NashvilleHoosier

So this is “a lot”? They beat us by 1 point in their home court last year and there was not much separation from 4th and 10th place. You’re lying to yourself if you think there was. They were projected as a 7 seed, us a 9. You’re saying this year is looking to be about the same. This all proves my point. People are enamored with a coach that they would not be enamored with if we had him. Yet those people are surprised that others question their coaching change arguments.

Yes, my point is that people are enamored with a coach that they wouldn’t actually be enamored with if we had him. And “done a lot more” is a bit of a stretch. If you want to say it appears at this moment in time that the trajectory of Illinois under Underwood is slightly better that IU under Archie, then fine. But that story hasn’t been fully written. And saying he’s done a lot more, to warrant being enamored with, is again, quite a stretch.

Hah! Sure, you’d all approach that scenario totally level headed. I wasn’t comparing him to Archie. Just pointing out the newest example of a coach people seem to be enamored with, which suggests we’d be so much better with him rather than Archie, yet it’s laughable to think those people would be up in arms blowing up these same threads if we did have him.

I’ve seen Underwood mentioned several times on this board this season. I’m not knocking what he’s done, but if he was at IU, in year 4, doing the exact same thing here....brings back a ton of talent and experience, starts as a top 5ish team, slips to #18 while losing 3 of their 4 games against good teams while the 1 win doesn’t look that great anymore and the losses include one to our hated border rival who wasn’t ranked and to Rutgers!! (I mean I don’t care how good they are we just have to beat Rutgers right?!?). Don’t kid yourselves. All the usual suspects in these threads would be in a complete and totally full blown meltdown wanting him fired.

This couldn’t wait until December 26th? All we wanted for.... kidding, of course

Yeah, to @Golfman25's point, you're kind of contradicting yourself here. We're being held back by the administration, who should just hire someone and let them cheat, yet you acknowledge that our (far less attractive, far less supported, far less historically relevant) football program can be successful under the same administration under a coach who instills a great culture and player development? I asked about this earlier but I'm not fully following what people are referring to when its insinuated that our struggles in basketball start with the administration. Is that really what people mean? The administration prefers someone who runs the program clean, and therefore, it's understood that you cannot be a successful program in college hoops unless you indeed cheat?

Yeah, misleading thread title when the intent was simply to talk about a coaching change. May as well merge with the writing on the wall thread. I’ve been as pro-Archie as any. Though I’d say it more like I’ve been patient and recognized overall improvement YoY. We haven’t been to the level I expect, I believe cutting ties would have absolutely been the wrong decision. This is the year to make a jump. Good news is we have every opportunity to still do that. Bad news is holy $#@% is it getting hard to believe. I haven’t made the turn, and I’ll still watch every damn game. But I’ve never been this apathetic about IU basketball. It helps ease the pain by being so smitten with greatest football team on the planet, a.k.a. America’s team #LEO. But looking ahead from this exact point, it seems very difficult to find....7 conference wins? Then beyond that it will take a modern day miracle for us to be better next season w/o Trayce (or some absolute magic in the transfer portal). I really hope that is just an over reaction to what most people see as a bad loss. But......is it really? One thing that has me curious....I’ve seen it referenced a few times the past couple years that our problems in hoops start above the head coach, all the way up to the president. Can someone help me understand that better? (FYI - this is NOT a question for the usual “that’s just an excuse, fire Archie now” suspects....everyone is already painfully aware of your answers)

I also can't stand the fact that I won't be there. I told my wife last year, even though she was very supportive of me going to the Gator Bowl, that if we make a really good bowl game, she should just expect that I'll be going, even if it overlaps with any holiday plans we may have. We can do holiday plans any other time. Of course, f@#$ 2020....I ain't going b/c my in-laws are coming to town on that day and we had to lecture them about not going to do anything stupid and bring it in to our house. Traveling to FL for a football game wasn't going to fly after that. Good news is I'll just save the money for traveling to the Big Ten championship game, semifinal, and national championship next year.

