Style of Play

[MikeRoberts 6,834]

3 hours ago, Herotime said:

Gotta believe missing XJ had a good deal to do with the drop in defensive intensity. He’s a dawg.

Yeah, I think had he been healthy and played against Miami he could have stopped that penetration from Pack that JHS just couldn’t.

galloway is all out effort so I can’t fault him but Pack and the guards for Miami were a step quicker there too. We just didn’t have anyone to match up with their quickness. That poor start killed us

[HoosierAloha 29,897]

11 hours ago, hoosierbgh said:

I don't think that is at all accurate. It was much more of a tendency to minimize X's value as the season went along, especially as IU started winning without him. The truth is he consistently brought on ball pressure and the quickness the rest of the team lacked every game. That alone was significant. He was also the main threat to get to the basket. Beyond that, simply having another player that was capable of running the team and scoring 10-15 points a night would have helped fill in the gaps when JHS had an off game. 

 

9 hours ago, HoosierAloha said:

Thank you for providing another example of my previous point.
He could pressure the ball, sometimes that resulted in good defense or picking up back to back fouls.
He could get to the basket, sometimes that results in an assist or turning it over (~1.2/1 ATO ratio against teams with a pulse). Other times he would shoot us out of a game (~38 FG% against teams with a pulse).
He could give us 10-15 points, sometimes even 20+, sometimes (almost just as often) he had some forgettable games (8 against Rutgers on 11 shots, 4 against Nebraska on 8 shots)

He, like many others on this flawed team, were consistently inconsistent.

 

8 hours ago, hoosierbgh said:

Actually, you proved my point. You're really shorting a guy that consistently brought energy and effort every game, rather ironically considering the constant harping on it in every game thread. Was it perfect or consistent? Of course not. I'm not sure why anyone would expect flawless teams or players at the college level. As great as TJD was, and I'm not sure many of us will see anything like his performance again in our lifetimes, he was far from flawless. 

X isn't on the same level as TJD and yet, he was often the only one or the only other one besides TJD trying to make something happen in many games in the 21-22 season. When everyone else shutdown and played scared he was the one, often the only one, trying to make something happen. I don't recall him starting out looking for shots or forcing the issue in those games, only after others failed to step up did he assert himself. Then, this year pre-injury he took a step back into less of a focal point and more of facilitator role and we criticize him for not scoring enough. As for fouling, I don't recall him jumping into and fouling 3 point shooters like Tamar, Miller, Race, and JHS did on a depressing number of occasions. Nor do I recall his man blowing by him on nearly every possession or leisurely running the offense without noticeable impediment. This IU team would have been better with a healthy X, mistakes and all. 

We say we want players with some dog in them, that hate to lose more than they love to win. We say we want shooters that aren't afraid to shoot. Then we can't wait to tear down those players when they make mistakes or miss shots or get called for fouls. We say we want "modern basketball" and then we cling to old notions. 

 

 

Are we talking about energy and effort or are we talking about ball pressure, quickness, getting to the bucket, etc. that lead to winning?
That whole situation turned out to be similar to the backup QB syndrome. XJ raised his game at the end of the 2022 season and we were expecting him to continue to play at that level. We saw that he was again inconsistent to start this season. Could he have helped? Absolutely. Would he have solved the problems many projected he would have once he went down? No, they were deeper than one player. Remember when we were going to be soooooo deep this season? How'd that workout for us?

From roughly middle of last season, I was the one stating XJ was the closest thing we had to a leader which I continued to repeat this season. He often played with energy and effort, sometimes that was misguided that led to some bad funks for the team. None of that is to take away from XJ, your misinterpretation. I love me some XJ and what he brought but to think he makes up for the rebounding issues, the weak defending on the wing, and modern offense this season is shortsighted. Those issues were bigger than one player. That is the point. However, we love revert back to what could have been. The stats up above show that he started out the year back to his consistently inconsistent play from the 2021-2022 regular season. Could that have changed? Possibly but we didn't have him, he didn't show it, there is zero reason to make it out to be something he wasn't.

