You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Hello and welcome to Crimson
Cast, GAIL Clavio, Scott Caulfield joining you.
It is Sunday morning. February 11th, Super Bowl
Sunday, Scott Happy Super Bowl Sunday.
I I know you are the Taylor Swift.
Super Bowl. The Taylor Swift.
Yes. Well, if you stick around till
the end of the podcast, you folks will get a a sneak preview
of a theory that I have about Taylor Swift and media exposure
that actually touches on some other things as well.
And I I want to. We'll just unleash that.
Normally, that'd be AVIP video, but I think we can unleash it on
the general population today because I want to play like the,
like the, you know, the Charlie, the Charlie meme of, like him
from, you know, it's sunny in Philadelphia, all the strings.
Because I want to see how you can connect Taylor Swift.
Like, I just want to throw out three things like Swift and Mike
Woodson and like Jim Harbaugh. Can you connect all of those?
Things. I don't think I'm going to go
that direction today, but we'll see.
We'll see where things take us. Hard to say at this point.
Anyway, it's good to have you folks joining us once again as
we'll be talking Indiana basketball today.
I I still owe everybody a football podcast or or we do.
We've got some folks that I'm lining up to talk football more
in depth over the course of the next couple of weeks as that
looks like that may be the most exciting thing for us to talk
about as we move forward. So first of all, just a reminder
that we are part of the back home network.
You should check out all of the shows on the back home network
across the board. Assembly Call still plugging
along this, you know one of the reasons why we don't do post
game podcasts, Scott, is to avoid having to talk immediately
after losing, losing, losing by 20 to your archrival.
But Assembly Call does, and so you want to tune into them after
every IU game plus Assembly Call radio on Thursday evenings.
You've also got to doing the work podcast Big Game for IU
today as they take on Purdue and Assembly Hall in women's
basketball. We've got Film Room with Tony
Adrania. We've got Exes and Joes with Bob
and Mike and a bunch of other things under the sun.
All that brought to you by Home Field apparel, your place to go
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They just dropped a new collection for IU in particular,
some great stuff. We told you about it on the show
earlier this week. Hopefully you got in there and
ordered. I'll tell you that Indiana Hyper
Crew Neck was that's my favorite.
It's both awesome. But again I'm I'm just kind of,
I'm always fascinated as someone whose office was in the Hyper
building for many years here. The building itself loses a lot
of luster once you get out of the basketball court area.
But it is amazing how much of A cultural touchdown that building
is for anybody that's been at IU that in any way, shape or form
was interested in basketball. So that's on the site.
There's a bunch of other great stuff that came out in that
collection release. Go check it out on home field
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It's a particular type of of economic relationship that some
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but it's also quad collection might be coming out.
You never know. Yeah exactly.
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So anyway, we are once again talking about Indiana
Basketball. Scott, I I want to just start
off by having you discuss what you saw yesterday in this game.
OK we'll we'll start there. I was my God, I'm just pulling
up the the Ken Palm stuff and like the win percentages.
We were never above like 80% to win.
I I watched the game with the Patriots game on the other TV
and the Patriots game was a lot of fun.
Halliburton is a heck of a player put on the show at
Madison Square Garden. You know, I it is exactly what I
thought it would be. I had a couple friends over.
I I didn't watch it intently. It's like it's kind of sucks
because like this is normally like IU Purdue.
You get super fired up and like it started pretty well.
You know you had a little bit of lead, yet you knew Purdue was
going to come back and and take it over, which they did.
You know, I was, I was thinking about it this morning as we were
texting about potting. It's like I I feel like I'm in a
weird spot because even in IU football, you and I have gotten
to the point where, you know, you lose these games to Michigan
or Ohio State and football and it's like you're annoyed.
And then you and I are kind of annoyed because like at some
point you have to solve this problem.
You can't just lose the same team over and over again.
But on the flip side, it's like game single games.
Like, I don't expect us to beat Michigan in football.
Like it's just like coming in and getting super pissed about
us. Losing in football to Michigan
is kind of stupid. I've never fully bit.
Like, it's weird to be there now in a place with IU bass.
I know. Unfortunately we've been there
in the past. You know, the first couple years
of the cream, like, there have been points around there.
It just sucks that, you know, kind of going into this game,
not being fully plugged in because I knew, like, there's
really not a chance for going to win this game.
And it played out pretty much exactly how I thought it would
play out is that, you know, Purdue would impose their will.
They would take it up and then, you know, I thought it was odd,
sorry, let's say odd. It's like the fact that they
played Edie that long. I'm like, you're just really
caught. It's like I knew Purdue was
going to lay it on because they would and they should and
they're just going to, you know, do it.
But anyway, I leave. I don't really have any deep
thoughts on the game because it's exactly what I expected and
I'm not. I don't really want to analyze
it and be like, here's all, you know, micro it because it's like
I well, it is exactly what I expected.
I just, I hate that. I'm in that position where it's
like it's just a game at Purdue has to be just an automatic L
And dude, I know we won there last year, so that's why it's
not like this is some super massive problem, but it's like,
for this season there was really no chance we were winning that
game. Yeah, I mean, look, from a
basketball perspective, this one was pretty easy to diagnose from
the get go. IU was almost certainly going to
come out and have a good first five to 10 minutes of game time.
You know, they were going to, they were going to look engaged
and then substitutes were going to start happening and Indiana
would lose their focus and a couple of bad things would
happen and then that would lead to things kind of rolling
downhill for Purdue. And at that point it would be
over. And that's essentially how it
went. You know, Indiana was getting
abused early by Braden Smith driving to the lane.
They didn't really have an answer in terms of how they were
playing that defensively. And then, you know, the moment
that Khalil Ware picked up his second foul and got auto
benched, it's like, well, this is going to get extended.
And that's exactly what happened.
And then Indiana comes out and you know what?
Was it possible that they could have gotten back in the game in
the second-half? I think in other years, sure.
But we've seen this from this team more often than not where
they come out, they make some mistakes, they can't hit shots
and then they just kind of give up.
You know, they they really don't have the the mental fortitude in
terms of how they've demonstrated it on the floor
over the course of this season to be able to handle situations
where things aren't going well. You know, we've we've seen an
occasional version of that be different.
We saw it obviously in the Ohio State game earlier this week.
But I think it's important to keep in mind that Ohio State
team is really bad. You know they they were they had
to come back and win in double overtime to beat Maryland at
home. I mean you know they they could
have easily lost that game yesterday.
So nothing about the game was surprising.
And you know the maybe the only surprising thing was that CJ
Gunn hit some shots not, you know none of the shots happened
at a time when it mattered. But it was good to see CJ Gunn
you know lead the team in scoring go 3 for four from three
that was that was nice. But everything else was pretty
much what one might have expected.
Malik Renew, clearly. I mean, had, you know, after
having one of the best games that he's ever had in IU
uniform, had one of the worst games that he's ever had in IU
uniform last night. But I think to me, the
overriding problem with the game was just how engaged Purdue was
emotionally with each other, with the game.
They they really looked like they had a singular focus.
They had an energy about them and Indiana, while there were
some good individual plays, just looked like they lacked any kind
of team cohesion. You know that there was there.
There were no plays that look like they were adding up to IU,
getting opportunities to score. You know the IT seemed like the
entire game plan was Trey Galloway throwing alley oops to
Khalil Ware, which while you know those were nice, but that
was hardly a winning strategy. And defensively, look, I know
Zach Edie is difficult to defend, but we've seen Indiana
teams defend Zac Edie fairly well over the course of the last
two seasons. We've not seen that happen
essentially at all so far this season.
So yeah, I mean, in terms of the game itself, it went about like
what one might have expected it would have gone.
And in this case, I guess I look at it and I say to myself, well,
Indiana did what we thought that they would do.
