IUBB vs Auburn (Atlanta, GA) | 12/9/2023 @ 2:00pm on ESPN2

[TTT]

P. Whitten is by far the best IU president since Ryan and Ehrlich.  She is interested, visible, and supportive in IU sports programs.  

Early this year I noted that IU men’s basketball is a middle of the pack big ten team and that is where it will remain under the M.W. era.

Not sure about the big time well known coaches are the answer.
 However, might want to keep an eye on the new (3rd year coach) up the road in Terre Haute.  He is in the process of making immediate winning progress.  Culture change… It didn’t take him long…at least for consideration…if success continues to rapidly grow….when that time comes. 

 

[IU_FanClub]

4 minutes ago, Chris007 said:

With 9 home games left in the BT, steal one or two in the tourney I'm happy.

Looking at the Big Ten schedule and who these teams are, nothing less than 12 wins should be acceptable. Pretty much none of the teams in our conference are equipped to attack our biggest weaknesses like Auburn was and we already have a road win under our belts. Also have 6 games against Minnesota, PSU, and Nebraska. Northwestern, Iowa, and MSU only at home and winnable road games at Rutgers and Maryland.

[str8baller]

18 minutes ago, realTomCrean said:

Calm down period is complete over here. How's everyone feeling? 10-3/11-2 going into January fine by me.. 

11-2 would give people a lot of optimism. I’d be really interested how we beat Kansas.  
 

10-3 is the bare minimum and probably doesn’t change people’s opinions much. Morehead St is ranked 150ish in Kenpom and that’s the best squad noncon team we’ve beat since Wright St.  
 

The Michigan (42 in kenpom) win stands out as a particularly solid showing. Other than that we haven’t beat many decent teams nor have we looked good doing it. 
 

The good news is that the first four B1G games aren’t particularly brutal either. So we really have until that 3rd week in January to look better. Then that next month is going to be a bear. 

[Rico]

2 minutes ago, IU_FanClub said:

Looking at the Big Ten schedule and who these teams are, nothing less than 12 wins should be acceptable. Pretty much none of the teams in our conference are equipped to attack our biggest weaknesses like Auburn was and we already have a road win under our belts. Also have 6 games against Minnesota, PSU, and Nebraska. Northwestern, Iowa, and MSU only at home and winnable road games at Rutgers and Maryland.

I feel we got a bunch of work to do to become a tournament caliber team.

[IU_FanClub]

1 minute ago, Rico said:

I feel we got a bunch of work to do to become a tournament caliber team.

Just as I said before the Michigan game, if you say you came back here to win big ten titles, then you take care of business in games against teams you have more talent than and I see a lot of those games on our conference schedule. It won't be perfect but there is zero excuse in my opinion to not have a top 5 finish in this version of the big ten with the roster we have. If we want to do even better, the season is going to come down to these games

Purdue x2

OSU x2

Wisconsin x2

@Illinois

 

You win the home games there and maybe steal one on the road and you could be looking at something really good.

[str8baller]

10 minutes ago, Chris007 said:

With 9 home games left in the BT, steal one or two in the tourney I'm happy.

We’re 72 in kenpom, 60 in torvick, and 123 in NET.  
 

10 wins entering 2024 + 9 more conf wins + 1-2 BTT wins = 20 or 21 wins and probably the NIT based on the numbers above and the likely strength of the B1G this year.  
 

Nothing wrong with that per se, but I would bet that would be slightly below expectations for most fans.  
 

(The one way we could really improve those efficiency rankings with only 9 more conf wins would be to beat the snot out of the likes of PU, UW, Illinois and have our losses be pretty close). 

[Chris007]

4 minutes ago, str8baller said:

We’re 72 in kenpom, 60 in torvick, and 123 in NET.  
 

10 wins entering 2024 + 9 more conf wins + 1-2 BTT wins = 20 or 21 wins and probably the NIT based on the numbers above and the likely strength of the B1G this year.  
 

Nothing wrong with that per se, but I would bet that would be slightly below expectations for most fans.  
 

(The one way we could really improve those efficiency rankings with only 9 more conf wins would be to beat the snot out of the likes of PU, UW, Illinois and have our losses be pretty close). 

I mean 10 going into 2024, win all home games, then steal a road game or two, win a BTT game, and were in. But the BT is down this year

[Hoosier987]

5 minutes ago, str8baller said:

We’re 72 in kenpom, 60 in torvick, and 123 in NET.  
 

10 wins entering 2024 + 9 more conf wins + 1-2 BTT wins = 20 or 21 wins and probably the NIT based on the numbers above and the likely strength of the B1G this year.  
 

Nothing wrong with that per se, but I would bet that would be slightly below expectations for most fans.  
 

(The one way we could really improve those efficiency rankings with only 9 more conf wins would be to beat the snot out of the likes of PU, UW, Illinois and have our losses be pretty close). 

YUP...and hopefully some will understand the importance of beating the crap out of far lesser teams. For example, beating an Army team by single digits is actually far more damaging then losing to UCONN by single digits (metric wise).

