pumpfake

That play was ridiculous. While it's true that the ball barely hit the rim, it was pretty clear from the change in ball rotation that it did. It seemed like by halftime it was clear that our biggest weakness was free throw shooting. So the second half starts and the refs start calling anything close to a foul on us, putting Illinois in the bonus by the 12:00 mark. There were so many strange calls and almost everyone went to the home team. And BTW, what the heck is with the pink whistles?

We've had mid-season walkon football players that were better basketball players than FM and TP. Nothing against them, they play hard and all that, but something was very wrong with us having a coach that gave them scholarships.

Heck, we would have won if we didn't miss (at least) 3 easy layups.

Ultimately you're correct about McKinley Wright - Archie should have pursued him. I completely understand not going after (poaching) a player from your former team, but you have to do everything (legal) in your power to win at this level.

Toward the end, and after the game I got to thinking - just how much worse is this team than last year's? Our defense is better. We've cut the turnovers down. And last years team (destined to lose an opening round NIT game) had two guys leave for the NBA and one play in the development league if I'm not mistaken. Beyond Morgan, I'm not sure if we have any other players that would start on many other B10 teams.

A lot of things conspired to cost us this one. Crappy FT shooting, some foolish turnovers, and add in more than a few questionable calls and that's how you lose games like this. Morgan is just playing lights out ball (except from the stripe) and doesn't get much help at all on the offensive end. It's been obvious for some time now that we lack shooters, size, and a good PG and that's what we're stuck with for the rest of this season. It's gonna be one step forward and two steps back.

I hope you're right. Fisch mentioned that Archie was really trying to keep the players fresh by frequent substituting. It looked like a couple of Ill players looked almost gassed just before halftime. Hopefully we can outlast them.

It'd be nice if the BTN would step up into the 21st century and maybe add little things like possession arrow, TO's, and fouls to their graphics (and they can skip the constant crawl repeating the same stuff over and over).

We have 3 guys in the game that aren't likely to get any points - McSwain, McRoberts don't/can't shoot and Hartman's shot has been way off.

Damn it, Damn it, DAMN IT !!! I forgot we had a game and just now logged on. Son of a... Sounds like we got the win and Morgan played. My old memory needs us to go back to Thursday/Saturday I guess, LOL.

By my way of thinking (which is likely totally different from any 18 year old), one very important factor for RL at IU would have to be Robert P.. Nationally he (RP) doesn't get any attention, but it's become very obvious that this kid is going to be a fantastic PG - just the thing an elite scoring SG like Romeo needs. It appears that Garland is the type of player that is going to look to get his points, presumably Shittu the same. Maybe I'm wrong and Phinesee will look to shoot more than facilitate, but I want to believe that's not the case.

Heck, RP may be our best FT shooter the minute he puts on the C&C next year. Thanks for the updates '66.

I did have to say that I noticed that in the game against MSU it was interesting to see the difference between our players and theirs regarding "amount of ink". I know we have and have had players with huge tattoos, but there was a distinct contrast between the two teams Friday night. BTW, one of the MSU players had a full back tattoo that was visible around the shoulders - from what you could see, it looked like some 2 year old's attempt at coloring a coloring book, LOL.

Purdue and Butler both prove that you can build a strong team with 4-year players, a solid system, players that follow it, and a complete team. The truth is we didn't have any of those things with any kind of consistency for the past many years. The key is to keep replenishing players and maintaining consistent recruiting. This is one reason why I'm not hell bent on getting 5-stars. Unless you bring in multiple 5-stars on a yearly basis you can be in perpetual rebuild mode without recruiting solid players to play with them. I think Archie will do this, Tom Crean never did this. As to Purdue, they sure seem to be clicking on all cylinders but they may be peaking too soon.

I've heard some suggest that Archie might need to modify his system to suit the current roster. At first I thought that made sense, but then I realized that the underclassmen need to learn Archie's style of play. Keeping them on the bench in favor of upper classmen or delaying their experience playing how he wants them to would do little good. Duty now for the Future!

I'm not mad at the players, nor am I mad at the coaches, but when I see the talent and size disparity against really good teams like MSU I sure am glad Tom Crean is long gone. I'm not pleased with our FT shooting. I will never accept mediocre FT shooting.

IMO, absolutely not.

Yea, with us being a team that struggles to score against a team like MSU that plays outstanding defense, everything has to go right. They are just bigger and better than us at every position. I do look forward to a time when we can play 5 on 5 when we have the ball. It seems we always play with one player on the floor who presents zero threat to score.

