MartintheMopMan

There are some terrible things about my job, but the best is I'm relatively unbound by the clock. I have to be accessible, the secretaries have to know I'm gone, and it's strongly preferred I note my unavailability on my calendar (which lets the secretaries know). That's pretty much it. This is a perfectly timed game for me, but for 7 pm EST games I roll in around 6 am and out a little after 3. As long as I get my billables they don't care.

Darnit Hova! Are you stealing numbers off of houses again? We talked about this!

Jacksonville, FL (The Bolles School) 5'11/185 247 Scout Videos Twitter

No one is as bad as you make them out to be once you see them as individuals with personal thoughts, goals, and motivations. Well, very few people at least. Most KKK or ISIS members still aren't super cool. Though, if you talk to younger members of either I'd wager you'll find people who feel like they had no choice but to join, don't entirely agree with the message, and are disenfranchised enough to make desperate decisions.   That's why it's important we never think about Purdue or anyone else as individuals, but as that big stupid train and that stupid mascot. I hope Mackey Arena explodes during a public scrimmage only attended by faceless Purdue students and players.

Sounds like someone needs to help their grandson by shooting Coach Wilson a line.

Feed Thomas? I thought Shabazz Napier fixed all that. 

Yeah, honestly, it would make them worse. Now North is (or has the potential to be) totally stacked with Minnesota being the only program without traditional or recent success.  At least West has the possibility of those traditional teams making a comeback and being competitive. South would never get there. OSU would win every single year until PSU came back if ever. It would be a constant battle for the bottom half. Maybe we'd have a better record, but it would be worse football.   I wish we could send one powerhouse West and take a weaker team East, but otherwise it works. It's far more exciting watching Michigan, OSU, and MSU battle for the top spot than knowing who will win it. 

Harsh words.   Unfortunately, I heard they're true.   Worse, his white capris are pleated. With cargo pockets.

It really is. I had a girlfriend in high school who ended up at CSU and visited her a couple times before we gave up the LDR thing. I loved the town and campus. Strongly considered going there, but wasn't interested in any of their leading programs. I'm glad I ended up at Indiana, but every day I look at Mount Hood and see snow but I'm not skiing, I think of all the time I could have spent skiing in an alternative college universe.   I doubt they'll take him out skiing though. Seems like a risky choice for a player you're recruiting. "Oh yeah, sorry about that last fall, maybe you can get another year of eligibility for the broken femur" (full disclosure, my father broke his femur skiing. Never ever tell my wife.)   Oh man, I really want to go skiing now. Guess I know what I'll use one of my extra PTO days on.

No. Way.   I will be wicked angry if he goes to Colorado State. Not just because I got high on the kid, but because it doesn't make a lick of sense.   Bobo is interviewing for other coaching jobs. Lagow left UConn because the recruiting coach left. All right, maybe he's talking to the replacement? Unlikely, but possible, except...   Nick Stevens didn't suffer a career ending injury in the last couple days right? Nick Stevens is an approaching very good QB with 2 more years of eligibility.   Nope, pulled his stats, seems to still be alive. Guy is finishing up a 2400 yard season with a 147.5 QB rating! There is absolutely no way Lagow will start at CSU. So, what? He's going to blow yet another year of eligibility sitting on the bench? He went to Cisco to go somewhere and start so he can show the world what he can do. Going to CSU would be a completely baffling move from him. I'd be disappointed we lost him, but it would certainly answer the football IQ question.

If Natty is any indication you can put it in your signature for the rest of your life and pretend people care.   I heard he has it on his work emails too.

All right everyone. I (and many of you) have to make it through a whole day of work (and family/postwork obligations for you ESTers) before this game. Let's stay at maximum hype levels and vainly try and focus on tasks that SEEM SO UNIMPORTANT WHEN YOU'RE GOING TO CAMERON!

