HoosierAloha

When a strong gust of wind can knock you over I'm not sure you can really flop right? (it was the correct call)

You and I both know the reasons behind it.

The season came crashing down in the first round of the tourney against Saint Mary's. Players and staff have returned home for their rest, grades have been handed out, and discussion of next season's roster has begun. There has been much debate about offense, defense, player abilities, coaching abilities, schedules, etc. throughout the season. From my unpopular perspective, we rarely reached our potential and never really seemed to become a better sum of our parts (i.e. Trayce and some others). What intangibles do you attribute to this and what needs to change for this program to be in the upper tier of the Big 1.o and compete nationally?

Big time bucket getters on both teams. Hopefully this game goes right down to the wire!

Root cause in the team quit and leadership stayed in Indy. Can we discuss why that happened throughout the season or should we create a different thread?

Completely agree he hasn't done anything to embarrass IU off the court. There needs to be some difficult conversations in the coming weeks. It's good we have likeable players that don't get in trouble but are we going to win with them? I think Kopp could be a bench piece for a good team in the range of 9-10 place on the team. If we're still doing the second unit next season you bring him off the bench to get a few shots up. If he's hitting you feed him but if he's not you sit him. Unfortunately, I don't think that's how it plays out if he returns.

Their (UCLA) program is on a completely different level than ours, ditto for Saint Mary's. There were far more games than just Michigan and Saint Mary's where we didn't put our players in the best position to compete. I think this has been a continuous issue throughout the season.

I am only speaking for myself but I believe there is useful discussion going on and we're actually getting into some root cause issues with the team/program. Are we locking down the thread or are we free to continue the discussion? I believe there is the option to ignore threads right? Another data point is Notre Dame having a mascot and we don't. I'm sure that has to provide some e and e boost no? Stanford has a tree as a mascot. Can we get a cheerleader stack as our mascot?

I don't think it's meaningless. It was an exaggeration, most of it has been to combat the myriad excuses that get floated around from fans and players. I have little doubt that playing that many games over that many days takes a toll for IU or for Richmond or for Notre Dame or for any team. It seems we're the ones that got clowned while others won their first game in the round of 64. Richmond played 4 games in 4 days, as did Iowa and others. Is 5 games in 8 days more difficult than 4 games in 4 days?

Progress! I believe this was a major issue starting last off-season and carried throughout the season. It probably goes goes back further for several of these players. It's one thing to have that chip on your shoulder and use it to prove yourself but another to constantly talk without action. We loved to quickly share to social media when we were "disrespected" by the media or whoever regarding preseason rankings, suspensions, seeding, etc. Our fans eat it up and run with it. It does zero good for the team or the fans. We've become a meme program and fan base. The leadership concerns me moving forward and could be determined by who returns. This has been an issue for years and I think it is in our culture now. We don't have any/many disruptors that can overcome the status quo of just accepting meritocracy. TJD is a hell of a basketball player yet still looks to his peers for acceptance. X is the closest thing but I believe it's something he has for himself and isn't as outspoken about it. Of course, this is looking at it from a 30,000' view but the signs are there. I hope Woody didn't accept things in hopes that it would course correct over the season. It's difficult to correct those things at the beginning but even harder when you've allowed them for awhile. This stems from the belief that the NW fiasco wasn't the first of its kind. Time will tell.

What do you think the root cause was for the whipping?

Heard Brad Davison was lobbying for a full episode of The Journey for Howard to explain that he just coaches hard.

I have a feeling we're going to see quite a bit of shakeup this off-season due to player and/or coach's decision.

Could it be we're all numbed by the Big 1.o? That's a solid block out in this league depending on the teams.

How so? Despite what we've seen here for the past half decade it's possible for players to make jumps in ability over the summer. Geronimo needs to work on overall consistency but isn't that far from a starting Big 1.o player. I really like a lot of what Gallo does but he's lacking a consistent jumper. IF/when he gets that he'll be a menace to opponents because he really knows angles to attack and does a lot of other things. Bates will need to put in some work but has a lot of potential. It'll be interesting to see how much time he'll be able to put towards that with everything that is about to come in his life. Leal might never be a rotation player at the Big 1.o level but he can be an All-Big 1.o level teammate pushing others to get better.

Good on Al getting to a Sweet 16.

I'd imagine what one is willing to pay for a service. I believe someone was dumb enough to pay ~$500k for Brady's last game ball. Could someone pay $100k for a ball after a game of 1v1 with TJD? I'd think so but we might tattle on ourselves if it wasn't market value.

If he returns hope we have a stretch 4 that can space the floor for guards/wings to attack. We need to modernize that offense even with "better" players.

Completely agreed with the first part but not the second. Sure, it's not the exact same situation but it's in the conversation. Some had this game as a win-win the moment we were announced in the play in round of the tourney. It's crazy Richmond won 4 to get the auto qual and then took down that mighty Iowa squad for their 5th game in 8 days.

Is it market value..? Appearances during Little 5 week, commercials, 1v1 with donors, etc. You’d think we’d have this figured out after being the first to have a NIL program in the country. Sent from my iPhone using BtownBanners mobile app

Heck of an e by Creighton but coming up a little short. Sent from my iPhone using BtownBanners

If it was just one or two players it would be one thing but it was almost our entire team, even the players that were more athletic. Is that being taught? Will better players get themselves into worse positions and not be able to recover? Will there be a standard that they even have to give full e and e or will it be okay like it was for halves and games this past season?

I think our defense next season might depend on who plays the 5. TJD covered for a lot of what our wings couldn't do. Getting more athletic on the wing could certainly help and having Geronimo at the 4 could help protecting the rim. Our offense needs to be more dynamic.. Making 3s will help but a big that can get a bucket will be important too. We've had good to great inside or out but have rarely had both.

Could be, look similar to performances earlier in the season where they just laid down. Hopefully, the players coming in magically have that next season.

Good half by Creighton, hope it comes down to a close finish