And that ends up being the problem because the expectation
at this point is that that's the kind of performance that you're
going to get out of this team. And they've lost five of their
last seven and they're like two kind of lucky minutes of
basketball away from having lost seven out of seven.
That's that is a significant issue.
And that is something that I think is really what we have to
focus on for this show. Because when you've lost both
games to your rival and look, produce a fine team, produce
better than last year, you know, Purdue looks like they might get
to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament.
You know, the first game, yeah, you know there, but.
But just because Purdue is really good, doesn't give IUA
license to not show up. And the fact that you lose both
games to Purdue by a combined 41 points for the, you know, and
you lose both games by 20 for the first time since the 1930s
really I think illustrates the core issue here with this team,
which is that there does not appear to be any level of like,
you know, team unity or pride in terms of how they're playing on
a night by night basis. I mean Trey Galloway came out in
the post game press conferences like, well, we lost our energy,
we lost our focus. It's like this is Purdue that
you're playing, this is your, this is your archrival, this is
a team that waxed you on your home floor a couple of weeks
ago, and you can't maintain your energy and focus in that
environment. I mean that that to me, you
know, as much as there's this discourse around IU basketball
and what direction it's going and the concerns about things,
that to me is a huge red flag. Not just because we clearly saw
it in this game and we clearly saw it in the first game, but
we've seen it in several other games so far this season out of
this IU team, particularly in the Big 10, but also against
Auburn, also against UConn. This is a team that just often
times looks like it either doesn't know what it's supposed
to do or doesn't really want to be there doing it.
That's a culture problem, Scott, and that is a problem that I,
you know, we keep hearing from Mike Woodson in these post game
press conferences. Well, you know, we just got to
get over the hump. You know, we got to keep
working. It's like what you need to be
working on is the culture of your team.
Like where is the fight? And don't point to the Ohio
State game when that Ohio State team, you know, looks like they
don't want to be on the floor with each other either.
Like, where's the fight against good teams?
Where's the fight in the, where's the pride?
You know for for all of this talk about IU basketball and and
its historical relevance and how it's supposed to be this special
program, where's the pride in in how the the group is playing
collectively? Where's the pride from the
people who are are coaching the team in terms of what is being
put out on the floor. It just looks insanely
pedestrian, Scott, and and this is a team that on any given
night looks like the worst team in the conference.
And it's not because of the talent, it's because there
doesn't seem to be any kind of central motivating factor
amongst the players most of the time.
Yeah, well one one thing with the with the post game comment,
you know, you picked up on this on Twitter too.
I think I'm going to get the quote here from Woodson.
We got to continue to grow as a team.
We're going to have to add some pieces and like that.
That's an odd comment because it's like you joked, I'm
stealing your joke on Twitter. It's like there's no like
February trade deadline. Like it's like there is in the
NBA. Like this is where it's like
Mike, we are not in the NBA. Like, we're not going to be able
to, you know, get rid of Buddy Hield and do something else like
they're like, and it's just an odd thing to say because it's
like, all right, so are you just giving up on this year, Like
because when you add pieces in college, it's the end of the
year. So are you just saying we don't
have the pieces? And it's funny, I was with a
couple friends last night watching the game who aren't as
plugged in. And I do think what's kind of
masking some of this for just kind of the average fan is the
record isn't awful like 14 and 10.
They're looking like, oh, you know, you're still like almost
500. The Big 10, like you have a soft
schedule coming up. And I'm like, no, we don't.
Like First off, we're not good. And secondly like Northwestern,
Nebraska like they're better teams that I know it's not like
the name on the front that you're used to but like this is
different and everybody we play the rest of the year is better
than us. And so I I do think as if losses
continue to stack up and we get closer to 14 to 14 and 14 as a
team. I I think the larger collective
might kind of wake up and notice what you and I have been seeing.
But no I I agree with everything that that you're saying and it's
it is a team that is just been kind of checked out going
through the motions and then they have moments where they
click in and I said it last night with my buds and I'll say
it again here that. That this is not one of those
years where it's like we just don't have the talent.
Like I will go back to the offseason again.
You got one of the just let's not argue about it.
You got one of the top five or top three players in the portal.
You got that guy. You got a five star recruit to
recommit from Duke to Indiana. Now you know and then you know
like I I throw it in there like you got like a very good Mac
player in Peyton Sparks. It's Peyton Sparks in the
transfer portal like to me And you're you're pairing that up
with two you know 5th and 6th year guards.
One of them got injured and another five star big man that's
a ton of talent and that's a really great portal year and so
I get really frustrated when it's just like oh we got to do
some more in the portal next year.
It's like you're you basically got an A on the test last year
in the portal you did it really well like you got one of the top
guys, you got a five star recruit, you got a good mid
major player. You're going to do better than
that. Like off of coming off of a year
you expect more players to want to come and you're going to get
two of the top five guys in the the portal.
Like it's like I want to kind of yell at people and what like you
understand Kansas, Duke, like Alabama, they're in the portal
as well like they are offering other players it's not just
Indiana. And so that this is where I get
really concerned. But again I kind of take a step
back. You know we we we beat Purdue
last year at Mackey. It's like this is a massive
trend. It is just a this season thing.
But this season you know back-to-back games against
Purdue you you lose by 20 and you look wildly uncompetitive.
It's tough and I'll just end with this it's like you know the
the Purdue fans were chanting NIT and it's like like that'd be
great. That's like probably not
happening. Can you make that happen please
like that would be awesome. I'm in.
Done. Go make it right now.
Thank you, Mackey. Yeah, I know the the NIT chant
was funny, mostly because it was aspirational as opposed to
insulting. You know, our our friend Matt
Blaska had some some stats this morning for me in the In five of
the last seven games, IU has fallen behind by 18 or more
points. That's awful.
That really is terrible. And I mean, you can even take it
a a different direction if you wanted to, you know, because in
that Iowa game, at one point Indiana was up 31 to 15 and Iowa
came back and tied that game at 66 in the closing minutes.
You know, So it's it's been one of those stretches of play where
you go back to the Rutgers game and you know, the the best, the
best performance I guess was the 15 to two run that they had
against Minnesota in the second-half of of that game that
they played at Assembly Hall, you know, But even that Indiana
at one point was at 56 to 35 and Minnesota clawed all the way
back and I think got within, you know what they they got within
11 at the end of the game that this is a team that has, they've
not been competitive in a lot of these games.
And even the ones that they have been competitive in, they've had
these huge swoons where they just either forget how to play
with each other or just get bored with prosperity.
In the 10 losses Indiana's had, they've lost by less than 10
only three times and by less than five once again that was
that was from Matt and in the wins that they've had.
I mean I think people when you look at the the overall record,
Indiana's non conference strength of schedule is 200th in
the country. Like this is a this is a bottom
third or close to bottom third strength of schedule.
In the non conference they lost all the games against good teams
that they played and so you know everything that you just said
about the you know looking forward I'm going to get to in a
second but this season the wins have largely like the the best
team Indiana's beaten. I guess at this point is I guess
Iowa at home and they did they had to squeak that one out at
the very end. I'm not telling you folks
anything that you don't already know, but it does make you
wonder. Like, you know when when Mike
Woodson's coming out and saying, well, the season's not over.
Yeah, technically that's true. But what have you seen in any of
these games up to this point that would really make you think
that against competition that is trying to get into the NCAA
tournament And, you know, essentially six of the last
seven teams Indiana's playing are in that boat.
Penn State, who Indiana lost to, is the one exception to that.
You know, where do you see Indiana pulling it together and
playing at a level that is going to be commensurate with winning
any of those games? Now, will they win one of them?
Probably just by the the luck of the draw.
But this team does not look like it's headed in the right
direction, even right now. And for all of this talk about,
you know, what we got to keep, we got to keep pulling together.
Yeah, that's true. But what we've seen.
