HoosierHoopster

Geez. I for one hope (expect) him to play. Wear a face mask, that’s standard. Need Race

Really nice guy and a long-time poster. RIP Snowling

It is funny, Vitale can be laughable, but he's not wrong. Not saying the U shouldn't have moved on from TC, he failed to create class balance in his recruiting leading to an up year followed by down, gave out scholarships to guys who were not D1 caliber players, and then lost his recruiting momentum and HS coaches' ears in state, but he did take us from a program playing a baseball player etc. after Sampsongate to an outstanding ranked team within 4 years, got us back to winning the B1G outright, the Sweet 16's and some of the most memorable offense-side basketball we've seen (the Wat Shot, etc.). I was never never in the camp that hated on Crean, that was largely driven by the old RMK'ers who can't really accept any new IU coach (my opinion) and look for ways to bash the coach's mannerisms and substitution patterns. It did become clear that he likely would not take IU back to consistently playing for conference titles and NCAA tourney runs, and it made sense to move on from Crean. But it's not like the guy didn't bring IU a lot of success, and clearly, and imo still surprisingly, he was much more successful than CAM has been able to be.

Wth is going on in that game Rutgers getting annihilated

We really missed Brunk this year

Yes and no -- I'm an NBA fan too. Everyone that runs into LBJ runs into LBJ, doesn't change that Boston has been good under Stevens and he's highly regarded as one of the best in the League. All of this is fair, not trying to say otherwise, but there's just no realistic reason to think he's about to jump back into the college game, just because he's finally having a bad season, so far. There's really just nothing there.

I know someone who knows better.... all i'll say :)

Yeah bad year for sure

Not advocating IU shouldn't try, but he left for the League in part because he was tired of the grind of college recruiting, he's done very well in the NBA and there's really no reason to think he'd want to leave Boston to return to coach IU. Not trying to give anyone a hard time, just don't see the reason to think there's any actual chance here.

So how many coaches have won a championship in the NBA and since Stevens has been coaching Boston? I hear what you're saying but seriously, he's considered one of the best by many in the League. I don't know about taking the League by storm, but he's been pretty successful so far and the front office loves him. He stepped into an at best mediocre team, and by year 3 finished 48 and 34. He hasn't had a single season since with less than 48 wins. Not one. 2017 EC Finals, 2018 EC Finals, 2019 EC Semis, 2020 EC Finals. He's alright. :)

Stevens is one of the better coaches in the League, everyone in the League knows that, the Celtics front office loves him, the players love him, he's not going anywhere and definitely not leaving the NBA to return to college coaching. Love Stevens as a coach, but he won't be IU's coach. Just my two cents guys.

We see it differently. You don’t think we lost because we couldn’t score, but only 4 players on the team even got a field goal. I mean seriously that’s terrible. Al 0-4, Rob 0-6, Lander, Leal and Galloway all O’fers, and we lost by 7. Hunter just came off a banner game. In this game he was 2-5 and 1-3 for 5. In this game that made him the third leading scorer in 17 minutes. We did lose because of lack of scoring. I get his D is not great (disagree with your take his D has definitely improved) but the idea he shouldn’t be on the floor when the guards can’t score at all? We need scoring to win, we need shooting to spread the floor.

Cant win if you can’t score. Rob wasn’t scoring but he is a key ball handler and defender. In this game Al could not score. We lost for lack of ability to put the ball in the net, and again Hunter just came off basically an MVP caliber game. Hunter should have played more, we need outside scoring but CAM devalues it, and unfortunately he largely sticks with a group snd minutes despite lack of offense - that is why we lost to what is basically a weak team this season.

I don’t understand why Hunter was back to 17 min, and just after a 16 point game. 5 points in 17 today. Durham goes 0-4 and plays 36. I’m not a Durham hater, but why is CAM so wed to heavy minutes for the starting group in games when they can’t score? Race had a strong game and that may be the answer to my question slotting Hunter as a forward but he’s a capable scoring wing in a game when we needed perimeter scoring. Leal 2 min. Frustrating.

Guys we like - 73 Whiney Izzo Annoying Tantrum team - 67

I'm not a critic of CAM but he does need to relax his hold on outside shooting. That we're at the bottom of 3-point attempts isn't on the players it's CAM's resistance to the three-point game. I'm encouraged by Hunter's gradual emergence this season (and especially how he handled the discipline), he is a strong outside shooter whose D has lagged but is gradually improving along with his confidence. We don't have an elite outside shooter, but we definitely have shooters, and with Stewart coming in and Leal's frosh to soph jump do think we'll be an improved shooting team next season -- just want to see CAM loosen up the offense to allow better spreading of the floor.

Personally think this is far and away the most important step that can and should be taken in some form -- compliance is supposed to work with the athletics / basketball program to "comply" within the rules, it is not supposed to act as a gotcha mechanism but that is what IU's does since Sampsongate. The U swung the pendalum too far in the direction of compliance in reaction to Sampsongate, to the point where compliance does not assist the program it hinders it. Not in any way advocating any form of dirty recruiting, our clean history (Sampson's over-stated phone violations not withstanding) is part of what makes IU a genuine great historical program, but you can't compete without a level playing field and our compliance program limits how the program can recruit. It is acting against its real purpose.

We don’t win without TJD’s 20 and 10 double double, but man I’ve been looking forward to seeing Hunter get to go off. Just 1 foul as well

Nice to see Hunter get his first 16 point game,he and Al matched shooting numbers tonight. And Good push to get the 10-point W

The interesting thing to me about this back and forth is that you both make good points. Hunter is getting under-utilized and he was one of the only guys putting up points in this game while Al and the other starting guards were struggling to score, Hunter did play more n this game however and Al did generally take care of the ball. I keep coming back to watching and wondering why CAM won’t open up our perimeter game, the team trying to score is like getting blood from a turnip at times. Frustrating. But then the team also has had games where they’ve shown great resilience and clawed out the W. We can win ugly, I’d just like to see more spacing and flow in the offense with more shooting to spread the floor and to allow us to keep pace with on the offensive end

I have felt strongly for some time that Hunter doesn’t get enough run / sets, because CAM doesn’t value the 3 ball enough (we have been towards the bottom in 3-point attempts) and Hunter has struggled defensively. I generally believe in CAM’s defensive philosophy but the team repeatedly fails to execute extending the pac line to the perimeter resulting in the other guys having strong games from behind the arc while we minimize the arc in our offense. We don’t have truly elite three point shooters but we do have guys who can spread the floor better, but that game has been minimized. Hunter should play more with sets run for his offense (my opinion). Lander should play more to speed up our transition game. We’re starting to see more of that but it’s late in the season

Agree and that was visible immediately after the call on the replay.

I guess you have to be careful how you type in Matthew Loves Ball on YouTube .... ;)

Us - 75 Bucknuts - 71

Great to see Al have a banner game, man those free throws at the end were clutch. Along with Al’s clutch scoring down the stretch, a couple things / stats stood out to me - real plus - minus leaders were Franklin (shocker right) and Hunter. Franklin +9 in 44 min (iron man), Hunter at +7 in about 17 min (Leal +8 but 2 min), and that 3 in double OT. We shot over 70 percent from the stripe, 14-15 in OT, and otherwise we lose. Seems like the strategy was to keep going inside to force NW to avoid fouling since they struggle with fouling - I was hating our shot choices and passing up shots until I started to realize how the fouling was piling up, I mean we shot 38 FT’s — to NW’s 12. Talk about winning ugly. And Al and Franklin, 11-12 and 7-8 respectively, were key. And a half-time score of 23-20, and a final score of 79-76? Nuts