Game Thread: vs. Notre Dame 12/18 - 2:30 pm on FOX

[Stuhoo 75,677]

Just now, Rico said:

As it stands right now, XJ is the 3rd best player on this team.

While it’s a less critical role, I’d probably say Parker has been the third best player.

49.1% from three on high volume is crazy good. That’s about 1.5 points per possession.

[IU Scott 2,375]

1 hour ago, IUFAN1976 said:

I really don’t either.  I thought we were supposed to have more motion in our offense but there seems to be a lot of standing around until the PG initiates the offense.  I think CMW maybe trying to keep it basic because playing motion is more complex than we think and most of these players aren’t used to motion.  He wants to play everything through Trayce & Race

That pretty much describes all of college basketball.

[Rico 2,911]

14 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

While it’s a less critical role, I’d probably say Parker has been the third best player.

49.1% from three on high volume is crazy good. That’s about 1.5 points per possession.

Problem is that X is taking away Parker's shots!  LOL

[HoosierAloha 29,897]

What are people attributing to effort?

Effort:

Moving on offense - we stand around WAY.TOO.MUCH when the ball goes into TJD. It's like everyone just watching him do work. We'll occasionally get Race taking a stroll through the lane to bring his defender closer to TJD. When he's actually cut hard to the basket he's picked up a foul on his defender. Other times, we will just stand there with very little movement to make it extremely easy for them to send an extra defender and have one defend two of our players chilly behind the arc. That is BAD and LAZY offense.

Keeping your ******* composure - Not picking up stupid fouls. How many times has X had to sit in the first half for long periods of times because of foul trouble? (hint - too many for a senior pg) Watch the ND again, every time there was some contact with X defending he made a big deal about it or shoved a hand away. Officials get tired of that **** and are more likely to call fouls the next time to keep it under control. That's ******* effort to keep your head on straight. Another part of composure is focusing to stop a run. After the little scuffle, ND hit us with a super quick run. Why? We took bad shots and turned it over while not getting back on defense. They made us pay for it. We were able to beat them because they're really not that good. A few spurts of good basketball with some effort was all it took.

Defense - cool our numbers look great. We've also benefited greatly from playing some turrble offensive teams. It's not always us smothering them but just them missing wide open shots. We're not exactly athletic on the wings to close out on shooters AND prevent drives. We haven't been doing this extremely well. We've also been helped by Trayce and Race turning drivers away at the rim. This will change when we play better teams in the Big 1.0. This will cause Trayce and Race to pickup fouls which will severely hamper us. We got beat TWICE after missed FTs that resulted in layups by ND on the other end. Effort! ND doesn't even fast break that often.

Rebounding - we've given up way too many offensive rebounds in the noncon to teams that we shouldn't be. Why? We're out of position scrambling to shooters and leaving lanes open for teams to crash the offensive boards. We're hoping Race and Trayce will be able to clean it up. That's lazy, that's a lack of effort.

Passing - it takes effort not to throw lazy one handed passes cross court for easy turnovers. It takes effort not to through lazy passes in general, yet here we are 11 games in still throwing passes. It's a mindset that hasn't been corrected and it's ******* lazy. We can blame new additions and team chemistry all we want but it's effort. We are not providing it at a high enough level to compete for more than middle of the pack in the Big 1.0. Watch some good teams and you'll see a huge difference.

We've decided that effort is optional in too many games. We've gone entire halves just going through the motion that has cost us. Has our effort been better this season compared to last? Absolutely, that bar was so low it's laughable. We've played an extremely pedestrian schedule that's allowed us to overcome effort issues but we won't be able to in the Big 1.0. It's there whether you want to admit it or not. It will continue to cost us more games.

[Stuhoo 75,677]

8 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

What are people attributing to effort?

