BottomLine

I'm not sure of how KenPom calculates this offensive and defensive efficiency numbers. Is the formula posted somewhere, or is that top secret/need to know only basis? Will the numbers change during the course of the tournament? Don't know but it should be something worth checking out this year. Do know that the numbers are related to how other teams are performing (ranking duh) because they change a bit every day.

I'm not looking at the KenPom rating numbers. I'm looking at the offensive rank and the defensive rank and combining those numbers. Will those numbers change if they win six games in the tournament? Probably a bit but you are looking at ranks that have been computed over a 30 game schedule and only adding six more games. I actually have no idea how KenPom puts his numbers together but I assume that it is based on the whole season and that means that almost 85% of the statistics come from the regular season. Again that is just an assumption on my part. What I do know is that those numbers are very powerful when bracket time come around. HOWEVER, you must only compare majors with majors. The numbers for mid-majors do not hold up in the tourney. probably because they were mostly compiled against other mid-majors.

Here are the IU numbers dating back to 2002 Presently 34 + 18 = 52 2018 92 + 65 = 157 2017 27 + 104 = 131 2016 6 + 59 = 65 2015 8 + 200 = 208 2014 126 + 38 = 164 2013 2 + 19 = 21 2012 4 + 72 = 76 2011 61 + 128 = 189 2010 190 + 176 = 366 2009 231 + 174 = 405 2008 29 + 44 = 73 2007 26 + 23 = 49 2006 58 + 33 = 91 2005 68 + 76 = 144 2004 120 + 72 = 192 2003 20 + 102 = 122 2002 26 + 5 = 31 At least this gives us some a means to compare one team with another. In 2002 we lost to Maryland (4 + 7 = 11) in the championship game and in retrospect much of the work for that team can probably be attributed to the work that Knight did before Davis took over. In the seasons that followed it was obvious that Davis was not going to get us back to that level again. The Sampson teams were respectable but not championship caliber. It is obvious when Crean took over and starting with nothing he made significant progress, especially on offense, up until the 2013 season, where our total of 21 was almost at the threshold level. However, after 2013 we were back in the rebuilding mode again and we were making significant progress, again especially on offense, before Crean was let go. We are now undergoing another rebuild because of a change in philosophy. Crean's reams tried to beat you by outscoring you and overall did a pretty good job of doing that. Unfortunately, at times they had trouble stopping the other team from scoring. Now Archie is trying to build a team that wins by stopping you from outscoring us. Unfortunately, at times we have had trouble over the last two years scoring enough points to win. Both approaches are flawed, though the jury is still out on Archie. To win championships and hang banners you need to play offense AND defense. I think that Archie is aware of this, at least more so than Crean. What we will never know is how good the present team might have been with Hunter and Thompson available. I think we would have certain,y been better offensively. Our early season injuries have also set back the master plan. We have 18 more games to go against the best conference in the country. Let's hope the numbers continue to trend down.

With a five game winning streak and a top 25 ranking, we can all dream about winning that sixth championship. What will it take? Just some statistics to provide some food for thought. The KenPom ratings rank every team in a lot of categories, including AdjO and AdjD. You can also go back and see ranking for every year since 2002. Just put a chart together for the AdjO and AdjD ratings and the total of the two for every champion since 2002 and here it is: 2018 Villanova 1 + 11 + 12 2017 North Carolina 9 + 11 + 20 2016 Villanova 3 + 5 + 8 2015 Duke 3 + 11 + 14 2014 Connecticut 39 + 10 + 49 2013 Louisville 9 + 1 = 10 2012 Kentucky 2 + 7 = 9 2011 Connecticut 19 + 15 = 34 2010 Duke 1 + 5 = 6 2009 North Carolina 1 + 18 = 19 2008 Kansas 2 + 1 = 3 2007 Florida 1 + 13 = 14 2006 Florida 3 + 7 = 10 2005 North Carolina 2 + 5 + 7 2004 Connecticut 9 + 6 = 15 2003 Syracuse 17 = 14 = 31 2002 Maryland 4 + 7 + 11 Note that 14 of the last 17 national champions had a combined offensive and defensive rating of 20 or less. You must admire Archie's drive to bring IU's defensive number down, while doing the same for IU's offensive numbers. The "magic" 20 point threshold doesn't guarantee a national championship, there are teams below that number that didn't win a championship. However, it is hard to argue with the statistics that say that teams that have both a good offense and defense have a chance that is much better than teams that can not match those numbers. IU's current numbers are 37 + 18 = 55, not encouraging for #6. The only three teams that are currently under the 20 threshold are Duke (2 +5 =7), Virginia (10 + 4 =14) and Kansas (7 + 6 + 13). Michigan is the best from the Big Ten (21 + 3 + 24). Of course the numbers change almost every time a team plays. Some will improve and others will regress and who knows what the numbers will be at the end of the year. Just thought throw out some numbers for people to think about. Numbers that are certainly more meaningful that where we are in the national polls.

