Hillsdale87

Just once it would be nice to get an easy win

I'd make Franklin the PG and have the primary lineup be Durham, Franklin, Hunter, Thompson, and TJD. We can't continue to play 4 on 5 on offense

I'm sure the injury isn't helping, but I think it's mostly that teams just figured out how to defend him. If you can't shoot, you need to have some real shiftiness to get to the hoop. Right now he has neither. I think he'll be fine long term but got a lot of work to do.

How was that off Franklin?

I'm not sure what he does well right now

I don't remember the last jump shot he hit. Maybe that clutch 3 against Iowa?

Great ball movement so far. Nice to see Durham pick it up after that bad MSU game

Light different ones Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't know his whole family situation obviously, but I would have thought he'd be at least ok from a money standpoint considering his dad made millions in the NBA. That's part of why I'm surprised that he'd be ready to leave college, even knowing that he probably can't make the NBA. There are a lot of guys who leave early who can't make the NBA but probably just don't have the ceiling to get there even if they stayed in college, so they might as well just start their pro careers. I don't think TJD is anywhere near his ceiling yet, and so staying would be beneficial long term. But who knows, maybe he does need the money, and it makes sense to leave, even if the timing isn't perfect.

His form is decent. He's very coordinated. I think he can become good enough to hit wide open 3s 33% of the time, which would be good enough. He's not a good free throw shooter, but he's not terrible. I don't think he's ever going to be somebody who you want taking a bunch of outside shots or 3s, but I think he at least needs to make the defense think about defending him out there. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think those guys are more explosive than TJD though. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This very well may be true, but it feels like such a terrible decision. I think it's reasonable to think that he could become a decent threat from 3 if he spent an offseason focusing on it. A reliable jump shot likely puts TJD into the first round and into a team's future plans, whereas now he's an afterthought that maybe could go in the second round.

I think this is all pretty fair. I would quibble with the statement that our recruiting disappointments are similar to other schools. Every school experiences recruiting disappointments, but I think that what happened with the 2018 class was absolute worst case scenario. We got 7 players between 2017 and 2018 (not including Romeo as we knew he wasn't a part of the long term future), and not one is deserving of more than 20 minutes on a decent Big 10 team. Some of that is probably misevaluation, but what happened with Hunter and Phinisee is impossible to plan for. Striking out for 2 straight recruiting classes is not something you can overcome easily. That said, it's still his job to fix it. He's getting paid a lot of money, and so a lack of results ultimately falls on him whether there are legitimate excuses or not. I think that, even with some of the unfortunate circumstances, the team has underperformed. So I don't think Archie has done anything that necessitates him keeping his job this offseason. If they fired him, I wouldn't fault the administration. But I also don't think IU's future under Archie is hopeless.

That would be exciting, and that's good to hear.

Can you clarify this? Do you mean that you think Stewart will start playing soon, or that you don't even expect him to play early next year?

Well ideally he's back next year. I have no idea what he's thinking, but if he wants a better shot at the NBA, he should be back. If that's the case, we lose basically nothing, and expect big steps forward from the freshmen + addition of Parker Stewart who will be ready to go right away. Without TJD, yeah it's a question mark, but there's still time. I think people are expecting the transfer market to be pretty active this offseason. If TJD is gone, this is probably a pretty attractive destination for a big man transfer. But either way, I think there's a good chance the guard play goes from a significant liability to a strength. A healthy Franklin has the upside of an all Big 10 guard. He's been basically relegated to jump shooting since his injury, but he was showing a really good all around game early in the season. Stewart should be a good scorer. Lander has massive upside, but who knows where he'll be next year, but between him, Leal and Galloway, I expect one of the freshmen to be a good contributor next year. I'm not saying that a step forward is a certainty next year, but I think there are reasonable paths to that being the case.