From this team is very little learning over the course of of
this stretch and again it just kind of feels like Indiana is
stuck in this rut where they are destined to get into the heart
of the Big 10 schedule and struggle.
You know, last year was the one year that we didn't see Indiana
do that, but any of the previous seasons that has been the mark
of of IU teams, they they do not have the capacity to pull it
together and and they put themselves in worse and worse
positions the further in you get.
One, you know, the stat that I've been monitoring and we're
now over the Rubicon, you know, the the 15 point losses.
Archie in his career, his four year is his last three years or
sorry, his first three years. Sorry, sorry, I'll get this
right. His first three years Archie had
1415 point losses, but in 3rd year he only had three of them.
20 to Wisconsin, 16 to Maryland, 24 to Michigan.
This now gives Mike Woodson in his first three years 20 losses
that are over 15 points and right now he has 12345 this
season 5 losses over 15 points with a doozy a 28.
That's the largest. Well, Archie had won 28 loss to
Tennessee Tech that that doesn't, that doesn't age well.
But you have a 28 against you know against Auburn.
The the thing that I continue to go back to for this season is
everything you're saying is right.
All stuff Blaska saying is right.
Like the stats are not good. This is not this is not a good
team. And I I kind of get tired of
hearing the like, hey you know you lost a lot last year.
You're going to have dips. It's like that's fine.
You can have dips and you lost. Yes, you can.
Two things can be true. Trace Jackson Davis can be
awesome and can leave this team. That doesn't mean that now the
team has to suck. Like this team still has talent.
And I look at it and it's like you again, you got you know, you
got Khalil Ware who is one of the best transfers out there.
Then you only other. You only have two other freshmen
on this team. One of them is McKenzie and Baku
who's a five star. The other one is Gabe Cubs,
who's played. All right, everything.
Else oh, you got Don't forget your Kyle Newton who's been out
all season but. All right.
Yeah, but then everyone else is returning and then it's like you
start well, I guess a couple like you know Walker and Sparks
but like everyone else is returning.
Renew stepped up and then you look at it's like all right
well, you know CJ Gunn hasn't played well and it's like, all
right, well, why not He's a sophomore.
Like this is the time to step up.
Like he's not like Caleb Banks just isn't playing anymore.
It's like why not? Like you can't just be like, oh
are are those guys suck and that suck.
It's like it's a down year. Like it doesn't I I will never.
This year does not have to be this bad.
And I think that's what's really frustrating to me is you can
have down years like Michigan states having a down year,
they're probably going to make the tournament.
They just beat Illinois at home like they are not having the
year they expected to have. It is not a complete dumpster
fire crash and burn. Just you know, every having, you
know, things that haven't happened in 90 years to your
rival. That to me is what's really
rough when again you we were saying it this offseason, this
is the most number of five star players you've had on an IU team
in like 15 years. So the talent is there.
The talent is 100% there. And when you look across the
board, it's like we talked about in one of our last pods, like
Gabe Cubs was a higher recruit than Braden Smith.
I'm not saying that that matters, but it's like, again,
you can't you to me, you can't use that argument like we just
didn't have the talent OR this didn't work out.
And then you can't just say, all right, the Xavier Johnson
injury, like that's the entire reason this season fell off the
rails. So I I'm just that's where I'm
very frustrated because I just I don't understand why it has to
be this absolutely bad. It it doesn't.
And I think a lot of the angst for IU fans right now above and
beyond this season which is angsty enough, like the the
results have not been sufficient.
They've not been acceptable and and you know losing to Purdue
both times that way. You know the the way that this
team performed at home against Penn State, the way that they
performed in those games against Connecticut and Auburn.
I mean, there have been plenty that IU fans have had to swallow
this year that have not been acceptable, that have just to
some degree. I think you know the the
answer's been well, Indiana was good last year, so why are you
complaining, which is which is nuts given the profile that
Indiana likes to carry itself at in men's basketball.
But I think a lot of the source of angst right now beyond even
what you talked about is there's not a lot to get excited about
as far as the next year. I mean if you take a hard look
at the roster for the for next year, there's a good chance that
Indiana's only got maybe six or seven players coming back.
I mean there's not really, there's a little bit of a
nucleus and that is entirely dependent on Malik Renew
returning, which I think he probably will.
But there's just, you know, you're you're banking on, oh,
there's a McDonald's All American coming.
That's great. That's, as we've talked about,
that's the only person that's that we know is coming to
Bloomington. And the idea that you're going
to go get a guard or two in the portal and everything will be
fine. I mean, that's been kind of the
argument, but the roster is setting itself up to need a lot
more than that in order for Indiana to like not just not
just have a roster that they can field, but retool the team to
get to a level of competitiveness.
That's what I don't even know what level of competitiveness
people are looking at for the upcoming year.
I mean is it like, oh, they'll go back and play like they did
in 20/22/23? That seems unlikely unless like
every single thing breaks, right?
And you know, the the entire foundation of the program just
feels incredibly shaky right now.
You know, you're going to either have to retain and count on a
bunch of players this season who are not performing for next
year, or you're going to have to go out and get almost an entire
new roster of players to go along with the couple of players
that are contributing regularly this year And.
Or you're going to need players to take immense leaps.
I mean, we've talked a lot about some of the different players in
the things that they've had to do so far this season.
And I think the thing that has concerned me as the season has
gone on is that partially due to injury but largely due to the
system that's being played. You're just not seeing a huge
amount of development in a lot of the players that you need to
get development out of, not just to help this year go better, but
to get going next year and and have a nice foundation.
I mean, you know, I feel bad for Gabe Cups on the one hand
because he's had to do so much, but he's also just still not
able to contribute very much offensively.
You know he's he, he looks very tentative in his shooting and I
think a lot of that is system based as opposed to necessarily
being like Gabe. Cubs is not a good basketball
player. I don't believe that.
You know, we haven't seen Caleb Banks at all lately.
Caleb Banks is on his. He just completed his fifth
straight DNPCD, and at least we assume it's a coach's decision.
And in the four games prior to that, Caleb Banks played 5
minutes, one minute, 3 minute and four minutes.
Like he's essentially ceased being a contributing member of
the roster. And that's a guy that, just from
a roster numbers perspective, you're like, that's a guy you're
going to need, you know, to to step up.
CJ Gunn's been all over the map. 5 minutes, DNP, 5 minutes, 11
minutes, three points, 7 minutes, no points.
And then last night, 20 minutes, 13 points.
I mean, that's not illustrative of a player that is consistently
developing Peyton Sparks, who they brought in.
I mean, you know, he's gone since the beginning of the year.
DNPD NP3 minutes. DNP 8 minutes, 29 minutes, 2
minutes, 5 minutes. DNP, one minute, 11 minutes, you
know that's a, that's a obviously a player that's only
being used situationally. So if you look at the roster and
you're like, well, if everything's banking on Renew
and Embako coming back and I guess Trey Galloway coming back
and then you have to build around that nucleus plus Khalil
Ware or excuse me, not Khalil Ware plus Liam Mcneely, that's
that's still not a foundation that would give me a lot of
confidence as a as a fan and and and as someone who observes the
team, I'm not very confident in it.
And to go back to what you said, what is like, what is the
message to players in the portal after what has been demonstrated
this year from this team? You can go out and get some good
players certainly, but what are they meshing into at this point
and what is the plan? Well, and this is where you
know, style of play and pace of play.
Like these are things that are important for players who want
to play in a fun at, you know, fun atmosphere.
You look at, you know, the NBA style here without, you know,
Tyrese Halliburton and the Pacers.
You're getting a lot of buzz with players who are like, I
want to play with that. Like OB Toppin came here because
he wanted to play with Tyrese Halliburton, like Pascal.
Siaka made it very clear he'd like to re sign in Indiana
because he wants to play with somebody like that.
The Pacers play fast pace. They shoot a lot of threes and
they have a system that put guys in good position to score.
