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IU_FanClub

Serious Question

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2 hours ago, MikeRoberts said:

I don’t think you meant to misconstrue stats but you are not comparing apples to apples at all. You are comparing the entirety of last season which included the bigten gauntlet to our mostly cupcake pre-conference schedule from this year.

yea, our stats vs Marshall and Norhtern Kentucky are going to look better than our stats against Michigan State and Purdue. The fact that we are only 1/3 of the way through the rough part of our schedule makes that comparison really not a good one.

see how all those stats look in a few months

Which is why I said we’re only 6 games into conference — but don’t be disingenuous. You think our stats at the same point aren’t clearly better? Go ahead snd look. It’s easy to sit back and complain and only talk about things that go wrong, or when individual players mess up. But that’s obviously not the whole story. My issue is with pretending it is, or failing to see the obvious improvements, let alone failing to acknowledge we’re half way into Woodson’s 1st year with a team he mostly didn’t put together.

I don’t know what to say to people who just can’t see the obvious improvements, other than to point out some stats. Stats don’t lie.

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My issue is with pretending it is, or failing to see the obvious improvements, let alone failing to acknowledge we’re half way into Woodson’s 1st year with a team he mostly didn’t put together.

Our defense is better than last season. How much better is yet to be seen as we’re comparing one season (last) that had fewer but more difficult noncon games to a season (current) in which we played more and easier noncon games with a relatively easy start to the conference season.

The issue I have is what I quoted. Woody recruited the returning players hard, right? Woody went out and got X, Kopp, and Durr in free agency. Woody landed Bates after he opened his recruitment.

We took shots at Goodman and others questioning whether he could recruit, bragging about how easy it was for Woody to get who he wanted. Now, we’re struggling to improve on some fundamental parts of the game so we’re going to excuse it by saying it’s a team he didn’t put together. That doesn’t seem accurate for how we conducted ourselves during free agency.

This is one of many reasons opposing fan bases and talking heads take shots at IU.

Goodman is a dumbass that should be given as much **** as possible.


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This team won't win close games away from home consistently with the current PG situation.  I'm not expecting anything to change until that changes.  

I'm not expecting much from the remainder of the season.  .500 in Big 10 and bubble status sounds about right.  Which is unfortunate because with a good PG this team could contend for the Big 10 title.  That's the difference.  

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8 hours ago, HoosierAloha said:


Our defense is better than last season. How much better is yet to be seen as we’re comparing one season (last) that had fewer but more difficult noncon games to a season (current) in which we played more and easier noncon games with a relatively easy start to the conference season.

The issue I have is what I quoted. Woody recruited the returning players hard, right? Woody went out and got X, Kopp, and Durr in free agency. Woody landed Bates after he opened his recruitment.

We took shots at Goodman and others questioning whether he could recruit, bragging about how easy it was for Woody to get who he wanted. Now, we’re struggling to improve on some fundamental parts of the game so we’re going to excuse it by saying it’s a team he didn’t put together. That doesn’t seem accurate for how we conducted ourselves during free agency.

This is one of many reasons opposing fan bases and talking heads take shots at IU.

Goodman is a dumbass that should be given as much **** as possible.


Sent from my iPhone using BtownBanners mobile app

We agree  that Goodman is a dumbass!

Fair that the season is ongoing - but disagree that the improvements we do see, including D (which is so different from that terrible pac line it shouldn’t need stating) aren’t really obvious because of the schedule. Come on now, pac line? Close outs? Night and day.

Yes, Woodson brought in the transfers and they were some of the better transfers available. What is really holding this team back is point guard play, and X helps, but he’s a stop gap. We’ve continued recruiting pg’s. Woodson went out to get transfers to better our forgotten outside game, Stew is a terrific outside shooter and Kopp is clearly solid. No, they’re not themselves the end all, but yeah, they have helped our perimeter game. 
Bates? He’s an outstanding addition. He’s an excellent two way player who can score from 3 positions. He’s half way through his frosh year, i’m very high on his upside. 
And yes, I’m high on how Woodson’s recruiting has started. How it continues definitely remains to be seen and is key, but I don’t see any reason for concern there at this point 

 

 

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15 hours ago, HoosierAloha said:


It always feels like we’re more talented than Wiscy. However, they have had a system and culture. They recruit to that system and culture. They almost always get the most out of their talent.