This is it right here. We simply have no choice but to win, and even a big win will not get us any credit. Though I also agree with @Chips&Dipo that we need to go out and win simply to get that bowl win we haven't had for so long and carry the momentum in to next season.

Honestly I don't think it does. Beating Purdue alone would not have moved the needle at all. Beating Iowa would have given us one quality win but at that point I believe they would have just valued Iowa State's wins over Oklahoma, Texas and Oklahoma St. over our win over Iowa. Even though in my opinion a 8-1 resume with wins over Iowa, Wisconsin and a close loss to OSU (which is being propped up as 1 of OSU's great wins) is equal or better than a 8-3 resume w/ close wins over Oklahoma, Ok St. and Texas but includes loses to K State and a Sun Belt team. One thing I've thought was interesting for a while is how much Penn St. ended up not helping our resume. I still believe that we just totally took the air out of their tires. They had one single chance to save their season after losing to us, the following week against OSU. Starting 0-2 completely killed all of their goals for the season, and they played like they knew that. If they had played their schedule in reverse, I wouldn't be surprised if they were a 7-2 team ranked in the top 20, 6-3 at worst. In which case, if we were able to count that as a quality win, along with closing the season out with Iowa, yes, absolutely we'd be ahead of Iowa St...and probably more teams.

I’ve thought for a while that our goal should be to be the new Michigan St. (on field results only, nothing else!!). The door is open for us to do that and there is no reason we can’t sustain a level of success like that. They’ve has some really down years mixed in, plenty of 7-5 or 6-6 mediocre bowl years, but also some really stellar bowls including a playoff appearance.

Well since I’m bound and determined to worry about all of the worst possible scenarios, outside of the NY6 bowls, the others get to choose right? With Iowa and NW having the same amount of wins and only 1 more loss, any chance they get taken for the Citrus and Outback and we slide to the Music City?

I’m not so sure. I’ve woken up making the grave mistake of having renewed hope! But I’m pretty sure the committee takes in to consideration when you play teams right? After getting destroyed yesterday, they may give far less credit to ND for an OT home win against Clemson without Lawrence. And maybe they give A&M’s win over Florida even more weight after Florida pushed Bama to the brink. I still don’t expect it to happen, but to me it’s not as crazy as it seemed last night. Another crazy thing to think about, based on ^^ being our only likely path, it probably would not have mattered if we’d drawn Iowa and been able to play and beat them yesterday. I think both 3 loss teams would still stay ahead of us.

Yeah this is a bummer. It’s not crazy to think the committee drops ND out. And they still have to consciously put two 3 loss teams ahead of us, but I’d count on it. Ultimately how crazy is it that we are going to be bummed out by making the best bowl game we’ve made in like 30 years.

Just reiterating a point I made earlier in the week so we can collectively pout about it. The benefit UNC is likely gonna get from the Orange bowl not hosting a semifinal is exactly what we would be doing if the Rose was not a semi this year. If it were just a NY6 bowl, we’d have been popping champagne as soon as OSU won today (probably). Now everyone join me in a quick 10 to 15 minute pout.

In other words, the current state that summarizes all of my posts in this thread over the past week while I evaluated things as they played out and most certainly did not way over think things.

I think our most likely landing spot is staying at #11. Bama - Clemson - OSU - ND - A&M - GA - Oklahoma - Cincy - Iowa St - FL - IU - Coastal Even if Cincy loses and we slide up to #10, they will take Coastal as the group of 5 rep. Since the Orange has to take UNC, and Oregon gets the PAC-12 spot...we are out in that scenario. It’s looking increasingly likely that it’s between us and two 3 loss teams for that last spot.

ISU keeping I close and having a drive at the end to win was likely the worst possible outcome for us. I don’t think there is any way they drop below us. I also now worry that NW leading late in the 3rd quarter, and simply playing in the B1G championship game will give the committee reason to move them ahead of us. A Tulsa win is still helpful, and Bama 62-3 would be nice. If Fla keeps it close, and Cincy wins.....oh boy we are suddenly looking like the odd man out.

