IUBB at Wisconsin - 1/2/18 @ 7:00 E.T.

[TXHoosierDaddy 1,375]

18 minutes ago, Maedhros said:

I'm going to add to this. Crean had his head-scratching results to be sure: losing at home to Eastern Washington. Losing on the road to Illinois and Penn State. But those were all at least close games, where the team failed to execute in the closing minutes. Last year's loss to Fort Wayne was an overtime defeat on the road. This year's loss to Fort Wayne was a 20-point thrashing on our home-court, with the team getting boat-raced in the second half. And after we'd already been beaten by 20 at home by another in-state mid-major earlier in the season. Last night's second half looked a lot like those two games, or the first halves against Youngstown State, Tennessee Tech, and Michigan. This is happening far too often for me to not look in the direction of the guy running the practices. 

This would have been Crean's least talented team in a long time though. Last year, we had 3 NBA players on the roster and still lost to Fort Wayne and Nebraska at home. I think the 2013 team was kind of similar. Lots of athletes but not many basketball players. That team went 17-15 overall and had losses at home to Penn State, Nebraska and Northwestern. I have a really hard time believing Tom could do any better with what he left Archie. 

[Uspshoosier 45,182]

But Wisky had a "team" regardless of how many players it was missing.  We may have had more perceived talent but we don't have a "team" and it's become pretty obvious that we won't have a "team" this year.  

Wisky’s “less talented”teams have been beating IU’s “more talented” teams for years. In my opinion you can have all the talent in the world but if they don’t buy in or just don’t fit into the system they are going to constantly lose to a team that has an established program Wisky has a program in place and as hard as it is to grasp IU is trying to build a program that will constantly compete in the B1G. Despite Wisky have less talent they still had the only all American on the court (a court no IU coach has won at in 20 years).


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[reconmkd 4,333]

Just now, Maedhros said:

I'm not asking Archie to win the Big Ten his first season, or even finish in that next tier. But I imagine I could find a few coaches who would have beaten Indiana State and Fort Wayne at home with this roster, or at least kept it within 20. I'm tired of "talent" being used as an excuse. We had more talent than that Wisconsin team missing half its rotation.

The problem with "talent" is when that talent doesn't feel like playing as it has been evident for several games now. Rojo is a great supporting guard as shown in the years past when the pressure is not on him to lead or to create his own. DD is, well i really don't know! I have heard a couple times this morning and from a couple different places that he is nursing a shoulder injury. DG is who most say a playground guard. JN is an athlete not a basketball player. You can go down the roster and come up with the same conclusions, these are supporting players not starters. Their in game IQ is terrible, how many times are we going to watch a guard give an assist to the other team by passing the ball directly to them?

I am starting to believe that the "talent" from high school rankings based on potential is becoming a bunch of bologna, for some it works for many it doesn't! Rojo 49th, played well when playing a supporting role,  DD was 40th is he playing any where near a top 40 player, no. Cujo 85th not even close and not that it matters anymore, DG 197, Jmo 117th, JN 127th.

I for one am not all that worried about what CAM can do with FCTC's guys, but what I would like to see is some other players getting more minutes if the upperclassmen decide not to play. It is not going to hurt, obviously, but I would rather get the guys that could be here next year more minutes and more experience! At this point in the season, I don't think dropping the hammer on effort is going to have a negative effect. On the other hand, if the guys that are not getting minutes are so bad at basketball that CAM wont even consider them is a bad sign that we have a team that shouldn't be on the floor for any D1 team.

[JSHoosier 19,845]

That one stung.  I'm sick of always losing in the Kohl Center, and to Wisconsin period.  There are some players on this team I won't miss a bit.

Bad attempts at entry passes, stupid passes in general.  Leaving guys wide open.

