incrediboy

First of all, if I had been Jurkin, I would have changed my name...c'mon, "Peter Jurkin" -- really? Of course, he might have changed his name to Dick.   What I saw of April (precious little) in the pre-B1G-season demonstrated good hands and athleticism.    If he needs to practice harder, I say put him on the floor in a game and let him get embarrassed into it. For sure he should have been on the floor against Michigan State when we were in the "nothing-to-lose" situation.

I give Crean one edge: he does recruit kids from Indiana. Not all the players, but more than Davis did. It doesn't matter who you recruit at IU as long as you win-win-win. But when you don't, you'd better have some native sons on the floor or be looking for employment. Davis was never able to do that, Thad Matta was always taking the Indiana kids from him. Much like Izzo and Beilein seem to be doing to Crean.    That doesn't mean I didn't love D.J. White in a Hoosier uni.

Well, gang, here we are tied for the B1G lead. How many saw that coming in early December? Put your *$*)#@ hands down, you know you didn't see that anywhere except in a wet dream.    The guys had one day's notice that they were missing a key component, no matter how often that key seems to disappear due to foul trouble or mental fog. That has to take a toll mentally on the rest of the guys. And zero practice without Hanner didn't help Hartman and the rest try to replace him. For that reason, if no other (and as it's been noted, Penn State always plays us better than anyone else) I am happy we escaped with a W.   Stan saved this game for us. Period. And really there's no reason he can't play like this every time out. It's not that he's firing up shots that might or might not go in from 3-point range. His defense is almost always better than anyone else's, too. He needs to play because he has a really high ceiling with his talents, and we need him to feel wanted here so he won't be tempted to transfer when Blackmon doesn't jump to the NBA next year. In fact, I'd start him over Blackmon Sunday if I were making out the lineup card because we need a hatchet-man type of guy at Illinois, which is notorious for playing that way.;   I predict that Holt starts Sunday, not Hartman. We need his beef to knock around with Egghead inside. But really Illinois has never been an inside-strong type of team. Just a poorly coached perimeter oriented team, both historically and now (please pass up the opportunity to quote me and say "Just like us" to that remark). That said, they kicked the crap out of Maryland at home but that could have been overconfidence on Maryland's part. What I've seen of this Illinois team (granted it's only a couple of games) doesn't show me much, and I have far less respect for Groce than Crean. I'd be far less optimistic about our chances Sunday if Weber was still on the sidelines.  Blackmon, Yogi and/or Rojo (2 out of 3 at least) will have to be on from 3, and Zeis should have an erection building for this game, having come to us from Ill State. He should also have about 25 3's built up inside him given how many he's not made the past couple of games.   I read all these pro-Burton posts and had to go back to the roster to see he's really 6-7. He looks 6-3 on the floor to me. I did the "oh s**t, why, Tommy?" remark when he came in (much as I used to do with Max). Was pleasantly surprised he didn't cost us anything, but I really didn't see a whole lot of contribution, either. He got a couple of rebounds because they fell on him, not because he was fighting six guys to get them. I will have to see more contribution before I'm on the Burton Bandwagon that I saw so much of in earlier posts about this game.   Blackmon has to understand he's not the center of the universe. I wonder how many doses of on-the-floor humility it's going to take for him to understand he has to move more without the ball to get open shots. Given the way opponents dog Yogi, with Blackmon's speed and quickness, those shots will be there if he'll just work for them. RoJo obviously understood that, and, guess what? He got those shots that JBJ did not. Don't misunderstand; I like Blackmon. I just think he needs his head hit with a figurative hammer a few times to make him understand he's not still a high school superstar when he goes on the B1G floor.   Not patting myself on the back, but I expected exactly what I saw in this game. Chambers is really good at getting a lot out of a little. Unfortunately for him, that's all he'll ever do since he's not a great recruiter. But he's the guy you hate to play, and it doesn't matter how bad his team is, it will overachieve. Of course, some people say we're doing that . . . and we just might be. Alas, Crean has shown recruiting isn't one of his weaknesses (Trey Lyles moving on notwithstanding). And why couldn't our superstar team of a couple years ago overachieve and run Syracuse into the ground? These are the things that concern me about our coaching staff. That said, I think Crean has done a tremendous job with what he has to put on the floor right now.   We'll be better Sunday because we'll have a few practices without Hanner and a chance to get used to the idea of not having him available. I only hope that will be enough to keep us in the game, but even if it is, I believe our chances of winning are less than 50-50.

Purdue never plays the two bigs at the same time because both play exactly the same style of game and there's only room for one on the court at a time. It would be like us playing two Hanners if we had them.

