MartintheMopMan

Did they? Rewatch the end of either season and tell me they didn't look worse than at the season's start.   They still faded down the stretch. Players often looked lost on defense, especially in 2012. Away games were a plague. Neutral courts a disaster. We can all point to games where they won despite the coaching and schemes not because of it.   They still did better than this year's team, that's true. And a lot comes down to leadership within the team. Oladipo especially had a one-in-a-million level of dedication. That dedication rubs off on other players. When Zeller sees him put in an extra session, he starts to think maybe he should too. If O and Z are at the gym, then there is a little pressure on others. And then once everyone is doing it, it's self-sustaining. We lose this core, and suddenly who is showing the fire? Yogi and Sheehey. But, Yogi is a sophomore who lacks the natural drive to Oladipo's level and just doesn't keep the same traditions. Sheehey had age and fire but was wanting in a lot of other areas from all the personal stories I've heard and was not a leader. So, no one follows their lead. No one outside is encouraging them to continue, the team's performance drops significantly. They start to hear the team is not going to succeed anyway and bad behavior is being rewarded. It's a "rebuilding year" and Crean's excuses start to rub off on the players. Maybe instead of an extra hour in the gym, we should spend the extra hour getting laid, we aren't going to win anyway. Some bad apples join the program and don't have solid leaders to counter them.   There were also different fan expectations. People were down on the team early, stopped showing up, the team feels less cared for, starts to care less too.   At some point they needed a leader to step-up and take charge but no one was up to it. The team has suffered since then.   I don't know Yogi well-enough to say why he isn't a leader. Maybe starting point freshman year gave him a big head. Maybe the pressures of being the one to carry the team as a sophomore broke him. You can watch it though, if you put in the time. Watch Yogi's decline from a confident, intelligent, active player to what he is today.   No one from the outside can know for sure why that group enjoyed limited success despite the system, but it's hard to look at Yogi each year and compare them and not think there was a fundamental change. His statistics improved but his fundamentals get worse and worse.

Personally, I think it's too easy to look at the player's failure and not the reason for the player's failure. Is it more likely we ended up with a team full of selfish low-effort players or they have become selfish low-effort players in the system? TB last night is the not the same TB who played those first few games. Yogi has been worse every year he's on the floor. These were highly sought after, talented, athletic, intelligent kids in high school. Why aren't they now?   An example. Vonleh was an uncoordinated, selfish, terrible, messy player in his year at Indiana. I watch him on the Blazers now and he shows poise, good sense of defense, and confidence. The player I'm watching now is not the same player we had. If we had this Vonleh that year, it would have been a different team. So, what happened? Just NBA development? Or something more?   What is it we always hear about Vic? He had unique personal drive and spent hours on self-improvement outside of the system.   I've never done anything quite like our players or had as much weight on my shoulders, but I've worked places where the system sucked. And when your efforts don't get rewarded properly by higher-ups or you bust your balls and see no benefits and then you're frustrated and say "screw it, I'm not doing that for him anymore" and your attitude is never punished and nothing changed from when you put in the effort, it's hard to overcome that. Maybe the personal desire to get to the NBA should be enough for some players. Maybe some players think they're watching their NBA dreams slip away because they made a bad decision before they graduated high school and are playing from frustration. Without insight into their minds it's hard to tell.   All I know is the system is broken. I have trouble faulting the players too much for acting the way most people act in a broken system. Especially after years in the system. I don't like their effort level, I don't like them thinking it's OK to have an excuse, but I do understand it.   I guess it's ultimately similar to the concept frequently called "liberal guilt". If you're in a cycle of systemic poverty and violence and get pulled into the cycle and do something wrong, you have to be punished because you aren't blameless, but I wish you'd not been put in that position in the first place. If you work a corner because your brother is hungry and your mom is an addict and someone needs to provide for the family but you're too young/uneducated to get a real job and you get picked up and charged, you still did something wrong, but it is still tragic for you. These players have to be held accountable for their mistakes, but darned if I can help feeling bad they've been put in a system that pushes them towards exactly what they're being punished for.

