IUBB @ Michigan State - 02/12/22 @ 3:30 on Fox-TV

[DChoosier]

2 hours ago, Hoosierfan2017 said:

We have two guards on our bench who were top 30 recruits, and we have a big on the bench who was a top 75 recruit. Race was top 75 in his class before he reclassified. Geronimo was 105th in his class and Kopp was 115th in his class. 

Here are the conference rankings for our last four classes:

2018 - 2nd

2019 - 6th

2020 - 2nd

2021 - 7th 

Averages out to just over 4th in the conference during that span. 

Our conference finishes during that span:

2018/2019 - 8th

2019/2020 - 10th

2020/2021 - 10th 

2021/2022 - 8th

We don’t recruit at a high enough level right now to be competing for national championships but there’s no reason we can’t be a top 5 team in the conference. We underperform our recruiting. Our problem is that we recruit players who end up underperforming their rankings. In 2018 we chose Hunter and Anderson over Aaron Henry, and Henry happened to be by far the best player of the 3. Lander hasn’t lived up to his 5 star ranking. Duncomb can’t get off the bench. Bates had a good game yesterday but before that he was really struggling. I don’t know if it’s a development issue, an over ranking issue, or a combination of both, but in the conference we finish at a worse level than we recruit at. 

I agree our performance has been substandard, to say the least, but averaging being 4th in the BT over the past 4 years includes 2018 and 2019 each of which we only have one player left. 2018 in particular was rated very high because it included 5 guys and one of them was Romeo but Rob is the only guy left. What we have really missed, the last few classes, is a guy that can get us a bucket, in a variety of ways, in crunch time. Nearly every good team has a guard/wing they can depend on when they need points.

You pointed out that we have 2 highly rated guards on the bench. Bates is showing signs that he can be a multi-faceted guard we need (pre-season I had hoped he would be a starter by now but he certainly has not earned starter minutes).  KL may or may not turn into a BT guard but he is clearly looking like a highly overrated 5 star. Aside from KL every IU 5 star since 2000 started, and played significant minutes, their freshman year.

Guard/wing play has really hurt us this year and in the recent past. Hopefully guard play will get on the right track if Bates develops, Trey continues to improve and JHS is as good as advertised. I really like the fact that JHS is doing well while playing with and against a slew of D1 players. 

[HoosierAloha]

1 hour ago, IUFAN1976 said:

I see your point but the only thing I am saying these players developed some of these habits under the previous coaching regime, I think we’ve got to give CMW and staff time to teach them good habits.  I really feel these things will eventually get fixed, it will take some time.  
 

I can see a guy like TJD have a ball rack on each side, grabbing the balls as fast as possible like he’s on a timer to practice his free throws until he gets to 100 shots, instead of trying to practice a routine, no matter how long it takes to reach a certain percentage.  I am just hypothetically thinking.  Bad habits, no matter what they are, are hard to undo and I think these players don’t look at shooting free throws as fun, stylish, and important. I think they feel it is a chore and something they have to do.  If TJD worked on free throws as hard as he dunks, he would be shooting 80%, lol.

There is plenty of blame to go around and I'm not surprised we'd like to blame someone else. Half of these guys never played a game under the previous regime. P Stew and Kopp consistently over help and leave their shooter wide open, I don't know how we put that one the previous coaches. P Stew and Kopp struggle to rebound or move in general on offense. Was that Archie telling them to stand? Kopp talked about coming to Btown because Woody wanted him to expand his game. That expanded game has led to horrendous shooting to go along with that defense and rebounding. Is that on the previous coaching staff?

Look, I get it. We like Woody, we really really really hope it works out. Although, I constantly call him and the team out I'm hoping like hell that he's the coach to right this drunk ship. The reality is there have been signs for awhile. There should have been progress made. Our offense is worse than ANY.SINGLE.YEAR.UNDER.ARCHIE. Think about talent levels and production and that is concerning. He had to suspend FIVE players halfway through the Big 1.o season. Think about that. Did anything yesterday show you a connected coach and team? There are signs all over the place and we tend to try to bury our head in the sand and hope. That hasn't gotten us very far in this past decade or so.

[HoosierAloha]

1 hour ago, IUFAN1976 said:

I didn’t use the word dynamic, you did.  I just think we’ll have more motion.  I just think TJD is very limited offensively because he can’t or doesn’t shoot more than 3 feet away from the basket and it just slows down the offense.  Yes, CMW should have fixed it, but I still think guys would stand around even if he did.  I think they are waiting for him to make a move and he doesn’t seem to make it fast enough.

