IUBB 2023 B1G Tournament March 8-12, 2023

[Home Jersey]

Bates has not been very productive this year, but it's nice to see him building some momentum the past few games. Hope it carries over into the tournament, we are a much better team when he gets going. If he puts in a lot of work this offseason and plays up to his potential next year, he could surprise a lot of us. 

It doesn't surprise me that Race, Trey and Kopp have stretches for a few games where they play well and other stretches where they either don't do much or play poorly. What we really need, is for Kopp to let it rip when he is open. Not sure why he is so hesitant lately, but it is hurting us. We can't win in March without at least 1 (ideally 2) of those 3 contributing a solid performance along with TJD and JHS.

When JHS isn't on, we have such a hard time being competitive. I get that college is full of streaky players but going 5+ minute stretches without points this time of year will be what does us in come the tournament.

It is great that we have come back so many times this year, but today shows what happens when its too little, too late. We have to find ways to avoid those long scoring droughts, whether its feeding TJD, JHS in the mid-range, finding an open Trey/Kopp/Bates on the perimeter, or trying to draw a foul and get to the line.

We really, really, really miss XJ in these instances. Will always wonder "what if..." about his injury this year.

I personally like Reneau more than Race, but I won't complain about how the minutes are being split right now for the most part. That pic of JG on the bench, makes me think he is gone in the offseason. Wish him the best on his next chapter, wherever it is, if it comes to that...

Don't understand how people are griping over Woodson at this point. This being year 2, the progress is obvious. I hope we can play tough and smart and get to the S16 (or further), load up in the portal, and keep getting this program back on the right track.

[Uspshoosier]

26 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

Some might call that a balanced schedule…?

Definitely was before.   Home and homes with every teams in the conference.   Not so much anymore after Houston, UCF, Byu and Cincy join.  Once that happens they will go to unbalanced just like the rest 

[str8baller]

Just watched the final play again. It was annoyingly simple.  A 1v1 chuck up  a 3 is just bottom of the barrel basketball.  
 

I know a lot of teams play that way. I don’t like being one of them.

[Scotty R]

13 minutes ago, str8baller said:

Just watched the final play again. It was annoyingly simple.  A 1v1 chuck up  a 3 is just bottom of the barrel basketball.  
 

I know a lot of teams play that way. I don’t like being one of them.

It was a pretty good look and it was from the same spot JHS hit the dagger last night

[mark1981]

10 minutes ago, Scotty R said:

It was a pretty good look and it was from the same spot JHS hit the dagger last night

Yeah.  Good look.  Hard to complain about that.  Wish we would have started pressing a few minutes earlier.

[cthomas]

This team is part of what hopefully is a progression to being consistently relevant in college basketball. It's been a pretty good year all things considered. CMW took a team that was bottom half of the conference, added a couple of pieces, and built a top of the conference finish. I see this as progress. This group was never likely to contend for a national championship. I've been around for a long time, and I might be getting senile, but I like the direction of the program.

[str8baller]

9 minutes ago, Scotty R said:

It was a pretty good look and it was from the same spot JHS hit the dagger last night

We’ve got two other guys who are 40+% on catch and shoot threes. Taking a 1v1 contested shot with a 36% shooter is sub-optimal. Whatever he did yesterday is as irrelevant as that last roulette number. 

[str8baller]

1 minute ago, cthomas said:

This team is part of what hopefully is a progression to being consistently relevant in college basketball. It's been a pretty good year all things considered. CMW took a team that was bottom half of the conference, added a couple of pieces, and built a top of the conference finish. I see this as progress. This group was never likely to contend for a national championship. I've been around for a long time, and I might be getting senile, but I like the direction of the program.

Agreed. Woody’s job is to put us back to a top B1G program for the next hire. If he accomplishes more then kudos to him.  
 

He’s basically accomplished that. If he can do it one TJD is gone then he’ll have accomplished all that he needed to.

[sweetpain]

I think things change next year.  CMW said when he was hired he wants to play 1 in and 4 out.  It’s not a team of ‘his’ guys right now.  Race is still one of our top 5 players and I think once he graduates and CMW continues to get the players he wants things will look a little different.

Woodson will have to earn his pay along with his assistants that recruit. If he wants to be a coach at IU that makes it, he has to put together tournament teams every year or he will get compared to Crean if we fall off next year and will need to make it farther than S16 too. I want it to happen and believe he can, but not sure if he will?

Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

[Alford Bailey]

Not a team that is gonna have success in a tournament setting. 1-2 more wins tops. That said, Woody has us headed in the right direction. 21 wins last year and possibly 23-24 wins this year. Need a couple of guys that want it bad to take the next step.

