Hoosierfan2017

Top 10% only puts us in the top 30 or so for schools, which is probably where we are as a program (though maybe not even that the past few years). A lot of schools would be happy with that but it’s just disappointing to be a top 30 program after being at the top for so long.

It’s not just the buy games. We’ve had this issue for 5+ years in conference games even. We struggle to come close to filling Assembly Hall unless we’re playing Purdue or another top team. An IU v. middle of Big 10 game is going to have a mostly empty balcony and maybe 75-80% full lower level. Back when things were great in 2012 we could fill Assembly Hall for a dunk contest and a light scrimmage.

Aren’t those numbers just based on ticket sales? IU doesn’t struggle to sell tickets, so the university is happy because they’re getting their money. But selling all your tickets doesn’t help the team if people don’t actually show up for the games. Assembly Hall is not even close to full for most games.

I thought about going to the game yesterday. It was the closest one for me this year, about 3 hours each way. But, the cost of tickets + travel costs + time just wasn’t worth it for a team that I figured would disappoint me. IU just isn’t worth going out of my way to watch. Easier to just flip on the channel and half heartedly watch. I think that’s where fan apathy comes in the most. I watched some of the Purdue/Nicholls State game and it was packed. We can only pack Assembly Hall for the biggest of games nowadays.

I mean, the fact that we’ve regularly been in dogfights with Penn State in basketball over the last number of years says it all. They’ve made the tournament once in the past two decades, and zero times in the past decade. But, that’s where IU’s at as a program. Dogfights and moral victories against teams like Penn State.

Penn State sucks and they hadn’t played since December 11. You’re saying “it’s a Big 10 road game” as if the student-less crowd of a few thousand was some hostile environment. The things you listed are just excuses for a really bad loss. I’ve had questions about Woodson since the first time I heard he was a candidate. We’re talking about a 63 year old former NBA head coach who won 46% of his games and wouldn’t have been hired by any other P5 program. Nothing he’s done this season has alleviated my concerns.

Woody just hasn’t been a good in-game coach this season. I agree with everything that Ryan says here except that there’s “no question” that Woody has us moving in the right direction. The on-court product looks almost exactly like it did last year. Our players still don’t play with consistent effort. Recruiting hasn’t been great so far. It’s been better than Archie’s recent years, but it still needs to improve. We’re likely going to have a massive TJD-size hole in our lineup next year and we don’t have anyone to fill it at this point. I judge my apathy on how mad I get when we lose games. I expected todays loss. The only thing I’m mad about is that our program is where it’s at. But even that doesn’t make me nearly as angry as it did 2-3 years ago.

Neither does most of the rest of this team but it rarely affects anyone else’s minutes. Woody has terrible rotations so I have little faith in his lineup decisions.

More minutes for Phinisee is a good idea if you’re trying to lose. None of our bench options are better than what we have in our starting lineup. Kopp/Stewart went 10-21 from 3 against Syracuse. Woody just needs to get them open shots. Right now it looks like they have no idea what they’re doing on offense.

You could call Notre Dame decent too I suppose, though I’d be more likely to call neither decent. ‘Best win’ may have been more appropriate. My point was just that 10-3 looks pretty good until you realize we haven’t beat any good teams.

He’s been at IU for 5 years. Maybe he comes back for a 6th year but he may be ready to move on with his life.

It has for me too. I read a book during the second half with the game on in the background. Almost every game is a grind. Our players never play with consistent effort. Our style is not aesthetically pleasing in the slightest. It’s way too similar to Archie ball. You can look at our record and say ‘but we’re 10-3,’ but the record is fool’s gold. The only decent team we’ve beat is St. John’s. The warning signs have been there since we blew a giant lead our first game against a crappy EMU team.

Days like today are why i cringed when i heard Woodson say after a game in November that they hadn’t done much work on the offensive end yet. What good does holding a team to 61 points do for you if you can’t even break 60 yourself? We shot 39.7% from the field and 23.5% from 3. Got out scored by 21 points at the 3 point line. Every game is going to be a grind when you can’t score, not matter how good your defense is. We held Wisconsin to 64 points on the road and PSU to 61 points but lost both because we can’t score.

