IUHoosierJoe

So, in your opinion, why did they play harder last night? Or, in the alternative, why does it appear they gave less than their best effort for the 27 games before last night?

Oh, so it’s your friends’ fault we’re losing to PFW. They must be bad fans too, lol.

Yes, here they are. Forgot to post... 1 Houston 24 - 3 ( 2 ) 2 Purdue 25 - 3 ( 1 ) 3 Arizona 21 - 6 ( 3 ) 4 Connecticut 25 - 3 ( 4 ) 5 Tennessee 21 - 6 ( 6 ) 6 Alabama 19 - 8 ( 5 ) 7 Auburn 21 - 6 ( 8 ) 8 North Carolina 21 - 6 ( 9 ) 9 Iowa St 21 - 6 ( 7 ) 10 Marquette 21 - 6 ( 12 ) 11 Duke 21 - 6 ( 15 ) 12 Kansas 20 - 6 ( 17 ) 13 Illinois 20 - 7 ( 10 ) 14 San Diego St 19 - 7 ( 13 ) 15 Creighton 20 - 8 ( 16 ) 16 Baylor 18 - 8 ( 11 ) 17 BYU 19 - 8 ( 14 ) 18 New Mexico 20 - 7 ( 18 ) 19 Utah St 20 - 5 ( 22 ) 20 Kentucky 19 - 8 ( 24 ) 21 Clemson 19 - 8 ( 27 ) 22 Dayton 21 - 5 ( 19 ) 23 St Mary's CA 22 - 6 ( 23 ) 24 Colorado St 18 - 8 ( 20 ) 25 Gonzaga 21 - 6 ( 25 )

I’d take Dusty now, but an excellent argument can certainly be made that what you are saying, if it would work out, could be even better.

Sounds like the best plan we’ve had in 25 years, if it actually comes to fruition.

I think it’s important to differentiate just anyone with a blog or a website or a podcast from “the media.” Everyone has access to the internet and the ability to get their voice heard. Whether it’s sports or anything else, sure, a lot of people decide what they want to believe and then easily find something on the internet to latch on to. To the extent someone wants to blame that phenomenon for their problems, it’s not going away anytime soon.

I officially turned 21 a half-hour after the game ended, so it was a fun night/morning.

Damn, you guys are young, lol. I was a college sophomore when we won the 1987 title.

In other words, Woody is spending the rest of the day trying to come up with a new excuse.

Wisconsin 75, Indiana 69

And he'd be a good choice if we put a $100,000,000 Kentucky buyout clause in his contract, lol.

Even if you use straight ppg, you'd still have to adjust that number for the strength of offenses they have faced to make it relevant.

Baylor is typically a fringe top 25 program that has slumped pretty significantly the last couple years.

Any idea who actually was contacted but not interested?

I haven’t known a lot of big donors, but a couple I have known love access to the coach and the program in exchange for their money. I don’t know, but maybe Woodson is giving them that more than other coaches would.

There’s nothing wrong with them if you make them at a high percentage. I haven’t looked at a shot chart for our team, but we have a guy who I would almost bet makes a higher percentage of 18-footers than he does shots at the rim, because most of his shots at the rim are missed or blocked. But for the majority of players, layups or near-layups and three-pointers are going to yield a higher effective FG%.

The down years didn’t help for sure. But maybe he could have survived the down years if he’d made the final four or better in 2013 (not sure the year is right, going by memory). There were people who wanted him fired after that, before the down years. We put so much focus on the tournament that that season, despite all its successes, became a huge disappointment in our fans’ eyes.

Seems like their offense is good every year and their defense is good every other year. Not sure why the pattern, but that's what it's been.

As I noted before, I took "win immediately" to mean win enough to satisfy our fan base. If Sweet 16s did that, I imagine we'd have kept Crean. But we didn't. So, again, the post I responded to, the poster said he'd rather win immediately with Pearl than wait 5 years for Dusty to learn P5 and win, or something of that sort. And as I've said a few times now, both went deep enough in the tournament, at a level that historically would satisfy our fan base, in year 5, although Dusty did it at low major. Nothing really earth-shaking or non-factual there.

I get that. If I'm a decision-maker, though, I want to try to get that turnover rate slowed down a bit. All things being equal, I would lean toward the guy who can give me 15-18 years over the guy who can give me 6 or 7. Especially if that first year or two has a chance to be less than ideal no matter who the coach is. And maybe we just need a big name this time, I don't know. If so, I'd love to do a real search and see if Oates is interested before I'd call Pearl.

And I made the same consistent point every time. Wasn’t moving goal posts and not being soft. Those aren’t statements one makes when “discussing” with me.

No doubt. I’m not completely convinced he’d win big first year, especially given what he’s probably going to be left with, and winning big early would be his main advantage over hiring a guy like Dusty. And if he was going on 53 instead of 63, I don’t even think I’d care about that.

Ok. I get that you guys love to argue. I said I’d take either Pearl or May. Pluses and minuses to both, I said. But I still wish you guys that know the future with such certainty would share the Power Ball numbers with me sometime.

I’m not the one moving the goal posts. You said “win immediately” and now you’ve changed it to “first five years.” I have no doubt Pearl would have it humming after five years.

Love Oates. No idea if there would be any chance to get him here. I would think we would have tried before we hired Woodson.