Motley's

Just saying that there are major donors for whom winning basketball games may be the third item on the list for why they are donating. They have other priorities.

If Woodson is fired, I wouldn't be shocked if half of the NIL funds dried up.

Absolutely correct. Three B1G coaches were hired that year, Archie, Holtmann and Underwood. Consensus was that Archie was a can't miss home run, Holtmann was a good hire and the biggest question was Underwood. Eight years later, Archie and Holtmann are at Rhode Island and DePaul and Underwood has one of the top teams in the B1G. So much for consensus.

The program has developed a reputation of being soft. Not a Dakich fan, but his tag of arrogance without achievement is spot on. Other players see it. They know that Rutgers, Iowa or even Illinois don't get the same respect due to IU's blue blood history. So, they enjoy taking shots, knowing that IU won't do anything about it. Geo Baker summed it up in 2022: “Looking at it from a player’s perspective, for the guys that are returning in the Big Ten, nobody’s scared of Indiana,” Baker said on the Field of 68’s Big Ten preview. “Nobody’s looking at Indiana like ‘oh man, we’ve got to get ready to play Indiana.’ Because this is a team that hasn’t really been in the top half of the Big Ten for the past couple years. A lot of people on the outside are hyping them up, but Indiana, for me at Rutgers, when we were playing Indiana, we knew we were going in with a win. That was our mindset.”

But that's the current status following the friendliest part of the schedule. There are losses to come. They can't be in the NET 50s when they hit the Purdue-MSU stretch (3 on the road), when they could easily go 0-4. They need to climb below NET 40 to feel comfortable.

I really believe we need to win two of the next three road games to climb into consideration. As others have noted, road games move the needle. Our best win, PSU, just got worse and they've fallen to NET 51. IA, OSU and NW are the most winnable road games until March against WA. OSU would be a very good win for the rankings and they look beatable.

You could hear someone yelling over the TV during FTs. Didn't realize that was him.

I'm sorry, I had to laugh at "holding their opponent to 78 ppg". That's 288th out of 364 D1 teams. Fran's teams have never "held" their opponents to anything. Not a shot at you at all, just found it humorous.

That was still a hangover from our perimeter defense, I'm sure

Woody won't hold Malik out. He'll play as soon as he's cleared by the medical staff. How he's used is another question.

Carlyle was a low percentage, high volume shooter on a bad Stanford team. He's translated into a low percentage, low volume shooter, who's regressed as a defender. Hard to believe he was actually on some 2025 draft boards.

Easy to overlook what Rice went through. Was 2,000 miles from home and had 5 hour chemo treatments every two weeks for five months. Lost an entire season after having been asked to redshirt the prior season.

Thank you. Have lurked for a long time.

IU -6.5

Wait, are you suggesting it's cold in Indiana in January? That's never happened before.