IUBB vs Wright State - Thursday, 11.16.23 @ 7:00 on BTN

[IUHoosier5 1,610]

I’d say it’s worth mentioning that the way the big men have played has to look pretty dang good to Mr. Queen. 

[Chris007 44,115]

1 minute ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

Nope.  Just my dirty socks.

oh I was talking about the soccer team beating #10 Wake Forest

[Class of '66 Old Fart 84,881]

Selected post-game comments.

Alec Lasley - Indiana has been outscored 111-33 on 3s in three games this season.

Mike Woodson says he would rather talk about his grandbaby than the game tonight.

Mike Woodson on Kel’el Ware: “He’s doing everything we’ve asked him to do since he’s been here.”

Mike Woodson on defending the 3-ball: 'Getting to the guy before he shoots the ball would help.'          

Woodson says his guards need to help rebound the ball. Notes he could probably “stumble into” a rebound himself at 65 years old.

[str8baller 5,315]

24 minutes ago, Artie86 said:

I bet Oregon is thinking....."Man, why couldn't we get that out of him?" He looks totally in his element at the low post and has the mindset that, "I am going to score this bucket one way or another!"

Doubtful, Because they did get this out of Ware. On a per minute basis, he was pretty similar last year. He came off the bench and was a year younger so his minutes were less and numbers slightly lower, but he had similar output.  
 

Interestingly enough, he put up good numbers against Uconn and MSU. But Oregon was handled pretty easily by all the decent non-conf opponents in that stretch.  
 

Something happened later with Ware and Oregon to cause a rift. So far, Ware seems bought in to Woody, imo. He seems to give appropriate effort at both ends of the floor which was apparently the knock on him. 

[Artie86 1,968]

19 minutes ago, Chris007 said:

We're 3-0. The goal is to get to 20, so you have to win the ones you're supposed to.

The offense was much better last night. But we have to eventually hit some 3's

Our defense is not good at all. Especially the 3 pt defense and help defense.

Ware is the real deal.

Mgbako was more aggressive but his defense is horrendous. I noticed last night that a lot of times he's not even in a good defensive stance. 

For some reason, I smell upset on Sunday. Go Hoosiers

I know all games are important, but we all know some games are just hard to get up for. That is NO EXCUSE for lack of hard play, but it is reality to some kids. I wonder how many of these kids have truly overlooked these early games, thinking they are cupcakes and potentially easy wins. You know it happens. 

[Chris007 44,115]

1 minute ago, Artie86 said:

I know all games are important, but we all know some games are just hard to get up for. That is NO EXCUSE for lack of hard play, but it is reality to some kids. I wonder how many of these kids have truly overlooked these early games, thinking they are cupcakes and potentially easy wins. You know it happens. 

Probably even more when you hear the other team's best player is out. 

[Artie86 1,968]

37 minutes ago, Chris007 said:

Probably even more when you hear the other team's best player is out. 

I've been feeling this way for a while... Those types of schools get up for playing historic schools like IU. No excuse, but I think we get down a little playing those kind of schools .... 

[lillurk 3,756]

42 minutes ago, Chris007 said:

Our defense is not good at all. Especially the 3 pt defense and help defense.

[…]

Mgbako was more aggressive but his defense is horrendous. I noticed last night that a lot of times he's not even in a good defensive stance. 

Missed some of the game but a couple additional thoughts:

Mgbako hasn’t caught on to the switching rules. Chris is right, he doesn’t get in a stance, but he’s also literally confused. WSU’s last two threes happened when MM followed a cutter he’d ALREADY SWITCHED OFF and was someone else’s man. Then his man was wide open.

I also think we need to get used to Woody not caring much about beating the spread/kenpom. Could the team have been better the last three games? Yep. Does a veteran team that’s played together take care of business in a way that beats those projections? Yep. But Woody didn’t play the type of rotation he’s going to play Sunday.

[RaceToTheTop 25,929]

1 hour ago, Chris007 said:

We're 3-0. The goal is to get to 20, so you have to win the ones you're supposed to.

The offense was much better last night. But we have to eventually hit some 3's

Our defense is not good at all. Especially the 3 pt defense and help defense.

Ware is the real deal.

Mgbako was more aggressive but his defense is horrendous. I noticed last night that a lot of times he's not even in a good defensive stance. 

For some reason, I smell upset on Sunday. Go Hoosiers

I wonder why we never play zone.  Honestly, with the switching problems we have on man, I don't know that it would guard the perimeter worse and it allow Ware to room the lane against penetration.  Would also allow us to take advantage of our length. I'd rather have MM guarding an area than a man.

[RaceToTheTop 25,929]

10 hours ago, Ngw7183 said:

@RaceToTheTop- I had read that kid was hurt first couple of games. Yeah, he hit 48% last year and like 66 shots from 3 or something. He wasn’t unknown. There is something about guys with chips on their shoulder coming home. 

 

If he was hurt, then I would think there was some major mismanagement of his time.  He literally played 2 minutes just two nights ago and that was at the end of the game where they were looking for some late offense.  He played 33 minutes last night.  

[RaceToTheTop 25,929]

Sparks and Banks have been very bad from the line -- haven't even looked like their strokes are good.  Sparks was a decent free throw shooter up until last year -- hit 71% of his free throws on over 200 attempts as a freshman.  Last year he fell all the way to 52%.  In high school he shot 71% from the line in 84 games, so obviously something has changed in the last 1+ seasons.

