Intangibles

[HoosierAloha]

The season came crashing down in the first round of the tourney against Saint Mary's. Players and staff have returned home for their rest, grades have been handed out, and discussion of next season's roster has begun. There has been much debate about offense, defense, player abilities, coaching abilities, schedules, etc. throughout the season. From my unpopular perspective, we rarely reached our potential and never really seemed to become a better sum of our parts (i.e. Trayce and some others).

What intangibles do you attribute to this and what needs to change for this program to be in the upper tier of the Big 1.o and compete nationally?

[RoadRage]

We need shooters! Watching the tournament so far, the teams advancing have great shooters. A lot of these great shooters were not even heavily recruited...so I guess we also need better scouts!

[Hovadipo]

We need to put the NIL in intangible. 

[Stuhoo]

On 3/19/2022 at 11:34 PM, HoosierAloha said:

The season came crashing down in the first round of the tourney against Saint Mary's. Players and staff have returned home for their rest, grades have been handed out, and discussion of next season's roster has begun. There has been much debate about offense, defense, player abilities, coaching abilities, schedules, etc. throughout the season. From my unpopular perspective, we rarely reached our potential and never really seemed to become a better sum of our parts (i.e. Trayce and some others).

What intangibles do you attribute to this and what needs to change for this program to be in the upper tier of the Big 1.o and compete nationally?

Excellent topic.

I think roster construction was really flawed, and we only have a few players that had the combination of intensity and enough strength to do something with it.

I also think that we needed a MAJOR cultural attitude change. A bunch of us were confused that Gallo got so many minutes early in the season, but the staff saw that at least he had a winning attitude (if not a serviceable jump shot).

I tell ya, Woody has some learning to do about the college game, but the man is honest and truly knows the game. His two constant mantras?

1. We need players who know how to win, and
2. Who play with sauce all the time, not now and then.

Bring me those Monteverde guys and the Ohio and Georgia kids who are grinding for State championships. Jalen Hood-Schifino is a big, big deal with intangibles. So is Galloway’s jump shot- that’s a big gap with a kid that has a winning attitude.

[Stuhoo]

2 minutes ago, Hovadipo said:

We need to put the NIL in intangible. 

You can’t spell intangible without N-I-L

[HoosierAloha]

4 minutes ago, RoadRage said:

We need shooters! Watching the tournament so far, the teams advancing have great shooters. A lot of these great shooters were not even heavily recruited...so I guess we also need better scouts!

Shooters would definitely help and scouts to identify them would be nice but what else? I haven't looked at the numbers but I'm sure many have improved their shooting throughout their career. When was the last time we had a decent shooter turn into a sharpshooter? Why is that?

[Stuhoo]

3 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

Shooters would definitely help and scouts to identify them would be nice but what else? I haven't looked at the numbers but I'm sure many have improved their shooting throughout their career. When was the last time we had a decent shooter turn into a sharpshooter? Why is that?

This. The thread topic is intangibles, not ‘get us a shooter’. While that’s true, this thread is about getting kids with … onions.

[RoadRage]

2 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

This. The thread topic is intangibles, not ‘get us a shooter’. While that’s true, this thread is about getting kids with … onions.

Intangibles and "what needs to change"...what needs to change is recruiting kids that can't shoot!

[RaceToTheTop]

While you don't need complete players to win, it's hard to do so with multiple players than have a fatal flaw.

You don't have to be able to score at three levels, but not being able to score at least on two of them makes you incredibly easy to guard.

X, Geronimo, and Bates and Thompson were probably our only guys who were at least two level scorers (and Bates simply didn't hit shots this year).  Love TJD, but he's a one level.  Very good at that level, but you aren't going to win at the rate you want if there aren't a few multi-faceted players around him.

[RaceToTheTop]

10 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

This. The thread topic is intangibles, not ‘get us a shooter’. While that’s true, this thread is about getting kids with … onions.

Honestly, that's why I'll take players like X.  Accept the warts if the fire is there.  

You can work to mold the focus, but you can't coach a kid to have the desire if it's not there.

[HoosierAloha]

5 minutes ago, RoadRage said:

Intangibles and "what needs to change"...what needs to change is recruiting kids that can't shoot!

We have players that can't shoot! We don't need anymore.