Let's say that coach has a plan for developing this team. If he doesn't we have the wrong coach, but I'll not argue that at this point. He had players returning and a good recruiting class coming in, so it was expected that we would have a better product on the floor than we did last year. Then the nightmare begins with injuries and our bench disappears into the training room. Suddenly the coach's hands are tied and the "plan" goes out the window. He is forced to play players too many minutes and in some cases in positions that they were never intended to play. The result is lackluster performances against inferior teams and a blowout defeat to a very good team that simply outclassed us. Of more importance is team chemistry and roles have been perverted by bad breaks injury wise. So the big questions is how do we get this train-wreck back on the rails? I'm sure everyone has an opinion because that is part of the fun in being a Hoosier fan. The only opinion that matters is Archie's but I'm not going to let that stop me from chiming in. I think we only have two guaranteed starters on this team - Morgan and Langford, and Morgan is playing out of position. Smith has earned some pine time and I'd move Morgan to the 4 which is probably his natural position. Smith can be an energy guy off the bench until he can prove that he is able to handle the ball, make good decisions, pound the boards and finish in traffic. Ultimately Davis is going to be the stating center. I don't care how big Fitzner is, he is not going to play with his back to the basket. He is an instant offense guy that can come off the bench and pop some 3s. Maybe he can grab a few rebounds but don't expect an all around player. That he isn't. Since we have some big guards we can probably get by with playing only two bigs. I'd play Durham and Langford on the wings. Al has improved greatly this year. He can play defense and can handle the ball if needed. He has also demonstrated an improved offensive game this year. I think it is significant that Romeo is our second leading rebounder. However, he is not a shooter. He is a slasher and he is having trouble doing that as his way to the basket is blocked by his teammates. Get out of his way! Phinisee is also a slasher that has demonstrated the ability to get by his man so I'd go with him at the point. Unless his offense continues to develop McRoberts is a spot starter in place of Durham and instant defense and energy off the bench. Green has ability but he consistently STOPS the offense with his dribbling and selfish play. Anderson isn't ready yet for big time minutes. I have no idea what to do with Forrester and Moore. If Archie couldn't find minutes for them when we were shorthanded I don't know if they are going to help with injured players coming back. Hunter is a wash this year. By the time he gets back - if he gets back - roles will have been established. The wild card is Thompson. I really want to see this kid play but I have seen so little of him I don't know what I would do with him. He could be a Smith without the warts. He could be a bench buddy with Forrester and Moore. I suspect he is a player, especially after a year of practice, but I just don't know. So there you go. I'd start Davis, Morgan, Durham, Langford, and Phinisee. McRoberts, Green, Smith, Fitzner are my first four off the bench - depending on need at the time. I'm praying that Thompson will come back and make me change my thinking. Same for Hunter.

Used to work for a newspaper covering thoroughbred horse racing. I ran a daily betting column where I bet on the horses with a bankroll. That segment was called the Bottom Line. The name has just stuck.

CJ thing is pretty easy to figure out. He couldn't get on the floor consistently this year with weaker guards than IU will have next year. Was he going to play more next year? Don't think so. By transferring at the end of the first semester he doesn't have to set out a complete basketball season. Wherever he goes he will be eligible to play the second semester next year. That means that his new school won't need to waste a scholarship on him for a non-productive year. As for missing the first semester at that school and not playing, he is just trading sitting on the bench at IU and not playing much. If he ends up in a better spot for him, so be it. Welcome to college basketball in the 21st century. Come this time next year most people won't remember that he was even on the team.

