IUCrazy2

In Ballo's case, the one area where I do give Woodson credit, what he did with TJD and Ware probably factors in a bit.

No, that would mean they lost a ton of games against Q3 and Q4 teams which would be a bad year. There is no world where a 20 win season next year is a "good" year. None. 23 wins should be the floor.

I will answer that for me. On paper, we once again are going to have one of the most talented teams in the league. In the portal we have "fixed" our guard and shooting issue. We have 2 returning Freshmen of the year on our roster. We will be starting multiple 5* players. We have an abundance of riches. If this team was at Purdue they would be thinking winning the BIG and making a bunch of noise in tournament. The only reason to temper expectations is because we think Mike Woodson is an anchor. The floor for this roster should be around 23 wins. All the things that people have said were holding Woodson back (besides himself) have been addressed in the portal. People are short selling expectations exactly because they believe that Woodson is an anchor on expectations.

I will eat my hat if they are Top 10 next year. Painter is a good coach and they will have a decent year but I bet they are more in the 25 to 30 range than the 5 to 10. Their entire team gets guarded completely different with the loss of Edey.

Correct. Being honest, Woodson's approach hasn't been great the past 3 years IMO. He pissed me off last year. I think the burner on Twitter isn't helping the case by spiking the ball on the 50 yard line either. So I am still very much wait and see. All that being said, just looking at the roster in a vacuum, I am pleased with what we got. If they figure out how to start really incorporating the HS recruits into this, then ok, we are good on roster construction (even though I don't think this was some master plan, but sometimes it is better to be lucky and just stumble into things...) Hopefully the play on the court finally matches the personnel.

10 stars. We are about to go on a historical run.

They lock those 3 down in quick order then I will go and track down the crow. Still not warming an oven until we start playing (and winning) games.

I am in the show me zone too but I think you have to have some baseline to measure against. To me you draw a line in the standings at the end of conference and we should have won 60%+ of our games against everyone above the line and 80%+ against those below the line. With the addition of the PAC teams, the regular season "champion" is going to be diluted to the point of almost worthless. You are going to get to play almost every team only 1 time and that is going to lead to wildly inconsistent standings given the way this league is officiated and where you play which teams.

Because he would be an experienced bench guy with a skill we have lacked for years. I have been down on Woodson but will extend some meager credit for finally figuring out how to build a roster after collecting a check for 3 years.

Woodson has put together a nice roster on paper. I fully expect to enjoy the 25+ win, Big Ten title contender, and NCAA run ahead of us in 2024/25. That is what should happen with this roster so I don't want to hear any excuse making BS if we don't.

https://twitter.com/TheMopLady/status/1782424651387347292 You wonder how we didn't get him to begin with...sheesh.

Because hs is a big IU legacy kid. With all his family connections there is no way he didn't grow up an IU fan. It could be one of those deals where you figure you aren't going pro, why not go to the childhood dream school if they are calling.

Whitten gets paid to be the decision maker. Ultimately if she chooses poorly, she loses her job. The faculty putting pressure on her to make decisions based on their want to virtue signal don't hold the same level of accountability. "She wouldn't listen to us..." Nah, she heard you, she just thought that you were wrong. She can read a room and is held accountable for her ability to do so, they aren't.

I typed and deleted a response to Home Jersey a few times. You're welcome.

Enlighten us, what is it really about. The stupid **** posted that they are complaining about is all political. All of it. Is she kicking puppies? Is she sexually harassing staff? Is she verbally abusing people? Is she running the University into the ground economically? If it is anything but politics, please point out what. Every complaint being aired out there right now is that she wasn't toeing the correct "progressive" line on topics. And I guarantee it isn't academic freedom they are concerned about, they would be up in arms if some right wing person was being platformed by the school. It is politics. We know it is politics because that is all that is shared other than whispers of "she doesn't let people bring their phones in to talk to her" or other non-specific innuendos about how mean she is.

The lack of diversity of views is the problem I am complaining about. That is THE issue with the faculty. And the viewpoint that they have on most topics is out of step with the majority of the rest of the state. Whitten is trying to thread the needle and they want to dump her EXACTLY because she was showing lack of conformity to the faculty.