[coonhounds 8,793]

Bottom line this team is in trouble. They undeniably were playing better even in losses then beating notre dame. After that game something went wrong. Not sure what but effort is clearly gone and that is concerning to say the least. Archie essentially has them playing like most felt he would tough and aggressive. I could jump off the ledge but important to remember this is a crean team without shooters and the ones we have suck right now lol. Weak minded guys that i am for the first time ever hoping all transfer out. New faces and fresh start is what we need. If guys want to stay fine but better play hard cause i cant stand lazy crap like lastnight

 

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[Old Friend 8,389]

23 minutes ago, coonhounds said:

Bottom line this team is in trouble. They undeniably were playing better even in losses then beating notre dame. After that game something went wrong. Not sure what but effort is clearly gone and that is concerning to say the least. Archie essentially has them playing like most felt he would tough and aggressive. I could jump off the ledge but important to remember this is a crean team without shooters and the ones we have suck right now lol. Weak minded guys that i am for the first time ever hoping all transfer out. New faces and fresh start is what we need. If guys want to stay fine but better play hard cause i cant stand lazy crap like lastnight

 

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I am afraid this program is in trouble.   I see zero leadership...from the top down.  I didn't expect it from Bruiser Flint who I felt was a horrible hire; but I expected far better from Miller and Schilling.    The red flags are up.  

[dbmhoosier 851]

36 minutes ago, Fkfootball1 said:

You guys will be even sicker when Chris Holtman ends up with a 20 win season.

I'll be sick when Gregg Marshall takes a mid major to another FF. 

[mark1981 1,340]

2 hours ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

But Wisky had a "team" regardless of how many players it was missing.  We may have had more perceived talent but we don't have a "team" and it's become pretty obvious that we won't have a "team" this year.  

Amen.  Who or where is the "talent" on our team?  We have a few basketball talented guys and the rest are just talented athletically. Most of them can't shoot and have limited ball control skills.  Where does this notion of a talented roster come from?  We have a team of role players.

[coonhounds 8,793]

I am afraid this program is in trouble.   I see zero leadership...from the top down.  I didn't expect it from Bruiser Flint who I felt was a horrible hire; but I expected far better from Miller and Schilling.    The red flags are up.  

I am concerned not sure about red flags yet. Not sure i know exactly what red flags means lol

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[biteoftheapple 4,115]

I am afraid this program is in trouble.   I see zero leadership...from the top down.  I didn't expect it from Bruiser Flint who I felt was a horrible hire; but I expected far better from Miller and Schilling.    The red flags are up.  

I feel exactly the same. The coaching staff has no ability to connect with this group.

[BGleas 7,880]

2 hours ago, Maedhros said:

We had more talent than that Wisconsin team missing half its rotation.

I think the narrative that Wisconsin was devoid of talent last night and that there was a big talent difference was way overblown by the announcing crew. I don't think there was all that much of a talent difference to be honest. Of course Wisconsin was short-handed, no doubt about that, and the announcers played off that narrative. But, basketball is a 5-on-5 game where among the team sports one player can probably make the biggest difference. 1-10 was IU more talented? Sure. But, Ethan Happ is by far the most talented player on either roster. 

I think if you lined the teams up, Wisconsin had 2 of the 3 best players on the floor (Happ, Morgan, Davison), and for us Morgan was taken out of the game with fouls. I would trade any 3 players from IU for Happ and Davison. With Morgan only playing 22 minutes, for almost half the game Wisconsin had the two best players on the floor. Of the 5 players on the court IU's 3-5 was better, absolutely, but the top-end talent usually wins out. 

[Bowhunter 2,693]

2 hours ago, reconmkd said:

The problem with "talent" is when that talent doesn't feel like playing as it has been evident for several games now. Rojo is a great supporting guard as shown in the years past when the pressure is not on him to lead or to create his own. DD is, well i really don't know! I have heard a couple times this morning and from a couple different places that he is nursing a shoulder injury. DG is who most say a playground guard. JN is an athlete not a basketball player. You can go down the roster and come up with the same conclusions, these are supporting players not starters. Their in game IQ is terrible, how many times are we going to watch a guard give an assist to the other team by passing the ball directly to them?

I am starting to believe that the "talent" from high school rankings based on potential is becoming a bunch of bologna, for some it works for many it doesn't! Rojo 49th, played well when playing a supporting role,  DD was 40th is he playing any where near a top 40 player, no. Cujo 85th not even close and not that it matters anymore, DG 197, Jmo 117th, JN 127th.

