You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
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Folks, welcome back to Crimson Cast.
Scott here with you. I have Galen with me.
We're kind of doing it like this is one of the few times.
It's like, you know, you have a friend, they always drive the
car and now I'm going to be in the driver's seat.
So it's tough for Galen. He's like, you know, going to
reach over a couple times trying to grab the steering wheel.
But I'm running the board here. We had an I U schedule release.
It happened quickly. We got on the the Crimson Cast
Bat phone and we are getting this done.
So, Galen, man, how you doing? I'm terrified.
But otherwise, fine, you know, nothing.
Nothing more terrifying than Scott on the steering wheel.
But no, I'm kidding. It's good to see you happy to
that we were able to jump on here.
I shouldn't roll my eyes. I'm not sure I hit record yet.
So it's like I can, I can. There you go.
This is what terrifies, you know.
I'm sure it's all all fine but no good.
You know, I you. It's funny because like I was
talking about this with some folks and one of my friends was
like can we please not with basketball season.
Like football season is still going on.
And that's true. But look, that's the duality of
doing I U podcasting. We got to take care of of all of
the children, not just one of the children at a time.
So here to talk about it. Looking forward to.
It and the thing you'll notice a lot of the teams on the schedule
are also available to be purchased through Home Field
Apparel our sponsor here on Crimson Cast and the home
Network. A lot of school.
I mean, they have a lot of those schools I've.
Not checked all of them, but they are there.
And if you want to purchase, we have a new code.
It's home 23. We'll get you 25 or 15% off your
first purchase. Home field Apparel.
I know I'm Galen's Laughing at me one one little slip up.
We're still on the road. Just hit the rumble strips.
We're back. We're back on.
I've done reads before you I also need to correct you.
It's the back home network, not just the home network.
But anyway, let's move on. Hey, man, get in the back seat.
You're right. You lost shotgun.
You're in the back seat. I wouldn't be living up to
things if I didn't do that right?
Yeah. So I mean we're on a, we're on a
first name base. It's just me and the home
network. I don't need all of that.
The back home network, Yes, with all of our friends at the call.
You might call them assembly call.
I call them the call. Yes, the work DD work.
Anyway, schedule release, it's always a fun day.
I just literally got done putting it into my Google
Calendar like importing all of it.
It's always fun. We're going to.
Talk about it. I also it's we'll have these
discussions then it'll be funny because I will be talking.
We'll be talking in February when we'll be like right now
we'll be looking at stuff like what was a nice little stretch
there where, you know, you know, five or six games and then we'll
get to February. And like all of that has
changed, where it's like this stretch sucks now because these
teams are bad, but you know the schedule is out.
I think we knew a lot of the nonconference.
We knew a lot of the opponents. We were playing in Big 10 just.
Kind of not what when when we're playing them, how we're playing
them. But at first glance, what are
your thoughts on the schedule as you kind of had just digested it
for 15 minutes? Well, look, overall, I think
it's a favorable schedule for Indiana.
You know, when I go through and try to tabulate what I think
Indiana's going to do in any given year, I was taking initial
run through and I always feel like I, you know, I'm like, wow,
we're not going to be very good. And then I have to ramp the
projection back up. This time I had to do the
opposite. Like I I went through and just
off the first glance I'm like this doesn't look that bad.
I mean, you know, there's there's not that many like
catastrophically difficult games.
You know, you don't have to go to Michigan State.
You know you've got a couple of things like that where it's you
don't have to go to Iowa which thank God you know and and
things seem really you know pretty evenly metered out.
There's a couple of nice breaks there's an 8 day break in
January. There's another eight day break
in February and you know that's that's good.
I think that helps A-Team get their legs back.
It's tough because you know it's it's kind of we knew to some
degree what we were getting without you basketball last
year. They kind of exceeded our
expectations. But you knew it's like well we
got Frace Jackson Davis. We know how he's going to play.