Seems impossible we get jumped at this point unless NW wins. I really like where we sit right now. Though I’ll take any of Bama big, like 62-3, Iowa st win, Tulsa win.

Not entirely related to the playoff, but something I thought about on a 3 hour drive yesterday....imagine the chaos if OSU had to cancel their game against us, instead of Illinois? How would the Big Ten have screwed us over in that scenario? If all other things stayed the same, we would be 6-0, OSU 5-0 w/o the head to head win against us. I'm absolutely positive the league would have changed the schedules and tried to make us play the last week, but we would have had to cancel. They simply would have had no choice but to let us play in the championship game, right? Of course, they would have lucked out when we had to drop out, and OSU would have snuck in the back door. I just can't imagine the panic in the Big Ten front office having IU and NW play in the title game w/o any true path to change the rules. Edit....actually, the chaos would have been even more than expected. B/c the league would not have had any reason to meet last week to change the rules about minimum games requirements. So when we would have had to cancel just this past Tuesday, OSU would have still fallen below the 6 game minimum, as would Maryland behind them and by default, 3-5 Penn State would have been slated to play in the championship game. Hah! So it would have been the quickest, maddest scramble ever to get the minimum rule changed, which would have been hilarious.

They specifically state that there is no minimum game requirement to get in the playoff, but the committee loves them some Iowa St. If they win, and OSU doesn't play, I think they put Iowa St. in. Only way OSU stays, is if ND wins dropping Clemson out and keeping OSU in, but even then they may move A&M ahead of OSU as well. OSU likely reeeeaaaallly needs to play. But I don't think NW jumps us by not playing. They have a better win (Iowa) than we do, but a far worse loss than we do. The only thing to worry about is would the "co-champ" title give favor to NW in the committee's eyes over us? I don't know the exact rules, but I think they committee has no choice but to choose the highest ranked team available.

I never thought I'd want the BCS back! The Sun Belt cancelling should work in our favor, and of course Iowa/Michigan cancelling. Now I think the only real threat to jump us is USC, though if everyone else stays in front of us, we're still probably out w/ the Orange having to take UNC. But if one of either Florida or the Big 12 loser falls behind us (surely they can't keep TWO 3 loss teams ahead of us, right?) I think we'd be in good shape, probably staying put at #11. If they both fall behind us, I think we are gold for a NY6. Still pulling big for Bama (huge), Tulsa, and probably Iowa St., and of course we just need OSU to not blow it.

This opening worried me, and it will until it’s filled with someone other than CTA. But thinking more about it...seems like a terrible fit especially with how much you hear about boosters running the show. He doesn’t seem like a guy who would want to get on board somewhere where bag men are involved. And I know there is such thing as coach speak, but CTA doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would outright lie (“haven’t talked to anybody about any jobs”) nor to bolt just days after signing a new class. Plenty of coaches would do that, but it seems to directly fly in the face of the culture he is all about.

Hah! Well I admit I have to retract my statement, but I'm at least glad that I put the "uneducated and non-medical expert" disclaimer in there. It took me about 4 minutes to get an actual educated and fully medical expert-like opinion from a good buddy of mine who among many other things has helped treat and rehab ACL injuries. He confirmed it is still common to take a graft from the good knee to repair the torn ACL. Though he can't entirely confirm that's exactly what happened here just based on a picture, he can't think of any other reason the other leg would be wrapped and tubed (<-- totally medical expert word there) like that.

My completely uneducated, non-medical expert take: the right leg is wrapped far more heavily than the left. If the left knee was involved in this surgery to the extent that something was removed (which seems to be debunked), they would be wrapped equally. I'm guessing he's wrapped like this in a way that helps for circulation since I'm guessing he's supposed to stay off of his feet for a while. I had a surgery around this time last year that had nothing to do with my legs, but they wrapped mine in something to help with circulation since I would be off my feet for a while.