On a similarly related note, take XJ and put him on teams like Houston, Alabama, Arkansas, maybe a Miami. Where is ranking in terms of his ability to be a dawg? Where does he rank at IU? There is a massive difference and I've been yelling this, with a few others on here, for more than a hot minute.

[HoosierAloha 29,897]

6 hours ago, str8baller said:

He didn’t stop us. But he’s an AA and almost unstoppable in the post, so any coach would be brain dead not to play through him a lot. 
 

The bigger question to me was why we didn’t go small and had Race in all the time. I predicted it before the game and said that’s a huge mismatch that we have to win. We didn’t. 
 

Some of it is personnel, I suppose. We really didn’t have another starter quality perimeter player. 

We didn't construct our team like this. As plenty of posters have mentioned throughout the season, Woody has a preference to those he can "trust." I believe it came down to ensuring the floor was high enough while understanding the ceiling would be lower instead of widening that gap with a higher ceiling but lower floor.

Imagine JHS and TJD in PnR action with shooters and slashers at the other 3 positions. TJD could have that option but also iso when needed. Against plodding bigs they'd have to come out to hedge with TJD getting by them for the lob or getting a switch and taking advantage of it against the switched small. A smaller big would could hedge and get back he could have taken to the post. There is so much more we could have done without two bigs clogging the lane. Hopefully we see that next season with new personnel.

[HoosierAloha 29,897]

4 hours ago, Herotime said:

Gotta believe missing XJ had a good deal to do with the drop in defensive intensity. He’s a dawg.

 

58 minutes ago, MikeRoberts said:

Yeah, I think had he been healthy and played against Miami he could have stopped that penetration from Pack that JHS just couldn’t.

galloway is all out effort so I can’t fault him but Pack and the guards for Miami were a step quicker there too. We just didn’t have anyone to match up with their quickness. That poor start killed us

Completely agree XJ being our best dawg.

Lest we forget Arizona back cutting the **** out of us when we had XJ. XJ would help but he wouldn't make the bigger problems disappear. XJ wasn't making Kopp quicker or more aware. XJ wasn't going to contain dribble penetration by himself. XJ wasn't going to stop the long 3s that they hit. XJ wasn't going to makeup the -17 rebounding margin. XJ wasn't going to make Gallo quicker and not get back cut. XJ wasn't going to make Gallo and especially Kopp quicker to recover to the shooter when they helped too far on the driver.

We were a flawed team outside of just losing XJ for the season.

[Loaded Chicken Sandwich 8,223]

One thing that has definitely confused me... The belief from fans that we need 6-8 dudes on the wing everywhere... When has Indiana ever had that? Pretty sure our last 3 B1G title teams had like 6-4/6-5 dudes at the 3 and 6-6/6-7 dudes at the 4 other than Watford in 2013.

[realTomCrean 1,470]

X is a dog no matter what team he is on. If you don’t see it get glasses 

[MikeRoberts 6,834]

12 minutes ago, realTomCrean said:

X is a dog no matter what team he is on. If you don’t see it get glasses 

Not putting words in others mouths but I think the point was that he wouldn’t stand out as a “dog” if he played for Miami, Houston or another team like that.

 

he stands out at IU because there aren’t a lot of “dogs” on the team. Galloway is the closest to that but has limitations

[MikeRoberts 6,834]

2 hours ago, HoosierAloha said:

 

Completely agree XJ being our best dawg.

Lest we forget Arizona back cutting the **** out of us when we had XJ. XJ would help but he wouldn't make the bigger problems disappear. XJ wasn't making Kopp quicker or more aware. XJ wasn't going to contain dribble penetration by himself. XJ wasn't going to stop the long 3s that they hit. XJ wasn't going to makeup the -17 rebounding margin. XJ wasn't going to make Gallo quicker and not get back cut. XJ wasn't going to make Gallo and especially Kopp quicker to recover to the shooter when they helped too far on the driver.

