NashvilleHoosier

Quick thought on the resume. Notre Dame is 10 spots from being a quad 1 win. Very tough stretch on the road ahead for them but if they end up closing strong, there’s a chance that becomes another Q1 win. Though we still need to take care of our own business and if we don’t do that tomorrow, my confidence that we’ll get 4 more will be shot.

This is the exact response for someone with an axe to grind but not a real point to make. You're questioning a team vote for captains being on the coach. You say the captains aren't getting it done, which is further indicating that you're saying all this b/c of the 22 games you've watch, not b/c of anything that happened in the offseason when captains are chosen. Yet when it comes time to justify, you go with a "i'm not gonna hold your hand" bit. And he should have known how that vote was going to go and not let it happen? Sheesh....I mean. That alone makes it hard to take anything else seriously.

I didn't see you're line about Brunk at the bottom. Yeah he's a senior school-wise, but he's a junior on this team. And not a junior that's been with the team for 3 or 4 years. And if the story about running and shutting the door is about Brunk, that's fantastic, but when did it happen? Before captains were chosen? Was anyone else vocal about it? You still included Race as a choice, was he doing that? It's still just too easy to say that Brunk should have been selected a captain at this point. It's far more based on what you've seen on the court for 22 games than it is based on that one story. Sorry, questioning Archie about who the captains are and how they were chosen is just a lazy argument that has no other point but having an axe to grind. The next step here is to argue Archie should be fired b/c of his choice of where to eat lunch today. I know this is this the negativity thread. But there are far more worthy axes to grind and things to question.

Yeah that's part of if, but not all of it. But even if that was all it was about, you're going to say that Race was doing that last year when he wasn't even practicing for a good stretch of the season? I know the offseason counts just as much, but there's no evidence that any player was doing this more than others. You're just saying this b/c you don't like how Green and Durham have played.

Brunk is a junior so he wouldn't even have been picking a senior by choosing him. And that's way too easy to say now. Nobody would have ever said this in the offseason, before Joey had ever even suited up for us. I love Brunk as much as anybody. He absolutely deserves to be a captain next year. But choosing someone who had never played a game for IU and a guy who had barely put any time in on the court (no fault of his own) could have been just as dividing as choosing a freshman or sophomore. There's no way you can say that would have been a better decision than letting the team choose who they wanted as their captains. Which by the way, the team had every right to choose Brunk and Race if they felt that was best.

For every criticism of Archie, right or wrong, reasonable or not, I just can't understand this new hot topic lately about Archie "allowing" Green and Durham to become captains. They were chosen by a team vote. What was he supposed to do? Tell them to choose who they want but you can't choose Devonte? And if you say he could have chosen them himself but he couldn't choose Crean players, he'd be choosing freshman or sophomores to captain. That very well could have divided the team right from the start. C'mon. There's plenty of things to criticize. It's hard to take any point being made seriously if you're also arguing this point.

Don't worry, I read it exactly like you did.

If "probably in" is an acceptable answer, that is mine as well.

Thank you for the very detailed breakdown. I've highlighted in bold, italic red, what is by far the most impressive stat in this post. :-)

I don't see how it can be the deepest conference and likely deeper than its ever been yet not be considered better quality. Top end quality? No. I don't believe there is a single team capable of winning it all. Last year there was. But overall quality? Yes, of course. That's why 12 teams are considered to be among the top 40 to 45 teams in the country. Its why every single win we get will be considered a quality win and every single loss we have will not be considered a bad loss. But there were 5 bad teams last year. 2 bad teams this year. That 3 team difference is a lot. Far less opportunities for quality wins. It could easily have meant 3-4 additional games on each schedule last year with a much higher probability of a win. Possibly the difference between being 22-9 (12-8) vs. 19-12 (9-11). So no, I don't believe the conference is down. We aren't going to agree on this. I've enjoyed the discussion. You're making valid points, hopefully you accept mine as valid. We just disagree. Truce. Handshake. I'll see you back here on Saturday :-).

I just don't understand why it's so hard to see at minimum 4 more wins when we have 5 left at home. We've beaten FSU and MSU at home and the rest of those 5 games are against teams that aren't as good as them. And when you say making the field isn't much of an accomplishment and shouldn't be viewed as one, I'll ask the same question I asked another poster who didn't answer.......what exactly was your expectation for this team going in to this season? ^^I'm genuinely interested in the answer, I'm not asking that in a condescending way.

No I understand what you're saying. And its a valid point. I work with two Kansas fans. We talk all the time about how college basketball is at a very concerning point. Far too many games in the 40s and 50s. But even if college basketball overall is down, you simply can't say that about the Big Ten. And if we end up in the tournament, that's obviously a better end result than previous years and in order to meet that goal we'll have had to prove our worth in the best and deepest conference in the country. Again, something we didn't prove when the conference wasn't as strong the previous two years. That's improvement. Is there plenty of improvement left to be made? Of course, across the board, including coaching. Looking at this team before the season started, considering we lost our two best players and scorers from a team that didn't make the tournament, I didn't expect that we'd all of a sudden be some great shooting or great offensive team. (I also didn't expect that we'd be historically bad shooting team.) But having a realistic goal of making the tournament, I looked at this team as, if we're going to do that, we'll just simply have to find ways to win. It might be defense one night, it might be an unexpected burst of offense another (if TJD's last shot goes in, that's what we'd be talking about), and often, it might be ugly. So far, we've done enough of that to meet the realistic goal. Find a way to win 4 more (I still think we win more than that), and we've met that realistic goal with a chance to make some noise. And in the grand scheme of things, especially in any conversation about firing a coach in his 3rd year, nobody will look at a trajectory of year 1 - no postseason, year 2 - NIT quarters, year 3 - NCAA tourney (eliminated TBD) as not improving.

