BGleas

I mean, it makes sense to want to keep him. I get that. But none of the rest of it makes any sense.

To be clear, I'm not questioning you whatsoever and I really appreciate what you bring to the board. Just, none of this makes any sense to me. It's like two groups that don't like each other and are both negotiating for things that actively make themselves look worse. If Smith wants to be showcased, then the best way to do that is to be put in a position where he can succeed, play well, and impact winning. Playing out of position, and looking bad doing it, is not in his best interest whatsoever. For Archie, agreeing to play Smith out of position to appease him not only sets a horrible precedent for the rest of the team and the program and makes him look extremely weak, but it gives him a greater chance for another season that goes poorly, and not adjusting at all to move Smith back to where he could thrive just makes Archie look bad. They both end up looking terrible.

I guess what I don't understand is, what leverage did Justin Smith have to demand these things? He's not draftable. He's not good enough to demand what position he should play. What was his leverage? "Play me on the wing and at the 2 or I'll sabotage your team?" If this is all true, then Archie has set a horrible, horrible precedent that I'm not sure how he recovers from it.

I think he knows it. He may not like it, but I think he knows it. If he didn't know it he would be bombing shots all those times he's wide open on the perimeter. But at the end of the day, it's not my job, it's Archie's job to put him in the right position.

This. I'm not a huge Smith fan and I've been really hard on him, but the guy has been playing out of position all season offensively, and defensively while yes he's not always locked in, at least he has a "locked in" and when it's there he's one of the top defenders in the conference. That's more than most guys on this team can say defensively. Smith doesn't need to be benched, though I wouldn't mind him playing a few less minutes, but he needs to play the correct position. I've been saying it since last offseason, but Smith is a not wing, he's just not. He can't dribble, pass or shoot reliably, but he is a good slashing 4 and he can thrive there, especially when also locked in defensively. I'd love to see a Phinisee, pick your poison at the 2, Hunter, Smith, TJD lineup get extended run.

I think there’s a bigger story there, if it continues. His shots vs. Iowa were different than the FSU game. Against FSU he just got hot. He threw up some crazy shots that went in. IMO against Iowa, while he certainly was hot and I don’t expect him to go 7-for-11 from 3 again, his shots were much better shots. He was dribbling much, much less, moving the ball much, much more, and taking open, in rhythm 3’s. I guess if what I was seeing was real and continues, the result should be the consistency that’s been lacking. Taking FSU type of shots results in one good game, 4 bad games, an ok, game, another bad, and then a random good. Playing like he did Thursday, off the ballcand less dribbling with more spot-up 3’s, will result in a much more consistent Green. Not 7-for-11 again, but maybe more 3-for-5’s from 3 with far fewer bad shots and turnovers. Or, maybe Sunday he goes back to pounding the ball, bad shots and bad turnovers. I don’t know, but what I saw Thursday was different, I hope it continues.

Maybe, maybe not. Do win if he hits 2 of those 4? Do we get offensive rebound put backs if some of Green’s 3’s don’t drop? Who knows. My larger point is that Green’s shots came differently in this game. For the most part, It wasn’t dribbling for 12 seconds and then jacking up a step back. I don’t expect him to go 7-for-11 from 3 again, but I do hope he plays well if he continues to play off the ball and get his shots in rhythm. I expect him to play well if he doesn’t dribble much, looks to get the ball to Phinisee, and moves the ball crisply if he’s not open.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it was a purposeful thing we’ll see going forward. IU has a chance to be a much better and more efficient team if Green is just knocking down open shots in rhythm, as opposed to handling the ball a ton and being a decision maker. To me it just felt like, at least in that one game, that Green was really looking to get rid of the ball if he wasn’t open immediately. I like that Devonte for this team.

I thought it was pretty clear watching the Iowa game that while Green going off certainly was a huge aspect, this game was about more than just that. The team played well as a whole. The energy and passion was there. TJD was great, Smith played fantastic defense on Wieskamp. Thompson gave great energy and minutes. The team played with much improved pace, and we had 4 different guys hit a 3, along with both Phinisee and Green hitting multiple 3’s. I also think Green’s performance was much more than just getting hot. I’m going with eye test here, so not sure what the actual stats hear out, but it felt to me like Phinisee and Green played much more together. It felt like down the stretch last season when Phinisee got healthy and Green thrived playing off the ball with Phinisee. Pin the Iowa game, more of Green’s shots were catch/shoot vs, off the dribble. Green looked to get the ball in Phinisee’s hands once he didn’t have a shot, and Green was pounding the ball much, much less. Green also looked almost immediately to get the ball to Phinisee if a fast break wasn’t there. I don’t know if this was a purposeful thing, but it felt more like the end of last season to me when those two played so well together. I hope it continues down the stretch.

So, do you want an offensive specialist or a player development coach? I thought Schilling was one of the best player development guys? May be this is on the players. All during Crean’s tenure everyone wanted to say he had nothing to do with guys getting better, it was all the players work ethic, now many of those same people want to blame Archie for guys like Green, Smith and Durham not getting better (which isn’t really true, as much as Green and Durham frustrate me, they have improved). This loss was 100% on the players. Their effort was good and we played hard, but at some point a power 5 basketball player has to sack up and make a shot. The offense, while definitely limited because of our personnel, got a ton of wide open shots tonight. At some point guys have to make them, Archie can’t shoot them for them.

Is an offensive specialist going to make wide open shots go in? This was not an effort loss, we just held a team to 59 points and outrebounded them, if wasn’t effort. We had some bad turnovers from the usual suspects and didn’t make a shot outside the paint until there were 5 minutes left in the game. We lost because nobody could shoot. Most of the perimeter shots missed were completely wide open.