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We will, give CMW.  It’s his first year with a roster with holdovers from the previous coaching staff.  Also, it will take time to change the culture.  We should expect to make tournament but anything above that will be a bonus, IMO.

And yes, we have a more talented roster than Syracuse, Wisky, Penn State and possibly Iowa.  

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17 minutes ago, HoosierHoopster said:

We agree  that Goodman is a dumbass!

Fair that the season is ongoing - but disagree that the improvements we do see, including D (which is so different from that terrible pac line it shouldn’t need stating) aren’t really obvious because of the schedule. Come on now, pac line? Close outs? Night and day.

Yes, Woodson brought in the transfers and they were some of the better transfers available. What is really holding this team back is point guard play, and X helps, but he’s a stop gap. We’ve continued recruiting pg’s. Woodson went out to get transfers to better our forgotten outside game, Stew is a terrific outside shooter and Kopp is clearly solid. No, they’re not themselves the end all, but yeah, they have helped our perimeter game. 
Bates? He’s an outstanding addition. He’s an excellent two way player who can score from 3 positions. He’s half way through his frosh year, i’m very high on his upside. 
And yes, I’m high on how Woodson’s recruiting has started. How it continues definitely remains to be seen and is key, but I don’t see any reason for concern there at this point 

 

 

I agree with everything you said.  He had to recruit the existing players so he’s not having to totally revamp the roster.  The main problem is these players played for and recruited by the previous coaching staff with that type of culture and playing habits embedded in them.  Not only is CMW trying to undo all that, he is trying to install good fundamentals, his culture and playing habits on the way he wants them to play.  The D seems better, we had 3 games in a row with less than 10 turnovers before we had a setback at Iowa, our 3 point shooting has improved, and I think team leadership has improved.  The only thing that hasn’t seem to improve from the previous coaching staff is free throw shooting and I think that will improve too, maybe not this year but it will improve.  We just need to be patient and give him at least 3 full years.  I think he has done an admirable job so far.  I don’t know what everyone was expecting but I think those expectations were slightly too high.

I think the only expectations we should have is making the tournament this year, anything else above that is a bonus!

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1 hour ago, Five Prime said:

This team won't win close games away from home consistently with the current PG situation.  I'm not expecting anything to change until that changes.  

I'm not expecting much from the remainder of the season.  .500 in Big 10 and bubble status sounds about right.  Which is unfortunate because with a good PG this team could contend for the Big 10 title.  That's the difference.  

Pretty simple! My wife barely watches the games, but she even said "our point guards are killing us".

 

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43 minutes ago, NOLA Hoosier said:

That’s exactly what I was gonna say

It's pretty simple. No reason to over analyze what our problems are. The pg is the most important position in basketball, and we have mediocre/bad pg play. 

Woody went out and recruited 2 potentially good to great pg's. I'll wait to start over analyzing our staff and play, until we get a conductor to drive the train.

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On 1/14/2022 at 11:00 AM, IU_FanClub said:

Obviously it's no secret that IU fans are about as passionate as it gets. My question is why do we as a fanbase have to lose our heads and act like the season is over after every loss? Did we play well last night? No of course not. Do we have issues on the road? Definitely. But we're 12-4 and the issues are clearly fixable. Why can't we just enjoy the ups and downs of the season and ride with the team instead of questioning the very existence of the program after every bad game? This team is very close to being very good and for as bad as we've played in some of these road games we've had chances to win every single one of them. It's completely reasonable to think they can fix some of the issues and get some real momentum going here. We got a big week ahead of us let's enjoy the season Go Hoosiers!

