Aaron

RPI is 59 in NCAA's debut of the metric today. Right in the right range for a fourth straight NCAA Tournament despite all the turnover.

Clearly we are at the point where the offense is at a point where it is as big a problem as the pitching. Two games the pitchers have given up eight runs. That should be more than enough to win at least one but not when you score three in that time.

To me the most important thing is not getting ‘outbid’ if you have a player you like. I would much rather have 1-2 premium players and a bunch of minimum guys than a bunch of mediocrity. Last yr if you pay Ryan Conwell his asking price and pair him with DeVries, Wilkerson, Alexis, and a bunch of roster fillers you are probably a tournament team. Much rather that, then spread that same money amongst Conerway, Bailey, Enright, Miles who have flawed games. It is critical this yr if you have the same 10 million dollars, you give 2 stars 6-7 million and spread the rest out amongst the others. It does no good to have a bunch of mid players at less. Better off to have two 10/10 and a bunch of 3/10 than a lot of 6/10 outside Wilkerson as team did this yr.

Shonda Stanton’s power ball culture at work. She seems to be a program builder with a strong identity.

Another game where the offense failed. Its why people who keep wanting to blame only the pitching are not seeing the whole picture. Especially when offensive production is at all time high in college baseball. Its a ‘not doing the little things’ across the board despite a lot of talent. Nothing egregious shows up in box score, but hitting a batter yesterday on an 0-2 pitch with two outs that later led to a run, is the type of small issues that are leading to losses.

I put my trust in several coaches who have said to my face that they see the system will work when better players are there. Certainly, over fans on here who don't know the game at that level. Also DeVries has admitted his mistakes in last week, which is a lot more than I can say about either of the two previous regimes. If things are this bad at this time next yr, have to cut bait immediately. However, cannot judge the staff on this roster of mid-major All Stars. They certainly deserve blame for putting THIS roster together, but need one more chance in my mind to see what they can do with correct talent. The bottom line is West and Martinelli have more complete games than anyone on Indiana's roster. Love the hustle of Reed Bailey and Conor Enright but reality is they have no business on a Big Ten floor and that is where our problems begin. Also parts of our fan base who want Dolson fired for bringing us a national title in football because god for bid we are mediocre at basketball need to have their head examined. Yes, we need to fix this basketball program, but fans attitude of men's basketball is only thing that matters has got to stop if we want to stay as a high-major team across the board. Football is the driver and that's the reality. Abandoning every non-elite team in every other sport and wanting coaches fired immediately when they fall out of top-25, is part of problem. While I think our fan base gets branded as 'toxic' unfairly for most part, there are corners off it who need to look at what they like about IU. If it's basketball only, and not any team with a Hoosier logo you may need to reevaluate. The national media may know less on a day-to-day basis, but has no bias said IU would be 10th in Big Ten and miss tourney and roster was not talented enough. They were right unfortunately. Definitely not happy as a whole. However, DeVries ran out of answers this season after teams adjusted no matter what he tried. It's ok to be disappointed but don't overreact.

See my previous post about development and the non-existent "Bloomington Limestones" model Mercer uses and you have your answer.

Washington dominates IU 13-4 to take series. This program has way to many issues but I am not sure I am addressing it if am IU quite frankly. Mercer has essentially built a minor league team where top players come to campus, develop, and get to the pros. However, a million mistakes happen in the process whether its approaches at plate, pitching mistakes, and defensive errors. Our fans want to blame pitching, but frankly its small issues everywhere, which is signature for a developmental program that emphasizes development over results. That's exactly what the Hoosiers have become and if this team were rookie ball or Single A, everyone would show up for a nice day and throw results aside. If the administration were confident IU fans would not expect a top-15 team in essentially a mid-major league, make a change. However, given attendance drops yearly when they made the tourney nearly every time (8 times in last 11 years) and fans no longer have interest, its not necessarily a wise investment to do anything but less Mercer run his minor league development program. Players seem to like him and he gets them to pros so why make a change. To be clear, IU should make a change in offseason and the Mercer era has run its course. I would very much welcome it personally and would help the results potentially at Bart Kaufman Field. However, if IU decides money is better spent elsewhere based on our fans unrealistic expectations, I get it. If only these were the 'Bloomington Limestones' of Single A baseball, you would have a perfect model and fans would show up for a fun night in the summer where results don't matter. However, Mercer's contract may be up after this year I think, so if you can make a clean break from essentially being a Single A team go for it no matter what.

Now this is a program with a culture and Shonda Stanton deserves huge props for reloading after so much personnel loss. Won 6-4 to take the series over Minnesota. Pitching is always so-so but she has built an offense and program with a winning identity that uses the long ball to an elite level. You also see the joy in the dugout and how much the players love playing for her.

