Point Guard Play: 2021-22

[cthomas]

3 hours ago, Hoosierfan2017 said:

Players aren’t going to sit around and ride the bench when they can transfer elsewhere and play immediately. It’s obvious how low Woody thinks of him, so not a surprise that he isn’t going to be sticking around

I think CMW is pretty much spot on with his evaluation of the team. He sees them every day in practice and knows more about them than any of us. If a kid is not playing, then there is an overwhelming chance that they bring less to the table than who is playing. That we are recruiting multiple point guards tells me that he thinks we need an upgrade. I never thought it was in Lander's best interest to reclassify. He has potential but until his play exceeds those who are playing, he will stay on the bench. And I don't believe you play guys who haven't earned it in practice just to "develop" them.

[Hoosierfanyuh]

A third pg barely plays for most teams, he knew he was about to be playing under two senior pgs. I think yall are just worrying to worry at this point. 

[Alford Bailey]

59 minutes ago, go iu bb said:

He isn't basically a freshman. He's now a sophomore making freshman mistakes. Just because he could've played another year in HS and have been a freshman this year doesn't mean he's a freshman because he didn't do that. He's technically a freshman in eligibility but he still has a year of game experience behind him so that is better even than a typical redshirt. The improvement you see is because he did come early, not in spite of it. If he hadn't come early we'd be seeing last year's Lander instead of this years.

I hope he stays and continues to improve. The problem I see is that now it's two coaching staffs who would rather play Phinisee ahead of him and, quite frankly, Phinisee isn't very good. He plays good defense but his shooting is terrible at all distances and the offense often stalls when he's in control. Yet Miller and now Woodson think Phinisee gives them the best chance to win now. Not Lander. 

He didn't make the sophomore leap. Hopefully, he'll make one before his junior season and he's still a Hoosier when he does.

I mean it’s as simple as that. There is no conspiracy to keep Lander on the bench. He simply isn’t good enough to play at this level.

[IU - Kaulie]

2 hours ago, Hoosierfan2017 said:

They don’t like his defense so they’ve decided not to play him at all, even though Rob is probably worse on offense than Khristian is at defense. A 6’1 point guard who shoots 25% from the field and 40% from the free throw line is not exactly what you want. 

I’ve seen enough questionable things from the staff to not default to “Woody knows best” on every decision that he makes, and this is one that makes absolutely no sense to me. Lander has four DNPs this season in eleven games. He had one DNP all of last year. 

Rob Phinisee gets held to astronomically low standards, much lower standards than Lander despite Rob being the senior. He goes 2-8 on Saturday and people talk about how great he played. If he doesn’t go out and trip over himself he gets praised. We’ve been hearing about how he “just needs to get his confidence back” for about 80 games now.

Not playing Lander at all is a bad decision, and it sounds like it’s going to cost us him. 

It goes a lot farther than defense.  KL often doesn’t get the ball where it’s supposed to go for whatever reason.  I mean you can’t really not feed your All American and and expect to get minutes.  Rob’s shooting leaves a lot to be desired but besides the good defense he plays he gets the ball where it is supposed to go and helps out on the boards.

[Alford Bailey]

If we had good PG play we are undefeated right now. I think that comes next with Hood Schifino

[Alford Bailey]

1 hour ago, IUFAN1976 said:

I thought Phinesee played his best game of the year and better than any last year. Not to mention, he hit a couple timely 3’s, which could boost his confidence!  I think you writing him off like that is too bad.  I think Phinesee is going to keep improving and prove all the fanbase wrong!

GO HOOSIERS!!!

Rob will be 35 yrs old playing in a Wednesday night church league and fans on BTB will still be saying "I think Rob is finally ready to take the next step:.....

[HoosierAloha]

Can he not do both..?

Of course, he could do both and sweep the floor after practice while #LEOing in preparation for Spring practice.

Someone made it sound like he was shadowing Dolson a lot more than watching the team to advise Woody on his PG depth chart. I guess the numbers wouldn’t look quite as impressive though.