This is where you know there's a lot of things conspiring
against. It's just, you know, the the the
optics aren't good and that you have a team that plays in
Indiana a glacial pace. You don't shoot a lot of threes
and you the the all of the offenses thus far have been very
post centric and post, you know, heavy.
And so now you're trying to sell to guards like all right you
know if you look at if you're a guards like, well tell me who's
been successful, it's like, well, Jalen Hoodschaffino was
you know, successful. He was also a lottery pick.
So if you're a lottery pick you can come here and I guess be
successful. Outside of that, not really.
And like is it fun to play now? You're not going to shoot a lot
of threes. You have to put, you know push
the ball into the post a lot and it I don't know what the selling
point is for a guard to come out.
And again, I would just you know urge people to look at what
happened and look where we are and look to the future.
This idea of just we have to do better in the portal.
Like you know, we should have gotten more last year.
It's like I I will steadily steadfast say like Mike Woodson
got an A last year on what he did in the portal.
So now and that and that's getting you a team that in the
struggle to make the NIT. So you're saying, you know, to
those fans out there, it's like, so, so you got to do an A+ plus,
like we just have to continue to do better in the portal.
And then, you know, isn't that kind of where you get into this
culture problem where guys are trying to fit in?
It's like you can't then next year be like, oh, well, you
know, it's new guys takes another year.
Like this is, you know, the teams that, you know, like TCU
got two top 20 guys in the portal.
But Jamie Dixon has a system there.
He's got a bunch of other guys are plugging into and even that
team's five and five in the Big 12.
It's not like they're tearing it up.
No, I'm I'm with you. But I'm just I'm not sure what
you're selling to guards when you see this play it.
So it's it's not fun for us to watch.
But it's a it's a it's an important thing.
And then you know the last thing I'll say is like when you have,
you know, the the way that the the game is played at Indiana,
it's slow. It's very, you know, dependent
on players making moves. It just, it looks like a coach
who's kind of, I don't want to say it this way, but it just the
optics are it's like someone who doesn't have, you know, modern
basketball styles and kind of are coaching as if they were,
you know, a former NBA coach. But those things are all true.
Like this is where it's tough and I don't know what the sales
pitch is to a young dynamic guard.
And you know, just being frank, I'm not sure if they have the
right pitch because you were pitching Boogie, you know,
Boogie Flan and you didn't get him.
Not saying it's like one guy you don't get, but it's like they've
had a couple of guards they've gone after and they haven't.
Gotten them, Yeah. I mean it's it's just a rough
situation. I mean the the so much of the
problem seems to come down to these two separate things that
both collaborate in a bad way on how Indiana's playing.
And you know, we've talked about this a lot on the podcast and
you know, we've we've tried to grab on to what optimism we can
over the course of the season. But realistically, you know it.
Yes, the there's there's issues with players and there's issues
with the roster and there's issues with roster composition
and there were poor choices made.
There were leaps of faith taken that they're just probably
shouldn't have been and there's been a lack of development.
All of that is true. And then you set aside that and
you also look at the system that's being conducted.
It's both offense and defense and you know on on both ends of
the floor. Indiana is just not able to
measure up against teams that are equal to or better than them
on a given night. And that is that's a real,
that's the fact that Indiana basketball continues to find
itself in this position is just not acceptable.
It's not like that. That is not what the brand of
Indiana basketball is supposed to be.
And it is. And I, you know, I know some of
you are out there listening. It's like it's been that way for
1/4 century. It's like, yes, but the whole
idea is that was supposed to be fixed and addressed Like, you
know, for like, there was supposedly some kind of an issue
in in the previous coaches that was causing that to be the case
and that this was going to fix things.
And what you've gotten instead is, from a stylistic
perspective, a team that shoots the fewest threes of any team in
conference play, you know, has three pointers comprised of the
fewest points in total point distribution of any team in the
conference in conference play. A team that shoots 64% from the
free throw line, which is dead last in the conference, A-Team
that's either gets the ball stolen from it 11% of the time,
which is dead last in the conference.
You know, a team that is pretty good at keeping opposing teams
from shooting well but is terrible about putting opposing
teams on the free throw line, their 12th worst in the
conference there. On offense, this team looks like
it's stuck 15 to 20 years ago, even more so than it did last
year. And on defense, this team just
kind of looks disengaged. You know, the thing that sticks
out to me about Purdue, The thing that stuck out about Penn
State, the thing that stuck out about Illinois and and
Wisconsin, back when Wisconsin was still a good basketball team
was the effort and the energy with which those teams played,
especially defensively. And I just don't see that out of
Indiana. And this is, again, not
something unique to Mike Woodson.
It was also very present in the Archie Miller era and to some
degree in the latter end of the Cream era.
But it's a problem that ends up exacerbating the already
existing issues with the roster and the already existing issues
with the style that's being chosen to be played.
It's just not working. And Mike, look, at this point,
my feeling is pretty straightforward.
I think if you're still, like heavily emotionally invested in
this team this year, there's not going to be a lot of rewards for
you. And the problem is that that has
LED a lot of people to become emotionally disinvested.
And that's kind of how I felt last night watching this team
play. You know, like you, there was,
there were no surprises in store as far as I was concerned about
how this game was going to go, which made it an odd watch
because I was just like, well, let's see, you know, maybe
they'll upset expectations and they'll spring a surprise.
And when they didn't, it was like, oh, well, here we go
again. You know, we've had so many
complaints about IU basketball over the years being in exactly
this spot. It is just baffling how you
know, coach after coach, different different approaches,
different people being hired. This seems to be the default
mechanism now for IU basketball. And that is really depressing.
And I keep hearing what we got to get this fixed, we got to do
this is that it's not getting fixed.
And I think you can make an argument now that it's like
you've you've run out of time to fix it because you get a week
off and then you've got essentially this huge run of
games, the, you know, the the final six games of the season
and they're all like right after each other.
There's like two or three games or three, two or three days
between every game. Three of them are on the road.
You know, this could get really bad because I've I don't see
where this team is suddenly going to start pulling it
together. If you can't give effort and
competitiveness and show fire against Purdue, a team that blew
you out by 20 points a couple of weeks earlier, what is your
motivating factor for playing hard against like Nebraska or
Maryland or Minnesota down the road?
I I don't know what, like, it would be perverse if those games
got you fired up, but the Purdue game didn't, and I think you
know that to me. Again, it goes back to the
culture issue. That is a real concern and I
don't see that getting fixed, and I hope I'm wrong.
I hope that there's some rabbit that Woodson and the staff pull
out of their hat. But this seems like the team,
this is the team is on the floor as they say, right?
The IT is can I I'm just going to go back one more thing to
like how how you get the the guards in here that we need like
you look at last year's portal. Maybe one of the top guards in
the portal was LJ Cryer, who went to who went to Houston.
This year he's he's 68 for 183 from three points.
So he's gone out and shot 183 threes.
This year Indiana as a team has shot 367.
So he's effectively shot half as many threes by himself as
Indiana has a team. If he came to IU, he, if you
look at it, if you're him, it's like, all right, well, you know
Mackenzie and Bacco this year has shot 99 threes so far this
year. Like, I want to come in and
shoot 250. Am I going to be able to do
that? You look at this offense like
I'm not sure I could do that and I just think that's going to be
the problem as you sell that to other guards.
But no, the the disengagement thing you're talking about is
tough. And I I, I it's real.
I feel it too. I'm kind of just like I'm I'm
not as engaged with this team. Who cares what Scott, you know
for for Scott. But I think it's it's kind of
catching the the fan base. And you know the last thing I'll
say is this, you know, it's it's parroting something you said,
but kind of two different prongs.