Yes. I call it as I see it. Loyal fans deserve credit. However, the rest have shown they have unrealistic expectations. If losing to Miami turned people off, that is a serious fan base issue and proves my point that most won't support anything that isn't a championship contender every season which is totally not living in reality.

This talk is why our fans are crazy. Miami loss was bad, but no worse than anyone else who gets upset in second round and if that causes an entire fan base to lose hope, you have exhibit A on why our fan base is such an issue. This is especially true when you make the Sweet 16 and second round the following years giving South Carolina maybe their biggest challenges of the tournament each time. These expectation of our fan base are completely out of control and its why anything that is not a top-10 squad doesn't get supported at an adequate level like other teams do. This year was not acceptable but every season before that was. There is a difference between hoping for better, and saying anything less than a top-15 team and 25 wins is a failure and reason not to watch. Unfortunately, way to many of our fans fall into the latter boat more so than other fan bases. Until this changes there is zero reason to spend big on a program that is not the big two. NIL and rev share is to valuable to be chasing unrealistic expectations. When our fan base decides making postseason every season is adequate and not a reason to drop a teams like yesterdays news, then throw big $$$ every sport. Not until then.

I cant blame her for wanting to be on a team that has depth and could go deep in the NCAA Tournament for her final go. She would have helped IU win 1-2 more games maybe but it still would have been sweating the bubble and she wanted better. Yarden’s game is essentially what Makalusky became later in yr once she developed. If Yarden had taken that spot all yr, it would have sacrificed Maya’s growth that has us so optimistic for the future. Having Makalusky play that role this yr probably sacrificed a couple wins this yr for better tomorrow. Definitely wished we had Yarden in many ways. However, in end I think it worked out best for both her and IU.

In a vacuum I agree. However, its part of a larger trend we have seen multiple times. If it were just this, I would 100% agree with you. However, when its another small data point on a larger scale, it becomes another concerning piece of evidence for the future as to whether IU athletics can keep up with the rest of the league.

IU doing a decent job of breaking press relative to some other games against OSU to get open looks in transition. However, bricking the shots. Meanwhile, IU's lack of athleticism on D doesn't match up.

Today is why I am ultra critical of this fanbase and its purely out of my caring. Fan base at Big Ten Tourney in Indy grew to point where it was largest here. One bad year and now its back to the size it was pre-Moren as not much larger than any others. IU has played in the middle of the day many times through their best years and still filled the entire first level. Now one year where team is not the best and it disappears like yesterday's news. I've been to Omaha during Iowa and Nebraska's down years for baseball and they still show up as long as team is there. Meanwhile, at Victory Field for yearly game it takes one year of a non-Schwarber team and still being competitive to drop attendance by 75% from 8k to barely 2k. Now with women's basketball its the same pattern over and over again where as soon as team is not ranked, everyone is gone in 6 months. Its why I fear so much for football as soon as team win nine games season tickets drop to 30k. Our men's basketball first fans stick through the thick and thin there mostly, but as soon as a sport that's not that stops being ranked in top-15 its over. Yes every fan base has front runners, but its particularly bad at IU where a built fan base in another sport is gone within months. You can't claim to want to be good at every sport as our fans do, only to dump it within months like no other fan base does. Fan behavior has to change. I am not talking to the loyal who are there through thick and thin but the frontrunners which is far larger than other fan bases. People can get mad at me for saying this, but its if the 'shoe fits, wear it' situation and its why so many sports struggle to ever regain momentum they build.

Need way more than that. Not even in next four out by Charlie Creme. Have to at least get to UCLA Saturday and play them close and that still may not be enough. Oregon was first win over NCAA Tourney squad and Nebraska is only second if IU didn't knock them out with win today. Still a long way to go and simply beating OSU tomorrow won't be quite enough. 6-12 conference record is anchor around neck.

When evaluating a coach, the question needs to be 'would another coach do better with the current roster'. With Woodson and Archie the question was an unequivocal yes. With DeVries so far I think the answer is no with this group of players. With that said, it is up to DeVries to build a roster that can compete in this league. I don't want to hear 'we were outbid for a player' once portal opens. Given the situation, DeVries needs to identify the players he want and fits this roster and pay whatever it costs to get them here. This offseason will be telling. If DeVries gets who he wants and wins next year, the answer is this roster is just hard to win with. If he struggles in the portal and has another poorly constructed roster, than the answer is all the money is being diverted to football and the program doesn't have the resources it needs. If he gets a well constructed roster and still struggles it means another bad coach was hired. Offseason will be telling.