(Backing into corner with hands held high)

Sorry I replied to that before seeing your "it was sarcasm" post.

Are you kidding? He's not even good enough to get much PT at Butler. He should have gone to Indiana State or Evansville...much more his speed.

I'm not a subscriber so all I can see are the overall kenpom rankings. We've been as high as 40, spent much of the pre-season in the 50's and 60's.

While I'm "on the record" about coaching predictions, I also said Illinois would regret letting Weber go. His K State team beat Top 10 Oklahoma at Oklahoma over the weekend. I really think he's a much better coach than Groce, regardless of who recruits in Chicago.

Somehow we dropped from 44 to 55 at kenpom.com over the weekend while Ohio State is #21. Can't figure that one out at all, but we did pass Illinois, which dropped faster than we did. How Minnesota is ahead of us there I'll never understand. They haven't beaten anyone of substance, they're 0-4 in B1G. (I predicted Minnesota would regret firing Tubby when it happened).   We're 60 in RPI as of today, but it boils down to finishing 11-7 or better in the conference to be sure to be in The Dance. We should be able to do that.

I think we found water reaching its rightful level in this game. There was a time that adjectives like "pre-Zeller bad" were floating around this board. Obviously that was a gross overreaction.    Matta had it right in the post-game: OSU missed enough shots it should have made to win. But on the road, those shots don't fall like they do at home. We'll have a much more uphill fight against OSU in Columbus.   We have now shown we can beat anyone we play in the B1G at home (we don't play Wisconsin in Bloomington). So if we can hold our own and steal just one more road game, that's 11-7 and a sure tournament bid. Are we better than that? 13-5 looks possible without guys with white coats coming in my direction.    I think the Illinois game will show us if we're contenders or pretenders. And for sure we aren't good enough to take Penn State for granted...but the MSU loss should be fresh enough in our minds to keep that from happening.   The good news is that we have so much room for improvement that other teams don't have. Given what we saw early in the year, I think Crean has done a great job of getting these guys focused.    I still think with our speed, our depth, our guards, our ball-handling capabilities and our quickness that we should be full-court pressing at least 30 minutes out of the 40.

Unlike you, I didn't like Max at all until the last game or two. I thought he was a waste of a scholarship and a guy who would never be able to compete in the Big Ten. But recently, and especially in the MSU game, I'm changing my tune on him. Much like Evans, he usually knows what he's going to do with the ball when it gets to him, even if he's just swinging it to someone else. Evans was like that from the start. Bryan was too timid to shoot at the start, Max isn't, both are mid-sized guards with long-range shooting abilities. Evans was stronger, but Max might benefit from some time in the weight room. Call it intangibles, but I see similarities to Evans in the way Hoetzel plays the game. Will he develop? I now think he might whereas I gave him no chance earlier.

We KNEW deep down a game like this was going to happen with the young roster we have. It was sort of the second coming of Eastern Washington only against a good team that we should have competed against but not necessarily beaten. I really expected this to happen a couple of games later, possibly at Illinois, especially if we had won this one and the two home games that follow.   Like the EW game, this was a case of young guys getting full of themselves and being humbled. Winning at Nebraska made it seem like going on the road was "no big deal." Well, guess what? In the B1G, going on the road is next to impossible without MAXIMUM effort. Yogi knew that and played accordingly. Hartman played decently, so did Zeis, although a couple of his usual sure shots didn't go down. For all the criticism I've leveled at Stan Robinson, I thought he gave 100% even if his decisions weren't always spot-on. Hoetzel, who looked completely overmatched earlier, does appear to getting it. In some ways he reminds me of Bryan Evans as a freshman, and if he can follow that course, he's going to be a lot better than I thought he could be. Troy? Hanner? Johnson? Blackmon Jr.? They all showed up for show and not for effort.   This team has proven it has to learn things the hard way, so chalk this one up as a lesson game, and let's move on. There's no doubt in my mind that Crean pounded these guys with the message of effort that fell upon deaf ears...again, you can't tell guys stuff they don't deep-down understand. My only criticism of Crean is that he didn't throw April out on the floor for a few minutes just to see what he'd do against these guys. What was there to lose by taking a look at him, especially if you're going to sit Troy and Hanner?   I couldn't believe the announcers were saying stuff like "can Indiana recover from a game like this?" I expect no hangover whatsoever. Much like Eastern Washington (and to a certain degree Louisville) I expect this game to make us better because we just got schooled (again) that throwing IU uniforms on the floor doesn't win anything.   We get a rematch with Sparty in our last regular-season game. I think we'll see a very different result. And I expect a maximum effort...and a win...Saturday.