Yes, I used the word dynamic. We need to be able to score at all three levels and the FT line more efficiently. If we go full motion I'm all for it. We might actually put pressure on defenses and make them defend. What we're doing now is broke and it's been that way for awhile. Let's hope it can be fixed before we're too bubblicious.

[HoosierAloha]

8 minutes ago, DChoosier said:

I agree our performance has been substandard, to say the least, but averaging being 4th in the BT over the past 4 years includes 2018 and 2019 each of which we only have one player left. 2018 in particular was rated very high because it included 5 guys and one of them was Romeo but Rob is the only guy left. What we have really missed, the last few classes, is a guy that can get us a bucket, in a variety of ways, in crunch time. Nearly every good team has a guard/wing they can depend on when they need points.

You pointed out that we have 2 highly rated guards on the bench. Bates is showing signs that he can be a multi-faceted guard we need (pre-season I had hoped he would be a starter by now but he certainly has not earned starter minutes).  KL may or may not turn into a BT guard but he is clearly looking like a highly overrated 5 star. Aside from KL every IU 5 star since 2000 started, and played significant minutes, their freshman year.

Guard/wing play has really hurt us this year and in the recent past. Hopefully guard play will get on the right track if Bates develops, Trey continues to improve and JHS is as good as advertised. I really like the fact that JHS is doing well while playing with and against a slew of D1 players. 

Agree with this, the only thing I would add is shooting. We're going to be relying on unproven shooters to make jumps in efficiency. It definitely can happen but we'll need to prove it.

[IUFAN1976]

13 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

There is plenty of blame to go around and I'm not surprised we'd like to blame someone else. Half of these guys never played a game under the previous regime. P Stew and Kopp consistently over help and leave their shooter wide open, I don't know how we put that one the previous coaches. P Stew and Kopp struggle to rebound or move in general on offense. Was that Archie telling them to stand? Kopp talked about coming to Btown because Woody wanted him to expand his game. That expanded game has led to horrendous shooting to go along with that defense and rebounding. Is that on the previous coaching staff?

Look, I get it. We like Woody, we really really really hope it works out. Although, I constantly call him and the team out I'm hoping like hell that he's the coach to right this drunk ship. The reality is there have been signs for awhile. There should have been progress made. Our offense is worse than ANY.SINGLE.YEAR.UNDER.ARCHIE. Think about talent levels and production and that is concerning. He had to suspend FIVE players halfway through the Big 1.o season. Think about that. Did anything yesterday show you a connected coach and team? There are signs all over the place and we tend to try to bury our head in the sand and hope. That hasn't gotten us very far in this past decade or so.

Yes, I am really pulling for CMW as we all should be.  I agree, the signs are there but there are other signs too that show improvement.  I think it’s best to let this season play out and hope this so called drunk ship gets steered in the right direction.  I also think we owe him at least  3 years like the previous 2 coaching staffs.  
 

The biggest question, if CMW doesn’t work out, where do we go from here?

[Hoosierfan2017]

28 minutes ago, DChoosier said:

I agree our performance has been substandard, to say the least, but averaging being 4th in the BT over the past 4 years includes 2018 and 2019 each of which we only have one player left. 2018 in particular was rated very high because it included 5 guys and one of them was Romeo but Rob is the only guy left. What we have really missed, the last few classes, is a guy that can get us a bucket, in a variety of ways, in crunch time. Nearly every good team has a guard/wing they can depend on when they need points.

You pointed out that we have 2 highly rated guards on the bench. Bates is showing signs that he can be a multi-faceted guard we need (pre-season I had hoped he would be a starter by now but he certainly has not earned starter minutes).  KL may or may not turn into a BT guard but he is clearly looking like a highly overrated 5 star. Aside from KL every IU 5 star since 2000 started, and played significant minutes, their freshman year.

Guard/wing play has really hurt us this year and in the recent past. Hopefully guard play will get on the right track if Bates develops, Trey continues to improve and JHS is as good as advertised. I really like the fact that JHS is doing well while playing with and against a slew of D1 players. 

I don’t disagree with you at all that we’re lacking in the talent department. I just think that’s a product of our recruiting classes not working out more than it is the caliber of our recruiting classes. We’ve recruited in the top half of the conference each of the past four years but have then finished in the bottom half of the conference (this year isn’t over yet of course, but we’re currently in the bottom half at 8th place). At least in theory a team with our recruiting classes should be better than it has been, but recruiting rankings are far from perfect. Our starters, in part, consist of three guys ranked outside the top 100 because the guys we have inside the top 100 aren’t where we thought they’d be.

