Old Friend

This whole thing's great, but yeah.  A round of golf with Knight.  Talk about memorable.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJnk4vI4lw8

I'd be happy playing on Saturday once in a while.  Our record in that thing might be the worst in the conference.

Since Crean's 3rd season, Indiana has struggled mightily in February and March.  We have not peaked at the right time and have been, simply, "bad" late in the year more often than not.  Last night potentially shows a change emerging.   Indiana's record in Feb/March since 2010 (Crean's 3rd season)   2010 :  1-10   2011 :  1-9   2012 : 10-4 (Zeller year 1)   2013 : 10-5 (Zeller year 2)   2014 : 4-7   2015 : 4-8   30-45 in Feb/March since year 3.  Obviously had to change, and I liked the signs from last night.

Do yourself a favor and look at pictures of him 9-12 months ago and look at him now.   College kids do use the weight room and strength coaches, you know.  Kind of a new thing, but surely you've heard about it.  He wasn't ready to play big minutes when he got to campus and he wasn't ready at the start of the season.   Which is why he didn't.  He played 3 minutes here, 6 minutes there, 4 minutes there..  If he would have been ready, Crean would have yelled at you up on that mountain top, thanking you for seeing what he obviously couldn't.     What "haters," by the way?  I don't recall any "hate."   I recall lots of people comparing him to this player or that player, and a few comments (including mine) which said let him develop; and the folks in the know said he had a college ready lower body but not yet a college ready upper body, and that was absolutely accurate at the time.   So things evolve, he develops more and more; and all of a sudden, you're a soothsayer.  Congratulations.  But where were you in November?   It's pretty easy to say "See!  I told you so!" 9 months after the fact.  I'll even help you with the pictures.  You can tell me what you notice.

Only because he was hurt his senior year.   He was a very highly rated player as a junior.

You can't spell "YOGI" without "OG."   Does that matter?  

Sure seemed to be.  I think stopping their (UM) momentum and being able to play a basketball game with them instead of the team AND the crowd, helped.  Indiana is better than Michigan.

1)  IU has a different gear than almost any team I've seen this season. 2)  Michigan is a mess defensively, and I know Dakich said so many times, but it was very obvious after the initial surge they had nothing for Indiana. 3)  Finally see everyone just (for the most part) doing what they can do.  Not as many silly turnovers, not as many bad shots, more movement, etc. 4)  Nice to see guys like OG, RJ, and Hartman getting to play key roles and succeeding.  I said a long time ago that if people just let OG develop and didn't worry about comparisons, he'd eventually be a solid player.  He needed some upper body strength, and probably some simple experience; but he's good.   5)  Great game by Yogi.  No two ways about it.  His improvement has sparked a really nice turnaround for Indiana and I'm happy for him. Edit : 5A - Michigan never has taken away transition, and Indiana's had their number for years.  Makes me question Beilein a little.  But Indiana is still fantastic in transition. 6)  Okay.  We're a player.  We're real.   What's next??   Happy for the kids and happy for Crean.  I'm not his biggest fan, but any coach deserves to have his team play as hard and as efficiently as Indiana generally has for the last month; and to put it together against a good team on the road is neat.  

Complete and absolute clinic the last 12 minutes.  When we just do what we do, we're really good.   

Bryant stays out of foul trouble and plays 28+ minutes, I like Indiana's chances.  But Indiana has to shoot well and avoid bad shots and turnovers.   This is a big night for Indiana and also for Tom Crean.  This game will dictate a lot of things.  Is Indiana a contender or a pretender?  Has Indiana turned the corner, or is Indiana "just another team....same 'ol Tom Crean's Hoosiers?"  IU has 6 games left against really good teams..this being one of them.  But this is a road game against a team Indiana is probably - on paper - superior to.  A game we should win.   Big night that will set the stage.  Are we or aren't we?

Nobody has to like or agree with him, but he, like anyone else is entitled to his own priorities.  A cool story.  Typical for him.   I also love how the media just can't give the guy a positive moment. Have to bring up the negative stuff, too.  He is known for "throwing a chair," not "throwing chairs."      :biggrin:

Wait...what?   I hadn't heard.  His wife looks like she could be Jim Harbaugh's sister.  I wonder if there's some connection.

If that's good enough for Glass, he needs to be fired, too.  

Don't think so.  "Making the tournament" in season 8 won't be enough unless we win the Big Ten.  If we get a high seed and get upset, that's one thing.  We collapse down the stretch, get a middle seed, and get beat?  That's another.  In the former scenario, Crean keeps his job for sure.  In the latter?  I don't know how he can be retained.  If Indiana finishes below 3rd in the Big Ten and gets beat in the first round, there's no justifiable reason for keeping Tom Crean.