Bracketology has Penn State and MSU both 12 seeds. Uh...Penn State? Please!

Stunning to believe we are mentioned in both polls and Michigan State doesn't get a single vote in either.

Hard to fault the effort today by everyone down the line. There were very few moments Butler outplayed us. We did beat ourselves through a few struggling minutes, which is going to happen with young players in December.   Hanner appears to be coming into his own, just in time. Even Hoetzel's minutes were mostly productive and I did not see him get left in his tracks defensively at all.   I truly believe the Eastern Washington game was a wake-up call that we answered. And the Louisville game was a learning experience that we truly learned from.   Blackmon still needs to let the game come to him a little more. And Holt's foul that resulted in 3 shots might be the ultimate bonehead foul I've ever seen (he got suckered into it so hopefully it's a learning experience).   Whether Butler is really a Top 25 team is up for debate. It will certainly fall from the rankings after this loss, and KenPom had Butler at #35 when the day started. But the impressive win over North Carolina looks more impressive after Ohio State got shellacked in Chapel Hill today.   I am cautiously optimistic we might actually make some noise in the B1G. To make the day perfect, Purdue was at its worst too.

I think the progress and the outcome of this game was very predictable. Our young kids played like young kids. Blackmon made a slew of horrible decisions, looking like a boy playing against men for the first time and realizing what it means to get his clock cleaned. Once he'd been stuffed a couple of times even his 3-point shot went to pot. Hopefully he learned from it. Hartman was completely a non-factor, and it disturbs me that he appeared to totally lose his way on the big stage. Troy and Stan tried to do things they're not ready to do (not sure if the day will ever come that they are ready to do those things). Why is Hoetzel getting so much PT? I still think he's overmatched at this level (although that one three-pointer with the foul was pretty). He surely can't play defense at this level yet.   We should, I believe, be encouraged by a few things:   Hanner played like we've wanted him to play and didn't give an inch when he was nose-to-nose with their big guys. Our zone took him out of position and allowed them to get a few dunks...he has to learn to slide back down to the baseline when he sees a big man getting behind the zone. But we won't see many big men of this quality in the conference. Kaminski aside, Purdue has some big bodies but the mobility is nowhere near Louisville's. Holt showed a lot of poise for his limited playing time and his intro into MSG. And the fact that Crean put April into the game in the first half (finally) shows that April is obviously coming on strong in practice. Continued improvement from him -- enough to make him an 8-to-10-minutes-per-game-off-the-bench guy -- would go a long way for us.   Zeis showed he doesn't get rattled on the big stage. That was a big hurdle for a smaller-school transfer IMO.   Most positively, our runs to end the first half and start the second half were very significant. We were up against a behemoth of a team with our inexperienced children and actually climbed out of a double-digit hole in the first half to take a four-point lead in the second half. I think that speaks volumes for the effort Crean is getting from these guys. It also says they believe in themselves.   Most of our turnovers were "good intentions" passes that were deflected or picked off (and a couple of times just horribly off target because their defense forced changes in decisions at the last second). Against lesser teams, those passes found their targets. Against a team as quick and experienced as Louisville, those passes were anticipated and broken up. Good lesson for us when we play experienced teams like Iowa and Wisconsin.   Obviously Crean is saving full-court pressure for B1G time. I can't disagree with that -- why give conference teams an advance look? But with our quickness, our depth and our guards with good hands, this team should be playing at least 30 minutes of full-court pressure on defense.

I don't see any way we will win this game. It's the first road game for all the freshmen, and MSG is a pretty intimidating place to start your road career.   That said, I believe we will learn a lot about this team, our possible success in the B1G season, and who has focus and concentration among the young guys in this matchup. If we compete for 40 minutes, I'll be highly satisfied even if we lose by double digits.   But since only George Custer was a greater optimist than I am, I say, "Beat Lousyville."

Who were those guys wearing our colors? A team that came out with swagger, a team that appeared well-coached and very disciplined. A team that if it had played as it did tonight would have blown Eastern Washington out of Assembly Hall.   Holt is definitely ready for prime time and the bulk of the big-man minutes. Hanner makes a good secondary guy, and he made some impressive plays too. Hartman is potentially the best off-the-bench guy we've had since Tom Abernethy. I see potential success for this team, probably mostly at home, though.   If they can bring this intensity to every game, this will be a fun team to watch, and if they do bring it, hats off to Crean for getting a young team to raise its game when the competition gets tougher. 