You know the whole idea of hiring a former night guy was
that you know what what you had under night was you had
something special. You had a culture and you had
this. You know, we're not going, you
know, we're going to protect homecourt and we're going to
play a certain way. We're going to play with pride,
you know, the whole thing with the names not in the back, the
names in the front. And then to come in and just see
us get, you know, continually pounded and have games where we
look, you know, mentally not checked in, it's like.
What this was? The whole thing of bringing you
night guys to try and bring, if none of that is there, then what
do we have? The other piece is, you know I
don't want to make this an age, just we talked about it the
other the other time. It's like kind of like if your
team's doing well, age doesn't matter.
If you're not doing well, age becomes an issue.
But you know the same thing I will say for Cignetti and
football as we as we hire Woodson is like when you hire a
coach who's in his late 50s, early 60s, you're not doing
something that's a 15 year turn around like you don't have the
time that you gave, you know Tom Crean, it needs to be a
relatively quicker fix. The world has changed in college
basketball with the transport, parole you can do quicker fixes.
And I think this is also the the frustrating part and especially
if next year you have struggles is it's like with what's in like
dude the whole thing wasn't like this wasn't supposed to be a
five year teardown. Like we don't have a a 12 year
runway to suddenly get good in nine years and then we can bra
for the races. Like that was kind of why I
always said like I felt like you could give Archie a little bit
more time is like if he got it figured out.
You do now have your coach for the next 25 years you're not
going to have that. And so this is where I also get
a little bit like pre frustrated is with people who are like I
just give it a little more time. It's like I I the whole point
here was it wasn't going to be time.
You were going to kind of be able to figure it out and plug
and play and start moving up the escalator and not just have it
completely drop off. Well, yeah, I mean, I think part
of the issue is you knew coming in you might only get Trey, Trey
Jackson Davis for another year, right?
You knew coming in you were going to have to make some
immediate fixes to the roster because you had some people
leaving. And look, I, I, Woodson made
some good moves to to make sure Indiana was more competitive
than they had been in the season before he took over.
What concerns me is that you've had that run of two years where
you had Trace Jackson Davis as your core, as your your aircraft
carrier basically. Well he's gone and for all the
people who are like you know, you got to give Wood some time
to do XY or Z. My concern is like there was a
two year runway to get ready for the moment when Trace Jackson
Davis wasn't going to be on the floor.
There was a point, there was a two year runway to figure out,
OK, here is how, here is our identity.
Here is the culture of Indiana basketball.
Here's how things are going to get done.
And you know the that that couldn't survive the graduation
of Jackson Davis and I guess race Thompson and and Miller Cop
that that all of that seemed to go away and don't give me Jalen
Chaffino. As great as Jalen Chaffino was
he was a freshman. Like there's only a certain
amount of culture enforcement that's coming there.
Like where is it now? Why why does this team look like
it's it's soul was kind of departed after that left with no
with no real underpinning. I mean, you're going to get ups
and downs with college basketball programs.
But as we talked about last time, the the down for Indiana
should have been like the season that Minnesota's having right
now. Or the state or this.
I I use Michigan State as a prime.
Exam. Yeah, or Michigan State.
I mean the the idea that that Indiana would be in the spot
that they're in right now, where they're outside the NCAA
tournament window, they're outside the the, the NIT just
seems kind of implausible if there's a trajectory of success
going on with the. Program losses, but just, you
know, the the, the knucklehead kind of plays like it's just the
way they play with a the the flagrant fouls, the technicals
like just do that stuff. It's like, where is that?
Inner culture, well, this is the but see and this is where I
think this is hard. And I'm sorry for those of you
who have heard parts of this before, it's like we're kind of,
we're doing that. We never prepare before these
podcasts. We're just kind of doing it on
the fly. And sometimes things, sometimes
things come out and it's like, oh, I hadn't thought about that
before. This is one of those for me.
It's like the the I How do I put this?
There's clearly effort being given by players, but a lot of
times it feels like the effort is in service of a poor idea,
you know? So Trey Galloway is a great
example of this. Trey had a, you know, great game
at Ohio State. He had a good start to this
Purdue game, and then Trey just decided to take it on himself to
try to make all of these plays that ended up in turnovers.
He took a bunch of shots that he shouldn't have taken and I think
to some degree he felt compelled to do that because there is when
when Indiana's first option is defended properly, there doesn't
seem to be a Plan B on most of these things.
You know, we we see Malik Renew do this constantly.
Where Malik Renew is trying to pass out of the post.
He's trying to consider post moves.
You know, when he's getting heavily defended and when teams
are taking him away, he ends up making mistakes because he has
to, because he has to do these high risk, high reward types of
plays in order to even give Indiana a chance at success on a
given possession. And you can kind of go down the
roster on that front. We've talked about Mackenzie and
Baco, who's clearly still learning how to be a basketball
player. He'll try to make plays.
He'll lose his man. He gets benched for it and he
doesn't know what exactly what he is, you know, supposed to do
afterwards. And then he kind of shrinks into
the background. Gabe Cups, I don't know what
Gabe Cups is supposed to do out there.
Gabe Cups assist rate is 10% on the season.
That's horrific for a point guard, especially point guard
that started 13 games. But I don't think Gabe Cups
clearly understands what his role is out there.
I mean, there were possessions where, you know, Gabe Cups would
come down the floor and would just kind of hide in the corner.
Wasn't a shooting threat, you know, there was one, the one
pass I think that went over there.
Did he shoot when he caught the ball?
No. He faked, drove in and took a
bad shot from 15. And Bako did that a bunch of
times. So you know this is where the
culture thing is a real problem because it's not like oh all
these guys hate each other and and and hate playing the game.
I don't think that's the case. I could be wrong.
Maybe somebody will will have an evidence to the contrary.
But the culture is more like everybody appears to be afraid
of of playing the way that they are supposed to play or that
they can play because the approach being taken by IU from
a strategic perspective doesn't really leave them a lot of
options for victory. And you know, and defensively, I
think it's actually worse because they seem to be adhering
to this very stodgy kind of style of defense that leaves a
lot of shooters open. They've actually gotten kind of
lucky because opposing teams haven't hit a lot of threes.
It could actually be much worse than it has been over the course
of the season. Indiana's opponents in the Big
10 are actually shooting the lowest 3 point percentage of any
teams in the conference. You know but but they're
allowing the 7th most points from three pointers in the
conference. So like you can kind of do the
math. You know it's it's it's not that
they're, you know, they're making good initial plays then
they give up offensive rebounds there.
There's always something that happens that doesn't seem to be
accounted for and that leads to a lot of frustration from
players. And it ends up leading to a team
that looks unmoored from success.
Because there does not appear to be, you know, evidence in their
eyes that what they're going to go out and do is actually going
to lead to success at the end of the game.
And that that's. Unmoored from success is the
name of the. Podcast Unmoored from success?
Yeah, so you know, again, many of you have probably heard most
of this already. I don't know if we're covering
any particularly new ground, but you know, what concerns me is in
a game like Purdue, you know who's a superior opponent?
It shouldn't. I mean, if Northwestern can go
into West Lafayette and take Purdue to overtime, it feels
like Indiana could at least keep it within 10.
I don't think that that's a huge ask.
And yet it seems to be for this vintage.
And the concern really is what's the future look like for IUI
mean this season. Indiana really can't afford to
lose like 7, you know, the last seven games or six of their last
seven games. I mean, things will get very
toxic. They've already gotten toxic.
And then what is, what exactly is the platform for?
Oh, we're going to turn it around next year.
You know, what is the sales pitch that you're going to bring
people in and say, hey, here's IU basketball 202425 this time
it's going to be better. You know, you're you're hold on,
hold on, hold on, hold on. You're asking for a leap of
faith from the fan base that you're going to fix it this time
around when you didn't get it right the last time around.
And that I think is a very reasonable thing for fans to be
concerned about. Sorry, Scott, go ahead.
Oh, no, sorry. I know.
