IUCrazy2

Kids know people are looking at their social media. Anyone really wanting things to be a surprise isn't letting the cat out of the bag that way.

This is the least invested I think I have been in a long time. I would love to get all these really good Indiana kids (Haralson in particular, he was in our school district before transferring to La Lumiere) but this doesn't feel as sports "life or death" as it has in the past. We are a program that can underperform in recruiting and still have the resources to go buy a Ware, Ballo, Rice, and Carlyle. The portal and our deep pockets makes this a nice thing to be somewhat interested in but everything is win focused for me now. Being able to get players should be an autopilot type of thing for this program in this era.

I don't know how they are but we need to beat them in that first game since the strength of our schedule (as it appears now) relies almost entirely on seeing Gonzaga and Arizona in that tournament.

Now you are moving goal posts. Hopefully for Villanova's sake they figure it out quicker than Indiana. This idea that we are more tough on our coaches than other historically high performing programs is just a fallacy. I am here to tell you that if Villanova hires 5 coaches in a row that either get caught in a cheating scandal or fail to produce results, they will be right there. The guy that replaced Wright is entering Year 3 and the fans are already chanting for him to be fired and not showing up to games. Crean and Miller both failed spectacularly at their next stops. Mike Davis took progressively worse jobs after he left Indiana. The lack of results wasn't because fans or the school were too quick to pull the trigger. All of those guys had fundamental flaws in their programs.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/39780451/villanova-ad-says-kyle-neptune-return-coach Somebody forgot to inform the Villanova fanbase of these rules apparently....

Chicken or egg. Consistently winning programs don't need to fire coaches because they are consistently winning.

I think other things than just on court results have made people be a bit more judgemental of Woodson. I am one of those and it hasn't all been on court for me.

Jay Wright was in the Sweet 16 in year 4, Elite 8 in Year 5, tournament appearance in year 6, Sweet 16 again in year 7, and Final Four in year 8. Yeah he might have been on the hot seat a bit heading into year 4 but he took off from there. And that was in an era where you couldn't openly buy your team. Coach K went to 2nd round in year 4 and 5 and was runner up in year 6. He followed that with Sweet 16, Final Four, Final Four, Runner Up, Champion, Champion. Scott Drew may make your point but he took over a program where players were literally killing each other. So not exactly a top flight program and a crappy situation to boot. In the past when you were recruiting high school seniors to build a team, you expected to see things take off around year 4. That is when your recruiting and your system dominate the team. Coaches that do well tend to hit their stride on or before year 4 and then have a period where they go on a run. Woodson has his team, we should expect big things this year. And yes, those other guys would have been on the hot seat in year 4. The difference between them and Miller was that they made hay in year 4 and answered critics and he laid an egg.

I expect a 25+ win Sweet 16 caliber team, so you should have an opportunity. I have heard he is awesome but just needed a roster. He has arguably the best roster in the conference. We are going to be great.

If this schedule ends up being tough, nothing else we are talking about will matter. Kind of like last year, the fact we couldn't pound the crap teams in the preconference was an indicator that made their NET ranking inconsequential. Last I will say about Atlantis and all of this, the fact there is 1-4 possible tournament teams in the field doesn't matter much unless you play them. They aren't guaranteed. You can't count those chickens until they hatch. We can definitively look at the rest though and we are saying the same thing. Someone went out and scheduled for the computers. By doing that, they have made sure that the schedule that they could choose has no real tests in it. And if those games do end up being tests, this year is likely to look similar to last year because only 1 of those teams is likely to be on par with the majority of our BIG competition. That wasn't the case most past years.

You are just putting a positive spin on what I have factually stated. We got rid of the really good games and most of the really bad games and replaced them with a bunch of teams that should be easy wins at home but look better to the computers. That is a soft schedule to me. Now if you had a Kentucky/Kansas/UNC/Duke/UConn/etc guaranteed on there, Atlantis, and another South Carolina like team (50/60 net) then you are getting closer to what the schedule should be. Sam Houston in that 150ish range moves the dial for the computers but it doesn't for anyone who really watches basketball. That is still a team you beat handily at home 99% of the time. All the challenges and toss ups outside of being in a protected pre-conferemce tournament were removed. And that is why the schedule is softer than last year even though the computers will love it.