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[BGleas]

5 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

Of course, he could do both and sweep the floor after practice while #LEOing in preparation for Spring practice.

Someone made it sound like he was shadowing Dolson a lot more than watching the team to advise Woody on his PG depth chart. I guess the numbers wouldn’t look quite as impressive though.




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I've always heard Woodson say that Matta is in most, if not all of their meetings. 

[IU Scott]

3 hours ago, Hoosierfan2017 said:

Phinisee simply isn’t good enough to justify Lander not playing at all. He just isn’t. We’ve seen what Phinisee is. He’s played 94 college games. He’s a mediocre backup on a mediocre team. He’s shooting worse than he ever has, and he’s never been a good shooter. 

If people think Lander is a bust and shouldn’t play because he sucks then I understand that. I don’t agree with that opinion, but I understand it. However, if people think Lander has talent and a promising future, then I don’t see how those people could think him racking up DNPs is good for him or for the program. His biggest problem is adjusting to the speed of the college game, and you don’t do that on the bench. 

I just don't think he is ready to play big minutes yet. I still think it was a huge mistake for him to reclassify.  Also I bought the hype he was getting as a 5 star player.  I saw him a couple of times and wasn't overly impressed with him.  

 

[IU Scott]

1 hour ago, Alford Bailey said:

I mean it’s as simple as that. There is no conspiracy to keep Lander on the bench. He simply isn’t good enough to play at this level.

No doubt because coaches will not the risk of losing just to make a point.  If Woodson thought Lander gave him the best chance to win then he would be playing.

[RaceToTheTop]

3 hours ago, Hoosierfan2017 said:

Phinisee simply isn’t good enough to justify Lander not playing at all. He just isn’t. We’ve seen what Phinisee is. He’s played 94 college games. He’s a mediocre backup on a mediocre team. He’s shooting worse than he ever has, and he’s never been a good shooter. 

If people think Lander is a bust and shouldn’t play because he sucks then I understand that. I don’t agree with that opinion, but I understand it. However, if people think Lander has talent and a promising future, then I don’t see how those people could think him racking up DNPs is good for him or for the program. His biggest problem is adjusting to the speed of the college game, and you don’t do that on the bench. 

I think it's important to note where the DNPs are getting racked up:  a 4 point game, a 5 point game, an 8 point game, and a 13 point game that was a 7 point game with 5 minutes left.  If the staff feels that he puts the team at risk when playing in a close game, it doesn't do the program much good to potentially lose more games and miss the tourney.

[RaceToTheTop]

1 hour ago, Alford Bailey said:

If we had good PG play we are undefeated right now. I think that comes next with Hood Schifino

Unfortunately we could be saying at this time next year 'the only thing that is keeping us from being undefeated right now is good post play'.

[IU Scott]

Since I am in my vehicle most of the he day working I listen to a lot of sports talk.  Found the Doug Gottlieb show and they were having a discussion similar that we were having about the transfer portal.  They were talking about kids not fighting through adversity and in the long run will hurt them once they are in the real world.  Also talking about how all the transfers is making for some bad basketball especially on the offensive end.

I then listened to the IU coaches show.  Woodson was out recruiting so Fife wad on there instead.  They were talking about how hard it is to implement an offensive system with so many new players.  Fife said it is hard enough for a team to jell with 1 newcomer to the lineup let alone 5-6.  He said he had been talking to a lot of assistants around the country about how bad the offenses has been this year.  Most of them blames a lot of it on so many new players in a program.

[HoosierAloha]

3 hours ago, Hovadipo said:

Can he not do both..?

 

55 minutes ago, BGleas said:

I've always heard Woodson say that Matta is in most, if not all of their meetings. 

On 12/9/2021 at 3:28 PM, Chris007 said:

Not to be hard on the kid but I hope I'm not right, hope he makes strides and helps us on the road this year.

