Hoosierfan2017

IU fans are mild, imho. We’ve made 4 tournaments in the past 13 years. Conference record over .500 three times in the past 13 years. Two sweet 16s. Zero elite 8s. How do Kentucky fans handle that? How do Duke fans? Kansas? UNC? We all know the answer. No blueblood program would put up with what we’ve put up with for more than a decade. We pride ourselves on “doing things the right way,” but there’s little honor in losing. Our team’s at home watching most years while the big boys flip the NCAA the finger and reap the rewards.

The most recent coaching search tells us where the brand is at now. We hired someone no other team in the conference would’ve hired, and someone we wouldn’t have hired if he didn’t play here 40 years ago. Some will cite his ‘experience,’ but it’s not like anyone in either college or the NBA was beating down his door to make him their head coach. Woody doesn’t look like the kind of coach who can win with mediocre talent. Most coaches can’t, so he’s not unique in that regard. But he’s not recruiting at a high enough level to make up for it. JHS looks nice, but Bates did too. He’s been a dud. In conference play he’s scoring 2.7 ppg on 24% from the field. Definitely not what I was expecting. JHS better be ready because the team will need him from day 1. We’re a middling team this season and have been a middling program for the past 15 years. Some will blame the fans, but the program should be happy that it still has fans at this point.

And hey, I’m not even saying that Michigan sucks. They’re probably not your average 8-7 team, but they’re still 8-7. They’re not a juggernaut. And they came into Assembly Hall and blew us out.

You’re hunting for likes here with a snarky comment. You know what I mean. We won our past two games, one of which was over the #4 team in the country. Things were looking up, we were feeling good. Win today and we had a shot at getting ranked. Our next two games are against Penn State and Maryland, so we had a good shot at 5 in a row. Instead, we didn’t show up and got blown out at home by an 8-7 team.

It was an 18 point home loss to an underachieving, 8-7 Michigan team.. That’s a bad loss, especially when you’re trying to build momentum.

Story of the past half decade. Just can’t put together any momentum.

Michael Penix is a player whose career was upended by injuries. 4 season ending injuries in 4 seasons. Maurice Creek is another player whose college career was upended by injuries. Fractured kneecap in one leg, stress fracture in the patella of his other knee, torn Achilles. Those are players who physically just couldn’t do what they used to do anymore because of injuries. Phinisee has suffered a few minor injuries. Did you disagree about a concussion being a minor injury, ok, I understand that. But it’s not like a concussion or an ankle injury only affects you on one end. He doesn’t have injuries that affect him when IU has the basketball but go away completely when the other team has the ball. If anything, a concussion would make you more hesitant on defense because defense is all about aggression and physicality. But it hasn’t. He’s just fine physically and nothing has kept him from being a very good offensive player. So, I don’t buy the injury excuse for his poor offense.

Well, you see, he got his confidence back in the Minnesota game but then Evil Archie sent him a bunch of mean texts after the game. What’s crazy is that he’s shooting 23% from 3 in conference play despite going 4-9 against Minnesota. In the other 6 conference games he’s 2-17. His game has aged like Benjamin Button. He was at his best the first month of his freshman year and he’s at his worst as a senior. It’s truly bizarre. You might see that from a guy who has several devastating injuries, but Rob hasn’t suffered any of those. He’s had a few minor injuries, but he’s played in 90% of IU’s games during his career.

Archie yelled at Rob every game to play faster but Rob continued to walk the ball up the court. Blaming the previous coach for all the team’s problems is the easy thing to do because it offers hope that things will be different under a new coach. Some of our problems weren’t Archie but rather the players themselves. A player regaining his confidence is what you say when a shooter is in a slump. Phinisee has never been a shooter at IU. Through 100 college games, he’s shooting 35.2% from the field, 29% from 3, and 65.7% from the free throw line. This year he’s shooting career lows from the field, from 2, and from the free throw line. His 27% from 3 is the second lowest of his career. His assist to turnover ratio is the lowest of his career. There’s nothing to suggest that he’s suffering from any kind of ‘confidence’ issue caused by the previous coaching staff. Archie is gone and has been gone since March 2021, but Rob is having the worst season of his career.

So strange. But, I guess what else would you tell a player

Even Woody is buying into the “confidence” narrative. You’d think Archie put Phinisee through 3 years of medieval torture. Archie hasn’t been the coach for 9 months yet Phinisee is shooting worse than he ever has. At some point folks have to admit that he just isn’t very good.

It’s fairly common but agree that it sucks

It’s a good thing that Nebraska is horrendous because we’re doing everything we can to lose.