We’re in stark contrast to Wisconsin. Their classes over that span are:

2018: 13th

2019: 14th

2020: 5th

2021: 5th

Their two 5th place classes consisted of one 4 star and four 3 stars (2020) and four 3 stars (2021). I don’t think they have a single top 30 recruit on their team, while we have several. Going back even further, Wisconsin was 10th in 2015, 12th in 2016, and 5th in 2017. We outrecruit them most years and then their teams outperform us on the court. Culture, coaching, player improvements, roster fit. All those things go into it. 

[IUFAN1976]

18 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

Yes, I used the word dynamic. We need to be able to score at all three levels and the FT line more efficiently. If we go full motion I'm all for it. We might actually put pressure on defenses and make them defend. What we're doing now is broke and it's been that way for awhile. Let's hope it can be fixed before we're too bubblicious.

Honestly, I am very disappointed with our offense.  I did actually think when CMW got the job we would be playing more motion.  I don’t know why we aren’t and only Woody and staff knows.  I personally think it’s a lack of personnel issues.  We have too many 1-Dimensional players offensively and motion offense may not work well with those types of players.  

[DChoosier]

12 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

Agree with this, the only thing I would add is shooting. We're going to be relying on unproven shooters to make jumps in efficiency. It definitely can happen but we'll need to prove it.

Yep, agree that shooting is a huge issue. When I said we have missed having a guy that can get us a bucket at crunch time I was referring to a guard/wing that can shoot from the perimeter and take the ball to the hole.  Our current wing/guards are primarily one dimensional and some of them aren’t doing very well at their one dimension (Kopp shooting as an example).

One guy we haven’t mentioned is Geronimo. He has the tools to be really good in a year or two. Grabs rebounds well out of his “space” and actually has a nice stroke. Just seems as though he needs to improve his ball handling and let the game slow down a bit as he appears a bit hyper/rushed on the offensive side. If he improves, and can be paired with a couple of guys that can shoot, he could turn into a threat.

[HoosierAloha]

1 minute ago, IUFAN1976 said:

Yes, I am really pulling for CMW as we all should be.  I agree, the signs are there but there are other signs too that show improvement.  I think it’s best to let this season play out and hope this so called drunk ship gets steered in the right direction.  I also think we owe him at least  3 years like the previous 2 coaching staffs.  
 

The biggest question, if CMW doesn’t work out, where do we go from here?

I believe this is why people are touchy about criticisms of the team and coach. Where do we go?

We have mostly improved our TOR from the early season. I give huge props to Woody and Co. for getting that straightened out. There are far bigger problems that haven't gotten corrected. Fundamental, basic problems that don't require more talent that have persisted.

[Hovadipo]

I’m failing to see this contingent of fans getting mad about criticisms of the team. I see people disagreeing about which specific parts of the program are in worse spots than others, but I think this realistic victim card is getting really redundant and has been played out. 
 

Maybe I just can’t see reality. 

[HoosierAloha]

4 minutes ago, DChoosier said:

Yep, agree that shooting is a huge issue. When I said we have missed having a guy that can get us a bucket at crunch time I was referring to a guard/wing that can shoot from the perimeter and take the ball to the hole.  Our current wing/guards are primarily one dimensional and some of them aren’t doing very well at their one dimension (Kopp shooting as an example).

One guy we haven’t mentioned is Geronimo. He has the tools to be really good in a year or two. Grabs rebounds well out of his “space” and actually has a nice stroke. Just seems as though he needs to improve his ball handling and let the game slow down a bit as he appears a bit hyper/rushed on the offensive side. If he improves, and can be paired with a couple of guys that can shoot, he could turn into a threat.

We've definitely been lacking that guard/wing that can get buckets. X might be the closest to it but we're not really sure what we'll get from him any given game. When we have so many one dimensional players we should be running good sets that play to their strengths. We don't need to rehash what we're currently doing, most everyone has seen it for awhile.

Geronimo does have all the physical talents you could want. I believe if he would have ended up at a different program he'd be on draft boards and possibly leaving after this year or next.

[Stuhoo]

Just now, Hovadipo said:

I’m failing to see this contingent of fans getting mad about criticisms of the team. I see people disagreeing about which specific parts of the program are in worse spots than others, but I think this realistic victim card is getting really redundant and has been played out. 
 

