MartintheMopMan

I sure hope this worked! Game starts in an hour in theory! If it's terrible then tell me before I start watching it since I'll be teaching Sunday School at tip.

All right, now to one of the three biggest challenges of the season. We dropped the ball completely on the first challenge (Duke) and have two more opportunities to step up. Can this team bring the Assembly Hall magic to the frigid north?   Also, doing something a little different. I'm going to set this topic to automatically close at 1200 EST and the game thread will open.   And hey, if you guys see interesting previews or other articles about the upcoming match-up, feel free to link them here. That kind of discussion would be great.   Prediction league:   https://btownbanners.com/topic/9204-prediction-league-game-26-week-14-iu-vs-michigan-state-021416/   The Numbers:   [attachment=3384:2.PNG]   [attachment=3383:1.PNG]

Yes, we would have needed those big shots later. Who do you put in who can't be beat and never turns it over? I think you're either far overestimating our bench or far underestimating Iowa.   I mean, say what you will about Troy, but for once Crean was willing to pull him out when he was having trouble and when he came back in each time he had completely turned it around. If anything, this game shows how much better we would be if Troy were coached in a way to enhance his strengths rather than just trying to play through his weaknesses.

Josh Oglesby? Guess he isn't doing anything else.

Their fans certainly are not at all afraid of us. I've been reading their boards some, they think it will be a close win at the worst, blow-out at best. They consider Maryland the only other contender for Big Ten Title and expect us to go 3-4 in this final stretch.

That's insane. The latest I've seen Spriggs projected is 10 picks into the second and he's a "chance to become" while Howard is projected in the late rounds where everyone grabs random RBs and he is an instant starter?   Those grades are confusing.   http://www.nfl.com/draft/2016/profiles/jason-spriggs?id=2555197 http://www.nfl.com/draft/2016/profiles/jordan-howard?id=2555418 http://www.nfl.com/draft/2016/profiles/nate-sudfeld?id=2555427

I firmly believe you have our offense completely backwards. We're the third most efficient offensive team from 2 and fifth from 3. Our ability to shoot 3s at such a high clip is dependent on our making room on the perimeter by being a threat inside. Compare the Michigan game and the PSU game. One game we relied on perimeter shooting and the other we relied on interior play until the 3 opened.   When properly utilized, Troy and TB are nigh unbeatable around the basket. 

Chuck Marlowe passed away this morning.   For those who don't know who he is, he was the play-by-play announcer for channel 4. You can hear his voice on any classic game you watch. He later hosted the Bob Knight Show.   He always did the radio call for the Indy 500, but that's not Indiana basketball so...   Here his video from when he was inducted into the Broadcasters HOF or whatever they call it:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EulbNCuGPjA   Article on his death:   http://www.indystar.com/story/news/fox59/2016/02/11/chuck-marlowe-iu-basketball-announcer-dies-bob-knight-show/80223122/

Oboards are definitely big, I agree they could make up for our TOs and we're considerably better than Iowa on that front.   So is defending Uthoff. Let's give him a couple of bad games to knock him off some people's POY lists.   On the offensive side, we have to play to our strengths. We play inside-out and need to keep playing that way. Three pointers open because defenses start to pack the middle to prevent our driving to the basket/passing inside to TB, we're not a three point first offense.   My unpopular opinion here is I really hope Troy is starting. I think OG has more upside, but I prefer him off the bench. I also think physiologically neither Troy or OG could handle it. Troy should be losing minutes to OG, but lacks the mental toughness to lose the starting spot and still play as Good Troy.    And anyone who is at the game you better be LOUD and make sure everyone around you is loud too. Download Crowdy or whatever, see if that helps. Anyone I see sitting better submit a doctor's note.

