How does the crow taste?

[Chris007 42,284]

27 minutes ago, woodenshoemanHoosierfan said:

Strictly my opinion, but I really feel that when Race went down, it took the rest of the team down mentally. Especially since it happened after XJ went down.

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk
 

I totally agree. You also had JG going from spot minutes to starter minutes. You had JHS being the sole PG instead of sharing duties. There are going to be mistakes made and things we have to learn from. 

[HoosierHoopster 6,065]

20 minutes ago, woodenshoemanHoosierfan said:

Strictly my opinion, but I really feel that when Race went down, it took the rest of the team down mentally. Especially since it happened after XJ went down.

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk
 

This and it took the guys time to find (in addition to their mojo) timing and chemistry without both Race and X -- I was then in the camp that thought we were largely lost without those two. Woodson stuck with JG in the starting group while he looked lost and wasn't impactful over the first 3 of those games, had the sit down with him, JG got focused on film and just playing without overthinking, and then we had 3 in a row with him playing strong and complimenting TJD (in my view, better than Race, and the front court D and scoring was simply better), and Malik continued to improve on limiting his fouls and play within the offense and he's now looking like the 5-star that he is.

The team was down, but then ended up playing better than we were before Race went down. Now question is how we play against teams like MD at MD, PU and Rutgers at home, etc., with Race starting again and playing 24-25 minutes, or whether Malik's minutes will grow (that they should is beyond clear imo) and related whether JG gets back from his injury and reinserts himself after being displaced just because Race comes back. Rutgers considered us weak, mentally and physically, when we played them. We were. We sure as Hell weren't during our run, before Minn. Those athletic lineups were gelled. We took off again end of the first half against OSU with Malik. I'm hoping that continues.

[btownqb 8,355]

33 minutes ago, Chris007 said:

I totally agree. You also had JG going from spot minutes to starter minutes. You had JHS being the sole PG instead of sharing duties. There are going to be mistakes made and things we have to learn from. 

Plus... TG had a larger role, same with Bates. Lots of guys had to do more/other things to get us going. 

[MikeRoberts 6,834]

2 hours ago, Chris007 said:

How many starters has Purdue lost for more than one game? Purdue is leading the Big Ten because they have avoided injuries. 

I understand that statement but could also counter it with, how many 3 star freshmen guards did Woodson have to start after his all-American went pro early? 
 

purdue is doing a lot with very little - I think we still have a lot regardless of injuries and are playing great right now but have had major lulls in effort and organization even prior to the 2 injuries.

im happy they are playing better now and was not one trying to call for Woodsons job but I still believe we had/have all the pieces to win this league and are likely already out of it due to some major lapses early on

[cthomas 5,930]

I don't like crows. They give me the creeps. So I try to avoid saying things that might land them on my plate. I am always more pleased by the things I don't post, but think, than anything that is posted.

[rcbowla 6,755]

2 weeks ago this team was spiraling downward rapidly so people were upset and rightfully so. Now to these guys' credit they have bounced back very nicely. That said this team still hasn't achieved anything of note yet and to most, I ssume, a 6-4 conf record would be underachieving given what was expected. Injuries did play a part in the team's performance but it wasn't all injuries and that excuse got old quick. We still had more talent coming off of our bench than the teams we were losing to had in their starting lineups. Good news is there is still plenty of time to reach some goals and have a great season. Bad news is we dug ourselves such a hole that the margin of error has shrunk. This 5 game win streak should have been part of 8-2, 9-1 conf record instead of what has brought us back to the pack. For the record I have been loving watching this team for the last 5 games, well 4ish.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

[HoosierCoop 3,816]

I look at Michigan, Ohio State, and Wisconsin right now...yeah, things could be worse.

[Alford Bailey 12,259]

Happens with so many teams in cbb. I certainly am not ready to fire Woody yet.

[Hardwood83 4,512]

On 1/30/2023 at 7:29 AM, MikeRoberts said:

Still think it is way too early for this. At 6-4, I still feel this team has underachieved: there is no reason we shouldn’t be up there with PU competing for the bigten title.