Effort:

Moving on offense - we stand around WAY.TOO.MUCH when the ball goes into TJD. It's like everyone just watching him do work. We'll occasionally get Race taking a stroll through the lane to bring his defender closer to TJD. When he's actually cut hard to the basket he's picked up a foul on his defender. Other times, we will just stand there with very little movement to make it extremely easy for them to send an extra defender and have one defend two of our players chilly behind the arc. That is BAD and LAZY offense.

Keeping your ******* composure - Not picking up stupid fouls. How many times has X had to sit in the first half for long periods of times because of foul trouble? (hint - too many for a senior pg) Watch the ND again, every time there was some contact with X defending he made a big deal about it or shoved a hand away. Officials get tired of that **** and are more likely to call fouls the next time to keep it under control. That's ******* effort to keep your head on straight. Another part of composure is focusing to stop a run. After the little scuffle, ND hit us with a super quick run. Why? We took bad shots and turned it over while not getting back on defense. They made us pay for it. We were able to beat them because they're really not that good. A few spurts of good basketball with some effort was all it took.

Defense - cool our numbers look great. We've also benefited greatly from playing some turrble offensive teams. It's not always us smothering them but just them missing wide open shots. We're not exactly athletic on the wings to close out on shooters AND prevent drives. We haven't been doing this extremely well. We've also been helped by Trayce and Race turning drivers away at the rim. This will change when we play better teams in the Big 1.0. This will cause Trayce and Race to pickup fouls which will severely hamper us. We got beat TWICE after missed FTs that resulted in layups by ND on the other end. Effort! ND doesn't even fast break that often.

Rebounding - we've given up way too many offensive rebounds in the noncon to teams that we shouldn't be. Why? We're out of position scrambling to shooters and leaving lanes open for teams to crash the offensive boards. We're hoping Race and Trayce will be able to clean it up. That's lazy, that's a lack of effort.

Passing - it takes effort not to throw lazy one handed passes cross court for easy turnovers. It takes effort not to through lazy passes in general, yet here we are 11 games in still throwing passes. It's a mindset that hasn't been corrected and it's ******* lazy. We can blame new additions and team chemistry all we want but it's effort. We are not providing it at a high enough level to compete for more than middle of the pack in the Big 1.0. Watch some good teams and you'll see a huge difference.

We've decided that effort is optional in too many games. We've gone entire halves just going through the motion that has cost us. Has our effort been better this season compared to last? Absolutely, that bar was so low it's laughable. We've played an extremely pedestrian schedule that's allowed us to overcome effort issues but we won't be able to in the Big 1.0. It's there whether you want to admit it or not. It will continue to cost us more games.

So nearly everything we do that is not a success, even things like “keeping your ******* composure” is an effort issue?

No sir!

Are our opponents giving effort? Cause we are either 9-2 in games in which 22 times there hasn’t been effort, or under this theory we are 9-2 against teams that try hard, yet we’re beating them anyway.

When one of our bigs has the ball in the low post and our wings are stationary AND SPACED, that’s offense, not lack of effort. 

[HoosierAloha 29,897]

13 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

So nearly everything we do that is not a success, even things like “keeping your ******* composure” is an effort issue?
No sir. 

Does it take you effort to keep your composure?

It sure as **** takes X effort, as evidenced by how many games this season? Yes, it takes effort for him to keep his ******* head. It shouldn’t but it does. Crazy right?

No, not all failures are a result of effort but you could probably trace it back to it. Effort doesn’t just take place when the ball is tossed on game day.

Like it or not, we have an effort issue. We also have a basketball IQ issue.

Edit: Please don't call me sir, I work for a living.

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[Stuhoo 75,677]

Wanna see effort in offense? Here’s some effort… as soon as the ball goes to Trayce or Race, lots of IU players cut toward them. Everyone is moving everywhere!

That Archie offense was an effort factory:

https://www.insidethehall.com/2021/02/04/film-session-illinois-11/

Spacing, matchups, decision making. That’s exactly what it takes on offense.