We were a flawed team outside of just losing XJ for the season.

-17 rebounding margin epitomizes this years team. We were bigger, stronger up front than most teams and yet would routinely get out rebounded. It was almost entirely a lack of effort. Almost no effort to offensive rebound, immediately retreating back when shots go up. It was maddening

[realTomCrean 1,470]

8 minutes ago, MikeRoberts said:

Not putting words in others mouths but I think the point was that he wouldn’t stand out as a “dog” if he played for Miami, Houston or another team like that.

 

he stands out at IU because there aren’t a lot of “dogs” on the team. Galloway is the closest to that but has limitations

If “ifs” were fifths, we’d all be drunk

[HoosierAloha 29,897]

47 minutes ago, realTomCrean said:

X is a dog no matter what team he is on. If you don’t see it get glasses 

 

33 minutes ago, MikeRoberts said:

Not putting words in others mouths but I think the point was that he wouldn’t stand out as a “dog” if he played for Miami, Houston or another team like that.

 

he stands out at IU because there aren’t a lot of “dogs” on the team. Galloway is the closest to that but has limitations

This. There are levels even amongst dawgs. You're not just a dawg in the pack but you have a rank. I highly doubt XJ would be THE dawg on most of the teams I listed. The more glaring issue, as you pointed out, where were the other dawgs on this team.

[realTomCrean 1,470]

48 minutes ago, HoosierAloha said:

 

This. There are levels even amongst dawgs. You're not just a dawg in the pack but you have a rank. I highly doubt XJ would be THE dawg on most of the teams I listed. The more glaring issue, as you pointed out, where were the other dawgs on this team.

wrong 

[Banksyrules 4,251]

I’m a dawg in my profession and I can’t believe I’m here talking about this.  There are no dawgs in the IU basketball team right now. Not an insult just an observation.  Part of being a dawg is one holding yourself accountable in being the best you can be but also having the guts to approach a friend and tell them “hey you need to fix this or the team will lose” .   Keith Hernandez was my favorite player and in game seven he approached our relief pitcher and had guts to say “ If you ^&&&** throw a fastball at all to this batter, Jesse we’re going to have meet outside at the parking lot”.  The last dawg I saw in a IU uniform seemed to be Oladipo. I believe Cupps is one as well. YOu don’t know truly until you actually know them. 

[hoosierbgh 1,227]

11 hours ago, HoosierAloha said:

 

 

Are we talking about energy and effort or are we talking about ball pressure, quickness, getting to the bucket, etc. that lead to winning?
That whole situation turned out to be similar to the backup QB syndrome. XJ raised his game at the end of the 2022 season and we were expecting him to continue to play at that level. We saw that he was again inconsistent to start this season. Could he have helped? Absolutely. Would he have solved the problems many projected he would have once he went down? No, they were deeper than one player. Remember when we were going to be soooooo deep this season? How'd that workout for us?

From roughly middle of last season, I was the one stating XJ was the closest thing we had to a leader which I continued to repeat this season. He often played with energy and effort, sometimes that was misguided that led to some bad funks for the team. None of that is to take away from XJ, your misinterpretation. I love me some XJ and what he brought but to think he makes up for the rebounding issues, the weak defending on the wing, and modern offense this season is shortsighted. Those issues were bigger than one player. That is the point. However, we love revert back to what could have been. The stats up above show that he started out the year back to his consistently inconsistent play from the 2021-2022 regular season. Could that have changed? Possibly but we didn't have him, he didn't show it, there is zero reason to make it out to be something he wasn't.

On a similarly related note, take XJ and put him on teams like Houston, Alabama, Arkansas, maybe a Miami. Where is ranking in terms of his ability to be a dawg? Where does he rank at IU? There is a massive difference and I've been yelling this, with a few others on here, for more than a hot minute.

