BGleas

I agree. Galloway has had a good year and by far been the better player. The good news is that with Galloway, Kopp and Bates there are plenty of minutes to go around for each. For Bates, it's all about defense. When he isn't a negative defensively, and he often is, then he gets the time to settle in offensively. The 2nd half against Michigan at home and in the BTT he was bringing it defensively so he got more time to get into a flow offensively. It's pretty simple for him.

As of late, It was really just the home game vs Iowa and the game at MSU, otherwise we've been pretty good defending the 3. In conference games, our 3pt defense was 3rd in the conference.

I'm going to have to record today's game and watch later tonight, so do want to make one note after my posts earlier. As I said earlier, I think JG is basically a matchup play at this point, but I do think today could be one of those days. I think Reneau could struggle with a smaller, perimeter oriented PSU and get in foul trouble if he's on Pickett. I do think JG could have success today if he gets the opportunity. He could effectively play minutes on Pickett IMO.

Ok, sounds good. Though curious why you deleted the section on Galloway/Kopp/Stewart from last season when you quoted me?

Race was terrible yesterday, completely agree. He's been up and down since coming back. JG was bad in limited minutes yesterday too, and Malik was great in the 2nd half. JG had a great game and a half when Race was hurt, he was average to bad the other 3 and a half games. It's not really debatable. The reality is that two coaching staffs haven't trusted him. I wish that wasn't the case, but he just hasn't earned the minutes. Bates hasn't largely either. Bates is often a defensive liability. When he focuses on defense he plays, when he doesn't he's unplayable. 2nd half against Michigan and 2nd half yesterday he was locked in defensively and he was rewarded for it. He just rarely does that. Some notes on the Stewart/Kopp thing: There was a 7 out of 8 game stretch last season in Jan/Feb before Galloway's groin injury, where he played more minutes then at least one of Kopp or Stewart and in most of those games he played more then both. There was a 3 out 4 game stretch where both Kopp and Stewart's minutes were in the teens and Galloway's were 20+. He also started 3 games in a row before his groin injury. Honestly, it feels like you're creating this Woodson narrative because you hitched your wagon so hard to JG the last two years and it just hasn't happened for him.

Stewart and Kopp were the best options when Galloway and Phinisee werent healthy, clearly. Galloway and Phinsee both took minutes from Stewart and Kopp when they were healthy. There were games, when those guys were healthy which wasn't often, that Kopp and/or Stewart only played about 15 minutes. So what you're calling for was actually happening when we were healthy. You're also vastly over-blowing how bad Stewart was to support your position. You're also over-blowing JG's performances. He was fantastic against Wisconsin, no argument there. That might be his best IU performance to-date. He was bad in the first half at Illinois and then really good in the second half. The next game against MSU he only played 13 minutes. Then let's not forget how bad he was in the threw games before that. His role is match-up dependent often at this point. TJD is playing 35+ minutes every night, so the only availbe minutes are at the 4 and right now Race and Malik are both better.

Woodson doesn't have a blind spot. Stewart and Kopp were the best options at those spots last season. The only other viable options were Galloway and Phinisee, and the reality is that both those guys were taking minutes from Stewart and Kopp when they were healthy. IIRC, Galloway got a start over Stewart at one point (I don't mean the @NW game) but then agrevated his groin in thst game or before the next game. The issue was Phinisee and Galloway couldn't stay healthy. Bates was absolutely not an option to take time from those guys last season. On JG, he's had some brief moments in his career, but just hasn't been able to put any consistency together in terms of playing to his role and playing smart basketball. There's just not much of a role for him, especially when Reneau is playing well and staying out of foul trouble.

If you're a first round pick you're getting first round money regardless of whether the team sends you to their G League affiliate.

The coaching staff was great tonight. We didn't let Smith or Loyer get many open looks from 3 and ran them off the line largely, and we mostly doubled off Morton, Gillis, Furst and Jenkins.

Yeah, I always said Galloway was hugely important to what we do and would play regardless of his shooting. The shooting is just icing on the cake.

I remember that argument from last summer.

For the most part though, we have the wide open 3's to the right guys. We defended Smith and Loyer really well, running them off the 3pt line, while giving 3's to guys like Morton, Gillis and Jenkins. We had one mistake late on Loyer, but we game planned who had the open 3's. It wasn't random.

Also the move in the first half to go away from the TJD right block post-up that wasn't working and hand the game to JHS against Purdue's drop coverage.

Mike Woodson coached a hell of a game!

Yeah, we must be watching different games as well. Haven't seen him do that very much, if at all.

I'm curious when you've seen JHS do that? Missing shots doesn't make someone selfish. I'm struggling to think of games where's he's taken a bunch of bad shots? Especially given that he's our 2nd leading scorer and only guy outside of TJD that can get his own shot.

Yeah, I haven't seen him play selfishly this season either. Take the Maryland game for example, did he play great? Of course not. He shot really poorly. I saw a lot of fans saying he needed to know that he didn't "have it" and stop taking shots, I can all but promise the coaching staff was telling him to continue to be aggressive and look for his shot. The bottom line is we have an excellent defensive team with a dominant offensive player in TJD. But, TJD can't handle the offense all by himself and JHS is our second scorer. We need JHS to not only facilitate but be aggressive in looking for his shot. Last night was another example. JHS started slow, but we were never going to win that game if he didn't get it going in terms of scoring. Just like at Maryland, we had no shot to win unless he started scoring. He took mostly al good shots, they just didn't drop.

Seems so obvious.

So ridiculous that we don't have a script Indiana alternate. Seems like such an obvious move that would be really cool.

All of Banks minutes were on the wing. Unless I'm not remembering correctly, I believe all of his minutes were with two of TJD, Race or Reneau also on the court.

Every now and then lol!

My bad for being snarky. Shouldn't have done that. It's just that IMO your stance on this is making assumptions that the coaches aren't working together, when clearly they were. I have no idea if other teams do this, but I don't think it's totally abnormal.

You're acting like the coaches are coaching in isolated booths with all communication removed once the ball gets tipped. I'm pretty sure the coaches are allowed to speak with each other, and I'm sure Hunter and Walsh were aware of the gameplan. There was even a moment shown on the TV where Ya was talking to the assistants (I know, imagine that?) about who they were putting in. Ya sent someone back to the bench. Ya also clearly made the decision to not put Reneau back in. He specifically mentioned in the post-game taking him out and telling him he's playing well but they're going smaller.

Wait, didn't Toledo win?

Love seeing Galloway shoot the ball better this year. It's huge. With that said, he was always going to play a lot of minutes on this team. The shooting isn't why, it's just gravy on top.