lillurk

Agreed. I’d love to be wrong. IU HC John Beilein would be great but I don’t think it’s realistic.

Agreed, although even with the injuries last year’s team should have made the tournament

This is a pretty productive game given the foul situation nonetheless.

Of course I understand the frustrations many have with Smith. But last night I really found myself hoping he sticks around next year, because you need a guy who can mark the Wieskamps, Livers, and Henrys of the world. Sometimes it takes awhile for a guy to put all that tantalizing potential into a powerhouse whole. He’s a much better fit at the 4, or if he’s at the 3 next to a 4/5 combo with at least one guy who’s a threat to hit a triple.

Yeah, even if you aren’t really trusting of efficiency margin this is one way it can be useful. The eye test says IU looks bad, and the efficiency numbers look at least as bad. If the eye test was unclear, but the underlying numbers were good (like Purdue, PSU, or MSU this year), it’d be easier to suspend judgment.

Could we have had him instead of Jake Forrester? Could we have had McKinley Wright instead of Clifton Moore if Arch had sort of soft-played re-recruiting him?

Yep, was hoping someone would do this.

You can complain about administrative support all you want but the budget is there and the cupboard wasn’t bare (and at this point the cupboard is definitely the new coach’s responsibility).

Frankly, I think an average high major new coach should get IU to the tournament in year 1 or 2 (unless they inherit a post-Sampson mess). Maybe the climb to the level of success and consistency has some ups and downs but programs change quickly in basketball.

Troy minus some shooting plus quite a bit of defense is a useful player.

Interesting — he’s a guy who *could* be that but isn’t now. He has strengths but right now he should be in a Troy Williams role with a bit less ball-handling, not a Robert Johnson one.

It’d be easier to stomach the idea of Alford if he admitted he made some bad choices...and if he had any track record of success.

Just for fun: Crean year four was Wat Shot and a s16. And from then on every Crean team save ‘14* was better than any Archie IU team yet based on Kenpom #s. *’14 would’ve been easier to stomach if the ‘13 season had ended more palatably. No shortage of evidence that basketball programs can turn around quickly. Coaches can change, and change their fortune...but this one hasn’t yet.

We all have our preferences, but as we also can surely agree, any defense or scheme can succeed when run well. Bennett’s dad creates and popularized the packline...I think part of it is Virginia has a better teacher. Brunk and Davis are poor fits athletically for the hard hedge-and-recover that Arch won’t abandon. I would have them play drop coverage and let the other forwards do the hard hedge. Even Virginia’s burliest guys have had better feet. As @Stuhoo points out, the closeouts are very bad — I wonder to what extent this is due to subliminally not trusting the 5s behind you, or worrying you’ll get Juwan/Trayce into foul trouble. I also don’t like UVA’s slow pace, but I wonder to what extent trying to push the ball makes the defensive scheme slightly harder.

A thought experiment: how would things be different if IU dropped the last three close games against MSU instead of winning them?

There’s a reason no NBA teams run a pack line defense. Sure, the B1G isn’t the league, but skilled players and coaches can beat it consistently in repeatable ways.

This...doesn’t contradict anything I wrote. I was being humble; I don’t know that but you or others might. And my point is a strong eval might’ve led to an offer earlier.

I differ about Romeo but wanted to additionally point out that IU got in too late with Aaron Henry, as we know, and didn’t offer Eric Hunter. Who knows how those play out if IU behaves differently — or how they develop — but it sure feels like both could help at areas of need.

When you play a hedge-and-recover defense like the pack line, it takes a rare 7’er to really fit the bill. ironically IU had a run of such bigs under Crean: Zeller, Hanner (for all his flaws), and Vonleh.

Yeah Brunk is limited but does some nice things. I was hard on him early this year (less here than in texts with other IU fans) but he’s been better lately. having him come off the bench frees interior space for TJD and puts a song shooter, Hunter, out there for more spacing.

The Big Game pod is good in general but this week’s UL/UM recap has some great pack line discussion: https://mobile.twitter.com/hoopvision68/status/1202617623780966401

I also like having a full 13, but to pair this with the point @Stuhoo made, we could take a mid year sit out transfer since we have the space.

I wonder if the Hauser brothers would have any advice about Marquette for a skilled big.

I do like this idea, of Davis anchoring the bench office and bullying backups.

Well fair, although I said things could be different this year. Bruno’s foot speed and height could make him a good defender, but I’m saying that was demonstrably not true at Butler. Butler plays man; pack line is a variant thereof but it’s about principles. It’s possible he’ll be better this year but we have two years of evidence he’s not great on D This was my point all along, not that I know Davis will be better than Brunk this year, but that he has been every year so far.