I. And the other thing that I would
say and I don't want to, I I don't want to speculate, but
it's like the. We've had a, we've had a very
good run of for the most part continuity in the in the players
that we have. You know that's the thing that I
I think is the other pieces that like transfers are A2 way door
that you know we just assume like all right you know that guy
will GoPro then renew will come back.
It's like I'm not saying I, I don't want it to happen.
But it's like if if there really is kind of this malaise and
people kind of checked out, it's very possible that one of the
guys that you expect is going to be back, they will be in the
transfer portal and they will be out and now you need to replace
that person. And two more people.
Like it is funny. Most people when they talk about
it just like, all right, we're going to bring all this back and
then we just got to add five more pieces like Oh no, this is
a revolving door. And teams that normally teams
that have these kinds of seasons, you normally see a lot
of people picking those guys off and those guys transferring out.
So it could theoretically be even even worse.
But I I, I agree. Like this is a time when you you
got to take a stand. You can't just lose out you know
you it it sounds bananas, but it's like you you got to just
keep yourself above. I think it's I I honestly don't
know anymore. I'm assuming you still have to
be 500 to be in the NIT. Like, is it, is it still like,
yes, you have to be 500 to be in the NIT that that is kind of the
goal. Like right now, you know they're
projected on Ken Pond to go 16 and 15, but they're also when
you go game by game, they're projected to lose every game.
So it's kind of like a shrug emoji.
I'm like, well, how you going to get there?
It's like, I don't know. Like, well, numbers say you
could, you got to get to 16 and 15.
You've got to find a way to win two more games.
You have, you know, four of them at home.
So that that's not too far of an ask and that gets you in the NIT
and that that should be the goal.
I think if you don't make that even at this point where we're
moving the goal posts, to me that is just an utter failure of
a season. If you cannot make the NIT.
But you know where when you look at, it's like, I don't know
where the wins are going to come from, you know?
Maybe, yeah. Because I mean all of the teams
on your schedule, with maybe the exception of of Penn still, I
guess Penn State and Maryland are kind of in a weird spot, but
they've all got something to play for.
I mean they they you know they've all got, you know,
Northwestern, Nebraska. They're both fighting for NCAA
bids. You know Wisconsin is trying to
get their season back on track. You've got to play at Minnesota
who who still harbors some ambitions of being in the
tournament. You've got to play Michigan
State who's absolutely going to need that game at the end of the
season. It's so I as much as I'm you
know you're not you don't don't cancel the season certainly you
got to play the games out. But I just don't know what
evidence you were leaning on with 13 games played in the
conference and with what's happened over the last seven
games to point forward and say Indiana's going to be OK,
Indiana's going to figure something out.
And that really I mean we talked for a while like you know not
making the NCAA tournament while bad is not you know it's not an
an insane set back in as much as we've seen other programs, good
programs like top level programs miss the NCAA tournament and
still be fine. But the difference is most of
those programs when they miss the NCAA tournament have a clear
young nucleus that they are going to be bringing to the
forefront and and that those players needed time that really
doesn't exist on this IU team. And the 2nd, not making the NIT,
not not not doing the North Carolina thing and turning it
down, but like actually not being selected in the NIT, which
is where Indiana is at right now.
That is a real problem and maybe we can preempt that by just
turning it down before we get don't get it offered like we
like if they if they finish like 15 and 16 we're like we we are
going to go ahead and turn down the NIT because we're not
getting just like I turned down you know Grammy parties and
Oscar parties like Crimson Cast will not be at the post.
Post game the Super Bowl post game today.
We're just letting you guys know right now.
That's right. We're we're we're going to let
someone else have that glory. Well you know we don't need it.
Taylor Swift have our seats at the yeah in the Kelsey booth
today anyway. Well no it's it's wild.
Not a lot else to say at this point.
Indiana gets some time off, which which is a good thing and
maybe, I guess. Well, it's just, it's just more
of kind of the same swirling concern.
I know. I mean, I I look, it's one of
those things where Indiana got a decent amount of time off
between the Wisconsin and Illinois games and they did play
slightly better in that Illinois game, but they still, at the end
of the day they lost that game by 8.
You know, is Indiana able to handle business against
Northwestern after getting seven days off?
I don't know, because I I I think it's worth noting that if
you look back over Mike Woodson's first two and 2/3
seasons, he's yet to beat Northwestern home or away.
That's a real problem, you know, and you look at at Boo Booey and
Brooks Barnhiser in that whole group.
Like that's a team that's a team that for all of their flaws and
they have several flaws. They they do.
They they know exactly who they are.
They're a slow paced team that doesn't rebound but doesn't turn
the ball over, Who shoots threes really well and you know,
opponents tend to shoot threes. Will it really well against
Northwestern? But Indiana doesn't shoot threes
really well against anybody. That's a game that should be
extra scary for Indiana. And then you got to play
Nebraska, a team that already boat raced you by 16 points
earlier in the season and who has been playing pretty well.
So it's it's daunting times for Indiana right now.
And I don't know what the solution is at this point,
Scott, because I feel like if there was a magic solution to
this, this program's issues, it would have maybe been done by
this point. Like it would have.
There would have been some kind of of change in approach in the
games. There would have been some kind
of a change in approach in terms of substitution strategy or
mentality. And other than benching a guy
for a while for reasons that we're not totally sure about, I
haven't seen a whole lot of change between how this team was
playing in early November and how this team's playing now.
And that is probably the biggest problem that you can call out on
this particular season. I agree and and looking forward
as we've said many times but you know to try and crystallize it
into one point. You know the the problems that
we're having this year with you know the style of our play and
some of the lack of cohesion and a lot of the turnover and
roster. All of those things are going to
be apparent next year like unless unless the unless the
Woodson just does a complete 180 and changes his style of play
which I think is very unlikely. But the the the roster
construction in so much as a lot of new players from you know not
freshmen but new players from transfers like that's all going
to be there next year. But you're going to turn over a
lot of this. You know you're going to look
back last, you know next year we're going to be like man you
know it's tough you you lose 2 you know Xavier Johnson and Trey
Galloway like you know 2 senior point guard you know a lot of
the culture there it's like the same problems are going to be
there next year. So that that can't be the reason
why things are bad this year also next year and that that is
what's concerning. But you know they they still
have time to turn it around and and you know this is where
trying to end on a positive note you have seen teams take an NIT
berth and turn it into a stepping stone for the next
season where you know the they they turn that into something
and I think that's going to be the real key.
A lot of teams use the NIT as like all right this sucks and
they just get blown out in the first round.
We've seen Indiana do that. You know that's not ideal but
you know ideally you have like wasn't it Michigan a couple
years ago like won the NIT in the next year came back and
played really well. Like you you hope you have a
situation like that where they use the NIT as a step.
They get into it and they can use that as a stepping stone to
to try and show like here's the foundation of how we have some
success moving into the 2024-2025 season.
I appreciate your willingness to end on a positive note.
I'll end on a negative note. You lose.
You lose by I was saying you lose by 41 combined points to
Purdue. Like that's unacceptable.
Show some pride. Like I'm sorry.
Like that's that is a bridge that shouldn't be crossed.
And I'm sure you know Purdue when they got blown out by
Indiana, like by a combined 60 some points in 2013, I'm sure
they were saying the exact same thing.
You know, like to to not be ready to play either of those
games and for the team to just look like they just kind of gave
up on the games both times is is about as bad as it gets in terms
of Indiana basketball, you know, in Indiana has not been great.
You know, they've had individual moments of brilliance the last
quarter century, 30 years, but. Being uncompetitive to that
degree against Purdue, I don't care how good Purdue is that's
that should not be considered acceptable and that stat of it
not happening since 1930. I'm like that can't be like we
we dude 2009 was the worst year we ever had and you go back and
look it's like that was a Purdue team.
That Indiana team was ranked 209th in the country.
