JSHoosier

It just reminded me of when Calipari said the dribble drive is the best offense when shots are falling.  The same thing applies to literally every offense.

Ummmm, the object of the game is to put the ball in the hoop.  Every offense looks unstoppable when shots are falling.   Just saying.

I always see people refer to the offensive rating last year.  I wonder how much it's inflated due to us being so good in transition, and we played a lot of awful teams to boot.  If there was a stat to show just our half court offense, I'd be beyond stunned if it was even remotely close to the top.   We were great in transition, but our half court offense was just a mess.  Look at the number of games we've lost when it was low scoring, and I don't really believe in coincidences.  I still don't like our half court offense though, my feelings range from strongly dislike to pure contempt.

1)  Cal won the title though, and that gives you more slack.  Like it or not, Crean does not and should not have the slack of a championship coach.   2)  The rebuild is over, expectations shifted.  It's no longer "look what he did" it's "can he take us where we should expect to be".

That's kind of faulty logic.  Mike Davis beat Tom Izzo, Rick Pitino and Coach K in the same year.  Is he as bad as we say?  Yes.   We've played better lately and I'm glad about that, but it doesn't change my opinion of Crean.

Yeah, GC can be very abrasive on the forum.  I've exchanged PMs with him and it's usually pretty pleasant.

I don't have a problem with him doing games.  He's paid to comment on what he sees.  He's critical when the play warrants it, he's not when it doesn't (last night).  IU is not the only team he's been critical of.

Yeah, JB is here.  We can't get rid of him.

Just remember what Boiler Up actually means, and you'll get used to it pretty quickly.  It's a perfect summation of their (lack of) March success.

Go get him coach.  Would love to lock up the best in state players.

Bellamy?  Well, he's already got a Hoosier name.

:o   After a night like that they should've just credited him one rebound so he could have the triple double, exploding like that I'd say he earned it.

Dude's arms are friggin' sculpted.   4* in state kid, I'd love to add him to the roster.  With some of those offers though it's easier said than done.

That fifth year senior is bringing about as much as he was ever going to bring, he's just playing like the player he is.  People built up a myth that he was better for whatever reason, but him being on this team has just as much to do with who his little brother is as it does the player Evan is.  Evan is a player that will take 3 3s and make 1, that's all he's ever been, every once in a while the stars will alone for him and he'll score 20 but he's a career 34/35% shooter for a reason.   I think many fans expected too much out of him, and if Crean expected more it's his own fault.

Some thoughts this morning:   1)  His comment about not foreseeing Vic and Zeller leaving early was why there aren't any leaders from the 2012 class.  Which makes it even more BS IMO, they had all summer with those two and watched them play.  Besides, Crean never thought to pull someone aside and say "We're going to need you to take on more of a leadership role"?  Yeah, it's BS.   2)  We should stop using youth as an excuse.  Michigan played in the title game starting 3 freshman, a sophomore and a junior and none of them were McD's AA.  Syracuse lost MCW, Southerlund, and Triche (nearly 39 points) and is undefeated.  Young doesn't help, but that does not mean the team can't be good.  Certainly doesn't excuse how awful this team is.

On his radio show tonight a fan asked a legit question and Crean gave a smart@$$ answer, and acknowledged he knew the fans were booing him.

Vic had really improved his sophomore year but let's not exaggerate.  His midrange wasn't really reliable yet, and he had no business shooting a 3.   I'd say Crean's reasoning of "no one could see it coming" was crap though.

Guess it kind of depends on the time frame for "last year".  I don't think anyone really expected Vic to make the huge leap he did after his sophomore year ended, but during the year it was obvious he was ready and was leaving.  Many expected Cody to leave when he decided to come back for his second year.   EDIT:  My first reaction was "LOL, a blind-folded, sleeping, locked in a closet Stevie Wonder could've seen that one".

Yes, Newton played for Davis.  He was a Knight recruit though.  RMK even wrote that he was excited to coach that team because of the skillsets that Newton, Jeffries and Leach.

Crean's teams here have been great in transition, unfortunately that's about the extent of it.   Crean rebuilt the program, and we all appreciate that, but the rebuild is over and expectations shifted.  Now it's a question of do you believe Crean is the coach to take us where we should expect to be.  If the answer is no, might as well just bite the bullet and say he should be fired.  The worst thing would be to keep him around and be in basketball purgatory, good enough to keep the money from wanting him gone but never actually winning anything. 

I'd agree Glass is a good AD, just made an unbelievably stupid decision with Crean contract.  That happens sometimes, but it's difficult to stomach.

Agreed, but that doesn't mean the talent isn't there.  It has to be there or there's no potential.  I was referencing your line of confusing athleticism with talent, which isn't really true because the talent is there.

The talent is there though, it's just not polished.  Developing a player doesn't mean you make them more talented, it means you polished the talent that was already there.  That's what happened with Vic, he didn't magically become more talented the talent he possessed became more polished.  The talent has to be there or there's nothing to work with and thus nothing to develop.

Crean's best season leaves him tied with Davis in conference championships, I wouldn't make too big of a deal about it.   EDIT:  Besides, I already addressed this in the original post.

This is Crean's 15th season, you probably shouldn't want that included.  As I explained, Mike Davis has been a head coach for 13 years so I used that just for an equal measure to compare the two in an equal time frame.  That's it, nothing about convenience just an equal time frame.  Even if you include Crean's 14th and 15th years, he is tied with Davis for conference titles so the Sweet 16s, which aren't too impressive to me, are the only difference.   Should I compare Crean's 15 years to the first 15 years of other coaches that are unarguably good?  I've done it before for another board, and his fall short.