McRoberts shouldn't be all that surprising. A lot of people seem to make a lot out of him being a walkon but he is only a walkon in the sense that he isn't on scholarship at IU. He is an Indiana kid from a basketball family. He has played for a state championship. He was an Indiana All Star, and that alone puts him in an elite group. He had a division I scholarship to play at Vermont and started as a freshman. He left all that behind to come back home to Indiana to go to school. The point is that he wasn't exactly drafted off of an intramural team to fill a spot on the practice squad. He had credentials coming in. I can remember posters speculating a couple of years ago, when he was just a student at IU, whether he could be talked into joining the team. People were aware that he was on campus. Is he a 5* or 4* recruit? No but he gives everything he has every time he gets on the floor and it is starting to pay off for him. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that sometimes we like to categorize everything and think that only those 4 and 5 star recruits can help the program, and the fact is that they often turn out to be total busts. Sometimes other players that were overlooked or hadn't matured yet grow. Any player is what he does on the floor. Big reputations and categories like "walkon" mean nothing when the ball goes up at the start. I'm enjoying watching McRoberts grow as a player and I hope it continues.

Watched one of their games on the Internet earlier this year and they played like a pickup team. Think they had even more talent last year and probably toughened their schedule. Forrester looked like he hung around the basket in that game and Reddish was just everywhere doing his own thing. Looks like the talent pipeline may have started to dry up. Don't remember seeing any size except Reddish and Forrester and nobody else stuck in my mind. Gym was a bandbox. On the other hand Forrester can move, he is not a Priller, and he certainly plays above the rim. Reminds me a lot of Moore.

The big honcho in that team is Reddish. He is 6-9 and a Duke commit, probable McDonalds all American, and has the green light to cut loose wherever he is on the floor.

Home and Away with Mich St, Minn, OSU, Ill Home only with PSU, NW, Mary, Purd Away only with Wisc, Rut, Iowa, Neb We are done with Michigan and have had our home game with Iowa. Where do we find 11 more conference wins? I agree the opportunities are there, but which ones can we take advantage of? I count it as slim and none. We would need to go on a big winning streak in the conference and finish in the top 4, probably not going to happen. Or, win the Big Ten tourney. Yeah and pigs can fly too. Don't think we are even make the picked over rejects tournament this year.

I count it as slim and none. We would need to go on a big winning streak in the conference and finish in the top 4, probably not going to happen. Or, win the Big Ten tourney. Yeah and pigs can fly too. Don't think we are even make the picked over rejects tournament this year.

It is easy to throw around speculation about the chances of the Hoosiers making the field for the NCAA this year, but the facts are that the chances have almost evaporated for this year, thanks to two crushing home losses to lowly rated teams. But for those who hold out hope, let's look at the math of the selection process. As everyone knows there are 68 teams selected for the final field. Twenty of those spots will be taken up by the minor majors. Those are one selection conferences and if the regular season champion loses in the conference tourney - well that is just too bad. The minor majors are American East, Atlantic South, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, CAA, CUSA, Horizon, Ivy, MAAC, MEAC, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Patriot, Southern, Southland, SWAC, Summit, SunBelt, Wac. 68-20 = 48 Next we have the mid-majors. The mid-major conferences (with this year's expected best teams) are: American (Wichita State, Cincy, SMU, Houston); MAC (Buffalo, Ball St, Ohio, W Mich, E Mich, C Mich); MVC (N Iowa, Loyola Chi, Missouri St, Valpo); Mountain West (Nevada, SD St, UNLV, Fresno St); WCC (Gonzaga, St Mary's, BYU, San Diego); Atlantic 10 (RI, VCU, St Bonaventure). Each conference is guaranteed a spot but, unlike the minor majors, a conference champion might still be selected if they lose the conference tourney. Rarely 3 or more may be selected. It varies by year but let's say that the six mid-majors get 9 sports. 48-9 = 39 That brings us to the major conferences which are ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac 12, and SEC. There are 75 teams competing in those six conferences and they are competing for approximately 39 spots. On the average each of those conferences should get 6.5 spots. In stronger years they get more and in weaker years they get less. Since the Big Ten is down this year we can probably expect 5 or 6, but 7 is not an impossibility. It depends on the relative strength of the other major conferences. So what does it take to get in? The best clue is probably given us by the Pomeroy Ratings which are available back to 2002. Not only does it provide us with yearly ranking but it also provides us with NCAA seeds for each year. The most certain way to get into the field is to be ranked in the top 40. Over the last 16 years 92.8% of the teams that were rated in the top 40 were selected. Taking into account the teams that was ineligible and the number is probably closer to 95%. How low can you go? After the top 40 selections become more hit and miss. The average LAST major team over the 16 years was 54.9, with the lowest being 71 in 2002 and the highest being 39 in 2004. Over the last five years the bottom major teams were 56-62-50-64-60. In 12 of the 16 years the last major seed was between 9 and 12. After the loss to Ft Wayne Indiana is rated as #99 by Pomeroy.