It can get really predictably annoying to the nth degree to read the "fire woodson," "fie on x, and y, and z too while we are at it," "we'll never amount to anything good" posts that follow every loss.  It's almost like a fan team exercise now to become hyperbolically negative after IU losses and to compete with other IU fans to see who can be the most consistently and/or creatively negative fan, sometimes even just repeating the same negative points over and over like unpaid negative campaign ads in loops lol. Some posts appear to be arbitrarily cut and pasted into threads both randomly and also with carefully deliberate purpose as well hahaha. I'm not even sure if many of these posts are a sickness or a cure, or both, or neither anymore.

Thanks for bringing this point up. I think the point is worth pondering at times, especially in the third week of January when months of lack of proper levels of natural sunlight can take their toll on the psyche of even the mentally strongest of fans in the community of fans lol.

 

 

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1 hour ago, jk34 said:

A point guard!

If that point guard could do a lot of other things outside of being a point guard I would agree. It also depends on the level of success we're talking. A top notch point guard would move us into a surefire tourney team and upper-middle Big 1.o finish. However, I believe we're still missing the following: (in order of need)

A point guard, as you mentioned

An all around wing that can get to the rim, shoot at a high level, create for himself and for others, and be a lockdown defender. (Think something like Oladipo, think Bates will eventually be this)

A stretch 4, big wing, that can shoot at a high level, post up on smaller wings, and switch to defend smaller wings and possibly opposing point guards. (think athletic Watford, think Geronimo can develop here)

A long backup big that could spell TJD for 10 minutes a game. He runs the floor and defends the rim. (not on roster)

We absolutely have pieces and role players but we're far from being anything more than middle of the pack in the Big 1.o. The pieces we have outside of TJD have exploitable weaknesses in their game that most good coaches will attack if they have the pieces. We saw in the Minny game where they didn't have the players and chose to go all in defending the post, hoping we were cold from outside. We'll need to hit big in the transfer portal and/or hope Bates/Geronimo develop a lot in the off-season.

I know it's not popular because we'd like to think we're much closer but we have a ways to go. I would love to be wrong and watch IU contend for a Big 1.o championship, high seed, and deep tourney run next season.

 

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2 hours ago, HoosierHoopster said:

We agree  that Goodman is a dumbass!

Fair that the season is ongoing - but disagree that the improvements we do see, including D (which is so different from that terrible pac line it shouldn’t need stating) aren’t really obvious because of the schedule. Come on now, pac line? Close outs? Night and day.

Yes, Woodson brought in the transfers and they were some of the better transfers available. What is really holding this team back is point guard play, and X helps, but he’s a stop gap. We’ve continued recruiting pg’s. Woodson went out to get transfers to better our forgotten outside game, Stew is a terrific outside shooter and Kopp is clearly solid. No, they’re not themselves the end all, but yeah, they have helped our perimeter game. 
Bates? He’s an outstanding addition. He’s an excellent two way player who can score from 3 positions. He’s half way through his frosh year, i’m very high on his upside. 
And yes, I’m high on how Woodson’s recruiting has started. How it continues definitely remains to be seen and is key, but I don’t see any reason for concern there at this point 

 

 

I'm completely agreeing it's better. TJD is in better shape and he's sending fools away when they get to the paint. We are doing a better job closing out and not leaving shooters wide open, especially more recently. However, we have had our issues with giving up threes.

- Syracuse watched the Marshall (I believe) film and saw they could high ball screen us to death. We decided to drop TJD in the high ball screen and they hit over and over. It felt like they hit 50 but it was probably only like 3-4. However, they did get other clean looks when they slipped that screen and we collapsed, kicking it to shooters on the wing. We also gave up plenty of easy dunks and layups out of that action. We didn't correct this for a full 50 minutes!! They hit a good enough percentage on high volume from three to beat us.

- We looked uninterested in working for a win @ psu. They moved the ball and got open look after open look. They hit 50% from deep with most of those shots being wide open. The only way psu was going to beat us was lighting us up from deep. We decided too cool for school mode would be enough to win that game until it wasn't.