I think if we can hurry up and get Wilson's extension announced he's ours. I said it earlier, looking at his history he will not go to a school where he is uncertain who is the coach.   But, since Maui and the Bowl I've been way higher on football this week. The more I look at him, and our team, and what we already have next year, I'm way high on him. I'll be crazy excited if we land him. There are some problems with his game I don't think we'll be able to fix, and some we will (his blocking). But, he fits in so well with the pieces we have. He's got a great deep ball, though he isn't good at throwing WRs open. He is a little limited on his reads. His arm is a cannon so the ball practically teleports into WR hands and drives so far into their sternums they have to catch it. Some accuracy issues, but to be expected with his throwing style.   The key is, he's going to be a monster behind an elite O-line and trash without one. He needs extra time in the pocket for his routes to develop, people to move down the field, and to make his reads. So, where better than the school with the second best o-line in the Big Ten? Maybe even best next year. He'll have hours to throw on most downs against most d-lines. It will be amazing and higher variance and everything we love (and hate) about Indiana Football. He'll throw 50 yard TDs three times a game but go three and out because we can't connect on some short and midrange routes when WRs and TEs are well defended sometimes. I hope the staff is pulling up tape of similar QBs to see how we can adjust our scheme to make him a success because boy howdy, in the right scheme he has serious tools. Since I think his flaws can be masked by the rest of the team if we scheme him right, my only concern is football IQ. If only he was an Indiana boy... oh wait, football? I don't know... Ohio?   Or I've been totally duped because he goes to a JUCO which doesn't produce videos of full games, just highlight tapes for individual players. 

A topic for another thread but I am often curious what results we would have had, good and bad, if Sampson or Davis coached the exact same rosters as each other and Crean.

I'm as critical of the NCAA as the next guy, and doubt they'll do their jobs with UNC, but I don't think you're giving this thing enough credit. Of course they don't have sanctions yet, it's a huge legal process. The Notice of Allegations was 59 pages long, that's a massive case. There are millions of documents. They spent millions of dollars on just producing the documents. They have five Level 1 transgressions over 18 years.   All of this is handled with a pseudo-trial. The discovery in a regular trial of this size would go on for years and the trial may take months. They'll wrap this whole thing up in half the time. The hearing is scheduled for later this month. A decision will be made within 3 months of the hearing. This whole process is insanely fast for what they accomplish.   I know from an outsiders standpoint, it seems like it takes forever. But, from a legal standpoint? This is a wicked quick system.   Totally true. It's pretty shameful really.

Truth. But, which SOS numbers we use don't change anything I said. Our schedule is tight if we want to comfortably get into the tourney this year. By losing in Maui we gave up two games against two high-level opponents and added two bad losses to our record. That makes later games much more important. If we enter Big Ten play at 9-4 it's going to be a very rough season.   Though again, I don't know if that's how Crean meant it. I think our schedule is too weak and doesn't prepare us for real games anyway. I still have no idea what this team looks like against real competition. I'll bet they feel the same way.

RPI is a garbage ranking. The committee should be embarrassed to even pretend to use it. Overly simplistic and heavily penalizes teams for playing in weaker conferences even when they aren't weaker teams. Look at the OOC RPI and SOS in that chart. There is no world where Indiana's OOC RPI last year was top-50 and OOC SOS was top-100.   KenPom had us at 65.   Overall: .6361 65

Exactly the answer I expected. Glad to see Maryland's leaving the ACC didn't calm any of that hatred.

Are you capable of rooting for anyone when UNC and MD play each other? I guess MD has two things in their favor, they're in the Big Ten and they aren't UNC.

We need to let Duke take long shots too. We play defense too tightly on the perimeter and get beat leaving open lay-ups. Put a little space there and you can stop the drive better, Duke isn't good enough from 3 to sacrifice the lay-ups.   Totally right about the 3s, they don't defend them well and that will be great for us once we start hitting.   Worry with Yogi is all height. He lacks the length to defend anyone at Duke.   It's going to be a great great or terrible terrible game. 

Yeah, OOC schedule, my fault for not being clear. This year our OOC is projected in the 300s. Our Big Ten schedule is very weak this year too though. We'll end in the mid-70s at best. We were only 65th last year and had a much harder schedule. 

I hope Pitt beats their stupid faces. Big Ten over anyone except when it's Purdue and they're having a better season than us.

Oh. I wonder how he meant it.   He's not wrong, especially after losing in Maui. We can't afford to blow any more big games and the Big Ten is always tough. Our schedule doesn't give a lot of real games so we can't lose the ones we have.   And losses with our schedule are terrible to the committee, we have almost the weakest schedule in the country, so every loss with this schedule is a bad loss.

What did Crean say about the schedule?

That was an amazing game. I was so crazy pumped. My family is all UMD and UNC grads so... yeah.   I don't know how to tell them how much of a love for Duke basketball I developed in college.