You've got Miller Cop, you've got Xavier Johnson.
And then, I mean, granted, it didn't entirely play out that
way, but this year feels very different in that we really
don't know how these pieces are going to fit together.
We don't know how the team's going to play.
A lot of people are assuming the team's going to be.
Working in progress, they're losing all of that scoring with
Trace Jackson Davis leaving. But I'll say this, as a
Tottenham Hotspur fan, you know, everybody was predicting doom
and gloom offensively for for the Spurs after Harry Kane left
for Bayern Munich. And they're off to their best
start in literally 50 years. So it doesn't have to mean
anything because every team is going to be a little bit
different. So when I look at this schedule,
I think overall the way that the games are metered out, you know,
the fact that you're you don't have to end with Purdue, you
don't have to, you don't have a road game to close the season,
you've got Minnesota twice. There's a lot of positives there
that I took out of it, and it's just kind of nice to see how all
the pieces fit together. What were your thoughts?
Yes, Similarly, I think it's a pretty good schedule.
I mean, I I think, you know, as you look at the Big 10, there's
probably 2 clear teams and then and then a big drop off and you
have, you know, Purdue in Michigan State and you're only
playing. You're playing Purdue twice, but
we've played them well and then you know you're only playing
Michigan State once and it is at the last, it's the last game of
the season. So it's kind of like you
basically don't play them until obviously the very end.
I was kind of taken aback just looking at it when I got it in
my calendar, the the breaks, there's two kind of long 8 game
breaks and then when you look at it, so after we play Wisconsin
January 19th, some of the teams are tough, obviously Purdue, but
you have a week off and you're at Illinois, home for Iowa, home
for Penn State and then. At Ohio State and at Purdue, I
like those home games, but also the road games.
It's also not a lot of travel. I mean for all the talk we've
had about travel and all the stuff about travel coming up,
like that's basically from you know January 19th and then and
then sorry, after that Purdue game, you are off for a week and
then you're home for Northwestern on February 18th,
you basically have a month. Where you're either at home or
you're traveling no more than maybe 2 1/2 hours away from you
know where you're at. So that's that's really nice for
a young team that might be at a point is trying to figure things
out where it's kind of like you basically have for lack of
better term like a month homestand understanding.
There's three Rd. games, but it's not like Rutgers or
Minnesota or something like that.
Now there's a couple of things like that that I think are worth
noting in the schedule. I mean the toughest games to me
are those quick turnarounds where you're at home and then
you got to go on the road, right?
You know, so you know those are not great.
I mean you got a three day turnaround and you're at Rutgers
which you know Indiana's played so well at Rutgers historically
you've got a three day, you got Purdue on a Tuesday and then you
got a three day turnaround and you got to go to Madison and
play in the coal center against Wisconsin.
That's not great. You got another?
Another place We've played great over the years, right?
You got another one. You know February 6th, which is
a a Tuesday, you're you're at Ohio State and that's following
up a game at home versus Penn State three days earlier.
Now all that said, the back-to-back Rd. games that
Indiana has, they get at least a decent amount of rest.
I mean they they go to Purdue after that Ohio State game, but
that's a Saturday game. So they get, you know, when you
know, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday basically to rest up.
They go to Illinois after that Wisconsin game, but they get 8
days off before that. You know, the only time in the
whole schedule where they've got a road back-to-back that is, you
know, less than three full days of rest is right at the end of
the season. Unfortunately, it's really long
travel. They got to fly to Maryland and
play there on the third on a Sunday and then they got to fly
to Minnesota and play there on a Wednesday.
That's not going to be a lot of people in class on Monday and
Tuesday. I think with all of that that
that that's fine. Who who cares really.
But no, look overall, I like the way that it fits together.
I agree with you. I think that there's there's a
lot of spots in the schedule where Indiana can kind of if
they need to hit a reset button and get back into the swing of
things. And really, I mean, you know,
it's it's, you know, you're looking like, you know, you got
Minnesota and Purdue back-to-back.