For mobile users and users who hate links...   Jay's -  Bob ‏@IUBBGrump Clearance Sale: "We're Back" t-shirts #iubb #firetomcrean   Aloha's- Bob ‏@IUBBGrump Job posting: THU night rec league coach needed, no exp necessary.  Crean putting out feelers. #iubb   Unrelated. "We're Back" was such a great movie when I was a kid. I watched it again recently and can't believe I could handle something so boring.

I'm glad I only paid $3.50 for like 5 years of insider. I have never read an article with substance on that site. The tweet tells you literally everything he says about Indiana in the article.

Great coach. Terrible sense of right and wrong.   Also, with all due respect to what he's accomplished because, we sure haven't, but it's quiet because no one watches bad teams beat bad teams. That's why the stands were empty in the Hall on Monday.

Thanks for your info earlier. About what I expected to hear. Disappointing, but at least we aren't crazy over here and what we see is shared by our opponents.   It was the kind of swagger move you make when you're starting to pull ahead of an opponent. Done while 22 points behind. It really sums up the team right? Filled with fake swagger and individual pride while everything collapses around them. Would have loved it blocking a shot to tie it up or break a tie. It was embarrassing down 22.

Looks like mostly RB with some QB. Maybe closer to a TE than an RB.   And seeing that list? We're officially a football school now.

I think you're right. Bryant was wilting under the "away game" pressure mixed with the recent losses. He didn't have any of the fire we saw in him earlier in the year. You noted him not pumping up the team as much, but he didn't seem pumped himself either.   I wish Juwan had gotten to play to complete the data set, but our Freshman looked like they were following the lead of the upperclassmen. Try until things stop being easy and then quit. I hate that this is the culture at Indiana. Our freshman deserve better.   And Niego and Taylor should have starting spots next game. And Juwan. Are you allowed to play in the boot? Like Gronk and his cast?

It's an intentional design. July is picked because no one would ever wait until then to fire a coach. So, the buyout is meant to be a buyout for the previous year. If it were moved to March then it would have just been shifted so it was currently 12 million and became 7.5 million in March. I'm sure the lawyers spent a long time hashing out the timing and details because I have for less valuable contracts.   But, as I said last year, we will never pay the full buyout. If we do, Jay can choose my avatar. The "firing" will be a "voluntary" resignation after a negotiation. We will pay a much smaller amount than the full buyout, likely in exchange for something like no longer penalizing for future salary. So, it lowers the money but makes it guaranteed which looks better to fans, removes uncertainty, and leaves everyone satisfied but slightly disappointed. Like all good settlements.

Blue, how do Duke fans feel about the game? Are they thinking about it any further at all? It seemed like Coach K pitied us by the end and backed the team off so they didn't put up 100. Any similar sentiment from Duke fans? Or mostly happy? Or indifferent because it wasn't even a game?   We're all so caught up in the Indiana side, I often wonder what the teams we play feel. I know I feel bad for some teams when we beat up on them and they often aren't even teams with expectations.

Definitely limited. No argument there. But, it should have been an impact in our weakest spot and allow the rest of the team to focus on playing traditional defense instead of having to make up for not having any size. Turns out the rest of the team can't play traditional defense either.

Totally agree with you about there being people rooting against Crean. But, I think our perspective is shifted a little from being on a board like this interacting with the most passionate of the fans all the time. Especially as mods in charge of keeping things civil.   I think either way it doesn't matter. I don't think casual fans will root against the team, they'll just stop caring. Heck, I am very unhappy right now, but I won't root against the team ever. I do care less. I am checking my calendar to see if I should maybe just work my full day instead of rearranging to leave for early games in the future.   If we keep him for the rest of the season and the team plays the way they have so far this year? No one needs to root against him. This team will go into a weak conference schedule without any good wins and two bad losses, they'll play the weak schedule and who knows? Probably drop a few away games to bottom dwellers and make our record even worse. The team that has played since November 22nd is at best a bubble team if they can't improve. If they have any of the trademark slump towards the end of the year they aren't going at all.   3 burger boys, 1 alternate AA, a host of other talent, 3 team members hoping to play in the NBA. And I'm sitting here honestly feeling like we might miss the tourney again this year.   So... if you look at my post history, I have not defended him, but I've argued again and again from a business standpoint, we have to keep Crean until the end of the season. I don't feel like that any more. I think if we have any hope of salvaging the season, we need someone else and we need them soon. Any warm body will do better. Even Dakich. Heck, even Bill Walton.