Mike Woodson knows so so much more about offense than I could ever hope to start to know. When he says these things I listen and try to understand. He says our defense is ahead of the offense BECAUSE he never has to coach effort. 

[Stuhoo 75,677]

8 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

Does it take you effort to keep your composure?

It sure as **** takes X effort, as evidenced by how many games this season? Yes, it takes effort for him to keep his ******* head. It shouldn’t but it does. Crazy right?

No, not all failures are a result of effort but you could probably trace it back to it. Effort doesn’t just take place when the ball is tossed on game day.

Like it or not, we have an effort issue. We also have a basketball IQ issue.



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Nah, to keep my composure it takes discipline.

I could throw a hissy fit effort tantrum with all my might! Arms swinging as fast as I can! Spit flying! Screeeeeeaaaaming as loud as I can!

 

[HoosierAloha 29,897]

I can see you don't like it.

[Stuhoo 75,677]

7 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

I can see you don't like it.

I don’t like “effort offense.”

I like spacing, taking advantage of matchups, great form shooters, ball reversals, great feet and hands, and recognition.

 

[Class of '66 Old Fart 81,082]

Summary of the game by lineups.

https://indianahq.com/indiana-vs-notre-dame-by-the-lineups/

[Dave from Dayton 2,582]

20 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

I don’t like “effort offense.”

I like spacing, taking advantage of matchups, great form shooters, ball reversals, great feet and hands, and recognition.

 

I like a sense of urgency, team play, assists, blocking out, give and go, effective screens, smart play, finishing, minimizing mental errors, great recruiting, in-game adjustments, and coaches wearing suits if that helps us to win.  Not to mention great point guard play.

We are doing better than I had thought we might.  Not as good as I hoped we would do.  Our free throw percentage is up.  Our 3-point shooting is improved.  Our point guard play is better.  TJD and Race are engaged and TJD is going with his other hand.  Defense is generally very decent.  

I just want to continue to see improvement...even when the tougher part of the season hits.  I hope Covid doesn't cause serious damage.  I see IU in the NCAAT!  Low bar but there it is.

And Purdue still sucks.  

[MikeRoberts 6,834]

28 minutes ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

Summary of the game by lineups.

https://indianahq.com/indiana-vs-notre-dame-by-the-lineups/

This is awesome! Yes, can X be out of control, make questionable decisions and shots - yes. But, he is a game changer for us and the stats show that.

he is far and away our best point guard and is an important player to keep on the floor

[Golfman25 4,696]

From what I see Leal is the only one who passes the ball to TJD then cuts through.  Must have done it 4-5 times Saturday.  
 

As for PG, my own opinion is we don’t need the traditional walk the ball up, call the play type.  Rob seems to do that a lot and slows them down.  Go watch some older games, ie; the semi final vs UNLV and tell me we need a traditional point guard.   Grab the rebound and go get into your offense — stop farqing around.  

[HoosierHoopster 6,063]

48 minutes ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

Summary of the game by lineups.

https://indianahq.com/indiana-vs-notre-dame-by-the-lineups/

Yes re Rob with X - those 2 got us clicking, but what the simple plus-minus misses is how much Rob helped in the first when we went down 10 - and this is not to dis X but he was missing on several bad shots during that early play.

Yes also on Race, he’s not only gotten stronger on both ends he’s leading the team in steals

[RaceToTheTop 23,751]

Heard that JG played limited minutes because he was under the weather.  Great to see a guy who can get 4 boards in 4 minutes, though.

[Rico 2,911]

2 minutes ago, brumdog45 said:

Heard that JG played limited minutes because he was under the weather.  Great to see a guy who can get 4 boards in 4 minutes, though.

Lander?

[Class of '66 Old Fart 81,082]

6 minutes ago, Rico said:

Lander?

DNP

[Rico 2,911]

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

DNP

But was he under the weather?

[Stuhoo 75,677]

1 minute ago, Rico said:

But was he under the weather?

His defense has been sickly.