HoosierAloha

  Remove the first three years and Crean is at best has the 5th best record in conference behind Izzo, Matta, Beilein, and Ryan.  Now, you throw Maryland in the mix and you're looking at 6th place.  Are we good with a middle of the pack program in the conference?  I'm not and never will be. 

  In which league?  I could see him as a mid-first rounder in the D-league or overseas.

Troy is averaging about 11 points and 6 rebounds in B1G play.  Like you said, his big games have come at home but against middle of the pack to bottom feeder teams.  He also has only 20 assists to 34 turnovers in conference games, that's a 0.58 ato ratio.  Of those 20 assists 9 came in two games at home against terrible teams (ILL and NW).  Troy is shooting about 44% from the field, 26% from deep, and 71% from the FT line.  If those numbers came from a promising frosh, like OG, I would say he's adjusting to the college game.  However, they're numbers from a regressing junior that is out of control more often than not.   There are three main differences between OG and Troy.  Those two missed layups you mentioned by OG today actually are close.  Troy has layups that are airballs or just flat out wildly out of control.  The "assists" Troy has to the opponent are also buffling.  Troy had a two game stretch earlier in the season that he assisted on 16 points for the opponent.  You see that very little out of OG.  The third difference and most significant is defense.  Troy completely gave up on a Wiscy fastbreak earlier in the season.  You can count on him losing his man several times for wide open looks from behind the arc.  OG is there in position to at least make a play.  Yes, he gets beat on defense sometimes but Troy gets beat more often than not.  That takes a toll on the team.    I'd be willing to bet if we saw less of Troy we would see the team take it up a notch similar to when JBJ went down.  OG now is what I expected of a junior Troy; playing under control, using athleticism when needed, playing position defense.  Troy is an athlete struggling to learn and execute the fundamentals of basketball.  OG is a basketball player with great athleticism.    Edit:  If you want to dive deeper into the stats Troy is shooting just 37.5% (21-56) from the field in games against top half of the B1G (Wiscy x2, OSU, Michiga, Iowa, and MSU).  Half of those games were at home.  I respect your opinion and appreciate your articles on Btown Banners but Troy has regressed enough that his minutes should be decreased to a role player.  He should absolutely not be handling the ball at the top of the key or driving the ball.  That's not a position he can succeed at this point in time.

  Second half, Troy makes a completely senseless turnover that leads to an open corner three.  There was a timeout where Troy should have been benched.  Nope, the very next play Troy is handling the ball at the top of the key, driving to his right and was lucky the MSU player touched it before going out of bounds.  Troy is out of conTroy most of the time leading to multiple Troyovers and a Troywreck. 

  That's not accurate.  Just because Troy losses minutes doesn't mean OG gets them all.  You spread it out to OG, JMor, Max, and Colin.  Troy hurts this team.  Good coaches know you play off of him on offense and allow him to drive into multiple defenders for an easy run out on offense.  On defense you run him around a bit and eventually he'll "squirrel!!" for a wide open look.  

  It is rather simple.  We try to make things more complicated than they actually should be.  Often times when we get the few minutes of good Troy we need to because we were in a hole from bad Troy.  If Troy plays at a consistently above average player we go to the next level.  When Troy often plays down a few notches he not only effects himself but the rest of the team.  I believe if Troy became more of a role player we would see a similar effect to what happened when JBJ went out.  I would be willing to risk it and give Troy about 10-15 minutes per game until he proves he deserves more.

Way to closeout the game, nice win ladies!

  Simple question:  Does Troy help or hurt the team more when he is on the court?

Our FG% has taken a huge dip recently.  We beat Iowa with defense and lost to PSU because of it.  I expected a loss today but I also expected us to show up.  It's quite sad when you know halftime adjustments won't be made...  Frustrating to say the least

Buss came out firing in the 2nd!!!

Also, our FG% has plummeted recently.  Tired legs or...?

  So he plays to his strengths maybe 20% of the time, on a good day, and we should play him?  I'd reduce his minutes to the first couple of the game.  If he's bad Troy I'd go ahead and send him to the locker room.  Kid just hasn't developed into a basketball player.

We just kind of sat there and watched as the lead built.  I didn't see any adjustments, anyone getting pissed that we started sucking, and no timeouts.  I had us losing this game but I didn't have us giving up.

  I disagree.  We're an entirely different team when he's riding pine.

  And OG to round out the front court.  That's a tall and long front court.

IU - 69 Other 76

  He did it to one of the favorites for B1G POY why not the other?!    "Don't come in here you little man, THIS IS HARTMAN'S HOUSE!"

  Does it matter when Troy's man beats him, Colin fouls him in the paint, and Colin sits with early foul trouble?

  This.  I could see them dropping one on the road, maybe to Michigan?  I just don't see them losing at home, maybe us or Wiscy?    Edit:  Iowa has yet to have their wth loss in conference play.  Could PSU or O$U trip them up on the road?

  I was on ESPN and just clicked there.  Yeah, I believe the committee uses RPI.

Looks like Wiscy will actually pull off the win.  Didn't see this coming but I like it.  Still think Stone should have been headed to the locker room for the rest of the night.

  That was a bad loss but they're still topp 100 BPI (97) but that was a bad loss too.

  IU's resume: http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bpi/_/teamId/84   Maryland's resume: http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bpi/_/teamId/120   They don't have the two bad losses, Wake and PSU, that we have.  Other than that they're pretty similar.

What has happened to Melo?  Didn't think he was the best guard but it seems like he has had a bit of a sophomore slump.

Shot clock kept running after ref whistled kicked ball...