Shooter

Yep, we just saw it last season. IU was 6-10 and staring down one of our worst seasons in modern history. And the team, with nothing really to play for, reeled off 4 straight wins (plus one more in BTT), culminating in Woodson and Leal's triumphant remarks on Senior Night.

Leal does a lot of positive things, but he needs to look at the basket sometimes on offense. As he plays more, he will start getting on scouting reports, and his angles to make the extra pass will go away if his defender knows he's not a threat to score.

As bad as we've looked, it's hard for me to believe they will fire Woody in season when he's sitting at 14-5, 5-3 Big Ten. Even though we all understand that record is a bit of fool's gold. I think he retires after the season.

Agree 100%. This is Woodson's last year, I don't really care if he gets let go during the season or afterwards. I'm going to keep rooting for my team.

Ballo and Goode were tremendous. Goode tonight was what we all want Mgbako to be - a face up 4 who hits shots, competes and is at least somewhat competent on defense.

The guys on the court at the end played really hard tonight. Really happy for them, that's a good win

Ha. Work is getting in the way of my daily intake of IUBB drama...

Maybe I missed it - is there some inside info that a midseason change is underway? Or are you just speculating?

I hope you are right. If we end up with a candidate worse than May, our administration is going to be mocked mercilessly (rightfully so).

I have no inside info but I am concerned the Dusty May ship has sailed. Two possible explanations for our decision last offseason: 1. We passed on May because we were confident we had a big big catch lined up for when Woodson retired sometime in the next 1-3 seasons. 2. We passed on May because the powers that be actually thought Woodson was a better option than him to lead our program. I want the truth to be #1... but that's not what my gut tells me

Pretty sure I've never beat the crap out of my wife, so I'm plenty happy to cast the first stone here. You guys are acting like he got a speeding ticket

The ironic thing about Mgbako liking that tweet - Woodson giving Mgbako some bench time recently for poor effort and shot selection is actually one of my favorite coaching moves he has made.

Wow, Freeman is a tool. I have no problem when guys talk a little smack about team accomplishments. But he and Mack had similar seasons last year, both for mediocre teams. Have some class man.

Weak. You can do this for every coach. Brad Stevens caught some incredible breaks early in his two title game runs at Butler. The results are the results, and May's teams have been better than Woodson's for the last 2.5 seasons running. Despite May having 10X less resources at FAU.

Huge one for momentum tonight. Win this one, and we look like a legit threat with the reworked lineup. If we see a repeat of Nebraska, our recent success just looks like the product of a soft early conference schedule.

Comparing anything about Woodson's situation at IU to Dusty May's situation at Florida Atlantic is hilarious. Even for a hardcore Woody stan, I cannot believe you posted that with a straight face.

Yes. I have season tickets, and the atmosphere in the Hall has been very weak this year. I'm not hearing people actively boo Woody, but the energy level has been lower than in years past, and fans are quick to turn to groans when anything goes remotely bad. Ticket prices on the secondary market this season are also lower than typical.

Reneau last season had the #1 assist rate in the Big Ten amongst post players. This season his turnover rate is lower than everyone on the team except Leal, Tucker, and Goode (all guys who assist way less than Malik). I don't think he's a great fit next to Ballo, but he's a good player and seems like a good kid. Maybe step away from the keyboard for a minute.

Yea he's been great. Big guys always play harder when they are getting touches and buckets. We are playing through him, and he's playing really hard.

Agree he's playing hard and competing defensively. Here's my observation on Carlyle. What percentage of his shot attempts would you classify as "good shots"? Maybe 10%? Almost every shot he takes is a difficult pull-up jumper. Kid needs to keep the ball moving and just do the dirty work for a while.

He struggled with Penn State's very good ball pressure. Not the first or last guy that will happen to. Rice was quick enough to beat that pressure several times, but then he seemed to get stuck between two thoughts - should I drive this all the way, or pull it out and run offense? I think Rice is the key to this team. Maybe not our best player, but our most irreplaceable one.

I thought we started the first half pretty well. We played an extended stretch of the first half with Carlyle, Tucker, and Leal all in at the same time - that was when the offense started to bog down.

Ballo was an absolute monster today. That's the guy who was first team All Pac 12. The first 8 minutes of the second half are probably as good as we have looked for the last 1.5 years. The spacing was so much better - Woodson has to see it.

Yea, it's 100% coaching. Tucker takes those shots because the staff is not telling him they are bad shots. Even going back to Hood-Schifino - JHS had some big games, but he also had a habit of barfing up contested 17 footers.

Agree Matta or Fife on Woodson's staff wouldn't matter much. Disagree with your characterization of Matta at Butler. They aren't great, but he's improved them from the end of Jordan's tenure. Butler was probably better than IU last year despite a vast difference in the resources available. Butler is just kind of screwed in the NIL era. Both guys from their starting backcourt last season left in the portal for more money. When programs like Dayton and Washington can poach your players, it's going to be very hard to build anything.