That's a nice game to lead into that Purdue game at home.
Minnesota is not liable to be that great again this year.
You got another one of those where you have Iowa followed by
Penn State at home. Iowa's probably not going to be
as good. There's no Murray's on the team
as far as I know this year. And Penn State is probably going
to be real bad. I mean, you know, Penn State, no
Shrewsbury, you know, no picket. I mean they're really starting
from scratch and then you got Northwestern and Nebraska
back-to-back at home in the middle of February.
I think those sorts of windows are important down the stretch,
particularly for a young team, a team that doesn't, you know,
hasn't really played together yet.
You know, then you're going to have to, you're going to
integrate where you're going to integrate in Bakpo, you've got
to integrate Gabe Cups, you've got to integrate all these other
folks. And so you know, hopefully by
that point they're hitting their stride.
But that'll be nice to to be able to say, look, you know, we
got to play our best in these games, but it's nice to have
these in tandem with each other because it's tough when you're
doing like, oh, we're going to play Northwestern.
That becomes a trap game because you're playing, you know,
Michigan State at home immediately after or you're
going to Purdue immediately after.
And I, you know, that's really where in I use kind of gotten in
trouble in terms of looking ahead.
There's at least some games on the schedule where that's not
liable to happen. The the other stretch we knew
that all the non conference pieces that the stretch that I
look at that is tough which is going you know this is the new
reality for I U basketball fans which is a good thing that we're
playing a tougher non conference.
But that stretch from November 19th to December 16th, you know
you're going to have UConn and then either a mix of Louisville
and Texas and I think we're keeping this Louisville one on
the schedule. That's a joke.
As my phone rings in the spam, phone rings in the background.
Thank you spam. So you have UConn and then
Louisville, Texas in the Empire Classic, your home for your home
in Indianapolis, for Harvard. And then now we do know you have
Maryland at home and then you're at Michigan.
It's that's not one of those Penn State games.
Those are kind of mid, you know right in that midlevel tier and
then? You have Auburn and then and
Atlanta and then you're home to Kansas.
That is a a very rough stretch for a a really young team.
Now I think they can make some, hey, I think we saw it just like
we did last year against you know our our three or four major
premium games, you know the Arizona, Kansas games last year
North Carolina. You can lose a good number of
those and your season can still be just fine.
Same with those two two big 10 getting losing all.
You know 1234 is all seven of those would not be ideal but.
You know, I do think that's going to be a really interesting
stretch because you only have you know basically three games,
you know Florida, Gulf Coast, Army, Wright State leading into
that stretch where you're going to be able to make some real hay
or see where this team is. But I just, I look at that
stretches that's going to be really interesting for this team
just kind of that where we don't really know and I think I've
heard this somewhere else. It's like you seen Indiana pick,
you know, fourth in the Big 10 and 9th in Big 10 and it's like.
They all could be right and they all could be wrong.
Like there's a real high ceiling, a real low.
I just don't think we know. And I think they're they're
going to get thrown in the fire really early, which I think will
help later in the year. It may not look great during
that stretch. Yeah, it's going to be
Maryland's are really fascinating opponent to start
with. I mean, that's a team that you
lose to by 11 on the road midway through the Big 10 season last
year. And then you turn around and
beat that same team by 10 on a neutral floor in the NCAA
tournament or excuse me, the Big 10 tournament.
I mean, that's, that's good. I mean, obviously, you know, you
don't want to go in with your only game having been a loss to
them. And look, I think Maryland could
very well be a contender. They bring a lot of pieces back,
more than I thought they would. I mean, Jamir Young's coming
back. Julian Reese is coming back,
Doctor Scott is coming back. I mean they they've got a really
nice nucleus returning, but it's a nucleus that Indiana's beaten
on a neutral floor and they'll get them at home to start.