I appreciate your confidence here but you’re still wrong. Yet you’re tripling down lol. This isn’t something where two people can have differing opinions. Why don’t you just admit that you made a mathematical error so we can move on instead of whatever this is? Nebraska: 8-22 Wisconsin: 5-13 Penn State: 4-17 Ohio State: 2-15 Minnesota: 9-24 Iowa: 7-22 Total: 35-113 = 30.97%, rounded up to 31%. It’s on the official Big 10 website. It’s on sports reference. It’s on ESPN. Hell, those are the numbers on the IU athletics website. Why are you digging in here? It’s especially bizarre because in your very first post on this topic you cited sports reference for your stats. So, you saw the stats on the website and used them for your argument that the offense is “clearly better.” Yet now you’re claiming the website is wrong…

Then your might want to add them again because your calculations are wrong. If you dont believe that source, here it is from a different one. Like you said yesterday, stats don’t lie. https://bigten.org/documents/2021/12/9/2122_MBB_Conf_Stats.pdf I suppose when you’re looking at incorrect numbers our offense doesn’t look so bad, but they’re shooting 31% from 3 in the conference. So, if we use the first six games from the past two seasons like you wanted to, we’re shooting worse from the field, worse from 3, and scoring 6 fewer points per game this year. The improvement this season isn’t because of the offense. The offense isn’t any different from last year. We struggle to score, we struggle to shoot, and we rely heavily on Trayce. The difference between this team and last year’s team is the defense. This whole conversation started because you posted about how our offensive stats “at this point are clearly better.” Scoring a bunch of points against Northern Illinois or Marshall doesn’t mean the offense is better. We scored 89 points against Tennessee Tech and 87 points against North Alabama last year. Were we an offensive juggernaut? Of course not. We just had more games against teams like that this year than we did last year.

I really have no idea where you’re getting that they’re shooting 36% from 3 during conference play this year. They aren’t. They’re shooting 31% from 3 during conference play this year. As you can see above, I never said that they’re worse than last year. I said the opposite. We can talk about how we “should’ve won this game” or how we were “right in that game,” but we’re 3-3 in the conference right now. Same place we were last year. Talking about how the losses this year aren’t “as bad” as last year because we lost by 5 points instead of 7 points isn’t what serious programs do. Blowing a 20 point lead against Wisconsin and scoring 17 points in the entire second half was as bad as anything I saw last season. They have 14 more conference games to prove that they’re different from the IU teams of the past 5 years.

A very reasonable and not at all emotional response. You tried passing off statistics that were heavily influenced by our horrible non conference schedule as proof of how much the offense has improved and then got mad when people pointed out that it was a disingenuous comparison. Our non conference schedule was a joke. Scoring 90 points against a Marshall team that’s 7-10 or 85 points against a 5-8 Northern Illinois team is absolutely meaningless. It’d be like IUFB going crazy about scoring 56 points against Idaho. Here’s some apples to apples. This year’s conference numbers compared to last year’s conference numbers. Virtually identical. If you want to beat your chest over that then go for it. It’s not a “la la land of negativity.” It’s reality. Points: 66.5 / 69.4 FG%: 42.9% / 42.6% 2PT%: 48.7% / 47.4% 3PT%: 31% / 32.9% FT%: 68.8% / 67.6% Assists: 14.2 / 13.3 TOV: 11.3 / 11.6

And honestly our schedule is why I don’t the team at this point in the season. We’ve just barely played anyone thus far. 7 of our 16 games have been against cupcakes. We’re 5-4 against non cupcakes. Last year, 25 of our 27 games were against Big 10, ACC, Big 12, PAC-12, or Big East teams. This team is probably better than last year’s team because of the defensive improvements, but how much better? Idk.

If you take our conference offensive stats this year compared to last year, it’s marginal improvement at best. First is this year, second is last year. Of course, we’re comparing a full conference schedule to only 6 games, but it’s a better comparison than the previous comparison. At least this one is limited to our stats against Big 10 opponents. It kind of lines up with the eye test - our offense doesn’t look that different from last year. FWIW, we were 3-3 through the first 6 conference games last year too. Points: 66.5 / 69.4 FG%: 42.9% / 42.6% 2PT%: 48.7% / 47.4% 3PT%: 31% / 32.9% FT%: 68.8% / 67.6% Assists: 14.2 / 13.3 TOV: 11.3 / 11.6

Is this comparing IU last year at this point in the season to IU this year to date? Or last year as a whole compared to where we’re at now this season? Because if it’s the latter, that’s a pretty disingenuous comparison. Our non conference this year was a joke and we’ve only played 6 games in the Big Ten. Last year we played 7 non conference games. 20 of 27 games were conference games. We played 2 cupcakes all year. The rest of the non conference was Texas, Stanford, Providence, Florida State, and Butler. You absolutely cannot say “we’re better in basically every offensive category” when we’ve just begun playing legitimate basketball teams this year.

He’s shooting 40% from 3 in those three games, and he’s taken a whopping 5 shots.

Sad to see how far we’ve fallen. As many national titles as the rest of the Big 10 combined but we haven’t sniffed the tournament for almost six years and have only sniffed a few over the past decade.

I pretty much only watch the Lakers, but Frank Vogel doesn’t usually do this. AD is hurt right now but when he’s healthy, Vogel will keep at least one of LeBron and Anthony Davis on the floor at basically all times. Ideally, Woody would keep one of Thompson/TJD on the court. If they’re in foul trouble that’s another story, but last night we went to the 5 bench lineup out of choice.

Oof, the ORtg for our bench guys last night is just brutal (besides Trey). Why Woody still goes to the all bench lineups is beyond me. No reason we can’t keep 2 starters on the court at all times.

Let’s see if that last guy wants to hit the portal this offseason