 

I just don’t think PU has better players nor more experience so it’s frustrating to watch them run away with the title

It's hard for me not to look at the Iowa & NW games and think 'what if?' Take those and IU is 17-4/8-2 and primed for an opportunity to win the B1G. I hated getting embarrassed vs Rutgers, AZ, KU and Penn State(!) but IU wasn't competitive in those games against very  good to solid teams away from home. Losing to NW at home should NEVER, EVER happen. The Iowa game was a huge missed opportunity too. 

[MikeRoberts 6,834]

2 hours ago, Hardwood83 said:

It's hard for me not to look at the Iowa & NW games and think 'what if?' Take those and IU is 17-4/8-2 and primed for an opportunity to win the B1G. I hated getting embarrassed vs Rutgers, AZ, KU and Penn State(!) but IU wasn't competitive in those games against very  good to solid teams away from home. Losing to NW at home should NEVER, EVER happen. The Iowa game was a huge missed opportunity too. 

I couldn’t agree more. While we are currently on a nice streak and playing well, we left a lot on the table.

your scenario was very realistic and should have been but isn’t. 17-4 is what I think is a realistic expectation of where we should be and had we , we would be top 10 and fighting for a 2 or 3 seed and a bigten championship.

unfortunately we might have played our way out of those things already

[Stuhoo 75,754]

Well hell. If that's how we're looking at it then Xavier and Illinois get the games back where they, in their minds, should have beaten us at their home gym.

Which would put us at... 15-6.

[Joe_hoopsier 949]

4 hours ago, Hardwood83 said:

It's hard for me not to look at the Iowa & NW games and think 'what if?' Take those and IU is 17-4/8-2 and primed for an opportunity to win the B1G. I hated getting embarrassed vs Rutgers, AZ, KU and Penn State(!) but IU wasn't competitive in those games against very  good to solid teams away from home. Losing to NW at home should NEVER, EVER happen. The Iowa game was a huge missed opportunity too. 

The AZ KU didn't effect me. That was part of a 4 game package that early on, the over whelming poster base predicted 2-2 and many said they'd be happy with 3-1. We can't go back and have issue now, with 2-2.

NOW Iowa and NW... and the way we played at PSU.. Yea, not happy and OH what could have been.

[Uspshoosier 44,307]

The dream for every fan base is for their team to play a clean sheet season where they win all the games and if they lose games their team played hard but just came up short.   The reality is that almost every team is going to go through ups and downs where they lose to teams  they shouldn’t and pick off some teams they should have lost to.  College basketball would be pretty boring if everything went chalk.   10 games left in the conference and I’m guessing IU will look like crap in couple of them, look like a top 10 team in a couple of them and some where in between in the rest of them 

[HoosierAloha 29,897]

19 minutes ago, Joe_hoopsier said:

The AZ KU didn't effect me. That was part of a 4 game package that early on, the over whelming poster base predicted 2-2 and many said they'd be happy with 3-1. We can't go back and have issue now, with 2-2.

NOW Iowa and NW... and the way we played at PSU.. Yea, not happy and OH what could have been.

 

7 minutes ago, Uspshoosier said:

The dream for every fan base is for their team to play a clean sheet season where they win all the games and if they lose games their team played hard but just came up short.   The reality is that almost every team is going to go through ups and downs where they lose to teams  they shouldn’t and pick off some teams they should have lost to.  College basketball would be pretty boring if everything went chalk.   10 games left in the conference and I’m guessing IU will look like crap in couple of them, look like a top 10 team in a couple of them and some where in between in the rest of them 

I was hoping we'd be past laying turds this season. The dumb play is one thing but the absolute laying of turds is unacceptable to me.

I thought we'd struggle with Arizona. It was frustrating how we looked during that game but not totally unexpected. We sucked against KU. We flat out didn't compete. Going 0-2 in that stretch sucks but not totally unexpected. We're a better team than that.

The complete choke job against Iowa was mind blowing. That should be in the past and it wasn't on the players only. We brain farted our way to a loss there. To follow that up with the effort against NW and then at PSU is horrendous. That's what losing programs do. That was us in years past. Absolutely no reason for it.

There is plenty you can learn from a game outside of the W/L column. As a program, we need to get over that hump quickly. I believe it'll take personnel changes for us to get there. Time will tell.

