Game Thread: IU vs FGCU - 11/7 @ 6:30 on BTN

[Stuhoo 81,398]

3 minutes ago, JSHoosier said:

I actually had a similar thought. Tough, competitive, makes smart winning plays. Sounds like the kind of guard Knight every single coach in the history of the game of basketball would've loved.

 

Fixed.

 

[Stuhoo 81,398]

Just watched the condensed game. The primary theme of the defensive lapses was "over-helping." Especially and egregiously by Malik Reneau. It's a fixable - film watching thing; he has to do better and he should be clearly able to see the issue. So many times he unnecessarily flashed at a ball handler 25 feet from the basket and left his man.

[IU_FanClub 1,680]

I think it's great we got challenged a bit by a solid team night one. Lots to work on but you can see the flashes and potential these guys have. Need some improvement from the Wings and CJ but I think they will get there.

 

I think Mgbako at the 3 might work a lot better during Big Ten play than against teams that like to space the floor more but all in all I'm not worried about him getting it going,

 

Also want to point out that I think Woody coached his @$$ off tonight. Showed flexibility, found something that worked and stuck with it with the 3 guard lineup but also with the short roll when they were blowing up the ball screens. Also thought he used his timeouts really well.

[AKHoosier 6,961]

I didn't watch the first half. 

Why did Mgbako get yanked for the 2nd half? I assume it was due to defensive lapses. 

[Stuhoo 81,398]

1 minute ago, AKHoosier said:

I didn't watch the first half. 

Why did Mgbako get yanked for the 2nd half? I assume it was due to defensive lapses. 

IMO it was exclusively because Gabe freakin' Cupps kept him off the court.

[Uspshoosier 46,074]

1 minute ago, AKHoosier said:

I didn't watch the first half. 

Why did Mgbako get yanked for the 2nd half? I assume it was due to defensive lapses. 

Because he is a 4 in college basketball not a 3 even though I’m sure he wants to be.   Woody basically went away from playing 3 bigs and went to a 3 guard lineup in winning time and that’s when they made their run.      

[Uspshoosier 46,074]

1 hour ago, RaceToTheTop said:

What about last year?

If you are a X fan last year you argue that X being out coat them a chance at a B1G title and going further into the tourney because you lost a 5th year senior with a ton of college basketball experience, best on ball defender and only player on offense with blow by speed 

if you are not a X fan you argue that with him going down forced Woodys hand to play JHS more and if X wasn’t hurt the ball isn’t in JHS hands as much which probably means no first round pick for JHS 

[AKHoosier 6,961]

30 minutes ago, Uspshoosier said:

Because he is a 4 in college basketball not a 3 even though I’m sure he wants to be.   Woody basically went away from playing 3 bigs and went to a 3 guard lineup in winning time and that’s when they made their run.      

I did love that lineup of X, Galloway, and Cupps. That will age like a fine wine.

MM will figure it out though, not worried.

[reconmkd 4,416]

Just finishing up the game, after the watching the game while combining experiment went as bad as I thought it would. As stated in the first exhibition game, still lots to improve upon. I generally hope that Ware continues to crap all over the National Media's opinions about his gameplay. This kid is going to be special this year, if he keeps it up and continues to improve. Would have liked to see him take some more shots in the game, but was fairly solid from the charity stripe.

Cupps is a dude!

I really hope that CJ and Banks can start to put it together. IMO, the game still seems to be moving too fast for them, which is obviously something that can be fixed with time and a splash of latching on to a role for the team. They both need to let the game come to them.

Bad game for MM, but it appears that there is no sulking from him. I saw the comments about him on the bench and paid closer attention. I believe that there was no moment during the benching that he was not cheering on his teammates and celebrating their plays. Nice to see such a highly touted freshman that understands it is not all about them.

MR needs to sit in the film room for the next couple of days and just watch every defensive possession that he was involved. He must quickly extinguish the urge to over help on the perimeter. If it doesn't sink in quickly, maybe Woody can move Ware to the 4 on defense and try to keep MR in the post. I know that it is not ideal, but d@mn near every 3 FGCU made in some way had MR near the ball.

A win is a win, let's go Hoosiers.

[HoosierHoopster 7,116]

42 minutes ago, Uspshoosier said:

Because he is a 4 in college basketball not a 3 even though I’m sure he wants to be.   Woody basically went away from playing 3 bigs and went to a 3 guard lineup in winning time and that’s when they made their run.      

Going to push back a bit as I don't really understand the hard line distinction here. Bako can shoot the skin off the ball, and is an athletic 6'8 5-star scorer. If utilized as a '4' he should be played like Watford was. Obviously not at all like the convo on Geronimo, like "he wants to be?" Coach was talking about growing the outside game early summer, now recently he sounds more like he's staying with a front-line offensive approach, and we're clearly not shooting the number of 3's we should be. Bako has a ways to go on D, and we know that's a line CMW tends to draw in the sand (though what about Malik's perimeter D last night?). Not meaning a rant here, but Bako can absolutely be a wing in college ball, and would be on many college teams.