This is how I look at it. Archie has not performed to the level that we should expect, and losing out on Kaufmann this year is concerning for sure. However, there are a number of tipping points that worked against Archie that could have turned things in a completely different direction. 1. Imagine if Archie had been allowed to sign McKinley Wright in his first year. Replace Rob with McKinley Wright, and this is likely a top 20 team. If I remember correctly, Archie wanted him, but there wasn't anything he could do because of APR. 2. I wrote more about this in the MSU game thread, but the 2018 recruiting class completely set Archie back, especially Phinisee. Hunter's injury was nothing that he could prepare for, and has unfortunately limited a guy who appeared to have a ton of upside. But point guard is probably the most important position in basketball. Rob was expected to be a good PG, and it looked like he could become that after his freshman season. As a result, that didn't look like a need in 2019, and so he didn't fill a spot. As a coach, you don't prepare for a guy regressing, but that has unfortunately happened. Lander looks like he's going to be very good once he adds some weight, but that won't be until next year. Rob teasing everybody in 2018 and then regressing in 2019 and 2020 set the program back for two years. Bad classes happen (i.e. Duke, UK this year), but it's very destructive when essentially your first 2 classes (the one he inherited from Crean and 2018) add absolutely nothing. 8 players, almost no results. 3. Injuries this year to Brunk and Franklin have been very costly. We don't have a lot of depth on the front line, and so losing our biggest guy is not great. Franklin is our second best player, and has played limited for half the season. We probably have at least a couple more wins with those guys (definitely the Wisconsin game when Franklin didn't play). That said, even with these mitigating circumstances, Archie is certainly not blameless. Giving up 52 to MSU on Saturday is inexcusable. Some of the spurts where it looks like the team is unfocused and lacking effort are terrible. There have been spots this year where the coaching has been lacking, but I'm not as down on Archie as most people on this board. I'd be fine with him being fired if there's a slam dunk candidate that would essentially guarantee success, but I'm not so convinced that Archie can't make it work that I would take a risk on a relative unknown. I was actually much more out on Archie in year 2, when I felt like his offense was so horrific that there was no way the defense could ever be good enough to compensate. I think he's made strides in the offensive gameplanning and has the young pieces to make it work. I don't think he's ever going to be a great offensive coach, but I think it's good enough. I think this team has a good young nucleus. I saw somebody say that IU is the second youngest team in the B10, so there is reason to think that next year will be better. The 2018 class may have been a disaster, but the 2019 and 2020 ones seem very promising. Next year's class is small, but Parker Stewart and Duncomb seem like guys who will be good contributors. I wouldn't say that I expect next year's team to be really good, but I guess I generally trend toward optimism, so I'm more hopeful than most.

Everything about that 2018 class has hurt and really set Archie back. He inherited one recruiting class, which he couldn't do much about, and he has 3 of his own. The 2020 class looks like it will be very good. The 2019 class looks elite with TJD a top B10 player and Armaan looking like he could become one. But the 2018 class, which was one of the top classes in the country at the time, is a complete loss. Bad classes happen (just look at UK and Duke this year), but it couldn't be worse timing for Archie that it happened his first year. Langford was fine, but everybody knew he wouldn't be contributing to long term success. So of the other four, Forrester and Anderson are gone, Hunter has terrible injury luck that has sapped what could have been, and Phinisee has never developed, and his problems are mostly related to confidence, not basketball knowledge or skill. What was supposed to be the foundational class to start the turnaround is a big zero. Some of that falls on Archie, but some of it is just bad luck with that class basically having the worst of all possible outcomes. The 2018 class is a stain on how we look at everything. We say that Archie doesn't develop players, but I think pretty much everybody has gotten better, except for the 2018 class. We expect that by year 4 he should have a better team, but his first class contributed nothing to the rebuild and set them back. You can't win without good guards, and Archie got zero between 2017 (where he had little choice) and 2018. Not getting to take McKinley Wright like he wanted to in 2017 was a killer too. However, It looks like he's gotten 4 solid to potentially very good guards between 2019 and 2020, so that's reason for optimism. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Rob just taking his time running the offense down 8 with a minute left... Come on Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's tough to win one of these games where the guards provide absolutely nothing. Rob and Al have 2 points, 6 assists, and 4TOs Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

IU has drawn up a lot of nice plays out of timeouts recently Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Race just needs to go up. So many times he holds the ball and ends up with a tougher shot Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Jackson Davis is getting shoved every time he puts the ball on the floor. He also seems to get at least one goaltend per game Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hunter has gone up strong and gotten crushed a couple times the last few games with no call Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Right. Even last night when guys were on fire, we only took 12 3s. Durham and Franklin should be at 5-6 3s per game. Hunter should be probably be around 4. Franklin and Hunter are a little more willing to pull the trigger when it's somewhat contested, but it seems like Durham, Phin, and Leal only want to put it up if it's wide open.