And and so I, you know, I like that as an entry point and then
it's hard to say what to make of Michigan, you know, but I'm but
I'm glad. I don't think Indiana, if,
unless I'm mistaken, I don't know that Indiana since they
went to this format where they're playing Big 10 games at
the beginning of the year or at the beginning of December, I
don't think they've ever had a stretch where they won both of
those games. In fact, I'm going back and
looking right now. They did once.
I'm sorry. In 2019, they beat Northwestern
barely at home, and they beat Penn State barely on the road.
And you know, every other time they've gone one and one.
Great. A great Big 10 season for us
that year. Yeah.
Yeah, no, really. So.
So look. But, but look, I think that
combo, Maryland at home and at Michigan, that's a winnable
combo of games. And you know, with all the
upheaval at Michigan, it's hard to say exactly what that team's
going to look like. I think that team could be fine
down the road that they tend to get all right as time goes by.
I'd rather play that team at the beginning of the year on the
road than play them later on. And so I like where that's at.
But yeah, overall, I mean you look at the schedule, I think
it's actually metered out pretty well.
You know you you've got. I'm really surprised.
Those breaks, like the the two, eight day breaks was kind of
just surprising to see both of those in there well and and
you've got you, you really got 3/8 day breaks because you've
also got the Christmas break from the 21st to the 29th where
they're not playing. So you know they get they get a
lot of time and for a team that's struggled with injury
issues you know some of the major some of the minor, I think
it's good you'll you'll get players rest back up again.
They'll be a little more you know game ready and informed by
the time those things were rolled around and I think that
that's going to be very, very useful.
I also like the fact that you know they're testing themselves
in the non conference. It's it's not a world beater
schedule but you know they're going to get to play UConn and
you know I'll I'll be surprised if they beat UConn.
I'll just be honest. I mean, that UConn team is real
good and maybe better this year than they were last year and
they won the national title last year.
I'd love it if they did win that game because they get to play
Texas in that next game and I'd love to see that.
But you know, even if you just get one of those two, you're
still playing them on a neutral floor.
Auburn's a great addition. That's going to be a big
challenge. Kansas is going to be obviously
a great game and and Kennesaw State is it, you know that we
all kind of snickered at that one a little bit last year.
That was a good Kennesaw State team.
That Kennesaw State team, you know they they were a 14 seed in
the tournament. I think they finished like top
125 in Ken Palm. So well and that's and that's
the thing you and I've always talked about is I mean we needed
to up our high level scheduling no question and we're starting
to do that. But it's like the the Kennesaw
state type games like you're you're going to win those.
But it's different when you're playing a team that's, you know,
200 or you know, 175th in Ken Palm, that's going to make the
tournament versus. Kind of what we were doing for a
while is that slot would be a team that's you know 330 now
everybody has those you know sub 250 teams but it's like we seem
to load it up on too many of those.
I'm with you like Florida Gulf Coast is is in that realm of
like a a better you know better low level team.
Well, I mean really I think you could make an argument the only
there's not there's no awful team on the schedule this year.
They're the the lowest rated team that from Ken Palm at the
end of last year that's on the schedule.
This year is North Alabama and they were 256.
They were not bottom, I mean they were barely bottom 3rd.
But you know they you're not talking about a team in the
three hundreds that was a team that was 18 and 15 last year.
You know they were ten and eight in the Atlantic.
Sun Army was right around there. They had a winning record last
year. Morehead State was 22 and 12
last year they were two, 137th. Florida Gulf Coast was in the
top 200 in in Ken Palm. I mean so I I think Mike Woodson
and the crew deserve a lot of credit because they really did
upgrade the bottom of the schedule which we've been
pleading for them to do. And I think that maybe this is
just the first year that the contracts ran out for what had
already been signed. And now you're able to really
kind of integrate, you know, some of the teams in there that
that are going to help your overall thing.
Even you know, Harvard who was only 500 last year.
