str8baller

What do you want me to walk you through exactly? No offense, but I’m sensing we wouldn’t see eye to eye either way given the comparison you’re trying to force. But let’s start here, with regards to the two shots you mentioned last night: The one by Wilkerson was your classic “heat check” long distance, or otherwise low probability, shot by a player who is playing great and “feeling it.” I personally don’t love those shots because statistically they suck, but I get it. Sometimes a player is on a heater and you let him go. Not a great shot by the numbers but when a guy has half your team’s total points maybe you give him some leash others don’t get. The Tucker 27 footer was from a player who was 1-9 on the night, 1-8 from 3, from a distance he’s been awful at all year, and quite frankly at this point from a guy who isn’t a great 3 point shooter this season. It came early in the shot clock and in the middle of us trying to make a run. You couldn’t draw up a dumber shot if you tried. If you want to go back and chart those shots this season by distance to prove they’re good shots, be my guest. I’m all ears.

Oh man…you guys have moved on to defending the horrible 28ft 3’s we take when the guys panic on offense. I’m pretty sure even Devries called these “nervous” (or something to that effect) shots he was trying to reign in during an early January presser. Please though, tell us all about the shots we shoot ~20% on and how they contribute to winning basketball.

This ain’t your older cousins Wisconsin Badgers. They’re currently 70th in tempo. This should be a good matchup for us.

IU 84 wisky 79

We needed a split on this road swing and we got one. Would’ve been extra nice to take the sweep, and we could have. But we also could’ve lost the UCLA game. So it kind of evens out.

He’s played 37, 35, 46 and 37 mins the last four games. He usually only comes off in pure bench unit mins and our bench is hot garbage, which is what I think drives most of this. if you want another good example of that phenomenon you can find fletcher loyers name on this. Not all stats are perfect. With that said, I have defended him the last few games and in this thread because he’s been willing to do a lot of the small things that contribute to winning.

He probably led the team in assists down the stretch with drives that led to buckets for Alexis and Bailey. He had two big steals and should’ve had another if the review would’ve got overturned. The 35 footer was bad and a reversion to the panic offense we saw earlier this year. He’s skilled but has mid/low major athleticism at best and tries to do too much a times. If we had a good distributing PG he’d probably be more valuable as a spot up shooter.

We know how most of those turned out, so not really any point in the midseason comparison. Currently, CDD is on pace for barely making the tournament which I think would have him in the “meets expectations” column of the first year job review. But by the slimmest of margins unless he makes a really nice run here to close out conference play, or possibly a surprise BTT or S16 run. FWIW tho, this was about the time Michigan headed into their late season swoon and some fans were disgruntled with him for losing games late and taking them out of the B1G hunt. And most UK fans were pretty much over the moon for Pope. So a lot can change in one year.

I only saw the last 14 min, but that was lost on the margins. Rebounding and something poor execution. Last game of a west coast trip playing late at night so I guess they were gassed.

Cannot go for 2 there unless it’s wide open. Low IQ play

Damn it conerway

Let’s go!!!

Confirmed??? Wtf

Repeat of ucla. Likely out on them but the call will stand

Uhh..what was the Enright???

I’m confused as to why our press doesn’t deny, or guard at all, the reversal man.

He has a few times with assists to show for it. If nobody is cutting he gets stuck.

Weak call

Lack of a defensive rebounding big isn’t what is causing our offense to gum up and lose leads late or in second halves. People defending Devries like to hand-wave everything away as just portal misses and something that more time will solve. I think that’s what is getting pushback in this thread. If Devries wants to ultimately be successful here, he’ll have to be better than what he has been so far. He’s young, relatively speaking for a D1 HC, and seems smart enough so I don’t see why that can’t be the case. We’ll probably get to see him navigate a big obstacle here whenever Conerway is healthy enough to be back in the starting lineup. Dorn has been playing over 20mpg since Nebraska. He didn’t just show up 3 games ago. But he did just get inserted as a starter 3 games ago.

Athleticism is a component. But you can teach competent defense in a season. Hate him or not, Calipari used to take talented freshman and turn them into a cohesive defensive unit by mid season almost every year. You can’t turn a player into an offensive talent overnight which is why those guys recruit offense. Oddly enough, Crean had a lot of success with the opposite strategy taking athletic effort guys like oladipo and o.g. and getting them to add offensive skills. In any event you need to be around top ten in both offense and defense if you want to win a title. Hurleys team last year finished 75th on D and ended up an 8 seed in the tourney getting bounced in the second round.

You guys are acting like it was a few people contained to this thread. The team was quite literally booed off the court at half time of the Iowa game. And they probably deserved it. I honestly don’t remember that ever happening in a coach’s first year before at IU. I actually think if the football team wasn’t on a historic run the media and fan reaction after Iowa would’ve been even worse. I agree with the poster above who said Devries has shown the willingness to adjust and change on the fly. I never really thought IU was a learn on the job type of place but maybe Devries will be the exception. 25 years of losing and football being awesome seem to have taken the pressure off.

It shows up under the “sports for you” as a game replay. You have to go to the sports specific page, I think. I’m uncertain how long it stays there.

And what do you know? They’re gone and we are playing much better on offense. I’m not sure if they’re gone because we’re playing better or we’re playing better because they’re gone. But it was a major sign of dysfunction with the offensive execution.

This was in one of my other “dozen thoughts.” Him shifting over to some hybrid point-forward/stretch 4 role has been just as important to our run here as has inserting Dorn into the lineup. We needed tougher interior defense and rebounding and he’s clearly dedicated his energy to that. It’s actually a pretty impressive transformation. I hope it sticks. The fact that defenses still have to hug him tight on offense makes him still key on that end even though he’s not taking as many shots.

Utah St and Clemson jumped us. They both won. All three teams are within a few hundredths of a point from each other. I’m working from memory but I think both of our Oef and Def went up after last nights game. The jostling in the rankings is likely just statistical background noise and the result of us being nearly identical to the teams around us in the rankings.