[Golfman25]

46 minutes ago, Chris007 said:

I mean 10 going into 2024, win all home games, then steal a road game or two, win a BTT game, and were in. But the BT is down this year

How many from the BT will get in?  We tied for 2nd last year with NW.  8 teams got in last year.  If we finish 1-4 in conference, we should be in.  They won't completely chooch the BT.   

[realTomCrean]

1 hour ago, IU_FanClub said:

Also have 6 games against Minnesota, PSU, and Nebraska. Northwestern, Iowa, and MSU only at home

7-2 at worst or Indiana may be in trouble come March

[NashvilleHoosier]

55 minutes ago, Chris007 said:

I mean 10 going into 2024, win all home games, then steal a road game or two, win a BTT game, and we’re in. But the BT is down this year

I think I said it in this thread, though yeah, mostly in the heat of the moment getting our tails handed to us and my in-laws annoying the crap out of me, but nonetheless my mind isn’t changed…I think we have to win this weekend to end up dancing. Can we go into a down B1G with zero quality OOC wins, knowing what this team is, and be confident we’ll build a resume? I think even winning all of our home games is quite a stretch. Now, I sincerely hope I eat crow, but I just don’t think this team has it in them, barring a miracle on Saturday.

[WayneFleekHoosier]

I'll say this, I'm glad we are 2-0 in the B1G.  

 

I think we can actually beat Kansas despite the fact we should have no shot.  Assembly Hall can be pretty special. 

I think 7 or probably more likely 8 will get in from the B1G.  

 

We should find ourselves in that top 8 but we aren't good enough and aren't going anywhere.  Making the tournament is the baseline and we are good enough we should do that even though the numbers don't support it yet.  (Beating Kansas at home would really help those numbers)

[coonhounds]

Absolutely zero chance this team goes undefeated at home in the big 10 this year. None whatsoever. I hope we make the ncaa but I am starting to get worried

Sent from my SM-A326U using Tapatalk

[Loaded Chicken Sandwich]

54 minutes ago, WayneFleekHoosier said:

I'll say this, I'm glad we are 2-0 in the B1G.  

 

I think we can actually beat Kansas despite the fact we should have no shot.  Assembly Hall can be pretty special. 

I think 7 or probably more likely 8 will get in from the B1G.  

 

We should find ourselves in that top 8 but we aren't good enough and aren't going anywhere.  Making the tournament is the baseline and we are good enough we should do that even though the numbers don't support it yet.  (Beating Kansas at home would really help those numbers)

The field has got to be pretty poor to get 8 in. Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern, Ohio State, Wisconsin look like the best bets.

Without great Big Ten schedule showings...

Michigan? Nope.

Iowa? Nope.

Michigan State? Nope.

Rutgers? Nope.

Penn State? Nope.

Maryland? Nope.

Minnesota? Nope.

Indiana? Nope.

Nebraska? On the fence.

[TheWatShot]

It's rare for any Big Ten team to go unbeaten at home. Ideally we could win at least 4 on the road like we did last year, and maybe not have another Iowa performance. 

[Hornsby]

It's rare for any Big Ten team to go unbeaten at home. Ideally we could win at least 4 on the road like we did last year, and maybe not have another Iowa performance. 

We aren't even close enough to good enough to win all our home games. Did ths zeller teams even win all the home games?

Sent from my SM-A146U using Tapatalk

[IU_FanClub]

13 minutes ago, TheWatShot said:

It's rare for any Big Ten team to go unbeaten at home. Ideally we could win at least 4 on the road like we did last year, and maybe not have another Iowa performance. 

@PSU @Minnesota @Nebraska @Rutgers @Maryland we should be able to win at least 3 of those to add on to our Michigan road win, Say we drop one at home that would put as at 13-7. Matchup wise I really think we should be able to get a lot of wins in conference. That does not mean we can compete to go far in the tournament because we don't have the skill on the outside to do that but neither does the majority of our conference. Top 5 in the big ten and making the tournament should be the expectation for this team anything else would be a major failure/step backwards. We will not have a more favorable conference schedule than this any time soon it is really set up for us to do well.

[IU_FanClub]

1 minute ago, Hornsby said:

We aren't even close enough to good enough to win all our home games. Did ths zeller teams even win all the home games?

Sent from my SM-A146U using Tapatalk
 

His freshman year we went undefeated at home

[Hoosier987]

2 minutes ago, Hornsby said:

We aren't even close enough to good enough to win all our home games. Did ths zeller teams even win all the home games?

Sent from my SM-A146U using Tapatalk
 

Can’t remember…but remember we lost to Wisconsin at home during Gordon’s year when Brian “Polar Bear” Butch banked in a 3 during the final seconds. I was at that game. 

[TheWatShot]

5 minutes ago, IU_FanClub said:

His freshman year we went undefeated at home

Not quite: https://www.espn.co.uk/mens-college-basketball/game/_/gameId/320120084

 

The only IU team in recent memory I can think of that went unbeaten at home was Sampson's first year when we were perfect at home for the whole season (of course, our big non-con games that year were at Duke, at UK and at UConn).