That Purdue team was ranked 18th in the country and they were in
Mackie and Indiana only lost by what, like 15?
Yeah, I mean, I just people to keep it there.
That's a team that was led by Verdell Jones and Tom Pritchard
and Nick Williams. That was just, that was a team
that went one in 17 in the big. Ten.
I mean, as a coach, if you're going to, if you're trying to
keep your team's mentality, fine.
Go out and blame yourself in the post game.
Press conference say that was absolutely unacceptable.
That is an embarrassment to Indiana basketball, that we
played like that against Purdue. That can never happen again, and
I'm going to make sure that never happens again.
Just say some words that illustrate that you're
discontented with getting blown out by a combined 41 points by
Purdue. It's not that hard and and look
I think there's plenty of things you can call out from your team
about the things that they didn't do and the the unforced
errors that they made and yes, you're playing a good opponent.
It doesn't matter. It's Purdue.
This is supposed to be different.
You know, this is supposed to be go through all of the rivalries.
This is supposed to be different.
It always is. And for Indiana and for Woodson,
especially in that post game, in those post game comments, to
just act so nonchalant about it and like, well, we still got
time to improve, you're missing the point.
And it really makes me wonder, how tuned in are you to this
culture value basketball that you are supposedly an avatar of,
you know, and that's that that. I don't know.
That shouldn't be controversial. That should be pretty
straightforward. But the fact that Indiana, I
think, fans have have kind of been lulled into this idea that,
well, of course we were going to lose by 20 points to Purdue is a
huge part of the problem. Yeah.
Anyway, I promised Taylor Swift comment.
I promised a little Taylor Swift comment at the end.
So there's been a lot of interesting discourse over the
course of the last, I don't know, well really the last two
months about Taylor Swift, the Kansas City Chiefs, the NFL, and
you know, there's this dumb ass cultural war that seems to be
going on on on social media especially.
It's entered the political realm.
You know, you've got certain people, certain political
backgrounds, You know, you know, they, they hate Taylor Swift and
I hate Travis Kelsey. So I I see this a lot in study
media for a living. And one of the interesting
things about media I think is media coverage has a tendency to
ruin a lot of things that people like, but also has a tendency to
make things that aren't that big of a deal a big deal simply
because it's like a constant thing.
And so with Taylor Swift, I think it's fascinating and it
and it also applies to Caitlin Clark the exact same way.
Both of these are objectively successful and I think
objectively good things. I mean Taylor Swift has grown
into the largest pop star in the world, you know in this era and
and competing for all eras just in terms of overall success.
Caitlin Clark's about to set the all time women's scoring record.
Will probably set the all time basketball scoring record at the
college level. So why are so many people, like,
angry at both of them? And it's this thing I'd like to
call saturation theory, which isn't an official theory.
It's really more of a hypothesis at this point, but it's an
interesting one. Because ultimately, when you're
constantly exposed to the same coverage of the same person over
and over again, almost always there's a tipping point where
people become resentful of the coverage and it has very little
to do with the actual person. It, and often times the actual
person, has very little to do with the coverage.
It has everything instead to do with the fact that when you're
just completely surrounded by exposure to that person over and
over again, there's a certain segment of the population who's
like, enough. I want no more of this, and you
see it down the line with it. It doesn't happen as much in
sports because very few sports figures get to the point where
they have that level of coverage.
Tom Brady was one of those people, and there were there's a
huge swath of people who hate Tom Brady, even though
objectively, Tom Brady is the most successful quarterback in
NFL history. It's getting that way to some
degree with Patrick Mahomes. It got that way to some degree
with Peyton Manning, you know. So I don't even think it's like
just a, it's not that Taylor Swift is is a female and people
are angry because she keeps getting shown in football games.
You know, I think you could pick another highly popular person,
put them in the same spot. And if they were constantly
being injected into coverage over and over again by networks
and and you know, by media who are covering it, there would be
a backlash that would be proportionate to the amount of
coverage. And so with Caitlin Clark, it's
like why is Caitlin Clark so annoying to so many people?
I mean people will say, oh, it's, you know, her antics on
the court that's crap. There's lots of people who
complain to officials and and so on and so forth.
It's because when you're like there was a Caitlin Clark
segment during the Indiana Purdue game men's game last
night. Like guys back off a little bit,
you know. And it's to some degree a
phenomenon of this era of media, where there's this constant
feeling on the part of people creating media content that I
have to constantly hit the dopamine button of the audience
and constantly expose them to the things that have already
proven to be successful. The the Marvel movie universe
actually occupies this exact same theoretical space.
It's like we'd be fine with some other movies and some new
intellectual property and some different ideas, but instead
we're going to get our 38th superhero movie.
Why? Because you know, what's the
famous saying? Like, Hollywood is out of ideas.
But it's more than that. It's that ultimately people will
continue to saturate a marketplace with images or with
news about the same people over and over again because it's been
proven to be successful. But it creates this runaway
train of discontent on the part of the audience that's
essentially the core of the theory.
And so the Super Bowl is going to be interesting because you
know, CBS is not going to be able to help themselves.
They are going to have as much Taylor Swift as they feel like
they can squeeze in and it's going to make it worse.
I'm just happy to some degree that the NFL season is ending
because I just would like to have that debate off of, you
know, everybody's plate. It's the dumbest thing for
people to get upset about, and yet that is probably what we're
going to see for the majority of the day-to-day if you're
watching Super Bowl coverage. So I want to help you try and
rename the theory. I I think the name is pretty
good because because I've noticed the same thing in a
different arena. So I'm going to call it the flow
from progressive theory because you you get this.
And she may not be the best. It's it's kind of it's the girl
in the AT&T ads because I've kind of gotten tired of her.
But like you're, we're all going to have this problem in about
four weeks. Because like many of the
listeners, yourself included, I love March Madness and I will
watch, you know, Thursday to Saturday, Sunday.
I will watch nothing but the NCAA tournament.
And I try and flop from game to game to game.
The trouble is, with that package, it's all one, you know,
conglomerate of networks and CBS with TNTTBS and TRU TV.
You get the same like 7 ads every single time.
And it's like, even I'm like telling friends like, God damn
it would AT&T just, I would love for them to just have like 85
different ads. Like make one, like, make it
like MTV. Like one's just a wild ad, like
make this one in cartoon and claymation.
Like I don't care if it's good. Like I'm just tired of seeing,
you know, the same ad where, you know, it was like couple well
years ago, like Matt Stafford coming in and being like, oh,
like this was so much nicer. And it's like it's funny.
Third time it's like, oh God, another one.
It's like, oh, we're doing this again.
And you start making fun of it. And then it's like it's like,
man, we should have put a different angle on this.
It's like. First defender of that was the
the Applebee's commercials from the mid 2000s with the guys with
the guitars like, you know, singing sea shanties.
It's just. Like that you get this.
But I I feel the same thing and I'm getting it now with Danny
DeVito and the the Jersey Mike's ads.
It's like getting a bunch. No, I hear you on that.
The other thing that I always find funny is you get this other
kind of scare, you know, straw man argument every year with
people who are like, I just, you know, I'm tired of Taylor Swift.
I just want to watch my football on the Super Bowl.
And it's like the Super Bowl has never been about football.
Like, yes, there is a football game played every single year.
There's tons of media that covers it, that always finds
other angles, whether it's the Kelsey brothers, whether it's
the Harbaugh brothers, whether it's, you know, Usher coming in
and do you know whoever's doing the, you know, Tom Petty's doing
the halftime show. It's like there is always a, you
know, fluff piece element that gets pushed.
They're always showing people in the stands.
It's like, there's always that. Like this is, of all the games,
this is not one where it's like we're going to focus for the
hard cores. Like that's the NBA Finals,
That's Major League Baseball. Like the Super Bowl in and of
itself is something different. It's the commercials, like.