I'd like to see a decision made to eliminate piped in music and stick with the IU Pep Band.   That's the best there is in college basketball; and I don't think we need a DJ.     I'd like to see a virtual game between the 1976 team and the 1993 team with everybody healthy.   I'd like to visit a Bob Knight practice before a Purdue game, circa 1993.  I'd like to visit the winning locker room.   I'd like to see the mop lady before every IU game on TV again.     I'd like to interview Don Fisher.     I'd like to bring back Max Skirvin.   I'd have loved to be in Bob Knight's house when he did his show from there.     I'd like to go back in time and have the administration do a real search for a coach in April of 2001.  Indiana has not recovered from not doing so.   I'd like to be a judge to see who makes the Red Steppers.   I'd like to have seen Alford practice shooting and Oladipo working out on his own.     And I'd like to have seen how much food DeAndre Thomas could put down in a single sitting.

I have said before and I'll say again.....If Tom Crean is responsible for 200 things, he's done very well at 190 of them.  The problem is, at Indiana University - to keep fans and alumni happy, anyway - you have to win.  I think too much is placed on NCAA titles around here because so much goes into that beyond what a coach can control; and I don't use that as any kind of criteria for judging Crean.   But I do think being in position to win Big Ten titles consistently is a fair expectation here; and he's not done that.  There is no reason and no justification for 8th and 7th place finishes in his 5th and 6th seasons at Indiana.  None.  And, it's not just a one year thing, either.  Bo Ryan coached 14 years at Wisconsin and never finished below 4th.  In BCS conferences (I don't count Conf. USA in the 1990's), Crean's finished ABOVE 4th just one time in his career.  That's just a fact, and I've not seen anything to indicate he can do better at Indiana.   We all have our complaints about one coach or another.  I never thought Mike Davis understood where he was or the height of the expectations here.  I hated his recruiting focus on the south, and I hated when he said "help is on the way" when two shiny things were coming from Maryland and Texas while he had a roster full of kids that took him to the Final Four that very season.  He said more dumb things than anyone had a right to; and he was a horrible fit hired by a horrible president.  Neither Davis nor Herbert should ever have been in the positions they were.   But....from a purely basketball standpoint, Davis' and Crean's resumes aren't very different.  That's reality, too.   My complaint about Crean is three-fold.  One is I hate that he's shifted his primary recruiting focus to the east coast.  Indiana is a unique place with a unique culture, and we're starting to lose it because so many kids don't know of it or understand it.  Nobody has to agree with that, but nobody's going to convince me otherwise, either.   I think Indiana needs to own Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio.   I don't care at all when we go get a Thomas Bryant, but I'll never support prioritizing Stanford Robinson, Emmitt Holt, Max Hoetzel, etc over local kids.  There's just no reason for it.     Second, I hate our half court offense because we don't move very well, don't cut or screen with purpose, and we don't do anything to get shooters open.  I grew up with Knight.  I don't want him back, and I don't necessarily want a "motion" offense the way people will argue that's what I mean.  But, he was a master at getting shots for his scorers, and I don't understand why we don't get Zeisloft 8 three pointers every game.  Why we never did anything to get Hulls open.  I don't understand why so much of what we do in the half court involves dribbling.  I also don't like that we don't show a consistent commitment to team defense.   We're better, but show many lapses.    Finally, the off-court stuff and his fracturing local recruiting relationships are simply not Indiana's DNA.  Not "It's Indiana."   That - to me - now just looks like lip service.  I also think it's because he recruited a bunch of kids who had no idea where they were nor of the expectations of being a player at Indiana.  One mistake? I'll give any kid one mistake.  But 2, 3, or 4?  Idiotic.  I haven't cared for the leadership of his players since Hulls, Watford, Oladipo, etc. left.  I've not cared for what seems to be a care-free approach to turnovers and bad shots.  Etc.   I do love that we generally graduate kids and I applaud Crean's obvious passion for being accountable and building a great program.  I don't like the way he's doing it, and I don't think he can do what we need done consistently with this formula; but he's done a lot of things well.   That said, he's done a few very important things poorly; which is why his seat's hot.  And why people will continue to stay on his case until he proves changes have been made.  I am not currently on the "fire him" bandwagon, but if this team doesn't make a serious run and finish 1st or 2nd in the Big Ten, I really don't know how anyone wouldn't be.  Making the NCAA Tournament is not the bar, here.

