mickey one

IU loses 3 starters next year + little of the bench has had significant minutes this year. Portal was no miracle worker last year. Need a big turnaround to remain competitive.

North Carolina State? Florida State? Mississippi State?

Don't worry . . . . be happy.

Possibly the only thing more depressing in the State of Indiana than being an IU women's B-Ball fan at the moment would be to be a Purdue women's B-Ball fan. The Boilers are really floundering. Their "Freshman of the Year", Mary Ashley Stevenson, transferred to Stanford, and is stuck on the bench there. The Boilers have all kinds of recruits, and can't seem to beat anyone in the Big 10. Don't know how Gearlds keeps her job long-term.

For me, it would be more entertaining and refreshing to give some of these bench players some minutes to see how they can do. IU isn't going anywhere this year anyway, so it can be "rebuilding mode". To religiously stick to the "top" players, and still get beat AT HOME by Illinois by 14, that's sad. It's like "we are doing our very best with our best players" and it still is woefully short. It's like an ultimate dismissal of the team as being mediocre. You can't say "well, we weren't really trying", because we WERE really trying, and looked very AVERAGE. And ARE very average.

Lauren Betts looked like a giant. Reminded me of Kamilla Cardozo from South Carolina last year. How do you handle 6'7", other than with a double-team, and against a decent team, that opens up easy lay-ups. But Betts is everyone's problem in the Big 10 this year. With that said, IU is going to struggle this year. We'll have trouble getting past Minnesota, Michigan State, & Iowa, let alone Maryland, Ohio State, and the West Coast teams. This could be painful. Given that state of pain, it seems to me that CTM would vow, come hell or high water, to recruit the hell out of the portal and next year's prospects to get athletic TALENT in the middle. As a perfectionist, it has to bother CTM greatly to get run over. Her coaching is fine. Do whatever is necessary to RECRUIT.

I get the feeling that some of the people on the IU bench--if they were playing for USI today, they would have 10 points and 5 rebounds. There is something suffocating or limiting . . . . and definitely uninspiring, about the IU team this year. You look for overachievement; but what we are seeing is woeful underachievement. Don't know exactly what is causing it, but it seems to be a wet blanket over this team/season.

Also, what about Faith Wiseman? She had great numbers in HS, and in the Indiana-Ky All-Star game, played great defense. How come she also seems to be a "3-years, then maybe she will play a little" project, and is glued to the bench? Grace Berger & Mackenzie Holmes played as freshman. Look at other players, like Kate Koval, Syla Swords, Hannah Hidalgo, even Elina Aarnisalo (at UCLA), Kayleigh Heckel at SoCal has that potential --they all have come charging out of the gates as freshmen. Why do other teams get these "immediate impact" recruits, and IU has "she might be good some day, maybe, if she develops" recruits? I am hoping Maya Makalusky & Nevaeh Caffey can come charging out of the gates. (also, a player is never going to develop, if they are permanently glued to the bench)

That was one embarrassing and horrible loss (& it came after the Harvard & Butler losses), particularly for a team with national aspirations. Maya Makalusky & Nevaeh Caffey cannot arrive soon enough. BTW: I for one would like to see what Currie-Jelks can do with more playing time. Was she late for practice or something? Given how the other "bigs" can absolutely disappear in a game and get run over, it seems like CTM would be willing to challenge Sharneece to go out there and give it a try. The way things look now, it may be a long season, in a downright tough Big 10.

Calling for a change in coaches at this point is ridiculous. More worrisome, though, are the recruiting failures. Places like Maryland, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Southern Cal (i.e. our rivals) and now Kentucky, are bringing in all kinds of of talent. UConn poaches Indiana talent at will. We even missed on Reagan Beers (why wouldn't she look at IU?). If it were not for Parrish and Scalia transferring to IU, and CMM taking a 5th year, we would really be in the wilderness now (if we aren't already). Punching above your weight is one thing. Seriously competing to get in the Final Four or win a National Championship, sadly, takes high powered recruiting. It depends on the program's aspirations.

With the woefully uninspired performance of the regulars (Meister 1 of 8 from the field with 2 rebounds), why not give Currie-Jelks (all-OVC) and Kadlecova (Czech national team) a shot? There seems to be something very rigid sometimes in CTM--if you're in the top 10 nationally, that's one thing; if you're getting beaten by Butler by 10, that's another. I saw tape of Stanford taking out UC-Davis. Stanford-IU could get ugly fast. I hope it's competitive, but I don't know . . . .

By the way, I saw Quinnipiac University take out Harvard last Sunday, 76-53. Harvard played full-court press from the beginning, but Quinnipiac's freshman point guard, Gal Raviv, handled the pressure superbly. Quinnipiac's bigs pretty much neutralized the middle, and Jackie Grisdale hit 7 three's and totaled 33 points. Harvard had no answer for her. The eventual margin of 23 could have been worse for Harvard. I was probably the only one in the stadium who viewed it as payback.

yes, it is just somewhat mystifying as to why Coach Moren has not had more success. She coached a bunch of A-listers this past summer on the national team, but none of them chose IU for college (even though a few of them were still on the board). In college athletics, recruiting is destiny, like it or not.

P.S. also, if this is a "lost year" in terms of championships, etc., why not give people like Currie-Jelks & Kadlecova some exposure? to see how they would handle things, if the "regulars" look flat. Are they that uninspiring or incapable in practice? To stick to a tight rotation, and the tight rotation is going nowhere . . . it starts to feel like a "doom loop".

Recruiting failures are taking their toll--if you had Reagan Beers, Makayla Blakes, Syla Swords, et al., I think it would be a different story. Forget about winning anything big this year. Next year, Maya Makalusky and maybe Nevaeh Caffey can step into the starting lineup.