It is a switch in focus. In the past we generally would play a team in the ACC challenge, a protected event, and then 1 or 2 other "name" teams and then fill out the rest of the schedule with bottom feeders. What we did this go around is take out the "name" programs and remove a few of the sub 250 programs and replaced them with teams in the 150 range all at home. So they are teams that look better to the computer but they are all teams that a good program beats by 15 to 20 at home (at worst). To put another way, it is like being a 20 year old D1 college player slated to be a future pro and having the opportunity to play 1 on 1 against people. You were playing 2 NBA guys and then 5 6th graders. Now you are playing 6 15 year olds and an average college sophomore. You removed all your true tests but technically have a "stronger" slate of opponents now. Opponents you should beat handily. That's what we did.

Ok, we somewhat agree. It is a softer, average schedule. The type that prior coaches caught heat for and miaaing the types of teams the current coach indicated he wanted to play. I think it was designed to take advantage of a flaw in NET because what Woodson said he wanted to do he hasn't been able to capitalize on.

Now you are finally getting there. Particularly with the last sentence. People criticize when you say you are coming to win championships and that Indiana should be playing the big schools and then get absolutely hammered, not just lose, but run off the court, by the big name schools and then fail to make the tournament. Then, the very next year you drop all of those big name games and start gaming the quadrant system. And why? Because of your last sentence. So we are in agreement. This is a mediocre schedule designed to get Woodson the type of wins that are still gimmes but look good plugged into a computer because having Kansas, Arizona, UConn, etc. as guaranteed games didn't work out in his favor the past few years and helped lead him to miss the tournament. I agree Scott. We dumbed it down for Mike this year.

How can you say the other 3 are on par with the Bahamas games when you don't know our opponents. I think everyone is assuming we are going to play Gonzaga and Arizona and then one of those 60 to 80 ranked teams. That could happen but they aren't guaranteed games. If we lose the first game, there is a (good) possibility we play neither of those 2 if they aren't our first round opponent. That is the thing about the tournaments, you can't count on them to get you Q1 wins like you could setting up a home and home or a one off neutral site game. This is a soft schedule that takes advantage of the indiosyncracies in the NCAA quadrant format. Whoever put I together is playing the same game that other schools played last year. You have a bunch of lower middle tier teams that you absolutely should beat and that looks better in a computer than getting hammered by a few really good teams and then taking several really bad teams to the woodshed. I mean, whatever, it is the game, but it doesn't look like whoever put it together had all the swagger of the "anyone, anywhere" type of talk we heard about when Woodson took over.

No, this is the BS that other teams pulled last year where they don't really schedule anyone of real consequence but instead load up on teams that they should beat by 20 instead of 40 and nobody they should really lose to. Even that South Carolina game should be a double digit win at home (10 to 12 range). The entire strength of the schedule is going to rest on our ability and 2 other teams' ability to win games to ensure matchups. And that is assuming that Arizona and Gonzaga were put on opposite sides of the Atlantis bracket. It is a complete possibility to have 0 Q1 games in the pre-conference if scheduling doesn't go our way.

I am not going to go look up all the teams but Notre Dame, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and Louisville (Defending National Champions) GUARANTEED looks like a tougher schedule than "We are in a tournament with 2 good teams and a bunch of average teams and if things fall peefectly we may play those 2 good teams". You think that having another large Indiana school and the 2 Kentucky schools (I am assuming in Indiana or Kentucky) definitively on the schedule might look a bit interesting than maybe some teams in the Bahamas, South Carolina, and a bunch of nobodies of differing nobody caliber? It is a soft schedule. I don't know why that is hard to admit. If you want to defend it you shouldn't try and convince people it is good (it is mediocre), you should be offering up stuff like "We have a bunch of new teams that add to difficulty in conference and a bunch of new players so this gives us a chance to gel before conference starts" not a defense of what is clearly an uninteresting, lower tier schedule designed to get wins. Which is what this is.