[Uspshoosier 44,307]

2 hours ago, HoosierAloha said:

That's what losing programs do. That was us in years past. Absolutely no reason for it.

Winning programs lay turds as well.  Isn’t it part of playing 30+ games in a season.  Hard to keep 18-20 year olds to be locked in every game.    Even the winningest cultures experience this throughout a season.  No one wants it to happen but it’s part of it in my opinion.   Not being able to move on and turn it around after you lay an egg becomes the problem.  In years past they would just keep laying eggs at least this year they dug out and went on a 5 game run.   Be interesting to see what they do after the next losing streak(it’s going to happen at some point)

[Joe_hoopsier 949]

15 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

 

I was hoping we'd be past laying turds this season. The dumb play is one thing but the absolute laying of turds is unacceptable to me.

I thought we'd struggle with Arizona. It was frustrating how we looked during that game but not totally unexpected. We sucked against KU. We flat out didn't compete. Going 0-2 in that stretch sucks but not totally unexpected. We're a better team than that.

The complete choke job against Iowa was mind blowing. That should be in the past and it wasn't on the players only. We brain farted our way to a loss there. To follow that up with the effort against NW and then at PSU is horrendous. That's what losing programs do. That was us in years past. Absolutely no reason for it.

There is plenty you can learn from a game outside of the W/L column. As a program, we need to get over that hump quickly. I believe it'll take personnel changes for us to get there. Time will tell.

So yo mention "hump" Woody has mentioned that several times. Do you consider that in the last 5 games (W's) that was the Hump that he was talking about? OR do we have to win tonight, to be over the hump, or after PUke we will be over the hump? 

My question, are we seeing the hump challenge or does it really take personnel changes to ever get past the top of the this hump? 

[HoosierAloha 29,897]

1 hour ago, Uspshoosier said:

Winning programs lay turds as well.  Isn’t it part of playing 30+ games in a season.  Hard to keep 18-20 year olds to be locked in every game.    Even the winningest cultures experience this throughout a season.  No one wants it to happen but it’s part of it in my opinion.   Not being able to move on and turn it around after you lay an egg becomes the problem.  In years past they would just keep laying eggs at least this year they dug out and went on a 5 game run.   Be interesting to see what they do after the next losing streak(it’s going to happen at some point)

To a certain extent. It was big news KU lost 3 straight. It's happened how many times under Self? Look at who and where they played under that 3 game tumble. It's not exactly @Iowa, home to a solid NU, and on the road to a decent PSU team.

[HoosierAloha 29,897]

15 minutes ago, Joe_hoopsier said:

So yo mention "hump" Woody has mentioned that several times. Do you consider that in the last 5 games (W's) that was the Hump that he was talking about? OR do we have to win tonight, to be over the hump, or after PUke we will be over the hump? 

My question, are we seeing the hump challenge or does it really take personnel changes to ever get past the top of the this hump? 

The team has done some good things in the last 5 games. How they won a few of those games, especially on the road against Ill, was pretty impressive. I'm not sure the quality of all those teams but taking care of business is progress. There are still things that are concerning during that stretch.

Elite programs don't have the stretch we had in that fashion. I get it that we're attempting to build towards that. Year after year with this core group we've seen them tuck tail for good chunks of games/multiple games. A baseline of competing at a certain level is getting over that hump. Losing happens, it sucks but it happens, I'd much prefer a team know they're going to have to earn it. We've given a couple of games away this season. Not giving games away is part of getting over that hump.

[Uspshoosier 44,307]

37 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

To a certain extent. It was big news KU lost 3 straight. It's happened how many times under Self? Look at who and where they played under that 3 game tumble. It's not exactly @Iowa, home to a solid NU, and on the road to a decent PSU team.

Not sure how many times he has had a 3 games losing streak but I know in years past even with final 4 caliber teams he has  lost to bottom dweller Big 12 teams.  It happens. Can’t expect to play flawless basketball for 30 games.  One year that stacked up Wisky team that went to back to back final 4s lost at Rutgers for one of their 2 losses in conference that year.   Rutgers was terrible that year.   It happens 

IU’s fans more then other fan bases worry more about who the loss is to then the actual loss itself.  It’s fascinating to follow sometimes 

[Stuhoo 75,754]

Kansas also had a three game losing streak two years ago.