We've been much better about getting out to shooters but we need to be a lot better. Night and day better? We're not there, yet. The other issue is offensive rebound rate to actually close out the defensive possessions. I don't know the exact numbers but the eye test will tell you we were HORRIBLE at Iowa and probably not much better at psu.

I think Bates has a bright future, too. However, he's not helping us win games right now. How much time he puts in over the off-season will determine how good he will be. He has more personal responsibilities that he'll have to balance. We'll see what he becomes.

P Stew has been a shooter we've lacked in recent years and him going to the rim at Iowa was a welcome sight. However, watch when he attempts to defend. He bends at the waist and reaches with his hands. He's not close to being a good defender and continues to get beat. Minny abused him and got to the rim.

Kopp can shoot but he has had a penchant to turn it over by dribbling when closed out on.

X has the fire and passion but no direction. He goes off the rails too quickly.

The crazy thing is all of these players have skills that can contribute and a lack of skills that can hinder. They need to be put in better position to excel. X hasn't been reigned in, P Stew hasn't been taught a proper defensive stance, and Kopp needs to cutout the dribbling. They all could have better stuff run for them to get them the shots in the spots that they're best from. Kopp was so stoked to sign at Indiana so he could show off his expanded game, that hasn't helped him or IU. Crazy!

I think Woody can get this program back on steady ground. However, I'm concerned when I see things happening over and over again. Some of it is personnel issues but a lot is just putting players in the best position for them and for us to win.

We'll see how his recruiting pans out. I know as fans we'll continue to hype up most every recruit and call out those talking heads when they don't like our recruits as much as we do or when they have us in the middle to lower-middle of the Big 1.o in their pre-season rankings.

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15 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

I'm completely agreeing it's better. TJD is in better shape and he's sending fools away when they get to the paint. We are doing a better job closing out and not leaving shooters wide open, especially more recently. However, we have had our issues with giving up threes.

- Syracuse watched the Marshall (I believe) film and saw they could high ball screen us to death. We decided to drop TJD in the high ball screen and they hit over and over. It felt like they hit 50 but it was probably only like 3-4. However, they did get other clean looks when they slipped that screen and we collapsed, kicking it to shooters on the wing. We also gave up plenty of easy dunks and layups out of that action. We didn't correct this for a full 50 minutes!! They hit a good enough percentage on high volume from three to beat us.

- We looked uninterested in working for a win @ psu. They moved the ball and got open look after open look. They hit 50% from deep with most of those shots being wide open. The only way psu was going to beat us was lighting us up from deep. We decided too cool for school mode would be enough to win that game until it wasn't.

We've been much better about getting out to shooters but we need to be a lot better. Night and day better? We're not there, yet. The other issue is offensive rebound rate to actually close out the defensive possessions. I don't know the exact numbers but the eye test will tell you we were HORRIBLE at Iowa and probably not much better at psu.

I think Bates has a bright future, too. However, he's not helping us win games right now. How much time he puts in over the off-season will determine how good he will be. He has more personal responsibilities that he'll have to balance. We'll see what he becomes.

P Stew has been a shooter we've lacked in recent years and him going to the rim at Iowa was a welcome sight. However, watch when he attempts to defend. He bends at the waist and reaches with his hands. He's not close to being a good defender and continues to get beat. Minny abused him and got to the rim.

Kopp can shoot but he has had a penchant to turn it over by dribbling when closed out on.

X has the fire and passion but no direction. He goes off the rails too quickly.

The crazy thing is all of these players have skills that can contribute and a lack of skills that can hinder. They need to be put in better position to excel. X hasn't been reigned in, P Stew hasn't been taught a proper defensive stance, and Kopp needs to cutout the dribbling. They all could have better stuff run for them to get them the shots in the spots that they're best from. Kopp was so stoked to sign at Indiana so he could show off his expanded game, that hasn't helped him or IU. Crazy!

