HoosierTrav

He rarely admits to his own mistakes. I cant say that he never owns them, but it is VERY rare. It's one of the first things that caused me to jump off of his bandwagon, especially during the 2012-2013 season. That guy blew so many games in the second half that year, it made me sick.  It's not so much putting a ton of weight on post game interviews as much as it is wanting the coach to humble himself and take the blame for things that were his fault. It's incredibly infuriating to know that his mistake cost us in a big way, only to hear him passing the buck onto the players. He loves to blabber on and on about momentum in a game but how many times have you seen him let a 10 point + lead turn into a 5 point deficit without the use of a single timeout? You'll NEVER hear him own up to those mistakes. You hear other coaches shoulder most or all of the blame for things going awry. "I should have had this team in a better position to win this game late." "I should have used a TO at that point." These are things you will hear from some of the top names in the game and in any sport. If you think his knowledge of the game of basketball is "infinitely more knowledgeable" than any fan here, you are misleading yourself. The guy is certainly no fool but there are a ton of extremely knowledgeable fans within our base. The people of within this state learn basketball from a very young age and the unmatched passion only builds that knowledge. If anything he's being exposed more than ever due to the fan base's wealth of basketball knowledge. It doesn't take a savant to know to call a timeout as your lead is slipping away, or to figure out that the zone may not be the best option after the opposing team has scored on 8 of their last 10 possessions against it. Serious question: When is the last time you watched one of our out of bounds plays and came away thoroughly impressed by his infinite wisdom? Again, the guy isn't a moron, but he's operating way below his pay grade. Is that even up for debate? The guy is going to make off with 8 figures when he finally gets run outta town.

Spot on.

Still... 25 points in the first half is ridiculous for any player in college, let alone a frosh. Glad we only have to see him for 1 year.

Russell is the best frosh in the B1G and it's not even close. WOW!

totally agree.

I'm not saying dont celebrate a win, but for Christ's sake, our fans go into full blown delusions of grandeur after wins against mediocre teams. Loss to E. Wash.? Everyone is questioning the team and coaches abilities. Beat a Pitt team shortly after? Lets crown the damn kids and talk about how this team is a tourney team and 3rd best in the B1G. We are mediocre at best. Stop celebrating it. The kids deserve to be patted on the back after wins, but can we please set the bar higher when judging the state of our program? I'm wondering if many of the Indiana fans today ever knew what it felt like to be a winner.

I guess it depends on how you look at it. I look at it from the perspective that Nebraska is a garbage team who we blew a 16 point lead and barely hung on to win. Like I said, stop lifting them up for mediocrity. We are supposed to beat Nebraska Basketball. Especially a Nebraska team that lost at home to Incarnate word.

Well folks..... We aren't a good team. MSU is as bad as they've been under Tom Izzo and we got BLOWN OUT! We have to stop lifting this team and Crean up after mediocre wins against the likes of Nebraska, SMU, Pitt, and Butler. Winning @ MSU would have been a good win for 1 and 1 reason only.... It would have been a road win. I'm glad we can get off of this 3rd best in the B1G nonsense. That's what it is. This team lacks the most important attribute outside of talent IMO. Killer mentality. They get punched and they quit. They're soft. Name the last champion in anything that was soft. I'll wait.

Another team without a single significant win.

Also has MSU part of the first 4 in. They literally have 0 good wins thus far. 0!!! ESPN logic. Lunardi and ESPN lost all of their credibility LONGGGGGG before this idiocy.

That Lunardi guy is such a clown. Indiana's resume at this point is FAR and away better than MSU's. Not even close. Lets all be thankful that guy isn't on the selection committee. So many deserving teams would get boned.

Indiana - 72 MSU - 75   I picked Nebrasketball last week to win also. Lets not switch up now.

Ouch! The MSU players and coach are calling this a "must win" game, so my guess is its going to be difficult to match their energy. If they defend the 3 well, we lose. If we can shoot it anywhere near the clip we are accustomed to and can just match them on the boards, we should win. They have trouble scoring the ball.

Football recruiting is so difficult to follow. It takes 2-3 years of huge classes before you see it translating to on-field success. That's the sole reason I think we have to keep Kevin Wilson. I truly believe we were a bowl team last year before Sudfield went down.

we HAVE to get a visit out of him. If we can get a visit during a big game, that would help our odds tremendously. Our game atmosphere is right up there with the big boys and the returning team we will have would be elite with the addition of him.

Rawle Alkins would be the best 2 guard Indiana has had since Eric Gordon.

I'm still undecided honestly. If Wisconsin lives up to their expectations and wins the B1G in decisive fashion, then he's coach of the year. Otherwise I'm inclined to go with a coach who has a good chance of exceeding expectations. I'm gonna go with Crean.

I went to the YMCA this evening to work out and ended up catching 5* Big man Caleb Swanigan getting some open runs with solid local talent. He was MAYBE giving 50% effort and was by far the best player on the court. I'm not sure that we have any real shot at landing him, but he definitely is a big that can make us a top 10 team next year. His skill level for his size is off the charts. Oh and he can flat out SHOOT THE 3!!

I LITERALLY just spent a large portion of my day compiling this exact same data for one of my coworkers. Why in the world didnt this post show up during my initial google search? Dammit!

I can agree with that. I know it may be taboo to say but I also feel like Sampson was on the verge of turning us into a monster. He had us trending WAYYYY up before the investigation.

Can you honestly say that he would have been an MSU fan if they didnt have the kind of success they had while he was a young kid. No chance IMO, unless his parents were huge fans.

I get what you're saying but I'm not sure why you included Arizona. They haven't won anything for quite some time.  They have a good young coach. Thats about it. I will go ahead and say that its 95% coach and 5% name on the front when kids choose the school they want to attend. My point is that If Indiana can start to consistently have years and exposure like it did in 2012-2013, then we will positively impact the minds of in state kids. You'd be surprised how many young kids in this state fell in love with Cody Zeller and would jump at the opportunity to someday follow in his footsteps, if the opportunity.

 Right!? My theory is that many kids, that are being recruited currently, have not grown up watching a relevant/consistently winning program. That's why consistency at or near the top is crucial for our future ability to recruit in state kids. If we can make noise in the tournament this season, land a significant post player, and go into next season with Final Four aspirations, we can start to burn our brand into these young kids minds as a desirable program.

Totally agree. If you make a list of all the things that the top programs have that we don't, you'll quickly realize that its the big name coach. Some argue that we were set so far behind since the Kelvin Sampson debacle and no matter who we had in place, we weren't going to win for awhile. I disagree.

My apologies for misreading. There were other kids on the floor with Division 1 offers/interest. Its common at this particular Y here in Fort Wayne. I agree that you wont see much in open runs typically, but to see a guy his size move and shoot the way he did was something that you wont usually get to see without paying an admission fee. I just wanted to bring it up on here that he definitely was a special talent.