[realTomCrean 1,544]

17 minutes ago, Ngw7183 said:

His D is huge. Nobody else can do what he can on this team.

The jokes write themselves 

[IU_FanClub 1,680]

16 minutes ago, Ngw7183 said:

My barometer is if DD doenst like you, you are probably good so I like X haha 

Seems like a lot focus on his miscues on offense. The good out weigh the bad there.  Also, sometimes those miscues are not on him. Guys not calling out screens etc was a big topic last night and you could see him ticked about it.

He also made a lot of “winning plays” like drawing charges which is harder to do now.  Lots of communication as well.

His D is huge. Nobody else can do what he can on this team. When the opposing coach takes time to talk about it and says he is one of the top guys in the country, probably true. 

if we didn’t have him, this team would have lost by 15 plus last night. 

At this point it feels like those that don't like X decided that in the first 10 games or so of his IU career and haven't been willing to change their minds, trying to hang on every little mistake he makes while ignoring the huge benefits he brings to the team. Yes he does get a little out of control at times but he has grown so much as a player in his time at IU. I actually think last  night is a perfect example. He had a rough first half because they were blitzing him on the ball screens, the team adjusted and so did he and in the second half he had 10 points and no turnovers.

[Stuhoo 81,398]

44 minutes ago, Uspshoosier said:

Because he is a 4 in college basketball not a 3 even though I’m sure he wants to be.   Woody basically went away from playing 3 bigs and went to a 3 guard lineup in winning time and that’s when they made their run.      

 

2 minutes ago, HoosierHoopster said:

Going to push back a bit as I don't really understand the hard line distinction here. Bako can shoot the skin off the ball, and is an athletic 6'8 5-star scorer. If utilized as a '4' he should be played like Watford was. Obviously not at all like the convo on Geronimo, like "he wants to be?" Coach was talking about growing the outside game early summer, now recently he sounds more like he's staying with a front-line offensive approach, and we're clearly not shooting the number of 3's we should be. Bako has a ways to go on D, and we know that's a line CMW tends to draw in the sand (though what about Malik's perimeter D last night?). Not meaning a rant here, but Bako can absolutely be a wing in college ball, and would be on many college teams.

He doesn't seem to have the handle or quickness to be a college 3. However, he has some 3 offensive skills - deep catch and shoot range and the ability to come off a curl and score in the mid-range.

On defense? He's a college 4.

[mamasa 15,346]

One thing that really stood out to me was watching Ware's eyes. Always trying to anticipate. A lot of big men just kind of jump and swat, but Ware seems to know when and where to time the block.

[realTomCrean 1,544]

1 minute ago, Stuhoo said:

 

He doesn't seem to have the handle or quickness to be a college 3. However, he has some 3 offensive skills - deep catch and shoot range and the ability to come off a curl and score in the mid-range.

On defense? He's a college 4.

Not trying to be snarky at all by saying this, but with as much as IU switches on D - does it even really matter if he's a 3 or 4

[realTomCrean 1,544]

Just now, mamasa said:

One thing that really stood out to me was watching Ware's eyes. Always trying to anticipate. A lot of big men just kind of jump and swat, but Ware seems to know when and where to time the block.

He is 20lbs of muscle away from being absolutely dominant. If you look close at a zoom in of his forehead there's big bold letters that say NBA written on there. 

[IU - Kaulie 1,891]

2 minutes ago, HoosierHoopster said:

Going to push back a bit as I don't really understand the hard line distinction here. Bako can shoot the skin off the ball, and is an athletic 6'8 5-star scorer. If utilized as a '4' he should be played like Watford was. Obviously not at all like the convo on Geronimo, like "he wants to be?" Coach was talking about growing the outside game early summer, now recently he sound more like he's staying with a front-line offensive approach, and we're clearly not shooting the number of 3's we should be. Bako has a ways to go on D, and we know that's a line CMW tends to draw in the sand (though what about Malik's perimeter D last night?). Not meaning a rant here, but Bako can absolutely be a wing in college ball, and would be on many college teams.

Not a lot of people will like this but this is about winning games.  Our best lineup does not include Mgbako.  Their will be times based on matchups things will change but I think CMW and the staff found some very important things out last night.

[IU - Kaulie 1,891]

7 minutes ago, realTomCrean said:

He is 20lbs of muscle away from being absolutely dominant. If you look close at a zoom in of his forehead there's big bold letters that say NBA written on there. 

He won’t be in Bloomington for long that’s for sure.

[Hovadipo 56,515]

8 minutes ago, mamasa said:

One thing that really stood out to me was watching Ware's eyes. Always trying to anticipate. A lot of big men just kind of jump and swat, but Ware seems to know when and where to time the block.

Also noticed on one of his blocks that he jumped a little too early and, instead of coming down and going back up, just decided that he'd hang out in the air until the poor soul decided to put the ball up. Really impressive.

[JSHoosier 20,316]

If Ware can keep showing up and get drafted it'd help us recruit long athletic bigs. "Oregon said he was lazy, but we turned him into a draft pick".