I think Woody can get this program back on steady ground. However, I'm concerned when I see things happening over and over again. Some of it is personnel issues but a lot is just putting players in the best position for them and for us to win.

We'll see how his recruiting pans out. I know as fans we'll continue to hype up most every recruit and call out those talking heads when they don't like our recruits as much as we do or when they have us in the middle to lower-middle of the Big 1.o in their pre-season rankings.

In summary—lack of a complete player or two. For sure.

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8 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

In summary—lack of a complete player or two. For sure.

At least, we have some one dimensional players that do that one thing well. P Stew - shooting, Race - garbage man (meant in the best way possible), Phin - defender, etc. On an elite team, those are all role or rotational pieces.

Something I hope we have with Woody is that we become a development program. Race could be an All-America type player with a 3PT% of 36+. Trayce would be a double-double machine and unstoppable with a decent jumper, right hand, and a high motor.

I'm really watching for the development of Geronimo and Bates over the next few years. They could be All-Big 1.o first teamers with development, they have the physical attributes.

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13 hours ago, HoosierHoopster said:

Which is why I said we’re only 6 games into conference — but don’t be disingenuous. You think our stats at the same point aren’t clearly better? Go ahead snd look. It’s easy to sit back and complain and only talk about things that go wrong, or when individual players mess up. But that’s obviously not the whole story. My issue is with pretending it is, or failing to see the obvious improvements, let alone failing to acknowledge we’re half way into Woodson’s 1st year with a team he mostly didn’t put together.

I don’t know what to say to people who just can’t see the obvious improvements, other than to point out some stats. Stats don’t lie.

Stats do lie when you position them in the way you do!

You cannot compare the whole season’s stats from last year vs the cupcake start to the year we’ve played thus far but yet you are and coming to the conclusion that “so far we're clearly improved -- so yeah, to me those are pretty obvious reasons to see we're getting better.

you cherry picked stats that are incomparable and came to a false conclusion based on those. 

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19 hours ago, HoosierHoopster said:

I think we're watching the same team.... But seems like we look at different things during the games or just see the same things differently.

So, we're clearly better defensively, since we're one of the best defensive teams in D1 as of right now, right? And with mostly the same guys -- to me, that says a lot about what Woodson and staff have already done to improve the team.

But take a minute to compare offensive stats to date

#1 is 2020-21, #2 is this year's team

Points: #1 69.7 (218th)  / #2 74.9 (116th)

2PT% #1 48.5 (239th) / #2 54.6 (60th)

3PT% #1 32.4 (243rd) / #2 34.8 (134th)

FT% #1 66.5 (299th) / #2 68.1 (262nd)

Assists #1 13.9 (119th) / #2 15.8 (54th)

Offensive boards #1 9 (227th) / #2 9.6 (211)

So, we're better in basically every offensive category as a team - so far, on stats. We're only 6 games into conference play so we'll have to see how things continue, but so far we're clearly improved -- so yeah, to me those are pretty obvious reasons to see we're getting better.

I definitely see some of the same issues -- the TO's remain a real issue (currently averaging 14.4). But then until @Iowa we were showing real improvement -- last 3 games: 13, 9, 6. The continuing losses on the road are really frustrating. What I see is a team that doesn't yet have the confidence on the road - I don't see a bad team, and we had the chance to win all of those road game, this last one being by far the worst fall off in the second half -- but Iowa is one of the best offensive teams in the country and playing at home.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/indiana/2021.html

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/indiana/2022.html

 

Is this comparing IU last year at this point in the season to IU this year to date? Or last year as a whole compared to where we’re at now this season? Because if it’s the latter, that’s a pretty disingenuous comparison. Our non conference this year was a joke and we’ve only played 6 games in the Big Ten. Last year we played 7 non conference games. 20 of 27 games were conference games. We played 2 cupcakes all year. The rest of the non conference was Texas, Stanford, Providence, Florida State, and Butler. You absolutely cannot say “we’re better in basically every offensive category” when we’ve just begun playing legitimate basketball teams this year.

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