We're talking about all of the above. You said X was inconsistent, I pointed out that he consistently brought effort and energy, which you so frequently complained about the rest of team lacking. 

No, one has said that X was a cure all for this team's issues but he certainly would have helped some if not many of them. He went out before fully settling into his role but even so he was more consistent than at the beginning of the previous season. He also never really got to play with a fully healthy TJD this year or the JHS we saw later in the season. I'd agree that our depth was overrated. However, the loss of X contributed to that lack of depth by shifting every guard/wing up a rung and many of them weren't ready for it. 

I'm not sure how anyone could have watched IU this year and concluded that X wouldn't have helped the perimeter defense, especially at the wing. Without X, instead of having a fresh Galloway coming off the bench to either replace X or play along side him on the opponents best wing, we had Galloway playing almost the whole game, usually on the opponents best perimeter player and hoping JHS/Kopp/Bates wouldn't get beat too badly on their man. Instead of having both X and Galloway to close (our best defensive lineup) we had Galloway and Kopp. IMO, this showed pretty clearly in the drop off between the defense this year and last.. Considering that X was 2nd on the team in rebounds from the guard spot, its not much of stretch that he might have helped with the rebounding as well. His quickness would have helped with the long rebounds certainly. He was also the best on the team at getting to the rim and running the PnR. Again, no one is saying he would have cured all the problems or any one of them fully but he certainly would have reduced several of the problems.  There is no reason to pretend like it wasn't a significant loss for this season or that he won't be a big help next year if he gets a waiver. 

 

[Ryno6284 2,518]

1 hour ago, Banksyrules said:

I’m a dawg in my profession and I can’t believe I’m here talking about this.  There are no dawgs in the IU basketball team right now. Not an insult just an observation.  Part of being a dawg is one holding yourself accountable in being the best you can be but also having the guts to approach a friend and tell them “hey you need to fix this or the team will lose” .   Keith Hernandez was my favorite player and in game seven he approached our relief pitcher and had guts to say “ If you ^&&&** throw a fastball at all to this batter, Jesse we’re going to have meet outside at the parking lot”.  The last dawg I saw in a IU uniform seemed to be Oladipo. I believe Cupps is one as well. YOu don’t know truly until you actually know them. 

Yogi and Thomas Bryant wave hi!

[Banksyrules 4,251]

1 hour ago, Ryno6284 said:

Yogi and Thomas Bryant wave hi!

I’ve met Oladipo and had a few conversations with him to know, and I’ve been very detailed with Cupps because oddly enough he shares a lot of personality traits I had as a kid. I don’t deny the players passion for our club because I love DJ White (my top 5 favorite players. To me.) but dawg not sure.  I didn’t really look into Yogi to make an opinion honestly. 

[Banksyrules 4,251]

Teri Moran is a dawg. I want her in the room whenever we have interviews for  a coaching vacancy.

[Me So Hornsby 2,747]

I just want athletes everywhere. Forget about building a team dictated by the B1G, build a team that will win in March. We need shooting and athletes. Build a team like we see in the SEC, a team like Miami.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[str8baller 4,779]

2 minutes ago, Me So Hornsby said:

Build a team like we see in the SEC, a team like Miami. 

Miami is awful defensively and a bad matchup from getting bounced. 

[Uspshoosier 44,308]

2 hours ago, str8baller said:

Miami is awful defensively and a bad matchup from getting bounced. 

Yep just like every team is a bad matchup away from getting bounced.   Miami was probably the worst matchup possible for IU out of all the 5 seeds they could have gotten.  My guess is their defense will ultimately be the reason why they don’t make the final 4 but with those trio of guards if they are hot and Houston is having a off night that game will be a lot closer then some might think 

[8bucks 6,142]

Why could Woody not have coached a 4 out 1 in with TJD?  Does the 1 in typically not the best offensive player?