What does it prove? Well considering the league we play in is deeper than it’s likely ever been, it would prove that we’ve taken a step forward. Anybody that looked at this team going into the season and thought anything more than making the tournament should be a realistic goal, I would argue just simply wasn’t thinking clearly. (My caveat here is that I’m not saying we should hope to lose in the first round, but that we should shoot for making the tourney b/c anything can happen after that). I do agree with you that making the tourney shouldn’t be the standard. I don’t want that to be the standard. But unfortunately that’s where we are. We need to make the tournament, and when we do, that will be improvement. And then we need to keep making the tournament, and then win the damn thing.

We beat FSU and MSU at home. We have 5 more home games against teams that aren’t as good as they are. We absolutely laid an egg tonight. When we wake up tomorrow, we’ll still be projected to be in every single tournament bracket. It’s not guaranteed, but sheesh, it’s far more likely we make the tourney than not at this point.

Dude.....wut? I mean I understand being pissed about this game. We sucked. No question. But if we make the tourney that will be: year 1 - nothing, year 2 - NIT quarterfinals, year 3 - NCAA tourney. What needle are you trying to move this season? I know you want the coach fired with every bone in your body but if you’re trying to make a point justifying that......well, try harder.

If feel like this is even more evidence that 4 more wins get us in. Even if we assume we win the "worst" of those 4 opportunities, that would be 5 quad 1 wins and ZERO quad 2, 3, or 4 losses. No chance we get left out in that case. I understand some teams may move enough from now to the end of the season that those numbers aren't absolute, though. I still think we find at least 5 more wins and I agree that only 4 is not ideal simply for momentum reasons. If we only win 4, here's hoping we can get at least 2 in the BTT to build some momentum toward the dance.

Such a bummer in my opinion. What a crazy situation for IU football to be in to have 2 so capable QBs that one who was so critically important In leading us to the best season we’ve had in 26 years has to consider transferring b/c He isn’t guaranteed a starting spot during his senior year. I won’t argue that Penix has a higher ceiling but with his health always being a question, I can’t say I would have blamed the staff if they called both in after the bowl game and said Ramsey is the starter next season. If he goes down, Penix be ready to go. We’d still have 2 years of Penix after that. But yet I also understand that if Penix is ready we gotta roll with him and hope he stays healthy. And with that I understand Ramsey not being able to sit around and see if he gets hurt again. Wow, again, what a situation for IU football to be in.

And after road teams starting 7-42 (maybe 43), they are 8-5 since Tuesday. I don't think this indicates that it is any less difficult playing on the road now than it was 2 weeks ago. But I feel better about stealing another road win at this point. Why not Happy Valley?

Another honest question...what exactly was your expectation going into this season?

Honest question...where we stand right now, if you put a tournament field together, is IU deserving of a bid?

Ugghhh. This one stings. Huge opportunity missed. Didn’t get to watch at all, but listened to Fisch while driving. But I’m with you. I don’t think this changes how we are trending. I’m becoming more confident we can find another road win. I feel good we can win 5 or 6 more but still agree we just need 4. Which of course is not guaranteed.

Of course. Which is why when you came with the slow learner stuff, I assume you expected a response. And yeah, I expected one after my post.

Well, sure. When I said those calling for his head ending up looking like fools is as likely as any other outcome, that include sunshine pumpers looking like fools being equally as likely. And that’s kind of one of the main points some of us are trying to make. Neither is a foregone conclusion. But I think one problem we have in this thread is that when points are argued against the need to fire our coach, it’s seen as pumping sunshine. I don’t really see anyone pumping sunshine. I see people willing to have patience considering all the factors at play here. Now, admittedly I have not read every single post on this thread. I could have missed something. But if anyone IS pumping sunshine after these 2 wins, then yes it’s quite premature. Youre right that we all want the same thing. And it’s game day so GO HOOSIERS!!

Slow learners huh? Lol. If your goal is to come across like a pompous know it all, you receive the biggest and shiniest gold star for the day!! Here’s an alternative name for those slow learners. Realistic fans. Reality is Archie is going nowhere before the end of next season due to buyout numbers. If this season falls apart and next season is sub par, you won’t find many of us “slow learners” anymore. I’ll be all in at that point to move on. Until then, the only purpose calling for his head serves now is to negatively impact recruiting and possible future coaches. I don’t care if other fan bases do it. Reality is also that this season still has every chance to be, at minimum, a turnaround to really build on, and at best, something special. Choosing to believe in that doesn’t make anyone a slow learner. And all this comparing to UK’s fan base is irrelevant. They continually win, Cal is in his 11th? year and has more players in the NBA than any other coach. If we were on year 11 of Archie and he had a ton of players in the NBA, won a bunch of conference titles, hung a banner, several final fours...the negative side of our fan base would not matter at all to recruits. Way earlier in this thread someone linked to OSU and UofL boards with threads questioning their coach. Several people were elated b/c they thought it proved some point about other fanbases being the same. Those threads combined to be a total of 4 pages by one single post at the time. Ours was on something like page 27. It wasn’t comparable. Plus, something the fast learners really need to understand is no one is trying to say that fans are THE problem. But they can be A problem. We have an extremely passionate fan base. It’s amazing. But considering everything - where things stand this season, where Archie is at in his tenure, the reality of buyout numbers, etc. - a massive negative reaction can simply be unrealistic. Or, to relate it back to your post, some learners can just learn a little too fast.