He didn’t say the rotation was shortening. He said he’d shorten it if he had too. He’d do whatever they needed to win. If guys didn’t give effort and play hard, then they wouldn’t play and he’d play the 5 guys that do. Everyone did play hard and with passion, so the message reached them.

That’s not really what I meant. Of course you have to have flexibility, I meant that the idea to cancel because word got out and they don’t want a spectacle is maybe not the best way to go.

I think an aspect to Hunter playing better the other day was that he was able to settle in and get comfortable, and part of that was that he didn’t have to split time with Anderson. I really like Anderson, but it’s tough for both he and Hunter when they each get 8-10 minutes instead of one of them getting 15-20. It stinks for one of them, but I think Archie really needs to choose one and give them the minutes for 3-4 games and see if they can thrive.

The best way to not have it made into a spectacle is to have it really planned out, both IU and the Knight family have everything approved, including the date. It becomes a spectacle if he just shows up, ultimately sending the IU admin into scramble mode. That's when mistakes and rash decisions get made. Agree on where he'll sit, what is/isn't allowed in terms of TV cameras, media, jumbotron etc. and have the video approved and ready to roll, agree on the date, and then it's super simple.

Even if it was just a token press, I was really glad to see Archie bring that back against OSU after it worked so well the last 10 minutes against NW. Sometimes just mixing things up a bit during a game can swing momentum, I just hope we keep doing it because it hasn’t happened often in the Archie era. It’s like a football team who’s offense has stalled most of the game, then they come out in a no huddle and it kickstarts everything.

I think the best outcome for IU is Archie devlivering in his statement about shortening the rotation. Bench Green and Davis, play a small, tight rotation. The hopeful outcome is that it galvanizes the guys in the rotation and hopefully we can steal a win from OSU, but the other outcome is that it hopefully whips Green into shape and he decides he wants to be a part of this team. Can IU win without Green? Yes, because he makes so many bad, selfish plays. But, IU can’t reach its full potential without ‘good Devonte’. Might be wishful thinking, but it would be great if it played out that way.

I hate to hijack this thread and I also hate to make it about rankings, and while I like some of what Archie has done (lots of Midwest kids), the reality is that this roster if filled with guards and wings ranked 100+, with a majority 130+ in their high school rankings, and leftovers from Crean we’re even worse. To win at a high level consistently, we’re going to need some guards like Yogi, as an example.

I’ll back you up a little bit here though, in terms of your OP. I don’t think a freshmen Leal would ever take Durham’s spot, but I do agree with you that Durham is not a key player on an elite team. For all the criticism Archie takes, IMO the biggest criticism should be why are we counting on Durham and Green to be core, key guys in year 3? I’m way less worried about the offense and the Pack Line, than I am about our recruiting. We’re counting on Durham to be a 25-30mpg guy and Devonte Green to be a our primary perimeter scoring threat. That’s the big issue. Those guys are 7th-10th guys on any Big Ten Title contending team, not frontline players.

Bottom line is, if Al Durham, or anyone really, is going to take 12 free throw attempts, I’ll happily take that every single game. Along with his leadership and defensive pressure the last 10 minutes, which changed the pace of the game, he had a good night. Was he great? No, really nobody was. But, he had a good, solid night.

No it’s not. They weren’t all shooting fouls. I believe we had them in the bonus in both halves, and really early in the first half.

Getting to the foul line and getting the other team in foul trouble is a hugely important aspect of a basketball game. I’ll take it any time one of guards can get to the line 11 times in a game. That was a big factor last night.

Worse dribbling, worse shooting, worst finishing at the basket, but smarter and a much better defender. Williams could fly to the basket and break someone down off the dribble to get to the basket. Smith can't do that.

Not too many 'natural 3's' that can't dribble or shoot. And no, he can't dribble. I mean yes, technically he can dribble a ball, but he has almost no ability to break a defender down with the dribble and get to the basket. Almost all of his scoring comes from the paint and the block. His best move the past 2-3 weeks has been his little jump hook from the block/paint. Just because he's 6'8", long and athletic, it doesn't make him a 3. You have to have the skill to go with it and he doesn't. Where I will agree with you is that Smith is really important to this team. That's why I've never suggested, at least not this season, removing him from the lineup. He can and would be really effective playing around the basket and slashing to the basket if there was actually space to do it, but with TJD, Brunk and Smith playing together there is no space. We also need his defense, he often gets overlooked as one of our best defenders.

I still think Brunk should play a lot. He’s playing too well to just remove his minutes. I’d shorten the rotation on the inside with TJD and Smith starting and Brunk playing almost all the rest of those minutes spelling both. Race if we need to go a little deeper with foul trouble or something. I know our guards and wings are playing terrible. I get it. But this team isn’t going anywhere if our guards and wings don’t gain confidence and start producing and playing better. The status quo won’t accomplish that. We need to go smaller which gets Smith in the right spot, let’s us feature TJD, Anderson should open lanes for Rob and Al and hopefully more open shots for our guards/wings. Play through TJD and then on kick outs have our guards and wings attack the basket relentlessly. Hope that sucks in the defense and gets them scrambling and quick reversals get our guys more open, in rythem 3. Attacking smaller will also hopefully get some easy baskets driving for guards/wings to get their confidence going. But, we can’t continue with our guards and wings having nowhere to go, no mechanism for getting easy baskets and just clanging late shotclock jumpers. People complain about Durham’s contested layups, maybe those layups are less contested with more space and a less clogged lane.