 

I think people are confused with what Matta is doing. We don't have the Ohio St Matta. He is helping with scheduling, watching tapes of recruits, and some things like that. Yes, he sits in on the basketball meetings but I don't think he's being leaned on for the help of this team. He's learning how to be an AD, that is the goal is for him to take over as the next AD at Butler. After getting sick last week, I don't think he even traveled to the game last night.  

[Hovadipo]

7 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

 

I find it incredibly hard to believe one of the winningest coaches ever in the Big Ten is sitting in on basketball meetings and not giving any input on things. Not even sure what the argument is here. 

[Hoosierfan2017]

38 minutes ago, brumdog45 said:

I think it's important to note where the DNPs are getting racked up:  a 4 point game, a 5 point game, an 8 point game, and a 13 point game that was a 7 point game with 5 minutes left.  If the staff feels that he puts the team at risk when playing in a close game, it doesn't do the program much good to potentially lose more games and miss the tourney.

He played in close games against St. John’s and Syracuse. He was a -1 against St John’s and a +1 against Syracuse. I don’t think he’s done anything to put the team at risk that other players haven’t done either. We were up 20 on EMU but then we’re only up 1 with two minutes left. We were up 22 on Wisconsin and then scored 17 points in the second half. Lander didn’t play at all in either game. The team hasn’t cratered when we’ve played him in close games. Maybe the staff doesn’t trust him in close games, I don’t know. I don’t think there’s a player on our team who I trust in close game situations, so lander doesn’t really stick out to me in that regard. 

[HoosierAloha]

17 minutes ago, Hovadipo said:

I find it incredibly hard to believe one of the winningest coaches ever in the Big Ten is sitting in on basketball meetings and not giving any input on things. Not even sure what the argument is here. 

Where was the argument?

I was regurgitating what (I thought) Chris had posted about Matta not really being that involved with the basketball program. That takes away about half the college coaching experience, not that it really matters. It's nice to have the experience (and numbers) when you need them though.

Interesting to see who replied too.

[RaceToTheTop]

14 minutes ago, Hoosierfan2017 said:

He played in close games against St. John’s and Syracuse. He was a -1 against St John’s and a +1 against Syracuse. I don’t think he’s done anything to put the team at risk that other players haven’t done either. We were up 20 on EMU but then we’re only up 1 with two minutes left. We were up 22 on Wisconsin and then scored 17 points in the second half. Lander didn’t play at all in either game. The team hasn’t cratered when we’ve played him in close games. Maybe the staff doesn’t trust him in close games, I don’t know. I don’t think there’s a player on our team who I trust in close game situations, so lander doesn’t really stick out to me in that regard. 

Important to note that in Syracuse he didn't play until both X and Phin fouled out.  Against St. John's X was in foul trouble and was limited to 19 minutes and I think more than anything most of his time he got against St. John's was when X was on the bench with foul trouble and they were getting Phinisee a rest.  He's played mostly out of necessity in close games, not because he was really the option they were looking for.  

Whether you or I think Lander should be trusted in close games is irrelevant in what the staff thinks.  And I think it's pretty obvious they do not trust him in close games.

 

[Hovadipo]

12 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

Interesting to see who replied too.

Why is that?

[Hoosierfan2017]

3 minutes ago, brumdog45 said:

Important to note that in Syracuse he didn't play until both X and Phin fouled out.  Against St. John's X was in foul trouble and was limited to 19 minutes and I think more than anything most of his time he got against St. John's was when X was on the bench with foul trouble and they were getting Phinisee a rest.  He's played mostly out of necessity in close games, not because he was really the option they were looking for.  

Whether you or I think Lander should be trusted in close games is irrelevant in what the staff thinks.  And I think it's pretty obvious they do not trust him in close games.

 

I didn’t mention those games to counter your argument that they don’t trust him in close games. They don’t seem to trust him at all for whatever reason. I just mentioned those games because he’s had to play in close games and did fine in them despite being thrown in cold. So I just can’t really see that as being the reason why he’s piled up the DNPs. There have been opportunities to play him when we have big leads too but he doesn’t play then either. Woody doesn’t seem to have any interest in developing him. Oh well.