[Hoosierfan2017]

Kind of an underwhelming season at this point. Better than the Archie years, so it’s hard to complain too much, but it feels like we left a ton on the table. 0-6 against PSU/Iowa/Northwestern. The conference regular season and tournament titles were within reach, but we shot ourselves in the foot on both. We’ll see which team decides to show up in the NCAA tournament. 

[hoosierfan6157]

I thought given the loss of X and part of our starting line up injured, missing games, etc and all that we had to overcome that the season was primarily a success. Hoping the team and CMW learn from these games and refocus for the tournament. Go Hoosiers!

[hoosierbannerd]

Thank goodness for the portal.. COULD be what keeps this level of success going and hopefully improving it...no one is going to come in and likely replace TJD production, but depending on the number of transfers and who we get to replace, we may be more balanced with X leading (assuming JHS is gone).

 

 

 

[str8baller]

12 minutes ago, Hoosierfan2017 said:

 0-6 against PSU/Iowa/Northwestern.

Yet 6-0 vs Purdue/Illinois/Michigan.

 

I agree with the people who say we hit preseason expectations. The tourney will have an outsized impact on people’s ultimate feelings about this team. 

[IUFAN1976]

38 minutes ago, mark1981 said:

Yeah.  Good look.  Hard to complain about that.  Wish we would have started pressing a few minutes earlier.

That’s what I wish and wonder why CMW didn’t when we had the under 4 timeout. 1-2 minutes more and we had them.  Also, when we were down 2 and Penn State had the ball with 36.5 seconds left, I would have played straight up D and not foul, instead Race fouled with 17 seconds left and we went down 3 and that led to Schifino’s 3 point shot.  That was one of many boneheaded plays that Race has done and I thought we should have went with a straight line drive to the basket, who knows maybe we could have gotten an and 1.  I sure hope MW recruits smarter players.  

[HoosierAloha]

5 minutes ago, str8baller said:

Yet 6-0 vs Purdue/Illinois/Michigan.

 

I agree with the people who say we hit preseason expectations. The tourney will have an outsized impact on people’s ultimate feelings about this team. 

so .500 against almost half the league. We did sweep Nebrasketball, Minny, Wiscy, and O$U!

[HoosierAloha]

1 hour ago, Hoosier Guy said:

This reminds me too much of the AFC Finalist banner for the Colts!

I'm thinking something like

Back-2-Back Big 1.o Tourney Semi-Finalist
also competed (most of the time unless we really didn't want to but def in the last couple of minutes in several games)

[IUFAN1976]

1 hour ago, IU_FanClub said:

Last time we lost to Penn state I started a dumb thread and then we won 5 straight should I do it again?

Of course but if it is dumb, I won’t post, lol

[Hoosierfan2017]

9 minutes ago, str8baller said:

Yet 6-0 vs Purdue/Illinois/Michigan.

 

I agree with the people who say we hit preseason expectations. The tourney will have an outsized impact on people’s ultimate feelings about this team. 

Yes, that’s my point. The 6-0 against them makes the 0-6 in very winnable games all the more disappointing. We beat PSU tonight and we’re playing for a championship tomorrow afternoon. The guys just didn’t show up. We go 3-2 in those 5 games instead of 0-5, we’re regular season conference champs. We’ve seen what this team is capable of, but that version of the team only shows up about 60% of the time. We were the highest ranked B1G team in the preseason polls and were the preseason conference favorite. 

[Uspshoosier]

3 minutes ago, Hoosierfan2017 said:

Yes, that’s my point. The 6-0 against them makes the 0-6 in very winnable games all the more disappointing. We beat PSU tonight and we’re playing for a championship tomorrow afternoon. The guys just didn’t show up. We go 3-2 in those 5 games instead of 0-5, we’re regular season conference champs. We’ve seen what this team is capable of, but that version of the team only shows up about 60% of the time. We were the highest ranked B1G team in the preseason polls and were the preseason conference favorite. 

You think IU goes 3-2 with X playing in those games?   It would have been interesting how they would have finished in the B1G if they had their starting pg. 

IU was 13th preseason according to the polls and will probably finish in the top 25 and have a top 16 resume.   Things could have went a whole lot worse.   Injuries happen but I think X injury prevented IU from reaching their potential.  
 

Acc- preseason favorite- North Carolina 

sec- Kentucky, Arkansas picked 1 and 2 in preseason   

I know they are needed and for the fans but pre season polls and rankings are kind of silly especially now with the transfer portal.