They swung for the fences on Brad Stevens, missed, and decided to lay down the bunt on the next pitch. I can’t for the life of me believe that Mike Woodson was the best we could do after missing on Stevens, but maybe IU really is as crappy of a job as they say.

If that was Dolson’s strategy, just to get IU back to stable ground, I wouldn’t be surprised. Mediocrity has been IU’s philosophy for a while now. Not swinging for the fences is a good way to ensure days like today, a bad loss to a bad Penn State team that hadn’t played since December 11th. Just pathetic.

The problem’s that Mike Woodson was a mediocre head coach, and most of his head coaching experience was over a decade ago. Career 46% winning percentage in the NBA. It was an out of the box idea, and maybe it’ll work, but expecting a 63 year old mediocre former NBA head coach to take college basketball by storm was always a long shot.

We’re TJD + 4 guys, and today TJD has played too much like just another guy. 15 points but only 3 rebounds.

ND doing ND things. Freeman was a huge gamble. Nothing against him as he seems like a cool guy, but I’m hoping it doesn’t work out.

Blowouts have been common in the playoff. If you put the four best teams in the playoff and one of them gets blown out, not much you can do. I just don’t think Cincinnati was one of the four best teams in the country this year and I don’t think they should’ve been in the playoff. And honestly, a big part is how thoroughly unimpressed I was when we played them. Alabama didn’t play a good game and had a bunch of injuries/players out and still won by 3 touchdowns and manhandled Cincinnati on defense.

Hope this keeps them from putting in a G5 team again. Cincinnati was no match and likely would’ve been a 3-4 loss team playing in a conference like the B1G East.

Sounds like Stewart definitely got suspended for the first half. Just wonder what for.

I’ve wanted him to play Lander from the very beginning of the season. 20 mpg during the cupcake portion of the schedule to get him adjusted to the college game and ready for the conference season. Instead, he didn’t play Lander at all in the first game, and has played him sparingly since then. Rob Phinisee hasn’t exactly set the world on fire during his minutes either. He’s shooting 25% from the field, 25% from 3, and 40% from the free throw line. It’s not like we’re talking about benching a far superior player to develop a freshman. I’d argue that Phinisee isn’t even a better player at this point in time. If I did I’d want to play Phinisee because I’d think playing him helps the program more.

That would be a silly reason to bench him completely. Sure, it was a bad mistake on his part. But you can’t expect players to ever grow if you completely bench them for extended periods of time for a mistake. We’ve played four games since then. He’s racked up 3 DNPs and played 7 minutes against Merrimack. I’m not sure the Syracuse game even explains him not playing because he didn’t play at all in that game either until the other two point guards fouled out.

Phinisee has been a contributing player during his career though, no? He hasn’t been what we’ve hoped for, but he’s had some moments and been a good defender. Part of the problem I think is that he’s been asked to do too much on some bad IU teams during his career. The 15-20 minutes off the bench he’s been playing this year is probably what his role should’ve been all along, but we’ve lacked point guards so he was our lead pg from day one. I think it’s a big reason why I’m so frustrated with him as a player. We’ve lost so many games over the past three years because of bad guard play, and he’s been the lead guard. He’s a backup who’s been asked to be the starter for too long. So now that he’s finally a back up I’m just over him as a player because of the previous three years. It really just comes down to one’s expectations for a player ranked like him. Me personally, I don’t really expect them to become studs, so when they do I’m pleasantly surprised.

The scouts were also concerned about his size hurting him on the defensive end, but that’s been his strength in college. The scouts may have expected him to be good and help IU, but they still ranked him outside of the top 100, suggesting to me that they weren’t completely sold on him. Rob came in and started from day 1, playing 27 mpg as a freshman. He was asked to do too much from the beginning. Who knows, maybe in a different setting he would have progressed differently. According to the numbers @brumdog45 posted, his career stats are pretty in line with other guards ranked around him in his class. Rankings aren’t the end all be all for a host of reasons, but on average they’re a good barometer. I’m disappointed by his career because I had high hopes after his first month or so, but I’m just not shocked by it the way I was by a guy like Curtis Jones, for example.