This is very true.  I, for one, try to look at reasons and causes rather than results.  When we lost at Wisconsin, we did so because we couldn't guard, and we we had the same problem we always do against them offensively....everything was off the dribble because they took away transition like they always do, and our half court offense is terrible.  (We had 6 assists....and that's true far more often than not against them.  Should tell anyone everything they need to know.  This week, we made a lot of shots off the dribble.   We don't do that consistently)  That's been true for the entirety of Crean's tenure.....which is a problem.  The formula for beating Indiana has been the same for 6 years (I'll stay away from the first 2).   When we win, we're usually able to score in transition and can open the floor, etc.  We've had that discussion ad nauseum.   Ohio State, 19 assists.  Northwestern  21 assists, etc.   If Indiana plays well....their way; and a team plays better?  I would hope people would see that.  

Indiana is in a fun position.  Current Sagarin rating is 16 with an SOS of 114.  That'd put us at ~ 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament.  But....the rest of this season plays out in such a way that I'm not sure any of it matters. So far, the only team we played ranked higher (in Sagarin) than we are is Duke, at 15.  Notre Dame is next at 33.  After that, it's Wisconsin at 50 and down from there.  We truly have played an awful schedule.  That's a real argument and a real problem.  But....   We have 5 games left against teams rated higher than we are right now, and another against #22 Michigan on the road.   We have a chance to change things dramatically for the better.  Or...dramatically to our detriment.  Assuming we beat Illinois, Nebraska, and Penn State :  We somehow win out and play on Saturday in the BTT?  A #1 seed is possible given the parity around the country.  Indiana figures out a way to win 3 games of those 5 against the teams rated higher than we are?  Indiana can be a top 2-3 seed.  We drop 4 or 5 of them?  Probably a #8 seed.  If a top 2-3 seed and some success in the BTT and NCAA Tournament?  Indiana's coach probably quiets his critics for a little while.  If a 6-9 seed and only a win or less in the NCAA?  I don't know how he keeps his job.   A LOT can happen in the next 4 weeks; and (I'm not being flip about this) the prior 9 weeks truly are meaningless in comparison.   Hands and feet inside the car at all times.  The ride is about to begin.

An ugly win is better than a pretty loss.  We are living by the three, and we'll die by it against a decent team; let alone a good one.  That game was ugly, and Thomas Bryant saved our a$$.  Nothing else to say.

They play in the MAAC.  Their head coach has a losing career record.  USC also beat them by 11 (why have they played them twice?).  They also lost to Cannisius.   They might have a decent team, but you and I both know had they beaten Indiana and not Notre Dame, everybody here, including you, would call it a horrible loss that never should have happened.  When you're Notre Dame.  When you're Indiana.  When you're UCLA.  Losing to a MAAC team..losing to Monmouth is a bad loss.

That's not the whole story, and Indiana fans, who had it this way in Bloomington for 29 years under Knight have no right to complain.  Indiana settled for too many jump shots off the dribble tonight, Wisconsin attacked the paint.  There are reasons for disparity, and most are not "we got homered."

God bless you.  Crean "says" a lot.  Problem is, when his teams lose, it's almost always for the same reasons.  Like IU football for years, I am not interested one bit in what Tom Crean "says."  He needs to improve, just like his players do; and the fact still is, Indiana has not beaten an NCAA Tournament quality team this season (maybe ND.  Maybe.), and has lost to a now 10-10 team, a now 12-9 team, a now 12-8 team, and gotten pounded by the only really good team on their schedule.   As good as they've looked, the question still is "against who?"  Lots of work to do on the resume....and that comes from the "experts" who said as much before the Minnesota game.  One had IU as a 10 seed, and another in a play-in game.  They said their next opportunity to help themselves was next week at Michigan, and now we have another loss to a struggling team with one "quality" win, and had ND not beaten Duke, I'm not sure we'd have any.  ND lost to Monmouth!!     Indiana has lots of work to do.

That guy needs to sit behind the bench and act like he's been there before.   His act is simply tiresome and isn't necessary.

When one team consistently holds the ball, moves the ball, and attacks the paint and another settles for jump shots off the dribble much of the time, this is what you get.  Fouls are not supposed to be equal; and if styles are different, they won't be.  Knight always wanted to make more FT's than his opponent shot.  Most of the time, that's what happened.  Happened to us tonight, and our fans are whining about it.  I love IU as much as the next guy, but this is not a road we should go down.  It's a fool's errand, and doesn't tell the story.   Officials and their calls are not why Indiana lost this game.

Anyone complaining about officiating didn't watch IU basketball for 29 years under Knight.  Can't have it both ways.  You have to overcome that on the road if you're a good team, and good teams don't worry about officials.