Magnanimous

Michigan is to blame for the unbalanced divisions.

Setting a foundation is the hardest part of a rebuild. We’ve also come up on the short end of games a lot this year, but there have been very few we’ve been completely uncompetitive in, especially against average teams. This team has lost four games by 3 points or less and another one in overtime. Granted, we’ve had a lot of close wins as well, but if two or three of those losses go the other way, we’re feeling a lot more confident about the state of the program. If we beat Maryland by one instead of losing by three, or beat Purdue last week, or if the tip-in against Arkansas goes our way, are we really that much better of a team than we are today? Not really, but people wouldn’t be pitching a fit in the middle of a rebuild. It’s the long game we should be focusing on. Yes, winning every game possible is nice, but just missing the tournament this year vs. sneaking in and then getting bounced early is going to make little difference for year four of Archie’s tenure.

Since Knight left: - one coach who was out of his league here, couldn’t recruit, and couldn’t coach - one coach who broke NCAA rules, recruited bad seeds, and left the program rebuilding from scratch within two years of arriving in Bloomington - one coach who could barely coach, couldn’t manage a roster, and played off what he inherited into sticking around longer than he should have. In summary, we’ve had three consecutive busts as coaches. Not complicated to see why we’re where currently are.

Archie’s defense is starting to come around. Just need the offensive pieces now...

This is like playing Bo Ryan’s Wisconsin teams. Chuckers...

Sometimes....in college...it’s an offensive foul but the shot counts if the ball gets out of the hand first.

If he could shift that to 75% miracle he’d be our Russ Smith. Instead he’s Marshall Henderson.

“Coincidental” that it was released today after Zion Williamson’s injury last night, but the NBA has submitted to the players association it’s proposal to lower the draft age from 19 to 18 beginning with the 2022 draft. Link

Why do you expect sweeping changes to occur in the middle of the season?

A lot of our guys are catching the ball in the half court where an offensively gifted player would be able to score. As anemic as this offense is, from what I’m seeing right now it’s more on roster composition than offensive scheme that is limiting us.

Im getting close to being done, not with IUBB, but the forums. You’ve ruined at least two IU message boards with your asinine comments and this takes the cake. On behalf of everyone associated with this fan base, get lost.

Well then maybe Kyrie will ruin the Celtics to the point Stevens wants to leave...

Football remains to be seen. Allen is recruiting very well and the bridge on O that was Deboard is now gone, replaced by an up and coming offensive mind. 90% of winning football games is accruing talent, and Allen has us looking better than ever in that regard. Crean unfortunately left our athletic department in a tight spot, because as much as people rail on Glass for that extension in 2012, Crean would’ve gotten one anyway following the 12-13 season for winning the conference, regardless of the Syracuse game. If got it following the season instead, then we’d just be one year further away from washing our hands from that mess of a tenure. There were legitimate circumstances as to why we had a lot of roster turnover after the 12-13 season given how large Crean’s first two classes had to be when he took over, so he got cut a break for the Vonleh season because it was in a sense a second rebuild. The “movement” didn’t pan and out and the writing was on the wall for Crean, who would’ve been canned after 15-16 had he not won the Big Ten. That bought him a year then he was gone. The only other time Crean could have been fired was after the 14-15 season, but the “new rebuild” was trending up. Honestly, winning the Big Ten in 15-16 set this program back 5 years, because that was when the recruiting issues were starting to really manifest themselves, some of which can still be felt this season. Glass fired Crean when he realistically could have (unless you wanted him gone after year three), and hired someone who most experts across the country was a great up and coming coach. He wasn’t Brad Stevens or Billy Donovan, but of the realistic choices Archie’s name was near the top of everybody’s list. Bennett wasn’t coming here (he didn’t want to come here after Sampson was fired either), Rick Barnes was coming off of a 15-19 season, Pearl wasn’t a choice, Chris Mack could’ve been a good pick but was pretty much in the same class as Archie, and then there was Holtman. Alford would have been a complete disaster. A few idiots even thought Izzo would’ve come here...Neither of the Hurley brothers had anything on Archie’s resume either.

Not that I’m defending Glass by saying this, but if he gets blame for Archie’s failures then he needs to get credit for Archie’s (future) success. Outside of hiring and firing, how much influence does an AD have on a basketball team winning, especially when the facilities are already there? Whether or not Glass is the AD next year, Archie’s season will play out the same way, however that may be. I see no point in firing Glass while Archie is our coach. If CAM doesn’t work out, Glass won’t be making the next hire.

Well then this should be a fire Archie thread, since there’s no point in firing Glass and keeping Archie. Same goes for Tom Allen.

I don’t know what to make of our 12-2 start. We reeled in a few quality wins, probably should’ve beat Arkansas as well. The Marquette game was a complete @$$ kicking where everything clicked for us, but outside of that we pulled out some games that could’ve gone either way. We started December by winning four games by a combined 8 points. One or two of those go the other way and we probably have a much more realistic look at what this team was all along. Rob’s concussion and the Maryland collapse broke whatever cohesion this team had.

Glass isn’t going unless we’re also going to fire Archie, which still remains very doubtful after this season. If Archie turns this thing around in year 3 or 4 but you canned the guy who hired him, then what? Glass’s future here will be contingent on Archie’s success. You can’t separate the two at this point.

This feels like year three of Crean.

Leave the kids alone...

Great win! Now everyone can STFU about firing Archie.

The Wookie defense

He’s legit from 15-18 feet. Getting him the same off-ball looks we set up for Robert Johnson last year would help the offense. I’m not sure why we’ve gone away from it this season.

Unfortunately, it is what it is. Other than Juwan, Crean didn’t really leave Archie much upperclassmen talent, and the Crean recruits Archie retained are marginal talents at best. If you don’t have that and you can’t nab some quality transfers immediately, then you’re pretty limited. We had a scholarship crunch and a roster that was capped by APR concerns, so there wasn’t much wiggle room for Archie to bring in talent beyond freshmen. I’d rather have a Romeo than a second grad transfer this year, so that’s pretty much what Archie was left with going into this season. The 2016 and 2017 recruiting classes were huge wiffs by Crean. Archie (or any coach besides K and Cal) needs a couple of waves talent to come in to get things on track and build a foundation. Unfortunately that means that it’ll inevitably be a multi-year rebuild. And you see that with most coaches who take over a program. Years 3-5 are the ones that they can really be evaluated on. This is especially true when you consider that Archie didn’t/couldn’t bring in any new players for his first season.

I’m not sure what he’s looking for with this offense, since it’s nothing but pick and rolls with a second option either being an undersized guy on the block or a mediocre shooter on the opposite side of the arc. It’s not a scheme that is conducive to offense production. Unless I’m missing something, we did more moving the ball and setting up off-ball shooters last season. Not sure why he’s limited the offense to just this now. He also needs to get our fast breaks going. It’s inexcusable that we can’t take advantage of four on two breaks, especially since our defense does cause a fair amount of turnovers. We’re leaving 12 points a game on the floor by not pushing the ball more off turnovers.

I was at the game tonight so I missed some of the recent discussion. This was my first game seeing live this year, and The one thing that stood out to me in particular was how awful this team is on fast breaks. Like pitifully terrible. They have no clue how to capitalize on a numbers advantage or where to pass the ball. Ok guy just kind of dribbles and either slows it down or passes it too late to our guy on the block, forcing him to go low and slow down, allowing the defense to catch up. I’m all for controlling the pace of the game in the half court, but when’s team is this bad shooting the ball you need to capitalize on empty possessions by the opposition. Our points off turnovers ratio must be one of the worst in the country.