telling the nation they're soft. Archie's right and not trying to sell something we don't see. 

That said, I expected more this season. It seemed like the guys were bought in until the going got tough and Archie continues to ask for high effort all the time. 

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No! We were more talentless than many perceive last year: One NBA player and two G-League hopefuls.
The nine year Crean era produced two guys who are currently an NBA starter (OG and Vic).
 
That excuse gets so old. Like you said two are in the g league and one was hurt all year and did not play. Bryant was always vastly overrated imo.

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2 minutes ago, Bailey7878 said:

That excuse gets so old. Like you said two are in the g league and one was hurt all year and did not play. Bryant was always vastly overrated imo.

Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk
 

 

Talent is as talent does. 

"Talent" is such an overused and ill-defined criteria:

  • Is "talent" pure athletic ability? If so, then Hanner Perea and Freddie McSwain are extraordinary talents.
  • Or, is "talent" how far a player gets in the pros? If so, then IU has only produced one NBA impact player (Vic) in the past ten years (who's been gone for four years), and have none on the current roster.
  • Is "talent" a high-school star rating thing? If so, then IU fares better, but the current roster doesn't especially thrill in that department either.

So, I believe it's a combination of

  1. Athletic ability,
  2. Skill development,
  3. Focus,
  4. On-court judgment, and
  5. Drive to succeed.

Crean did a crappy job of filling the current (or last year's ) roster with "talent" under that definition. 

In other words...Talent is as talent does. 

 

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1 hour ago, Treesh said:

 It will be a while, probably 3-4 years. Archie knows what he's doing, I trust him as I believe most of you do as well. It's just not fair to blame the coach for coaching a bunch of players he never recruited here. I'd also argue it's hard to teach some of these players on this team, they just don't have the "IT" factor. 

Archie is our man, he'll lead us to the final four again. Like I mentioned before, just imagine this team under Crean right now. Dribble drive.. no timeouts.. no defense.. turnovers and turnovers..terrible rotations.. ugh. 

 

I agree with part of your talent evaluations, but I disagree that you about holding the coach responsible.  If he is that great of a coach, he would have gotten through to at least some of the players already, and we wouldn't be talking about lack of heart, etc.... All of these guys should be able to play to B1G Ten basketball.  There is no excuse for half A$$ed play, and Miller owns that.  

If these guys don't want to play the way Archie wants, then sit em on the bench, and let em get bed sores.  I would rather go back and watch replays of Crean's first two seasons, because those guys played their best.  They were pretty bad, but they gave effort.  I didn't see a whole lot of effort the 2nd half.  Sure that is on the players, but it is also on the coach.

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19 minutes ago, Old Friend said:

You know how much I respect what you say, but I disagree with you here.   At no point in that game did Wisconsin have an advantage in talent.  Especially if you also factor in experience.   Indiana's in big trouble.  I don't like it, but I can't defend Archie right now.  He announced he was going to come in here and play the pack line defense; and I see nothing from him that tells me he can adjust to the game, to an opponent, design an effective offense, or coach kids to do anything but be robots.  We look terrible right now; and unless we get great individual performances, we have no chance to win. Ohio State beat that team by 25 on Wisconsin's floor.  Indiana is in deep trouble unless some things change.

Absolutely, and I have a ton of respect for your opinion as well! I don't think we're that far off. I agree something isn't right. Archie is clearly not getting through to these guys. There's a lack of energy and urgency overall, though that was there with the same guys under Crean, but Archie was selling that he was going to fix that. The offense is completely stagnant and Morgan is the only player with any confidence offensively, and even with him his confidence only goes to about 5ft.

I'm still fully aboard the Archie train though, I like what he says, he's clearly a "basketball guy", etc. I think he'll be fine, but yes the optics don't look great right now. I'm not sure what to make of him on the offensive end, though in his defense early in the season we saw IU carve up some zone defenses better than they have in years. I've also seen him design defenses to stop guys (though it didn't work against Happ) and make adjustments. I'm not worried about his X's and O's for the most part. 

As far as the talent, I stand by that. IU absolutely has more talent than Wisconsin did last night top to bottom. But my point was that only 5 guys play at a time, and last night Wisconsin had 2 of the 3 best players, and with Happ they had the best player on the floor by a pretty wide margin. 

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This team is showing zero signs of improvement, and that is alarming.
If this team is this untalented then Crean was highly overrated as a recruiter, which is about the only thing that could still be used to defend him.
That's the big concern for me as well. Zero improvement. It is alrming.

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This offseason will be very interesting. We need to add at least three impact guys. I think Archie will have to shake this roster up. Fans wont stand for another season like this next year. The pressure will be on.
I expect 8 new players next year.

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1 hour ago, Bailey7878 said:

That's the big concern for me as well. Zero improvement. It is alrming.

Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk
 

I disagree. We did see improvement. The team looked much better in the half court in early December than when they started the season, and we could see them actually running a system that didn't resemble anything like Crean's. The team is regressing from the small gains they were demonstrating on a weekly basis. This isn't the same team that played Iowa and Duke. Something is off with them because they're not settling into their offense the way they were three weeks ago, they aren't playing together, and the effort is gone from a good chunk of the team. 

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