I for one am not all that worried about what CAM can do with FCTC's guys, but what I would like to see is some other players getting more minutes if the upperclassmen decide not to play. It is not going to hurt, obviously, but I would rather get the guys that could be here next year more minutes and more experience! At this point in the season, I don't think dropping the hammer on effort is going to have a negative effect. On the other hand, if the guys that are not getting minutes are so bad at basketball that CAM wont even consider them is a bad sign that we have a team that shouldn't be on the floor for any D1 team.

The thing that worries me is that Curtis Jones , and Josh Newkirk were both top 100 kids. Both should be as good or better than many kids starting across the country. Davis , and Rojo same thing only now we are talking about top 50 kids who lead teams to victory . As far as I can remember, none of them were rated off potential like a Hanner Perea with no hands and footwork. So why can't our coaching staff get them to excell? Davis looked better last season and so did Curtis Jones. 

[BGleas 7,880]

I like what I see from Archie, and I just think this roster is horribly constructed which is why IU is struggling. I think Archie has a real chance to be the long-term solution at IU, if everyone has patience. He's a "basketball guy", a "coaches, coach". He grew up around the game, has spent his entire life in the gym playing, coaching, etc. I think he'll eventually really connect well with recruits and high school/AAU coaches, because he speaks their language. I think he's really good on the X's and O's side with game-planning, adjustments, etc., and it just remains to be seen to what level he'll be able to recruit. 

If I have one criticism so far, it's that he didn't clean house a bit when first taking over. I don't know what the thought process was, maybe he felt it was the right thing to do in keeping everyone, maybe he felt he needed to fight the old "Creaning" perception from IU to really implement his inside/out strategy, maybe he didn't have a ton of high level recruit contacts from being at Dayton so felt he couldn't really get anyone for the '17 class on short notice. May it's all the above or non of the above. 

But, I'll hold firm with how I felt all summer, this roster isn't good. That's why this team stinks. I don't care what the rankings say, the roster just isn't there. It's an NIT team that lost it's 3 best players and didn't really add anyone. We have no length, no athleticism, no size on the perimeter whatsoever. No pure shooter. No pure scorer. No pure ballhandler/point guard. No leaders. No interior depth. Outside of Morgan, it's a bunch of role players who don't fit together. The thought that Davis was going to be better than Bryant was laughable. Yes Bryant had some issues last season, but he's a stud compared to Davis. 

You can win with a bunch of role players, but for that to work you need some specialists. You need a shooter, you need a rebounder, you need a defender, you need leader, etc. You don't need guys with every skill, but you some guys that specialize in a particular skill, and this team has none of that outside of Morgan. It's a bunch of guys limited athletically that are average to slightly above-average at some things, but nobody is really good at any one thing. 

[reconmkd 4,333]

2 minutes ago, Bowhunter said:

The thing that worries me is that Curtis Jones , and Josh Newkirk were both top 100 kids. Both should be as good or better than many kids starting across the country. Davis , and Rojo same thing only now we are talking about top 50 kids who lead teams to victory . As far as I can remember, none of them were rated off potential like a Hanner Perea with no hands and footwork. So why can't our coaching staff get them to excell? Davis looked better last season as well did Jones. 

I guess I should have mentioned living up to a rating as well not just potential, but most of the ratings to me reflect potential because no one really knows how a player will translate to the next level. I know that with a majority of them, its a given and will do good in college. But how did we get stuck with so many that don't live up to it, i think i just answered this in my head.

[BGleas 7,880]

3 minutes ago, Bowhunter said:

The thing that worries me is that Curtis Jones , and Josh Newkirk were both top 100 kids. Both should be as good or better than many kids starting across the country. Davis , and Rojo same thing only now we are talking about top 50 kids who lead teams to victory . As far as I can remember, none of them were rated off potential like a Hanner Perea with no hands and footwork. So why can't our coaching staff get them to excell? Davis looked better last season and so did Curtis Jones. 