At best, 2 Q1 and 1Q2. Likely scenario is 1 Q1 and 2 Q2. So you are saying that 2 Q1, 2 Q2 (at best) and only 1 an actually guaranteed game is a good schedule. I think it looks soft. And I didn't cover Atlantis because I had already done all those teams. Follow along.

All these are Torvik: SIU-Edwardsville (313) Eastern Illinois (311) South Carolina (54) UNC-Greensboro (175) Sam Houston (113) Miami OH (234) Chattanooga (148) Winthrop (166) That is 1 Q2 game and the rest are Q3 and 4. That looks Charmin soft to me.

Can you point me to UK and Kansas on the schedule? If one of them shows up after the fact, I will pull back some, but as of right now this schedule is Grade F @$$ and you know it. Torvik has South Carolina at 54. That is your big non-conference "home" game. For the battle for Atlantis you have Gonzaga (10), Arizona (9), Louisville (62), Providence (60), Oklahoma (67), West Virginia (83), and Davidson (157). I would bet we get Louisville for the first game and then you have to hope you get Gonzaga/Arizona (and win) and then hope for whomever you hadn't played out of that crew. Most likely you beat that round one team like Louisville, lose to Gonzaga/Arizona, and then get another 60+ ranked team (per Torvik). The rest of that schedule are teams you beat by 20 at home unless you are Mike Woodson the past few years.

https://x.com/John_Fanta/status/1810679607370391640 Just stop. Crean got flamed for this type of schedule. South Carolina is your "big matchup" for the home crowd. No Indianapolis game. It is another "f--- you" to the small dollar donors and fans. They get rid of the Crossroads Classic where you had Butler or Notre Dame and replaced it with a home game against Chattanooga. I didn't think that was the idea behind getting out of that game....

https://x.com/Tyme1299218/status/1810718931293708616 You all said Beetlejuice too many times and called him back out in time to defend the schedule.

Yeah the schedule is @$$. South Carolina is your marquee match up. And the only other games worth a darn are in the Bahamas.

No reading isn't a problem for me. I read fine. You can't write those emails you did up above and then come back and tell people they are being irrational. Your emotions are swinging back and forth based on your perception of things in the moment. Which is fine, fanatic and all of that, but the whole argument you are putting forth is REALLY hard to take seriously with what Hoosierfan2017 shared above. Finally, you are coming to the one thread that clearly indicates that you aren't going to find a bunch of Woodson fans and are picking a fight because they haven't let an April and May buying spree change their opinion based on 3 years of results. Could he possibly win some people back by winning games, absolutely. Has he made that harder to do with his prickly attitude? I think so. Would one be within reason to say he is likely to underperform expectations? I don't think so. We will find out, in the meantime, there are tons of other threads where people are doing the normal summer thing around here and convincing themselves we have an All Star team. You will find the positivity you seek there.

You emailed the AD on multiple occasions demanding he fire Woodson and came to multiple boards to tell everyone (brag?) about it. Out of everyone here, you were probably among the worst of the worst. People are upset he did a bad job, blamed the fans for noticing, and then parroted all of those people's complaints about him after his rich friends bailed him out. "You guys don't know basketball. Mike Woodson knows basketball. Mike Woodson thinks we need more guards because guard play is what rules college basketball." Well thanks for noticing you basketball savant. I mean Cal40Cheaney and IUbball4eva have only been screaming that on Twitter for 3 years but man have you earned that check Woody. He better win games. That is all that saves him right now. He has a group that can't stand him and he has people (like you) that will defend him when things aren't flying but will be on the horn to the AD the minute he starts to underperform. And he has pissed off enough media types that they will be more than happy to back the bus over him after the fans have thrown him under it if he doesn't win. And that is all on him.