[HoosierX 1,572]

1 hour ago, Chris007 said:

We're 3-0. The goal is to get to 20, so you have to win the ones you're supposed to.

The offense was much better last night. But we have to eventually hit some 3's

Our defense is not good at all. Especially the 3 pt defense and help defense.

Ware is the real deal.

Mgbako was more aggressive but his defense is horrendous. I noticed last night that a lot of times he's not even in a good defensive stance. 

For some reason, I smell upset on Sunday. Go Hoosiers

On one of Mgbako's fouls (I think his 2nd), his man was driving by him at the top of they key and Mgbako literally put both hands on him to try to slow him down. Then he somehow acted surprised when the ref called a foul.

[Uspshoosier 45,891]

1 hour ago, Chris007 said:

We're 3-0. The goal is to get to 20, so you have to win the ones you're supposed to.

The offense was much better last night. But we have to eventually hit some 3's

Our defense is not good at all. Especially the 3 pt defense and help defense.

Ware is the real deal.

Mgbako was more aggressive but his defense is horrendous. I noticed last night that a lot of times he's not even in a good defensive stance. 

For some reason, I smell upset on Sunday. Go Hoosiers

Problem this year could be getting to 20 might not get you in the tourney like it would in years past.    B1G as a whole is having an awful non conference so far.   Less success in the non conference mean less teams for the tourney.    If the B1G keeps losing these big matchups then you could have an instance where the 4th or 5th place team in the B1G doesn’t get an at-large.   It happened in Archie’s first year at iu.   Nebraska finished 4th 13-5 in conference and didn’t make it because they conference was terrible and they only beat 1 top 5 team in conference that year.   To date the B1Gs best non con wins are Purdue at home over Xavier(minus 2 of their best players), northwestern over Dayton at home and Michigan over st John’s on the road.   Those 3 teams are borderline tourney teams.    Plenty of opportunities left but if they don’t start winning games I could see the B1G only getting 4 or 5 teams in this year 

[Chris007 44,115]

1 minute ago, HoosierX said:

On one of Mgbako's fouls (I think his 2nd), his man was driving by him at the top of they key and Mgbako literally put both hands on him to try to slow him down. Then he somehow acted surprised when the ref called a foul.

Yes I noticed him doing that more than once. He had trouble playing on the ball defense without putting at least one hand on his defender. I think it's tough for him to be guarding a 3. He just doesn't have the lateral quickness to do it right now. 

[Banksyrules 4,814]

Stupid Question. Why don't we just play man to man? 

[Stuhoo 81,132]

1 minute ago, Uspshoosier said:

Problem this year could be getting to 20 might not get you in the tourney like it would in years past.    B1G as a whole is having an awful non conference so far.   Less success in the non conference mean less teams for the tourney.    If the B1G keeps losing these big matchups then you could have an instance where the 4th or 5th place team in the B1G doesn’t get an at-large.   It happened in Archie’s first year at iu.   Nebraska finished 4th 13-5 in conference and didn’t make it because they conference was terrible and they only beat 1 top 5 team in conference that year.   To date the B1Gs best non con wins are Purdue at home over Xavier(minus 2 of their best players), northwestern over Dayton at home and Michigan over st John’s on the road.   Those 3 teams are borderline tourney teams.    Plenty of opportunities left but if they don’t start winning games I could see the B1G only getting 4 or 5 teams in this year 

Well we have three opportunities for a top tier non-conference win. So if we meet a fate like Nebraska in 2019 it will be entirely our own doing, and our tournament omission will be our own fault.

[go iu bb 6,183]

15 minutes ago, RaceToTheTop said:

I wonder why we never play zone.  Honestly, with the switching problems we have on man, I don't know that it would guard the perimeter worse and it allow Ware to room the lane against penetration.  Would also allow us to take advantage of our length. I'd rather have MM guarding an area than a man.

I agree. In a zone the 3-point shooters wouldn't be any more open than they already are. So at worst it's just as (in)effective as the man-to-man.

[Whoozhers 3,695]

Sure hope UCONN’s star player isn’t hurt and not playing. We don’t play very well if our opponent isn’t at full strength.

That being said….. GO HOOSIERS!!

[Uspshoosier 45,891]

1 minute ago, Stuhoo said:

Well we have three opportunities for a top tier non-conference win. So if we meet a fate like Nebraska in 2019 it will be entirely our own doing, and our tournament omission will be our own fault.

I hear you but IU is also shooting itself in the foot with these early wins.  3-0 is always nice but with the NET( I know 3 games in and talking NET) only beating these teams by single digits when the projected outcome was suppose to be more is going to come back and haunt them.   Teams should always be thinking about their NET number even when playing cupcakes 

[Hoosier987 1,202]

15 minutes ago, Uspshoosier said:

I hear you but IU is also shooting itself in the foot with these early wins.  3-0 is always nice but with the NET( I know 3 games in and talking NET) only beating these teams by single digits when the projected outcome was suppose to be more is going to come back and haunt them.   Teams should always be thinking about their NET number even when playing cupcakes 

And to further extend on this…we’ve dropped 15 spots in Kenpom since start of season and have nosedived more than 20+ spots on Barrtorvik. Although we avoided disaster by not losing, winning 3 buy games, all by single digits at home, will not look favorable in the computer metrics. Like it or not, the tournament committee uses these metrics.