IU 76 - 68

IU 70 Ark St 49

IU 79-73

IU 76 Howard 58

IU 73 ISU 58

I missed that. Sorry to repeat old news. Everybody move along there is nothing to see here.

Had some time to kill tonight and I'm starved for some Indiana basketball, so I hit YouTube for replays of the 2002 IU - Duke game and the IU - Oklahoma game. After the Oklahoma game the camera zeroed in of 3-year-old Antoine Davis, the son of then IU coach Mike Davis. Then I started thinking. If Antoine was 3 back then he would be about ready to finish high school and whatever happened to him. It didn't take much searching to find out. Turns out the young man turned out to be a pretty good basketball players and has committed to play next year for the University of Houston. He is listed at 6-1 and 160# and is listed as either a 3-star or 2-star player, depending on the listing. Just thought I'd give everyone a smile.

97-57 IU

I go back a long way as an IU fan. I grew up watching IU play on channel 4 out of Indianapolis and as a result, when the time came, I attended and graduated from IU in 1969. For me there were two players that I idolized in my youth, Jimmy Rayl and Archie Dees. From the time I got my first basketball and dad put up a hoop I reenacted over and over again the plays that I had seen my heroes make on TV. Oh how I wanted to shoot the ball from outside like Jimmy or have unstoppable inside moves like Archie. I know a lot of you on here are much younger than me and you have no recollection of the days before coach Knight came to Bloomington, but take my word for it that Indiana basketball did not start with Robert Montgomery Knight. The glorious history of Indiana basketball goes much farther back, even farther back than me. If you missed seeing Archie Dees play you missed something very special. He was one of only three players to win Big Ten MVP honors in back to back years. The other two were Jerry Lucas and Scott May. That, my friend, is very select company. Time moves on for all of us but for me a little piece of my childhood died today when I heard the word that Archie had passed. It makes me want to hit the driveway and put up a few hook shots in memory of the big guy. As a Hoosier player he was something special. In some ways he has never been matched.

I know everyone is upset any time IU loses, myself included.  However, stop for a second and ask yourself which tournament you want to win -   The Big Ten or the NCAA and don't give me the line that you want to win both.  Everybody wants to win both.  We lost Friday primarily because Hartman, Morgan and Johnson are dealing with injuries and that forced IU to put some pretty strange combinations on the floor.  Yogi also took some brutal blows on Friday.   If we are in foul trouble the combinations get even stranger.  We don't have the solid depth that we had only a few weeks ago and that is changing how we are playing.  Can't be helped.  Burton and Niego have now entered the picture as the next men up because of the injury problems.  Or, would you rather go with the starters all the way and grind them down.  They aren't machines, they are flesh and blood and subject to fatigue.   Now do you want to keep pushing players back on the floor who obviously aren't 100% or would you rather have them working with the trainers and doctors in an attempt to go into the NCAA with the strongest team possible?  Keep your eye on the prize.  IU should welcome the extra time off.  Bet our last final four team would have liked to have had a healthy Coverdale and our last Sweet 16 team would have liked to have had a healthy Hulls.  Don't want to see a repeat of that this year.

As much as I hated to see IU lose to Michigan, I can't help but wonder if it is for the best.  The only way that we were going to improve out seed for the NCAA tourney is if we won the BTT.  But would it have been worth it?  We have players nursing injuries and playing them in the BTT only increased the possibility that they would re-injure themselves.  Can't see how the extra week of rest and healing can't work out to our favor.  So we don't get a #2 seed.  Big deal.  We are easily in and will probably draw somewhere between a 3 and 5.  I'd be happy at this point with a #4.  At full strength, healthy, rested and focused I like our chances.  I guess I'm one of those half full guys.

www.vegasinsider.com/college-basketball/odds/futures/   Just looked up the odds in Vegas for an IU victory in the NCAA tournament and they are offering 45-1.  Seems to me that is a bit long.  Play this tourney 45 times and IU will get on a roll and win at least once.  I'm not saying that we are gong to win this year but for $10 you get a chance for a $450 return and I'll take those odds.  Considering that there are no overwhelming favorites this year the line makers have established Michigan State as the favorite to win it all.  IU is the 23rd team listed, which I think is ridiculous.  Wonder what the odds were a couple of months ago when we got no respect?