This was inevitable. To me the big question is if the team wins nine games and goes to a nice bowl can they sell out season tickets for 2027. As I have talked about so many times, our fans can be more frontrunning than most. I hope the corner has been turned here and this is a yearly occurrence now. For everyone who wants to continue being good at all sports, the way to do this is to fill your football stadium all the time so it can be expanded. We are in a huge test if this is another IU sport where fans are frontrunners swept up in the euphoria and will give up the second the team is not elite, or a corner has been turned. Hope its the latter. Fear the former.

The strong close to this year is why you don't throw the baby out with the bath water when it comes to Moren and the program. I think we can all agree that most of the season was not up to standard, but the future appears bright with the personnel and young players developing down the stretch. Society has no patience and is willing to throw people out at the first sign of trouble without evaluating the past or whole situation and that bleeds into sports. That is people's right to do but it puts a lot of pressure on the program and our world.

This weekend so far is why I refuse to solely blame pitching and more the system as a whole. While pitching is the biggest culprit, the offense also cost you Friday's game and has far to many times when it goes cold similar to IU basketball's three point shooting coming and going. The talent is there, but there are so many little problems right now holding the team back from being anything more than mediocre. It starts with pitching, but the offenses ability to go cold at the wrong times and not hit off-speed pitching, plus the defensive errors, show it is a lot of small issues that are easily fixable but does not seem to be happening.

100%. I said as well they should make NCAA Tourney almost every year and be San Diego St of baseball for Big Ten. We are in complete agreement. Misunderstood what you meant.

No coach in the north is getting you to a CWS regularly. There is a reason IU and Michigan are only two Big Ten teams to make it this century. The Big Ten in baseball is not the Big Ten of other sports. It is basically the Mountain West as the equivalent of the best Mid-Major in the country. Now with that said, IU should be the equivalent of what San Diego State basketball is to the Mountain West and should be the league winner and get an NCAA bid most years. Mercer definitely is very hit or miss right now and the execution in timely hitting and pitching and defense is lacking. The recruiting is top notch and players are developing into pros. However, the little things that come with winning seem to be missing the last 2-3 years, especially on the mound. I agree the program is in a rut and it clearly goes beyond changing the pitching coach like they did this year. So far the same issues are happening still. Lets make sure though we understand what realistic expectations are. Mercer is not meeting them right now and it has nothing to do with getting to the CWS which is a totally unrealistic expectation for a Big Ten team more than once every decade or two.

Why is everyone so convinced May at IU=May at Michigan when its been well documented the Wolverine have the very top NIL. Its very possible May is that good and he would have IU number one here. Its also very possible If May were here and DeVries at Michigan, Devries would have the Wolverines as a one seed and May has the Hoosiers a nine seed based on program infrastructure. Its a fun hypothetical to think about, but don't automatically assume its a one for one trade where May at Michigan=May here at IU, as many of our fans seem to assume.

In a vacuum, getting swept by the best team you will play all year that could well be dogpiling in Omaha with a national title is not a big deal. However, expanding beyond the vacuum is where we have issues. The pitching actually was fairly encouraging and I like a lot of the guys who threw and if you can stretch out the first two weekend guys, you could well be on to something. The problem is though the continued keystone cops defense and zero attention to detail the last few years. The recruiting is good and in many ways the players are developing. However, the chemistry feels very off and the little things and fundamentals are not there. That last throw was either showboating, nervousness, or more sinister intentional. None of those explanations speak well to a strong program culture. Right now interest in the program is at its lowest point since before Tracy Smith got here. Some of that is our front running fans I complain about. However, the product is a bit mediocre. I think Mercer has done a lot well and gets some undue criticism. He deserves the year to try to make this work (especially since Glant is not with program anymore), but that type of play is one that can wreck a season. If things go poorly and the undiscipline continues, its probably best both parties go their separate way. I hate it for Mercer since he has done so much well. However, at some point its up to him to build a culture and right now that doesn't necessarily appear to be there.

I watched some of the game and the pitching was actually quite good for the most part. Neubeck's performance was encouraging as lead pitcher and that's the toughest opponent he will see all yr. Rivera was bad in the 5th inning, but the big six run sixth inning happened partly because of shoddy defense that started with an error at SS and a lost ball in the sun that landed on a popup to LF. If neither of those happen its a clean inning. Either way though to much wildness at least today to be relied on in high leverage spots if his hit batters and wild pitches continue. NC is by far the best team IU will see all year and a national championship contender. Outside of the keystone cops defense in the 6th inning, pretty much went toe to toe with them.