lillurk

Terrific angle of the work Trey, Trayce, and Miller did. Nothin’ doin.’

GOOD MORNING FELLOW LIFELONG* FANS OF THE NORTHWESTERN WILDCATS! CHICAGO’S BIG TEN TEAM AM I RIGHT?? DAYDREAMING ABOUT MY EARLIEST MEMORIES OF MY BELOVED CATS: EVAN ESCHMEYER AND SEVERAL FUTURE COMMODITIES TRADERS LOSING NON-COMPETITIVELY AGAINST THE MINNESOTA GOLDEN GOPHERS *valid today only, 2/12/23

Playing a C+/B- game and beating a good team on the road means a couple things, at least: 1. It means you’re good. 2. In a close one, it means you’re lucky. Nothing wrong with that. Doing it without two of your four best players is impressive.

Footwork Artist

Saw the end live but had to rewatch the other ~95% later. Folks have mentioned lots but a few things to note: 1. 2H defense was really terrific as a whole; I thought Galloway, Kopp, and Geronimo stood out, and of course TJD held his own 2. based on the play-by-play, texts/tweets/posts here, I knew Bates would be bad on DVR. It was worse: he was bad AND unlucky. His fifth miss (of five) was not a bad look and rattled out. I wouldn’t give up on him; this year he needs to stay outside the arc but if he gets stronger and works on decision-making — which is already improved from year one — he could put it together. 3. @Stuhoo is right, Bufkin traveled on the final possession. It almost looked like IU was expecting exactly what UM ran: middle PNR with a throwback plan B. Trayce dropped, Galloway got over so they didn’t force the switch and mismatch (THAT’S why Dickinson didn’t get a touch), everyone stayed home so Baker and Howard weren’t free, and Kopp walked up w/o fouling.

“What if Crean hired a Yaklich-style assist and handed him the defense” remains an interesting counter-factual thought experiment

I’ve been to Crisler many times, for IU/UM games and other conference games (Illinois and N’western come to mind specifically). This thread will be instructive if you’re unfamiliar: it’s not loud or intimidating https://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/we-need-crisler-be-hostile-environment-saturday It’s almost a totally different experience from Breslin or SSAH in every regard: comfy seats, pleasant, quiet atmosphere, great sightlines from every angle.

For what it’s worth Torvik’s IU rooting guide said XU @ Butler had as a conflicted outcome, probably for the reasons cited above: tradeoff between keeping the XU resume strong vs. chance a loss helps move IU above them on the S-curve https://barttorvik.com/bubble-guide.php?team=Indiana

I think IU is pretty well equipped to take advantage of UM’s defensive limitations. McDaniel is much smaller than every Hoosier. He probably has to deal with Galloway. Jett might lose focus and lose Kopp. And Trayce has proof-of-concept that he can succeed against Dickinson.

Roughly speaking that’s Gillis, Kaufman-Renn, Newman, and Jenkins. No one else is in double-digit minutes. Gillis would start a lot of places. Kaufman-Renn will probably start for them later in his career, and could start some places now. The guards are useful catch-and-shoot guys buuut

No idea if there’s a backup PG at the ready to step up once Gabe graduates, but even if there is I’m curious to see the playmaking from Powell as a senior. 2 assists/game in his role is nothing to sneeze at

Can attest that gym brings no energy. I think Nashville could theoretically get behind a good team, like a top 15 team, but even the pretty good Stallings teams really didn’t have that kind of juice

He set the block record despite playing half his career for a coach who didn’t want him to leave the weak side to block in help D. He’s terrific at doing that at the right time, and without selling out to put his teammates in rotation. Mind-boggling.

If anything they played with intensity but shot poorly vs Maryland, but the intensity ebbed for lots of the Minnesota game in my opinion. Either way, figuring out how to win those sorts of games is useful

Jim Boeheim should simply get his money up

His best bet was always to be Lou Williams, a “point guard” nominally whose best trait is scoring.

Yes, this is when you do the Draymond “throw it to your PNR partner, chase it and screen” thing.

My hunch is he’ll guard Race, or at least that Gillis/Furst may be better able to guard TJD’s dribble drives. It would be a nice game for Race to can a couple 3s.

Listen, Missouri should be honored to be in the rarefied air of such NCAA infraction artists

How has no one posted this yet https://twitter.com/XavierJ0hnson/status/1620189653029752832?cxt=HHwWgMDQmfj5iPwsAAAA

Ok the PU unis are nice, I agreed, but the numbers on both sides are too small and on the back too high

Agree, terrific

Thought this at the time and the box score confirms it: what’s interesting about the Banks minutes is that they weren’t really where Geronimo gets his. Tjd, Race, and Malik had 77 of the 80 4/5 minutes, so everything before garbage time. Banks had 12, so at least 9 at the 3.

This is correct, but @RaceToTheTop and I were talking about Northwestern.

This conclusion seems correct to me, they need 5 or more wins and they’re in, though if they finish 10-10 they’re right near the cut line, and might need some help and/or some BTT work. For what it’s worth, I think they’re legitimately a good team, resume aside. IU should’ve beat them at SSAH, of course, but they don’t suck.