Near as I could tell from looking at the issue, Knorr was dismissed because we had the opportunity to hire Allen.    Allen's contract is not publically available.    I agree with your other comment too. Wilson may not be the greatest coach in college football, but he's a good fit for Indiana given where the program stands. I requested a copy of the contract because there was a lot of speculation and concern over a 6-year extension without knowing the buyout terms. I think people were justifiably afraid of another Crean extension. Wilson's is reasonable, it currently is about a 3.5 million dollar buyout which will decrease by $600,000 a year and must be mitigated by future employment. Wilson will absolutely get a high level offensive coordinator position at the worst. PSU fans are dying to have him.

Received a PDF of the new contract today. It appears the buy-out provisions are identical to his previous contract (aka the standard provision, base salary for the remainder of the agreement). Base salary is kept low ($542,000) with the remainder made up by a promotion fee. The promotion fee is only paid for the year Wilson is fired.   I don't remember if that was an issue in this thread or another one, but there it is.    https://www.docdroid.net/PWET4dR/kevin-wilson-second-amendment-to-iu-employment-agreement.pdf.html

I hope the new arena has better sight lines and more seating.   Actually, I hope it has better sight lines, larger capacity, and the worst seats imaginable. Maybe hard aluminum benches without backs (except for some handicap seating). I want the decision to be "watch the game in misery" or "stand up" so standing up and cheering wins every time. Also, lets move everything closer in to the court. Oh, and put the band somewhere out of the way with a better acoustic profile so we can stop pumping in music and use solely band music (and open some seats up for students).   Anyone remember how football stadiums especially used to be in the late 80s/early 90s? You just built straight up, filled it with benches, and forced people to walk up a ton of stairs to their seats. You could cram 80,000 people in an area where we fit under 50,000 today. I could dig something like that, drawn out until it looks like the Quidditch World Cup.

Tonight! Tonight! Toniiiiight!

********* right they did. I hope everyone who left him out the first time feels mighty stupid.

Hey, at least you're staying positive.   I mean, while we're making things up anyway, we could lose out the rest of the season and win 1 game in the Big Ten Tourney barely making it into the Tourney on the bubble. Did someone say Cinderella story? We win another banner after finding our Good Indiana mojo late. Yogi records triple-doubles in every game of the Tourney, a feat never before matched, and Troy and Yogi go on to be top-5 picks, JBJ riding their coat tails in at 15. TB decides to stay because he wants to have a repeat.   Tom Crean is hired away by a team desperately searching for answers. Brad Stevens comes to take his place and takes Indiana to a repeat NC on the back of our second undefeated season.   Too bad they're all just stories we concocted.

All I'm hearing is that you live in the wrong time zone.   9 pm tips are the best.

I am admittedly a little nervous the general malaise we are seeing right here in this thread has infected some of the students and they will not show tomorrow.   Maybe everyone else is feeling similar to what I am. Excitement over the prospect of being able to finally show what we're made of, nervousness over the prospect of falling flat on national TV again, and frustration over genuinely having no clue which is more likely.   Generally, my feelings are summed up as annoyance. I just can't take the inconsistency anymore. We could win out and I still would not approach a single game in the Big Ten Tourney or the NCAA Tourney and say "Oh, this is a game we will win". No matter what happens I'll think "This is a game we could win if Good Indiana shows up."   The lack of certainty in any aspect of this program from in-game play to the coach to recruitment to off-the-court questions is just more than I can bear sometimes.

Yeah, that's the excuse Maryland keeps making too.

If you'd like to see non-Hunter Johnson highlights of the games, check out Brownsburg's Cube   http://thecube.com/cube/brownsburg-high-school-brownsburg-indiana

Dayton barely pulls it out against 128th ranked Dusquesne at home, trailing most of the game, tying it up with 1 minute left and going on to win by two.   Which, I'm just saying, is all I'm saying.

Really good is a strong word I think. They're certainly better than PSU, but they are getting artificial bumps from the data. Watching them play, I think they are getting overhyped based on their extremely weak conference schedule so far and a couple of good wins in November.     Same thing people say about us, except the weak part of our conference schedule included 6 top-100 games which we won 4 of and the strong part of our schedule contains 5 top-25 teams.    Dayton has played 2 top-100 conference games, has 3 top-100 and 2 top 50 remaining.   At least some team seeded lower than they should be will have an easier game than they expect during the tourney.