So people who are like, I just hate, it's like that, hate that.
It's like, take it over there. You know, true football day.
It's like it was never a true football day.
The last thing I'll say, and this is this where it ties back
into the Taylor Swift and Caitlin Clark for that matter.
Yeah, the problem with whatever you're we're calling it, you
didn't like saturation theory. What was your name for it?
I do. I do is, is that the the person
gets blamed for this, not the media coverage.
That's very fair. Yeah.
So it's like, look, I'm sure Taylor Swift.
Clark, stop. It's like here's the stop going
into Fox and telling Gus Johnson to talk about.
Well, it's the same thing with with Taylor Swift.
Like people are like, oh, Taylor Swift just wants the media
coverage. Taylor Swift doesn't give a crap
about the media coverage. Taylor Swift what grossed $3
billion or whatever it is on on this tour that she's doing.
She does not need NFL fans like she really does not.
I'm sorry, that is not a a demographic that is necessary in
the Taylor Swift universe. She's doing fine and like we see
it with like Caitlin Clark. 3 unsold seats in all of them.
It's like, I doubt she's like we got to sell those last four
seats. Caitlin Clark is not, you know,
using her her vaunted position as a State Farm spokesperson.
You know, to to to saturate coverage of herself across these
things. These are decisions that are
being made. And it really comes back to this
idea that, you know, there's clearly a segment of the
population that likes the coverage, but there's also a
huge segment of the population that does not like the coverage.
And there you need to be a little more judicious, and it's
hard to do in this era because you're constantly worried about
losing people. It's interesting as you try to
break down while this happens the the cycle just goes over and
over again and this you know, someone else, someone leaves the
environment and then it's a waiting period and then whoever
comes back in, it's suddenly all over the place all the time.
And I just at this point would really again, I'm glad that
we're seeing this kind of come to a close.
It's going to be interesting to see exactly what happens in in
the Super Bowl coverage and how they've got everything set up.
I am concerned about how it's going to play out and I'm.
I'm just happy that we're not going to have to talk about it
again. After today for at least another
six months, can I do one? Caitlin Clark thought.
While we're here just to wrap up, I've had this discussion
with multiple people and I can't believe I've had these
arguments. Like, I feel like I'm taking
crazy pills, you know, with the fever, having the number one
pick this year, I've been like, this is going to be awesome.
Like, if Caitlin Clark comes out, that'd be that'd be
awesome. Like she would be really great
for the city of Indianapolis. Like she is a fun basketball
figure to watch. I've had this multiple people
who are like I don't know man. Like you know the the the
average you know the starting salary the WNBA is like
$300,000. Like she makes, you know, 1.2
million nil. Iowa.
And I'm like, OK, But like, I understand, like, I understand
some of that is like Iowa boosters giving money.
But like the other nil is like, it's State Farm endorsements.
It's like endorsements that like, I don't think State Farm
is going to be like, oh, now that you're in the WNBA, we're
done being in the Caitlin Clark business.
I'm like, I would say the majority of that money will
transfer with her and she might even make more because she'll
now be working for an organization that has an actual
professional marketing team that will get her more marketing
dollars. And people were like, Oh no man,
she makes like, you know, again they're using like 1.2 in Iowa,
like she'll make 300,000 at, you know, WNBA.
It's like, I just like I I've had like I don't know, I can't
get through people's head. It's like most of that money
will continue with like those are contracts with Caitlin
Clark. Yes.
People who are paying her to be in Iowa, they won't be happy.
But State Farm? That's awesome.
Let's go promote her somewhere else where she can now do even
more ads, 'cause she's not contractually obligated to
pretend to. It's just it's funny that people
use these numbers. It's like, it's not like all
that goes anyway. I just, I've had that conference
with multiple people who like I I'm literally like having this
argument with. It's like doesn't make any
sense. People, This is where college
athletics and the way that it's set up has really created a
perceptional issue for people in terms of like nil is just
commercial is essentially just commercial dollars.
Like the idea that the idea that somehow you would make more in
college basketball if you have that level of Q rating.
You know, I mean again Caitlin Clark is is she's on more State
Farm commercials than Chris Paul.
Now she's, you know, you know she's on she's in as many it
feels like as Patrick Mahomes now.
I mean she's clearly got a national brand that is going to
carry to the WNBA level. Now if she doesn't perform at
the WNBA level, some of that could go away.
But especially that first year. I mean you know the the Fever,
drafting the idea that it wouldn't be a good idea or like
wouldn't be beneficial for the Fever to draft her and that she
wouldn't make as much money. It'll it'll it'll be fine.
For those of you who are concerned trolling about that,
like it, yes, it will actually be amazing.
And it'll be amazing for the WNBA because they will sell out
arenas because people will want to go see her.
It's happened all over the place.
Indiana has sold out their game against Iowa.
That's coming up here in a couple of weeks because people
want to see Caitlin Clark, so just.
The idea the dollars don't transfer.
Yeah, the the idea that there's a reservoir, I mean there are
certain circumstances where there's more money to be made in
college athletics, but that's generally it's like.
It's like Olympic sports. Right.
That's what exactly was going to say.
You know, I mean, you're you're not.
It's not like a highly successful and popular
basketball player at the WNBA level isn't going to make a lot
of money in endorsements in the pros if they're already making
them in college. If anything it gives you a
broader platform to work with. You know the one thing you do
miss is the branding around the team that you're playing for.
But it's Iowa like it that you're not talking about a
national brand like Caitlin Clark has made Iowa national
brand in women's basketball, not the other way around.
So no, she'll be fine. She'll make as much money,
probably more money in at the at the professional level and it
will make the Fever more popular as well, which is important.
And I think what's important about the Caitlin Clark thing is
that Caitlin Clark's of like success and abilities are
they're in a different mode than other great WNBA players that
have come before because the market is a lot more ready to
embrace women's sports, particularly women's basketball.
You've seen that on the women's soccer side where you've had,
you know, players that may not have the same level of
popularity at their individual professional clubs, but they are
incredibly popular at the national team level.
And now that is starting to reciprocate where that is
starting to help the the club teams in terms of their overall
levels of popularity. It's coming from the other
direction in women's basketball where it's a lot easier with the
television contracts and the built in branding for individual
players to be seen as successful and popular, but that will carry
up to the WNBA level. It's not like it's going to go
die there. It's more like that's what the
WNB needs to expand its popularity, which will make
Caitlin Clark even more valuable, I think, to the WNBA
than she has been. To Indy.
You know you pair her with Halliburton like you you now
have a great pairing of like two really dynamic guard players and
like they could do ads together. It's like those all things are
going to be available. Like imagine if she used the
Fever right now and you're having the the All Star weekend
this next weekend coming up. It's like you could have her in
the skills challenge. You could have her do a
three-point shooting contest with Halbert.
Like Steph Curry is doing one this this next weekend.
It's like there's so anyway it's just it's a an argument I've had
where it's I think it's silly and then I've had multiple
people like like really argue with me about.
It like doesn't make any sense anyway.
But anyway, it's it's an interesting thought exercise if
nothing else. So anyway, that was that last
part. That's kind of a preview of what
we do on the VIP videos is we'll talk about things that have
nothing to do with IU or only tangentially related to IU, so
maybe a good reason to subscribe.
Anyway, we appreciate you folks sticking around for this.
We apologize if you've heard all this already.
We will have some football podcasts coming here relatively
soon for those who are hanging out for that.
And yeah, we'll be back to talk more IU basketball as we move
forward. Be sure to check out the Crimson
Cast Women's Basketball Show with Amanda Foster and Kevin
Vera. And we hope you all have a
wonderful week. Have a happy Valentine's Day for
Scott. I'm Galen.
This is Crimson Cast. We will catch you folks.
On the flip side, bring back the Bison.
Thanks to home field apparel. So everybody.