Maybe I just can’t see reality. 

+1 

I’m not looking at crazy **** on Twitter or Reddit, but on this board the discussion has been really smart and analytical.

Even after a decisive loss I’ve really enjoyed reading the board in the past day.

 

[HoosierAloha]

10 minutes ago, IUFAN1976 said:

Honestly, I am very disappointed with our offense.  I did actually think when CMW got the job we would be playing more motion.  I don’t know why we aren’t and only Woody and staff knows.  I personally think it’s a lack of personnel issues.  We have too many 1-Dimensional players offensively and motion offense may not work well with those types of players.  

When the offense is worse with better players you're doing something wrong. Do you think we'll see more motion in the future? I don't. I think we'll try to get more talent and take advantage of individual match ups. That might work in other major conferences but I don't see that working too well in the Big 1.o.

[Stuhoo]

5 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

When the offense is worse with better players you're doing something wrong. Do you think we'll see more motion in the future? I don't. I think we'll try to get more talent and take advantage of individual match ups. That might work in other major conferences but I don't see that working too well in the Big 1.o.

I completely agree with this, except for the conclusion.

Woody is an NBA guy, and has stated that exploiting matchups is a big part of what he likes to do. We will need more talent to do that.

If (and that’s the big if) our talent level rises, I see no reason why the B1G is so unique that this couldn’t work.

[Uspshoosier]

Speaking of talent and IU compared to the top of the B1G teams it’s not a pretty statistic that I forced myself to look up 

IU wins against the top 5 B1G finishers each year 

2017- Creans last year- 0

2018-0

2019-3 

2020-2

2021-2

Present team- 2 so far 

if I extended it to top 7 I’m sure it looks better but just doing top 5 doesn’t look good 

[WayneFleekHoosier]

1 hour ago, Uspshoosier said:

Speaking of talent and IU compared to the top of the B1G teams it’s not a pretty statistic that I forced myself to look up 

IU wins against the top 5 B1G finishers each year 

2017- Creans last year- 0

2018-0

2019-3 

2020-2

2021-2

Present team- 2 so far 

if I extended it to top 7 I’m sure it looks better but just doing top 5 doesn’t look good 

Good research. It’s hard to find things to like about IUBB over the last long stretch of time.  The Woodson offensive ineptitude has me so down on this team, making it way worse than our record. 

[HoosierAloha]

50 minutes ago, WayneFleekHoosier said:

Good research. It’s hard to find things to like about IUBB over the last long stretch of time.  The Woodson offensive ineptitude has me so down on this team, making it way worse than our record. 

I think our record is indicative of its SOS. We're an average team that have won a few against better teams and lost several we probably shouldn't have. If we played a similar schedule as last season I'm not sure the record would look all that different, maybe a few more wins than last season.

[Brass Cannon]

50 minutes ago, WayneFleekHoosier said:

Good research. It’s hard to find things to like about IUBB over the last long stretch of time.  The Woodson offensive ineptitude has me so down on this team, making it way worse than our record. 

Yeah and things won’t change unless we strike gold this off-season in transfers.   If we don’t we have another down year which then creates the self fulfilling prophecy that Archie ran into. Modern college athletics you can’t spend 3 years “figuring it out”

[Whoozhers]

Clank. Donk. Dink. Brick. Off the heel. Air balls. Off balance out of control throw up prayers in the lane. Last I knew…
To win…. The ball has to go in the bucket.
It ain’t happening.
Disheartening.


Sent from my iPad using BtownBanners

[IUFAN1976]

2 hours ago, HoosierAloha said:

I believe this is why people are touchy about criticisms of the team and coach. Where do we go?

We have mostly improved our TOR from the early season. I give huge props to Woody and Co. for getting that straightened out. There are far bigger problems that haven't gotten corrected. Fundamental, basic problems that don't require more talent that have persisted.

I think the offense is the biggest problem.  We all would like to see more movement/motion.  I was hoping we would have a motion offense by now but I don’t think it’s going to happen and here is why.  We all agree we have a personnel problem.  This roster is poorly put together because we have way too many 1-dimensional players. To play a motion offense like Knight did, you have to have at least 4 players who can score from multiple places on the court and sometimes on the move, like with a shot fake and do a couple dribbles and pull up.  Who on this team can do that consistently?  Several have tried but haven’t been successful.  Of the 13 scholarship players, I would say a handful can do it in this team and some that can do that have trouble on the defensive end.  So that’s where we are with this team, as frustrating as it is!