Tl/Dr: The faculty is incapable of reading the room which makes their input a net negative on those topics. Perhaps having the faculty too involved in the administrative side of things is part of the issue. Let's just get down to brass tacks. Bloomington and the Indiana faculty likely hold views closer to San Francisco than (pick almost anywhere in this state). Whitten has to balance the idea that a whole bunch of people in this state aren't super interested in funding some of the absolute nonsense that passes as "scholarship" and "academic freedom" these days. For each of those items, it was better for the school to not let the faculty be involved. The professor lied about using facilities to promote a group that is out of step with the sensibilities of this state. It also happened at a time where Palestinian support movements on campus were basically nothing but anti-semitic rants that were harassing Jewish students and celebrating the televised murder of Israeli civilians. There was a reason he lied about the event and the lie meant he should be punished. Related to that, having a person with similar views at a similar time displaying art in the Eskanazi art center was probably a good idea to 86 as well. The background of the multimillion dollar donor Eskanazis would lead one to believe that they would probably not appreciate someone who basically promotes killing the jews having their art displayed all over a center with their name on it. The donor wins over the lefty faculty on that. Sorry. Kinsey is a blight on the school. We can pull Jordan's name off of everything because of his views but still support the extremely questionable stuff Kinsey did with children. ---- that guy and everything to do with him. On the last, she did go and oppose the bill. She doesn't have a vote in government though so don't know what they expected. Those people are her boss and hold the purse strings so again, being more militant like the faculty wanted is just cutting off your nose to spite your face. Furthermore, the fact that the University is so wildly out of step with the rest of the state on a whole host of topics is a big reason why people are supportive of bills like that in the first place. As someone who is politically on the other side of what is the norm in Bloomington and the school in particular, it gets noticed how hostile they are to people who have opinions like me, which are the dominate opinions in this state at the moment. I think they waste money on stupid BS and it is a disservice to educating people in this state. You get the perception that the school looks down its nose at the state it is in and that is part of what chases kids out of state after spending 4 years there.

Yeah, Thursday night was when the festivities really started to crank up when I was a student.

No, I was there when Coach Knight was there, dudes were going out. I don't have a problem with that per se. Just think you ride a thin line with some of that. It is fine to a degree as long as the priorities are straight. That kind of thing can lead to trouble and frankly I don't know if we have the coaching staff in place that knows how to handle that. These dudes are getting a ton of money for their age and I don't know, just seems like a recipe for potential disaster if it isn't moderated.

Ok, so old guy yelling at clouds now and also someone that handed a former player in the late 90's a vodka bottle at my apartment the night after they beat Kentucky (IIRC), our recruiting visits are a little more "bar centric" than I would want if I was the staff. I know the guys go out and do stuff and have some fun and they can't be basketball and school 100% all the time, but....I don't know, just seems like not the type of message I want to send out to attract real winners. That's just me and I know I am going to get raked over the coals because college kids should have fun and all that. And I don't necessarily disagree with that, but I would worry that the bait I am using isn't catching the exact fish I want.

Ok Mr. Credibility, put your line in the sand. Mike Woodson is an awesome coach who is landing awesome players. What can us non-true fans expect as a baseline performance point next season?

Yeah that is a nope from me. I have been told that the Woodson system is going to be a winner at Indiana and we just had a player problem (sidebar: funny how guys like Tyme think it is a crime to talk bad about the staff or to question guys like Leal and his statements at senior night while they basically **** on the players for not being good enough to execute Woodson's brilliant strategy...I digress though). So anyways, he got the money and they are claiming they now have the players and they have landed them in the way future rosters should be built (i.e. minimal HS recruits) then the expectation should be to win now. He has 2 former Freshman of the year players on his team. A super senior from Arizona. A Junior Reneau who at least offensively was a bucket. He has dynamic guards. He has another 5* HS wing. He has a really good 6th man in Galloway. If he drops another 22-12 TJD last season-esque performance then he is never going to be the dude. It isn't worth wasting another year on a then 67 year old guy whose ceiling is mediocre even with a huge payroll. 12-8 is really pretty garbage based on how much bragging they are doing right now. This isn't a 45 year old who has time to figure it out.

Whomever it is I basically just view it as the mouthpiece of the coaching staff.

That isn't the argument. Address the real complaint.

I am saying fire him if he isn't at least that. With the victory lap that they are doing on Twitter (that Tyme account is basically the coaching staff's voice) it should be 14. However, if you set that as the floor there is no way he will get fired if he wins 12 or 13. If he goes 11-9 or worse though....