I often felt the same way. He was our most reliable shooter from beyond the arc and rebounded very well as you stated. He seemed to be the whipping boy a number of times while RJ was playing/shooting poorly in the same games. With JBJ gone, Johnson is the same player he always was but now gets a lot more criticism for it. Like many, I'd really like to see how Blackmon would have fit into Archie's system in the 3 years he was here. (This isn't meant to be critical of Robert Johnson, but more of a defense of JBJ)

Thanks for the link. My reaction is I'll believe it when I see it. No confidence in the NCAA or Emmert at all (besides, he looks like that goofy Garrison Keillor). I have 3 letters that express my profound doubt, Mr. Emmert: U-N-C

This is something that I really am not concerned about at all. Someone mentioned Roy W. leaving Kansas for UNC, neglecting to include that he played his college ball at UNC and that had to be a significant factor. One good thing for us is that according to rumors Archie wasn't interested in the opening at NC State, so that threat doesn't appear to exist. I will say that when we hired Archie I did look around at a lot of message boards. The UK lot were generally amused that we thought we were going to get Donovan or Stevens and had to "settle" for Archie (ignoring that Donovan turned them down before the NBA came calling). It got me thinking: there will be a number of big openings in the not too distant future. Williams, Krysthsjkdi, Izzo, (and Cal could bolt at the slightest evidence of impropriety.) Where are all the "grand slam" coaches going to come from? The two biggest names would still be Stevens and Donovan, but there's no reason to believe they will leave the NBA. No, I think we may have gotten very fortunate in possibly getting one of the top 3 -available- coaches when we did. You can bet that at least one of the above mentioned top-5 schools will end up with a coach that doesn't pan out (it happens almost every time a legendary coach retires).

Anytime we can be considered by 5* / one and done players it's encouraging and I hope we can land them. That said, I tend to believe that those will not be the players that ultimately define the Archie Miller tenure (and in a way I hope that's true).

Maybe off topic, but possibly of interest to other members. Mods feel free to move it to another section as seen fit. I really like listening to the IU radio broadcasts and really dislike ESPN with Dakich or BTN with Bardo. With the inevitable delay between radio and TV broadcasts I had to go on a journey to find a way to get the broadcast audio and telecast video in sync. Believe me, it is not easy. A couple of years ago I bought a radio that had a built-in, variable delay for this purpose. This works occasionally, but there are times when the delay is beyond what the radio is capable of (and the radio itself is not very good). I found two ways to make it work: 1) There's a free program for PC that allows you to set up your input source and output source and set a delay period. This method allows for an almost infinite amount of delay. 2) An android app that does effectively the same thing with the plus of allowing adjustment of the delay on the fly, but with a constraint that you have to select from a provided list of radio stations (many of which don't work). This app hasn't been updated for a while and works better with older versions of android (Kit Kat seems to be perfect, a little weird with Oreo). I have been using the second method on a Samsung GS3 and then sending the audio to my Home Theater receiver via bluetooth. Luckily one of the working radio channels is one in Bloomington which carries the IU games. There is one really weird "fly in the ointment" to either method and that is some strange "shenanigans" the streaming channels use (I've seen it on BTN via Fox Sports app, and ESPN app) whereby the video delay increases by a few seconds during certain timeouts (presumably to stick in a short ad). I get my TV via PS Vue and use the streaming apps on Roku, so this widening delay may not apply to the cable TV or satellite broadcasts. The delay is consistent with the CBS broadcasts. If anyone needs the names of apps I will add it, but didn't want this post to look like a promotion for them. BTW, for others that get their TV via streaming I'm curious if you've seen the picture quality for BTN games on the Fox Sports Go app being much better than on the BTN app?

You may well be correct, no player has shown shooting consistency half way through this season (perhaps save Morgan). I'd still love to see us have one of those unconscious shooting nights when we play purdue.

A bit OT, but I've been really rooting for Zach M. to start hitting some shots. He had one (3-pt ?) yesterday that looked good but rimmed out. Out of curiosity I did a quick search to see what kind of shooter he was in H.S.. It appears he was at least a decent shooter his senior year (48% FG, 50% 3pt, 71% FT). Archie has said that he's surprised at the shooting accuracy - that the players impressed him in practice as being better than what they've shown. Maybe it's just coach speak, but at some point I have to think we'll at least have a game where we DO shoot well. If we can show some improvement in accuracy along with the improving defense, we will exceed pre-season predictions considerably.