I believe we have players who can shoot. I don't think we put them in the best position to succeed. When I watch teams that have good coaching and a good culture I see players getting to their spot to hit shots. That can come in the form of off ball screens, a dribble or two, or creating their own. How often did we see Kopp get run off the three point line for a few dribbles before he bricked his shot? That's not his shot but he kept taking it. Phin kept doing that long, slow step back three. That's not a high percentage shot. Do our players know where their spots are and do they take the majority of their shots from those spots?

[HoosierAloha]

Just now, brumdog45 said:

Honestly, that's why I'll take players like X.  Accept the warts if the fire is there.  

You can work to mold the focus, but you can't coach a kid to have the desire if it's not there.

Amen! When he didn't force the drive and pulled up around the free throw line it went pretty well. I don't know the percentages there but that was a good shot for him. His three point shot was relatively consistent there for awhile too.

I wish he would have had those bounds placed on him earlier in the year to hone that in quicker. He was all fire and little direction early in the season. I think he had too much leeway early in the season and that resulted in some of our struggles.

[RoadRage]

Indiana is either being out-recruited or under-developing their players! We are getting beat by teams that on paper are not more talented, but they are playing at a higher level...and what makes it even more frustrating is in most cases we are close, but just can't quite get over the hump! Intangibles definitely play a part, but players that possess those intangibles have to be identified and then recruited. Maybe IU puts too much importance the star rating of players, when they should put more importance on effort, determination, scrappiness, and drive?

[HoosierHoopster]

1 hour ago, HoosierAloha said:

Shooters would definitely help and scouts to identify them would be nice but what else? I haven't looked at the numbers but I'm sure many have improved their shooting throughout their career. When was the last time we had a decent shooter turn into a sharpshooter? Why is that?

Easy, Vic. From shooting in the 20’s to the 40’s

[HoosierAloha]

24 minutes ago, RoadRage said:

Indiana is either being out-recruited or under-developing their players! We are getting beat by teams that on paper are not more talented, but they are playing at a higher level...and what makes it even more frustrating is in most cases we are close, but just can't quite get over the hump! Intangibles definitely play a part, but players that possess those intangibles have to be identified and then recruited. Maybe IU puts too much importance the star rating of players, when they should put more importance on effort, determination, scrappiness, and drive?

There is definitely something to this and I believe Fleek alluded to it the other day.

We were pretty good on defense with a few weaknesses. Mainly, over helping and finishing possessions with rebounds. The over helping can get better with better personnel and a little change in scheming. The rebounds should be better with an increase in e and e.

What do we do on offense? Do we recruit to that? If TJD moves on we can't go post and pray to the same extent next season so it'll have to change. We need a modern offense and recruit players to it. I don't think we can win at a high level with the type of offense we ran this season. I would love a team full of scrappy, determined, and full on e players. When your leaders demonstrate that the rest will come along.

[HoosierAloha]

3 minutes ago, HoosierHoopster said:

Easy, Vic. From shooting in the 20’s to the 40’s

So one player 10 years ago? Who else?

[IU - Kaulie]

We have to recruit kids that love basketball.  We need kids that are willing to put in the work and put the time in to get better.  Those kids are not hard to find.  Stars are nice but they don’t mean everything.  I think we have at least two on the roster and those kids are the ones that need to use their voices to lead and challenge their teammates to put in the work with them.  We can’t have our biggest voice talk multiple times about fixing the holes in his game but their be no evidence that it’s being developed.  
 

This is a different staff so we will see what happens during the off-season.  It seems like over the past several seasons their have been small improvements skill wise with our players.  Their have been more noticeable physical/athletic improvements but not basketball skill development.  I’m tired of seeing or hearing about players from other teams that have taken a big jump in their development. When is the last time we have had that?

 

[Honkyman]

No one during the Archie Miller era that stands out. OG Abunoby made a big jump from the time he landed at IU until the time he left. 

[RaceToTheTop]

6 hours ago, HoosierAloha said:

So one player 10 years ago? Who else?

Durham.  Don’t know what happened to his stroke at providence this year but he went 29/34/38/38 with increasing volume.  Not a sharpshooter but most definitely a guy who turned into someone you had to defend on the perimeter.

Armaan Franklin went from 27% to 42% with increased volume.  Again don’t know what happened to his stroke after he left.

[Honkyman]

Durham? Maybe. Too often he was a liability in the clutch. Parker Stewart shot 39% from 3-point range this year but never seemed like much of an asset. Improvement implies more than just statistics. So a player's numbers improved. The better question is did that player significantly improve the team's play.