BGleas

I would love for IU to underachieve in the tourney the way UK does, or even KU.

Bailey VO Cheaney Jeffries Henderson Bench: Alford Gordon Zeller DJ White Edwards This was tough, I wanted to include Eric Anderson, Greg Graham and Dean Garrett. The debate in terms of starter/bench for me was between Bailey/Alford/VO.

And it's the most basic defensive concepts you learn at an early age that they are completely awful at.

I'm with you. My questions really weren't meant to be directed at you or Wayne's, more of a thinking out loud thing that was spurred by your post.

I completely agree with you and HoosierPap here on the premise of that article. But, the question for me would be, at what point does it go from a player problem to a coach/program problem? First it was Jeremy Hollowell's fault. Then it was Naoh Vonleh's. Then Hanner Perea. Then Devin Davis. Then Emmitt Holt. Now Yogi Ferrell. I do understand that Yogi has been the constant through this entire time, but at what point is that culture the fault of Tom Crean? So while the article may be accurate and it does give me a slight (slight being keyword) amount of pause on the "Crean has to go" mantra, it still leaves the question of whether he's equipped to handle this.

The Celtics have a TON of assets. They have Brooklyn's 1st rounder this year unprotected, as well as Minny's and Dallas'. Then next year they have the right to swap picks with Brooklyn and the following year I think they also get Brooklyn's pick. They also have a ton of 2nd round picks. Danny Ainge absolutely destroyed Billy King in the Pierce/Garnett trade. Yes, rookies take a while to develop, but Ainge's entire plan is to flip all these assets into a couple all stars/superstars. He's trying to replicate the Garnett/Allen trades. Now, that's easier said than done, but you could argue his assets this time are better than he had previously and it could happen fairly quickly. He flipped Wally Sczerbiak, Delonte West, Al Jefferson and Gerald Green into Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett.

I made a post to this effect on another board, but I'll make it here too. First, let me be clear. I am not actively rooting against IU. It's not like that. I didn't tune in last night wanted Duke to win. But, I'd be lying if I didn't say that during the St. Johns game I was checking the score throughout the day at work and there was a little part of me hoping St. John's would come back. Not because I hate Crean. He's a good person. But, he's not the guy and I'm just tired of not being excited about IU basketball anymore. I'm tired of the constant "will he/won't he be fired". The worst case scenario is that we bounce back enough to be a 7ish seed and moving on from Crean at the end of the year is a grey area, and then we're stuck with another year of hot seat talk, etc. I wanted this season to be a grand slam (win the conference, make a tourney run, be a top ranked team, etc.) or clear cut that we're moving on to a new coach. That middle ground is the worst case scenario for IU basketball.

Wow...that's all I can say. This isn't even a great Duke team.

Amazing how Louisville loses all those guys the last two years and they appear to not be skipping a beat. Must be nice!

ESPN has ignored the UNC scandal at a staggering level.

I hate to be negative, but my prediction for this game is that our shots don't fall on the road, causing our defense to suffer, guys to play hero ball and we ultimately get overwhelmed and lose fairly big. We'll hit some 3's down the stretch to make the score closer than the game really was.

Assuming he meant travel schedule with Maui and then Durham so soon after. But if he actually meant the difficulty of the schedule itself, that's funny. Our non-conference took a huge hit not playing Vandy or Kansas, and our conference schedule is arguably the easiest in the Big Ten.

Wonder if they worked on defense at all?

Monday, Nov. 30 Clemson at Minnesota MN Wake Forest at Rutgers WF Tuesday, Dec. 1 Maryland at UNC Mary UVA at Ohio State UVA Michigan at NC State NC State Purdue at Pitt PU Northwestern at Va Tech VaTech Miami at Nebraska Miami Wednesday, Dec. 2 Indiana at Duke Duke Louisville at Michigan State MSU Notre Dame at Illinois ND Wisconsin at Syracuse SY Florida State at Iowa IA Penn State at Boston College PSU B1G 6 ACC 9

The problem isn't even necessarily with the Facebook post itself (though it was bad), it's with the mentality Troy's Mom has in general. That's why the families do matter. Haven't you met a HS coach that couldn't wait for certain skids to graduate because their parents were awful? Crean was trying to send a message to Troy. How does that message play if the players mom is undermining Crean? Now the player is thinking "I got screwed", instead of "I need to improve". What if that player is now complaining to the other guys that got benched. Now you have a cancer infiltrating your locker room. It's just a bad deal all the way around. Parents need to support their kids coaches and teaches, not tear them down.

Me too. Just saying that if it comes to that then you can't wait until the season is over to make the move.

Like most I was ready to move on after last season. I just hope this doesn't get ugly at home games with fans booing. If that happens then the move has to be in-season.

Would it really matter? We never pass the ball to Bryant anyways.

Given the athleticism he has, he is by far the worst defender on this team. You have to start somewhere. He's a terrible defender, take a decent amount of bad shots, usually doesn't shoot well on the road or in neutral court games. The guy is a great talent, but isn't a "winning" player. I said this in another thread last week, but he reminds me of Ricky Davis, puts up great numbers, but his team never won anything of note.

Troy had just 3 rebounds in 36 minutes in a game we got crushed on the boards. He also had 5 of our 14 turnovers, quite often being out of control. No argument with you on JBJ and Yogi, but Troy killed us too.

Agree.

He actually burned 3 timeouts in the final minute. Remember, he was kind enough to give Danny Manning one of our last 3, since Danny was out of them but needed time to draw up the game-winning play? Then he blew two trying to draw up his own play.

Wasn't sure where to put this, but did anyone in the media ask Tom Crean why he called to timeout to let WF draw up their game-winning possession? That was mind boggling.

I wouldn't say I don't care, but I'm at a point where I don't need to see us beat up on St. John's, Alcorn St., Morehead St., Kenneesaw, etc. I'm not going to worry about DVRing those games and trying to avoid the score so I can focus on it after my young kids go to bed. If I'm around and I can catch them, great. I'll still be there for ND, Duke, the Big Ten games, etc.

Probably good, we'd look even more confused against UCLA playing some zone.