I hate getting caught up in the recruiting rankings talk, but Newkirk was more like a #130ish ranking, not top 100. Last season CuJo was terrible except for the KU game, and Davis was decent in very limited minutes, though many of his struggles (fouling, lack of athleticism) were still there, not sure we can really say he was better. 

But it's about more than rankings. It's just a bad roster composition. Again, we're not overly athletic. We don't have any lights out shooters. No length on the wing, and no depth on the interior. Nobody specializes in anything. The back-court is a bunch of combo guards that aren't really good at any one particular thing, etc. The rankings are what they were for these guys, but that doesn't mean the roster composition is any good. 

[jmsgws 2,181]

4 hours ago, TXHoosierDaddy said:

It disgusts me too to see Dakich go on the air yesterday and say Crean shouldn't have been fired. The guy was here 9 seasons not 3!!! Then Dakich says again the team should have hired Alford. It's so tiring listening to the guy. Agree Crean should have been gone 2 seasons ago and if it wasn't for Yogi putting the team on his back all year he would have. 

I don't think it is so much that Crean should not have been fired, it is that we fired him, and now he is not impressed with the replacement.  Kind of the same way I was feeling last year.  If you are going to fire Crean, you had better have an obvious upgrade. 

Listening to him, he makes a lot of really good points.  

[Trish 11,506]

Some of these recent post folks.. come on. I think some of you are expecting too much from a talentless roster. Didn't we just lose 3 NBA players. Didn't we fall from the #3 team in the country to losing in the first round of the NIT last year? 

We all know anyone can beat anyone on any given night. Yeah it sucks Indiana State and IPFW beat us (blew us out) at home. But we must realize, this can happen to anyone. I don't think we should be using the "there's no excuses to lose to IPFW, etc." Well IPFW is a decent team, they have some shooters shoot really well. They also play some talented teams.  What about Indiana State? They played TWO Big Ten teams before playing us. They got hot shooting the ball and boom, we lost. Both teams made 17's against us. Making 17's in a game will usually result in a win.  Sure we could say a lot of those were wide open, but then you must consider the roster. When have these guys ever been able to defend? I can't remember.. 

This team is filled with mid majors, lower tier D1 players. We don't have PG. We don't have consistent guards. We have one shooter and one shooter only. We have players with very little basketball IQ. We have players who have never been taught defense. We have players who were never held accountable for turning the basketball over. We have players who have never been given "tough love". 

This team just isn't good folks. We beat ND because we played decent defense and Morgan went off. We stayed with Duke because it was a big game. This team has the smell of Tom Crean all over it. We must give Archie time to get his own players. It will be a while, probably 3-4 years. Archie knows what he's doing, I trust him as I believe most of you do as well. It's just not fair to blame the coach for coaching a bunch of players he never recruited here. I'd also argue it's hard to teach some of these players on this team, they just don't have the "IT" factor. 

Archie is our man, he'll lead us to the final four again. Like I mentioned before, just imagine this team under Crean right now. Dribble drive.. no timeouts.. no defense.. turnovers and turnovers..terrible rotations.. ugh. 

 

[Stuhoo 79,787]

Just now, Treesh said:

Some of these recent post folks.. come on. I think some of you are expecting too much from a talentless roster. Didn't we just lose 3 NBA players?

 

No! We were more talentless than many perceive last year: One NBA player and two G-League hopefuls.

The nine year Crean era produced two guys who are currently an NBA starter (OG and Vic).

 

[JustWinWoody 3,364]

8 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

 

No! We were more talentless than many perceive last year: One NBA player and two G-League hopefuls.

The nine year Crean era produced two guys who are currently an NBA starter (OG and Vic).

 

Poor Cody Zeller.  He is always the forgotten man....  Vonleh? Yogi?

Edit - sorry, missed your "starter".

[Old Friend 8,389]

39 minutes ago, Treesh said:

Some of these recent post folks.. come on. I think some of you are expecting too much from a talentless roster.

 

Wisconsin had a hell of a lot less talent than we did.