pumpfake

To young Mr. Langford: If it's shots you want - we've got 'em. If it's PT you want - we have plenty to offer. Plenty of exposure, outstanding fan support, and great coaching are waiting for you in one of the most lovely campuses (campi?) in America. Come on up and be all that you can be (apologies to the U.S. Army). Seriously though, a close look at how our team played will show that there would be great opportunity for any incoming freshman to get shots and make plays. We didn't have much in the way of good shooting, but the offense got shots, and without stellar PG play. With RP coming in, that area should be improved.

If I may, I'd add one more thing about free throws. We shot in the high 80%'s last night with lots of attempts, so going forward there's no excuse for terrible shooting from the line. They proved they can shoot 'em - it's not bad form or coaching.

That Green pass exemplified how we played for the last 30 minutes of that game. Not only was it a weak pass, but then he just stood there. Rob Johnson played pretty strong defense through most of the season, but was always (and stayed true to form) a very inconsistent shooter. I know Hartman was coming off an injury and then got dinged up several times, but I remember in the OSU game hearing Don Fisher say "I really wish he'd hit one of those" and as he was saying it I thought he was going to say "I really wish he'd stop taking those". For over a month his shot was gone and he continued shooting every time the opportunity presented itself, at least McRoberts knows he's not a great shooter and shows some restraint. This brings me to one of the biggest issues with our offense: no reliable shooters. Knight used to talk about making sure your best shooters were getting the most shots. We didn't have any "best" shooters, and coupled with the ingrained CTC philosophy we started the year with an every man for himself shot selection approach. That improved noticeably as the season progressed, but there was simply no player that was reliable enough to be getting the most shots - we had to rely on somebody having a temporary hot hand. Also, as we came down to the end of the season, as others have mentioned, I thought it looked like Morgan was a bit worn down. Maybe it was just that opponents had seen him once and made adjustments to their defense. He seems to have a more reserved demeanor, but I'd like to see a little more fire. As Tim Garl stated above, we were far inferior to Rutgers in the intensity department. I'd like to see Archie find a player with a similar personality to his own, that refuses to lose and fires up the rest of the team. Finally, the talk of whether to put Morgan back in or not reminded me of something I've heard Erick Suhr bring up several times: Don't foul early. Being limited in playing time because of early fouls handicaps both the player and team throughout the game.

No. Especially anything Chicago sports related. (no offense)

Losing out on RL and having Juwan bail would be a serious shot to the gut.

Yeah, I don't really give a rat's patootie about the rest of the tournament(s) after we've flamed out. Growing weary of waiting for that big breakthrough. What makes it doubly depressing is that for me, it's no more sports til football season - almost six months of nothing but speculating and begging for a recruiting "win". In retrospect, I sure am glad I saw the Bob Knight comments about Archie this morning - particularly the part about patience.

In a game in which your season is on the line, I sure would have liked to see a lot more intensity from the players. Rutgers guys had it and we looked like we were scrimmaging. That is what disappointed me as much as anything. At least we were outstanding from the stripe tonight. Other than that, it was a pretty bad performance.

Can't say that I'm shocked that ESPN could have gotten it all wrong. I'm not passing judgement about any of this without any facts (that's right ESPN, FACTS). Anyway, thanks for posting this.

The following a legend issue is a big one, IMO. Very rarely is the first or even second successor to a "legendary" coach successful enough to last more than a couple of seasons. It looks like we'll be seeing this at UL, maybe MSU, and eventually at NC and Duke. As to Fife, I'm probably in the minority and hold an unpopular opinion about him. It still sticks in my craw that he was one of the most vocal about demanding that Mike Davis be made the permanent (not interim) coach in that first post-RMK season.

It appears the consensus is that Izzo is destined to become Wuzzo. Will Fife get or want the job?

No kidding. As I recall, word was out about how disastrous the visit was that same day or the next - I don't know how that info got around so fast, but we were totally eliminated by the time the visit was over.

I share that feeling 100%.

I've wondered why the NCAA can't have rules that make one and done players less desirable. Maybe count every scholarship for a full four years unless that player uses it at another school?

Yep. If Archie's appeal is that he's a good coach and good at getting the best out of his players (per Tim Langford), that's good enough for me. I'll take that persona over salesman/wheeler dealer every time and sleep well if we lose high ranked targets. It does seem that perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Langford may prefer IU and maybe (some feel) Romeo is drawn toward Garland. I wouldn't want the roles reversed for any number of reasons.

Speaking of the Drew family, I always thought of Homer as being on the up and up, but now I question that. I'm purely speculating, but now I have to wonder if Valpo wasn't working a poor man's version in getting players from Europe? Maybe easier to get by with and not as expensive. I have zero proof, but my suspicion has come about after seeing what kind of scumbags the two sons have turned out to be.

Free throw shooting woes are 100% on the player. Cook Hall is available at all hours and if you stink from the line, you should want to do something about it and get to the practice court and practice, practice, practice. If Art Garfunkle can be a dead-eye from 15 feet, so can a division I basketball player - if he wants to be.

Now that our regular season is over, I also went back to look at preseason predictions. Not that it's where we want to be, but we will finish higher than any prediction I found. 7th - Indystar (mentioned it may seem like some homerism to have us that high) 8th - Sports Illustrated 9th - Athlon, Sporting News, B10 coaches poll 10th - BTN, NBC, "Busting Brackets" 12th - USA Today, Lindy I think one of the other IU forum sites may have had us 6th, but I disregard predictions from team focused sites who always over value their own. Universally most of them blew it in regard to Minnesota and OSU.

Good point. Crean seemed to get in quite early on a number of young, yet unkown players and when they "blew up" they dropped us like a hot potato. No doubt part of it was FCTC's personality, some went with offers from hotter programs, but I have no doubt several chased the "swag".

I think some of the younger fans would be very surprised to see how DV was back on the ABC college basketball telecasts (with Keith Jackson). He was actually quite good. But as you say, he developed his Dicko the Clown act and even that has long since grown stale.

Regarding Vitale: Dickie and most everyone in the basketball world seems to forget or overlook the fact that Saint Jim Valvano was a dirty cheater whose team was put on probation under his watch. I wonder how angelic Bob Knight will be to Vitale if he passes first (he'll probably want the name of the state changed to Knightolina or something like that).

Yeah, that flashed through my head while watching the little roundtable on CBS this afternoon with Gumbal, Bilas, Emmert et al.. When one of the TV guys suggested that some may see the sanctions against Louisville as being "draconian", all I could think was: what word would you use to describe penalties for bumper stickers bought before the penalized player was born or for posing for a charity calendar?

After reading through several threads, here and elsewhere, I suspect Tim Garl is going to be busy guy what with all the pulled hamstrings from jumping to conclusions. LOL

So true. IMO, there is absolutely no excuse for a player or team to be so poor at the line. High School girls (entire teams) regularly shoot 75% or better.

In some ways it might be best in the short term if Izzo doesn't go. With these revelations and an ongoing FBI (and NCAA -LOL) investigation, other teams can really use that against him on the recruiting trail...

I can believe it. More proof that the best way to avoid getting penalized is to deny, deny, deny, and fight the NCAA with everything you've got. It kind of becomes an "honor system" where schools like UK, UNC, etc. have no problem with acting with impunity.