TheStillman

  A lot of "ifs" in your analysis.  I think the one thing you can give Crean credit for is he built an elite team from 2011-13, he did that on his own with his guys.  He hasn't been a good manager of the program since but I think you have to give the guy full credit for that.   Crean getting Zeller to come to IU was never a given.  He went up against the big boys without any success to his name at IU.  

  I could be wrong but I am pretty sure they fly chartered out of Bloomington.

We have a top 10 offense as rated by KenPom and are top 5 in points per game. Who cares what Knight would do with James Blackmon? Crean is doing a pretty damn good job with him.

Isn't the basketball offseason technically JJ's onseason as strength coach? I kind of think it's better for him to leave now versus April or May. Let the new guy come in and make the players offseason strength plan now so it's ready for the offseason which is when the strength coach really does the work.

  I'd rather hear that than hearing that Crean is totally lax about everything, coaches/players select when they come in to workout and he has no structure within the program.     As far as the position it could mean Jackson is moving on.  Remember that he came from a football background and he may have gotten an opportunity to take over with a football program.  This is all speculation but I am also sure that if the goal is to work in strength and conditioning football is the ultimate goal.   I am sure we will find another great coach for this position.

If 400 happens during the 2018-19 season I'd be pretty happy to see Crean on IU sidelines

Few gained more from the Davis-Sampson transition than Painter. Getting Hummel/Johnson/Moore to Purdue was huge and at least with Hummel I am confident he would not have gone there if IU had the right coach in place.

Way to go Coach!

After tonight I really feel our best lineup is Yogi-JBJ-Troy-Hartman-Hanner.

We saw at the end why you don't waste timeouts in the first half.

We built a 10 point lead due to Creans game plan of attacking their defenders with our athleticism then our players decided to lose all focus last 2 minutes. This game isn't tied because of Crean.

That run is on RoJo. As a PG he needs to facilitate and not force. He forced a shot up and it started Butler off to the races.

Set play or not, in a crucial moment he was out of control and lost the ball. Something you can certainly fault him for. The dude wasn't perfect like most sophomores. Mistakes will be made.

It's not about stats and I certainly don't expect Troy to ever reach what Vic did. I do think Troy can be All-B1G if he tightens up his game a bit. Troy is in the infancy of his career, he makes mistakes like most do who are not ready made products. Don't write off a kid so early in his career just because of these mistakes. I don't care if he was highly ranked, those mean nothing to me once the kid is on campus.

Fair enough. I'm certainly not going to look back on Troy's career and say well he was no good because he didn't meet Vic's expectations. I do agree it is not a perfect comparison. I think the way I used it last night is fair which is to get those with pitchforks against Troy off his back. He's still only 1.3 years out of 4 into his career. He plays aggressive and makes mistakes, albeit less than he did as a freshman. Most players this is the case and they're not ready made. As a program to give up on a Troy now and in turn missing out on what he can become junior and senior year would be crazy.

Vic made a lot of selfish, out of control plays his sophomore year due to being aggressive and fixed that to an extent his junior year. He's a recent example so why is it not apt when discussing a player who does the same thing? Not saying they're the same player but it's an example of someone under Crean fixing the issue we have with a player.

Let's see where Troy ends up before writing his book is my main point. We have no idea when it'll kick in for him, if ever. To write someone off based on a suspension is so foolish.

I think it is really hard to judge if someone is playing with heart or not. It's like the classic Knight press conference about getting your game face on. What does playing with heart even mean and how do you as an outside observer know if someone is playing with it? Being selfish or making mistakes says nothing about playing with heart. A recent player who made a lot of selfish plays that led to mistakes was Victor Oladipo as a sophomore. He took at least one ill advised jumper per game and had multiple costly turnovers that are very similar to what Troy does. Anyone else remember Victor nearly losing the Kentucky game for us on the 2nd to last possession of the game? He wanted to be the hero and tried to spin through 3 defenders in the lane. Troy may or may not improve as his career goes on. I think he improved significantly towards the end of last year and his baseline cuts have been next level this year. He needs to harness that and learn his role as a finisher. It is foolish to write him off.

  Everything changed?  This is a bit miopic considering we beat SMU and Pitt pretty convincingly after the suspensions ended.

Any Hoosiers in town for the game should go to Stout on 33rd between 6th and 7th ave for the first game. Cheaper beers than in the arena and less interaction with Illinois fans.

Strikes me that multiple players say they haven't watched any tape of IU this year. Does Pitino not emphasize watching game tape? On its face that seems to work in our favor.

I hate stoking the Stevens fire because I don't think he would come here right now but he'd be a home run hire. I don't think he'd have any issue recruiting.

Really disagree with this. Last time we played UK it was the most talked about regular season game of the year. When the series was cancelled we were #1 in country and they were defending champs. That 2012 game would've been the biggest non-conference game going into the season nationally. Yes a lot has happened since then but the reason the UK game doesn't happen now isn't because it's not high profile enough for them. If we played each of the past 2 years it would've been a national game on CBS or ESPN.

  I say take the opposite approach, although you may agree and just think it is not possible with our personnel.  Our focus needs to be on pressuring the ball by any means necessary and switching screens constantly.  Don't allow the opposing guard the chance to get the ball down low.

  I guess we're watching a different player.  He seems much improved in pretty much all aspects of his game to me