Yes, it's embarrassing. Yes, it's even disgusting. SMU thumped EW a few days ago, and after we played so well against SMU we now see this. But this stuff happens to young teams. I mentioned after one of our other games that we'd see some crash-and-burn situations this year. When you play that many freshmen and sophomores, some of that will happen.   Could Coach have made a difference? Maybe, maybe not. I see a lot of mention of the time outs that weren't taken, but there will be situations where we don't have time outs to use, and I think in meaningless games such as this one, letting the players do it is a necessary test. Learning from this trumps winning this particular game IMO.   Hopefully Crean has concluded that Hoetzel might be a Big Ten player someday, but he's definitely not good enough now. He bites on fakes, he can't create his own shot with enough space to be successful shooting, and his ball handling is limited to "let me get rid of it." Hanner isn't the answer; he might be good off the bench for a few minutes in each half, but to expect him to carry the load is unrealistic. I do like the fact that we tried a lineup with Troy as the big man, even if it didn't work. At least it demonstrates that Crean has seen that Hanner isn't always ready for prime time. We need to see Holt AND April out there, maybe even both at the same time with the three shooters. They might fall on their faces. At least it would be different faces mashed into the hardwood.   Young teams lack in-game intelligence, and it showed in spades Monday night. When EW exploited something and it worked, they went back to it time and time again, and it continued to work because our reaction to it was non-existent. We hear this crapola about how far beyond their years JBJ and RJ are and how Yogi can settle down the guys on the floor like an extra coach. We need to can all that as the bs that it is and move on with the idea that these are just-out-of-high-school kids and they need to be spoon-fed every ounce of basketball they can hold.   We have five weeks before the real games start, and frankly what we do before the Big Ten season doesn't matter to me if we can find the right mix-and-match to be competitive in the B1G. Say what you will, I think this loss can be used as a lesson to the players and coaches alike. Nobody likes to lose, and I'm part of that dynamic. But we obviously were not getting better by winning, and maybe being hit in the mouth will be good for this team. I don't feel any less (or any more) optimistic than I did before last night's tipoff. 

A lot of positives: 1) We CAN play with a good team, at least at home 2) We can win even when half our 3's don't go down 3) Crean was not outcoached by a legendary figure 4) For the first time out this year, Troy was outstanding, although he should have gotten better-timed blows 5) Quickness, quickness, quickness. We CAN play with a bigger team because of quickness...and SMU wasn't slow afoot, either. 6) Hanner has a less-than-spectacular game, Johnson's shots aren't falling from outside, but we still beat a ranked opponent   If there were significant negatives, I was too giddy to see them. Hoetzel looked overmatched, but I thought everyone else seemed in their element. Would have liked to have seen April get a couple of minutes against this level of competition as a test of where he is. I'm sure the coaches have evaluated that on practice performance, but some guys are practice players (Jeff Stocksdale was an All-American in practice but in games we scratched our heads as to why Lou Watson bothered to play him) and some come up bigger when the game starts.   Young teams have ups and downs, and we'll have some downs, but I believe this team would beat last year's team in a blowout.

We could do much worse than Muschamp...OSU's not doing so bad with an ex-Florida guy (of course he went on his own terms). But if we really want a fantastic SEC ex-coach, I suspect Mark Richt will be available at the end of Georgia's season. With his star running back going down with a torn ACL, Georgia (already with two losses including one to Muschamp) is likely to lose to Georgia Tech, which will be enough to send the Bulldawg lovers into a firing-frenzy orbit.   Richt is a class act and knows his stuff. He's had Georgia in the SEC mix EVERY YEAR. When's the last time we were in the Big Ten mix for any number of consecutive years?

If we're chronicling 7-footers let us never forget the amazing Uwe Blab.   Meanwhile...I thought April looked very smooth, showed decent hands and appeared he knew what he was doing out there. Enough that I'd be giving him as much PT as possible in hopes he might be Big Ten material, after all. Of course, he was playing against reserves of a bad team, but bad-hands big guys stick out in any crowd.

And...I have not yet given up on Crean. If Fischer was still here instead of Wisconsin-homesick at Marquette (thank God he didn't choose Ryan's Grinches) we'd be in the B1G title talk mix now. Hopefully, Mr. C. learned from that one.

ANYBODY but Richard Pitino, PLEASE!!! I cannot stand that guy from his physical appearance to his glib-crap speech. Tubby Smith is a far better coach than The Pits Jr. and Minnesota will regret the decision within a year or two.   If we're going to cannibalize the B1G, Matta at one time said this was his dream job when he left Butler. I don't think he could be pried out of OSU with 10 crowbars, but if we're going to dream, let's dream big.   I haven't seen Jim O'Brien's name mentioned. He had a lot of success recruiting in B1G when with OSU and got a raw deal there, from which he has been cleared. I know he's old, but I was hoping we'd go after him for our last two hires....