But that was a team that was in the top 160 of Ken Palm and and
a team, I mean, you know, those Ivy League teams, they play
really good defense. Each of these teams, if you go
through and look at what they bring to the table brings some
kind of an interesting aspect which is a very Bob Knight like
approach where you know, sometimes I remember back in the
in the 80s and 90s would be like why are they playing, you know,
this random team And then you find out, well that's actually
the, the team that's best in the country at shooting 3 pointers
in five percentage or something like that.
So. So yeah, I mean, look, peace,
piercing, all these things together.
I like the schedule. The Big 10 schedule almost
seemed like it was missing some things.
I can't put my finger on it. I mean, there's no trip, like we
said, no trip to Carver, Hawkeye, there's no trip to the
Breslin Center. And man, I mean, we got to go to
the coal center. So it's not perfect, but not
having to go to those two places, I'm really pleased
about. And I think it's a schedule that
if Indiana can grow up early and learn how to play comfortably
with each other under whatever new system they're going to be
playing under, I think they've actually got a really high
ceiling in terms of what they can accomplish against this
schedule. Yeah, I agree.
I'm I'm kind of looking right now like what is you know
probably the craziest home game is normally you know I would
assume it's going to be that Purdue game on January 16th is a
Tuesday night there's there's four.
So we do this with our we do. I've split tickets OK with with.
I split tickets with my sister, with Matt Blaska and Jay Horry.
You know, all friends of the pod.
And So what we've gotten in the habit.
Of we're doing it now, live on the pod.
You just going to be like, well, we're doing we're going to draft
the tickets right now, no. And they're not on.
So, Blaska, you there. All right.
Blaska gets army. All right.
Next, I tend to split all of our home games into tears, OK?
And so I think there are clearly 4 tier one home games this
season. They are Maryland on the 1st of
December. They are Kansas on the 16th of
of December. They are Purdue on the 16th of
of January. And then Michigan State to close
out the Big 10 season. And then I would say there's
there's 4 clear Tier 2 games, which are Ohio State, Iowa,
Nebraska, who's a tricky team these days to play against in
Wisconsin. So you know, I would say
probably I think that all four of those tier one games,
Maryland, Kansas, Purdue and Michigan State are going to be
really fascinating to watch for different reasons.
I think that Michigan State game could be an awesome experience,
but I think all of them have a lot going for them in terms of
what what you'll experience in the crowd.
Yeah, and Michigan State is really the only weekend game
that's going to kind of bring it, because every other home
game is going through. It's like.
You know, Northwestern and Penn State just don't don't have the
cachet yet. And the Michigan State ones
going to be interesting. Although we could be at a spot
where like Michigan State has their their spot locked up.
We have our spot locked up and maybe it doesn't matter as much,
which is kind of a bummer, but. One last thing I'll say 2 Friday
night big 10 games on the schedule.
They've got Maryland on the 1st of December, it's a Friday night
game. And then they got Minnesota on
the 12th of January, also a Friday game.
We've we've obviously seen some Friday games with I U, but I
just that always feels weird when Indiana's playing the
Friday. Game this just in we have Tom
Allen coming on the pod to talk about his thoughts on Friday
night college basketball games. Tom, what do you think about
that? Hey Friday Night by 5.
FLEOLE 0. All right.
Sorry I had to do that. Wow.
OK. Wow.
All right. Anyway, why don't we get to
predictions? Scott, what?
What are you looking at as far as this?
If you're looking at this schedule, how do you feel like I
U fares? I I don't have a number yet
obviously I'm I'm still plugging it in and looking at I've you've
got you're throwing me off. You already have Ken Palm
numbers from teams. You have tears like, hey, hey,
the schedule came out at noon, man, What have you been doing?
It's 620. Do some research.
No. Anyway, I'll go ahead and go
then. If you don't have that, I don't
want to put you on the spot, so watch.
You over high level, but you give me give me yours first.