Iowa lost to Dayton just before Notre Dame too. Though, they just beat George Washington and the guy was the first President so... pretty tough team.

Nailed it.   Taking it a step further, Hunter Johnson was a top-20 player in the country. Brandon Peters was a top-50ish. Both ended up at schools with deep football traditions.   Tommy Stevens did commit to Indiana right up until he got a better offer. I'm not sure what, if anything, happened more behind the scenes in Stevens' case.   Edit: Here's what Kevin Wilson said about Tommy Stevens though he did not specifically say he was saying it about Stevens:   "You know, lot of guys want it now. I get that," Wilson said. "I think it's hard at every position. It's a dynamic in recruiting. You go a year ago and a year ago today, we've got a junior and two sophomores. So the year before, nobody wanted to come because they were sophomore and all freshmen. And the one guy (Roberson) had gotten hurt, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, actually it was two sophomores and a freshman, but the sophomore got redshirted.   "Then the following year you go out and look at the high school guys. Well, the starting quarterback is just a sophomore. 'I don't want to come play.' This year we were a lot more attractive prior to injury at the time. So you've got to take some developmental guys.   "But when you go out and market yourself on guys, that's been a tough sell. That being said, too, you want the guys to kind of buy in. I know we tried very, very hard to support our guys on the field, off the field, classroom, weight room, practice. And we encourage guys that this is a great place to hang with it. Great things are going to happen."

The salad course came and SHOCK there was a dead frog in it. And I think I had part of the frog in my mouth for a second and now the waiter is talking about bringing out the main course but I can't stop tasting and feeling frog in my mouth and I don't want the entire dinner to be ruined and maybe maybe maybe if the meal is really superb it will make me forget but darnit, why couldn't the salad just go down easy?   So, I'm internally frustrated and not outwardly excited about this game at all, despite spending the previous week totally pumped. I'm mostly making this thread because next year I'll want to look at these individually saved numbers and this is the easiest way to find them.   Numbers since that's the whole point:   [attachment=3374:13.PNG]   [attachment=3373:12.PNG]

In the interest of fairness, I'll note our punishment in 2008 was harsher than usual because of Sampson's previous sanctions. He literally was working to get around the sanctions placed on him and making sure the sanctions were enforced was part of the agreement with the NCAA the university made when they hired him. And despite agreeing to monitor Sampson and enforce the sanctions, the administration was absolutely incompetent and utterly failed to do even the bare minimum.   I don't want to start blaming the NCAA for the mistakes of Herbert and Greenspan. Let's blame the people who really screwed us.   This paragraph from the decision says it really well:   "Prior to the violations in this case the institution had an almost 50-year history free of major infractions. It hired the former head coach with the intent to provide enhanced and focused monitoring of him and the men's basketball program. Its monitoring was impeded by the unethical conduct of the former head coach and former assistant coach A. It uncovered the telephone violations set forth in Findings B-1 and B-2. Its investigation was thorough, meeting its obligation under the cooperative principle. Nonetheless, institutions necessarily are responsible for the conduct of staff, particularly coaches and high level administrators.   This is more true when, as here, an institution both employs an individual with notice that he has committed violations and assumes the responsibility to assure his compliance with committee penalties. The institution knew that its enhanced and focused monitoring system was not fully operational on day one of the penalties. There were road signs on the way that pointed to the failure of the coaching staff to take seriously its obligations. The institution permitted delays in providing information and missed information that was clearly inaccurate. The case involved multiple violations of basic telephone recruiting legislation, unethical conduct by two coaches, and failure to monitor the men's basketball program by both the former head coach and the institution. Of critical significance, the violations were committed by a head coach serving penalties imposed on him for similar violations in a prior case, and during the time when the head coach should have been subject to heightened scrutiny because of these prior penalties."   http://www.insidethehall.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/NCAArelease112508.pdf