He really should have though.   I've said it a few times, but we're getting worse defensively. The players who were OK last year are just bad this year. The players who were bad last year are awful. TB had very good fundamental knowledge of where he should be during the first few games and seems to have less and less of it as the season goes on. Remember when we were so high on him because he knew how to play true post? What the heck happened to those basics? What is going on during practice and film sessions to actively make these players worse?

"Who?"

I wonder that too, I kept thinking about it since my 49ers jersey was still frustratingly tossed behind the TV in drunken disappointment from Sunday. Jim hates to lose. He's a coach who would take it very personally and would do anything in his power to never have to experience a loss again. It's what made him hard to deal with for some people, it's what makes him an incredible coach.   How can someone like that stand to see this? How can his skin not crawl during the whole game?

On the one hand, I want to say you got lucky you didn't have to watch that garbage heap.    On the other, I think watching the game serves a function for an informed IU fan like you pretend to be because it is our hopes and fears all packed into one undeniable mess. You can turn it off with around 12-14 minutes left in the game and you'll have seen enough. If you make it past 6 minutes left you're better than most.   But, the first 8 to 10 minutes are beautiful. They're all of the expectations and beliefs and hopes for this team packed in. The offense looks spectacular, the defense looks decent, we're fighting hard and playing. The 3-pointer with about 7 minutes left in the first half is really the end of the game. The next sequence you'll see is the Indiana team we all feared especially after Maui. Wilting under the pressure and slowly getting worse and worse. The beginning of the second half, you'll see the worst adjustments in basketball, and then the team devolving to everyone playing as individuals without pretending to be on a team.   It really is horrible and heartbreaking and important. I'm glad I watched it, because if I hadn't I could probably keep pretending everything might get better. But it's not. Losing at Cameron was something I prepared for, this wasn't. I don't even know if this is a tourney team anymore. Notre Dame will effectively decide that.

BTW, Blazers here. Guess who knows how to play defense all of a sudden?   Noah Vonleh. Kid has great fundamentals. He couldn't defend my kid when he played for Crean.

See, I told you guys we needed someone happy about this win over here!

If you guys can't get Mountain is being satirical... you probably still have enough defensive IQ to play for Crean.

Oh man, don't show me other team's crib sheets!   You're going to get me started about how NONE of our student section does crib sheets. Or coordinates cheering. Or does ANYTHING except play individual basketball fan. I guess it's fitting.   The Yogi-Priller fact and Priller facts are amazing. They perfectly fit my image of him.

I just gave my wife the "We're a football school now" speech.

I wish Fuzzy had given 35 million dollars to name the law school after him...

Doing it Urban Meyer style I see.

In Ken's defense, that's just his face.

I said this in the game thread, I just don't understand. I genuinely don't understand how the team can play this poorly. How is the defense in this game so much worse than Louisville last year? How are Rojo and Colin both regressing on defense? How did TB graduate high school without understanding any fundamental basketball?   I sit and I watch this game and see mistake after mistake, and even when I see them trying hard and defending with effort, the technique is bad. They play too tight, or too loose, or at bad angles, or something. Always some poor mistake that players who were ranked as highly as they were coming out of high school should never make.   It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing for them. It's embarrassing for the fans. It's embarrassing for everyone. All I wanted tonight was to not be embarrassed, but here we are again.   Coach K and the assistants could have played tonight and beaten the team that showed up in the second half.