Townie

  I think this was the biggest factor in JBJ not signing with UK, but that doesn't mean Crean didn't have to recruit him away from other schools too.

  There were actually a bunch of interesting factors in JBJ's recruitment...   1) his dad played for UK 2) he would have limited PT at UK, especially on their current team 3) the decommitment and recommitment ofc.   all in all, despite having advantages, I'm still surprised Crean pulled it off 

actually, it's still "pending" i think he's questionable :P

  Well in all fairness, he opted out of the series before he and the rest of the college basketball world knew his team would be poop.   I think it's fair to say, that IU was projected to be better, I think we had the #1 preseason rank, but they were also up there at #3 i think? So while scheduling, it would've been a 1v3 matchup on paper. remember, hindsight is always 20/20

I think this is a really stupid argument. I don't think it's so much who's scared of one another. It was a matter of ego's and UK being pretentious enough to say, "We can do better without you, than you without us".... Sadly, so far they've been right.   The one thing that's kinda @^$%& us is the Hoosier Crossroad Classic, it's not so much the teams participating are bad, it just eats up the one weekend where all the other marquee tournaments take place with all the other blueblood schools like UK, DUKE, KU, MSU, UNC, etc...

Looking at all this subjectively, one thing that is commonly overlooked is the importance of the neutral site games when Kentucky plays "at IU" aka (Lucas Oil/ Bankers Life/ whatever Indianapolis venue...). Coach Cal has a perfect opportunity to not only visit, but also "host" Indianapolis recruits on essentially an away game.     That's one reason UK wants Neutral sites so badly.  Indianapolis and Indiana High school talent > High School talent everywhere else, especially Kentucky's piss poor HS talent.  UK has nothing to lose and no HS talent to poach when other schools come in town.   I also read following that UK upset to WVU back in 2011 or 2012 in the NCAA, Cal was saying a major reason they lost was because they hadn't played in a football arena that whole season, and the atmosphere and ambiance threw his inexperienced team of freshmen off.  So i guess if you think about it, for the sole purpose of prepping your team up for March Madness and the NCAA tourney, playing a bunch of neutrals is kinda beneficial.

From ESPN's Daily Word: http://espn.go.com/ncb/notebook/_/page/dailyword150210/daily-word   "Indiana couldn't guard a toddler on a Fisher-Price hoop" ... sigh... so true

yeah, Buckner was freaking out in tongues, but gus johnson was announcing too right?

heheh i chuckled

i absolutely lost my **** from this Tom Pritchard Dunk. i dont think anyone saw this coming. and then Gus Johnson with the call.... LOVE IT.   "OHHH MH GOODNESS. OHH YOUNG FELLOW DON'T GERVEEMM LYKEE THATTTDF!!!!!.......HERRWW"   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti8tDbtEbCY

I am a huge fan of Kenpom's ratings.  I think they are extremely accurate indicators of where a team is, especially around this time of the year.   Here's how IU stacks up and there really isn't anything I have an issue with.   As expected, a really potent offense and piss poor D.     Edit: Meh, the formatting sucked, and it won't let me an image from imgur...  

Here is a look at other schools with just as big of a disparity between an efficient O and a poopy D.   Eastern Wash is on there too :P  

good take Camp.

here is an updated look at kenpom's ratings after last night...

honestly, this is just my gut feeling and I have no data to back it up but my biggest fear is that our D is technically WORSE on the road, if we assume we play "better" or at least more energized D with the homecourt advantage.   That would suggest our D is even worse than "208th" at times on the road... xD holy fuck.

wooo i deeeeed ettttt

Thanks natural! Here's what I wanted to show:   http://i.imgur.com/wSYGDGY.jpg  

I just realized something... Obviously we struggle with guarding talented and dynamic scorers like Russell right? Well... we happen to have several on our team.. Yogi/JBJ/Troy... what that tells me is we aren't emphasizing defense enough during scrims/practices, our team is just lazy on D, or they just flat out can't play defense ala James Harden lol.

The irony is... you just brought up UK. gd it lol.

I know for a fact during the Mike Davis years this was the case. The bball team would hang at out my friends house and his mom would be the one giving them Gift Cards @ $50/piece, often several at a time to each player.   The reason my friend had a connection with the IU team was because his older sister was a close friend of Jared Jeffries from high school, so Jared would always bring the team over to their place (Sterling Woods).

actually ole miss got a few favorable calls late, they just shot themselves in the foot with that turnover at the very end...   and yeah... that was defintely salt on the wound when it was lyles that came up with the steal.

yeah that was pretty impressive!

holy shit.. i just tuned in. this is a beatdown.... 28-2 right now

  I know this is a UK vid, but boy do I wish our team had this type of brotherhood and bond amongst our teammates.  If troy and stan could bond the same way these UK guys did I'm sure our play would be exponentially better.   edit: i guess I could also tack on that, like many have said or figured out already... Cal really isn't that great of an X's and O's coach (hell, he might be worse than Crean), but whether its BS or real-talk, he gets his players to buy into the team concept.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-9Im76VH4Q

hahahah i am dying right now. thanks for sharing this :)