BGleas

I just wonder with this core group, and especially TJD and Race, where does the on floor leadership and mental toughness come from? Games like today on the road and the at Rutgers game have been far to common the last 4-5 years and it doesn't seem to change. Who are the guys, if any, that are really pissed off after some of these recent performances? Who is the guy, outside of the coach, losing his crap in the locker room and getting in guys faces? I don’t think IU has that and I don't think we've had that in a long time.

I would he extremely surprised if that happens. They may get more run but mainly because we're playing Elon and Kenneesaw.

I was told after the Xavier game that you can't expect calls on the road!?!?

Agree. No issues at all with JHS hunting his shots tonight a bit after a tough shooting night at Xavier. We need him to get comfortable and going offensively to reach our potential. This was a perfect game to try and get it going.

Love the energy Geronimo played with. He needs to be a garbage pail, energy guy. When he plays like that consistently then all of the other stuff will come.

Completely agree. As a coach you'd rather have to work to tone some of that down as opposed to having to coach your guys to care. I'll take XJ and Reneau's emotion every day of the week and twice on Sunday, vs the robot like and emotionless play we watched for 4 years under Archie.

I think you just made my point by highlighting the hypocrisy of it all. So, the home team can taunt but the road team can't? Players don't care about the trash talk. It's part of the game. They honestly don't care. It's the adults (rule makers, refs and fans) that make this stuff a big deal. According to TJD, the Xavier bench was taunting XJ and then he turned around (didn't say anything) after hitting the 3. Why no tech for the Xavier bench?

Completely agree. Freemantle literally turned around and stared down Galloway after his oop dunk. Like, he had to turn back around to stare at him. How is that any different then what IU guys did?

I don’t disagree with you. It's just a tricky slope though, as if we're going down this path on this point of emphasis, then the refs need to apply it across the board. Freemantle was staring guys down all night. Xavier players were being quite demonstrative towards officials at numerous times when they disagreed with calls. Yet, no techs on them? I'm not saying it was purposeful or anything, just saying this taunting tech thing is very subjective and can't be applied only in certain spots. I think the officials made things worse last night, not better, with those techs.

The only thing I would say though is that you can't get Reneau and Geronimo more minutes. The math doesn't work. In the games against non-cupcakes, we know TJD is getting a ton of minutes and there is only one more "big" spot between Race, Reneau and JG. If you're giving Reneau more minutes then that would come from Race. Where do more minutes for JG come from?

Agree. I don't get the Kopp hate. Would be ideal to have a better player at that spot? Sure, of course. But that doesn't exist on this roster, at least not yet. Kopp is a solid shooter and a threat defenses have to respect. One more three last night and he's 2-5 and nobody is complaining. Beyond that, he plays good, tough perimeter defense, knows and understands the system on both ends, doesn't really turn it over, etc. Until Bates, or someone else, steps up their game, shows they understand the system and is consistent defensively, Kopp is the best option. Coaches play the guys they trust.

Not to nitpick, but Reneau's own teammate averaged 13.5 ppg and 8.4 rpg as a freshmen, and Thomas Bryant averaged 12 ppg and 5.8 rpg on an outright Big Ten Title/Sweet Sixteen team.

I think it was Jeremy Hollowell his sophomore year. It was a complete disaster.

My bad, should have read the thread. I was just responding to Aloha.

Completely agree, and he has a long way to go on both ends before he's a better 3 than 4. To be clear, I think JG is a really strong defender as a 4 when defending bigs, he struggles to defend on the perimeter against guards/wings on switches.

It's like anytime a big man hits a 3 and/or gets a board and pushes it in transition, everyone wants to make them a wing. Race's advantage is that he can do those things as a big and against other bigs.

Walton was the lead national announcer for NBC back in the 90's and was really good. As someone said earlier, these guys get older and become paradies of themselves, etc., but Walton used to be good on the analysis side.

Why do you have to assume that? You could assume that they've struck deals with each player and everyone is on the same page in terms of what their allotment is. We don't have to assume the worst. It looks to me like that players and the HH guys are on good terms and have a solid working relationship. On the optics for both, but especially Woody's daughter, I'm not sure there are any optics. Outside of a few posts on some message boards, is anyone really even talking about it? Certainly nobody outside of some IU fans and maybe that writer from earlier this week, nobody really cares.

So are we thinking Jeremy Fears got home from his visit and thought, "I really like IU. Great coaches, clicked with the players, historical basketball school with great facilities, I think I might want to go there! Oh wait, there were those two guys at the football game that asked me that weird question. That was weird, cross Indiana off the list!"

I trust Mike Woodson and the athletic department to handle things the right way and handle punishments. My personal opinion is that it is an extremely safe assumption that XJ has been punished a great deal internally already. So with that assumption, I don’t see any need to suspend him for games 7-8 months after the fact for things he's already been punished or held accountable for. Suspending him for an exhibition game or two would be for fan optics.

Not sure if I'm reading your post wrong, but that's not really what I meant. I think Reneau will play more then just to give TJD or Race a breather for a few minutes. I think he'll be consistent rotation player that gets somewhere between 15-20 minutes per game and is a contributing factor. . He'll allow TJD and Race to play less minutes throughout the season, not just give them a rest for a few minutes here and there.

Sounds good to me, let's go win this thing!!

My expectation is that Malik Reneau is pretty similar to a freshmen TJD in terms of talent. He won't have the same opportunity that TJD had as a freshmen because Reneau is coming into a much more talented team, but he should have a big impact on IU this season and should contribute from the beginning. He'll allow both TJD and Race Thompson to play less minutes and be more fresh for the postseason. I expect that he'll be a pretty big upgrade over Michael Durr and a sophomore Geronimo. How he'll compare to a junior Geronimo remains to be seen. Either way, IU will have one of the best interior rotations in the country.

Excellent point! Knowing how to play off the ball and move off the ball is a absolutely a skill.

Yup, I think it's just his personality, which doesn't lend itself well to being a star pro player. Changing someone's mentality towards the game would be tough to do for any coach in just 1 season. Stevens and Udoka couldn't do it either.