My when I made my first run through on this schedule, I
really was like I this they could go 22 and 9 and 13 and
seven now I don't think they're going to and here's why I I feel
like as I mentioned I mean there's there's youth on this
team they are going to have to figure out how to play a
completely different style from what we've seen them play.
So I think it's going to be a little bit of a getting to know
you process and I think that's going to manifest at times in
ways that are not going to be pleasant.
I think especially in January I see a real opportunity for I U
to like win a game, lose a game, win a game, lose a game and it
kind of feel like they're stuck in neutral.
But I think overall taking all that into account, I'm going to
say looking at this 20 and 11 overall and 11:00 and 9:00 in
conference and you know I think you could go probably one game
less or two games more either way.
But so wouldn't shock me if they won 12 or 13 games in the
conference. Like I think that's completely
on the table, just the way that this lays out and where the
relative strengths of I U are this year.
Yeah I I was working this afternoon man.
I got stuff going on. I, I so I don't have a number
prediction but I I, I do think this is a very favorable big 10
schedule for us based on all the things that we said and kind of
who we're playing. I, I I kind of stand by, I think
you know. Not giving a number prediction,
but I I think 4th or 5th place in the Big 10 is kind of what
you should be looking and striving for.
Only I have to put a huge asterisk on it.
Like it's just it's I'm really fascinated to see what this team
looks like and how this team grows.
And I can also see this team finishing 6th or 7th in the Big
10 but being way better in March than they were to start the year
and they just they stumbled a lot.
But they they're able to pull it together and I think.
Honestly, that might be the real, like the real path of this
team, because getting to 4th or 5th in the Big 10, you have to
be pretty solid throughout. I I can see them having a lot of
stumbles early, but being a much different team going into the
Big 10 tournament than they were even in like January or early
February. Just because I I think it's
going to take some time for this team to gel and this team is
really going to be young outside of Xavier Johnson.
It's still a lot of young kind of unproven pieces at this
level. Yeah, I mean the the big issue I
think we run into is just you know how quickly will key pieces
grow into the roles that they're going to have to grow into.
And I, you know, I I do think that the schedule is set up
nicely. It's not that you have to wait
until the end of December for those pieces to come together.
You get some early big tests and I think there's going to be some
losses built into that. Like, I think Indiana's going to
lose to UConn. I think they're going to lose to
Auburn. I think they're going to beat
Kansas because I think it's going to be a wild atmosphere.
And I think I use going to be fired up, especially what
happened last year. And then I think once they get
into Big 10 season, things shift even more as we start to really
figure out who's ready to play and what sorts of contributions
they can really give. And you know, that's something
that it's different. It felt like last year and the
year before, a lot of it was about, you know, how how do the
complimentary pieces fit around what Trace Jackson Davis is
going to give you? And a lot of that last year was
how will Jalen Hood Shafino grow into a role that he wasn't
immediately ready to take on and when wasn't expected to take on
and things had to be shifted. This year it's a bit different.
You know. This year it's about, you know
what? What is the focal point of
Indiana's offense? Can Trey Galloway become
consistent enough on both sides of the ball that you can play
him, you know, more than the 62% of minutes that he got last
season? You know, does Indiana get
enough outside shooting? Can they play these young,
athletic big guys in, you know, essentially kind of, you know,
stretch roles at the college level?
And will that work defensively given that, you know, it's
weirdly enough like that's where Indiana has to do their work
this year, is get better defensively while also
maintaining their offensive efficiency.
So look, there's just a lot of that Will Malik Renew really
step in and sees the starting position.
There's there's so many things we don't know.
I think it'll work out. But like you said, I think it's
going to take a while and I think this is a team that is
liable to be much better in March than they are in January
because you know the talent. I think it's clearly there.
It's just can they grow into their bodies, so to speak,
within the confines of what they're going to do on the
floor? I want to hit one more
basketball talk if you topic if you don't mind.
So it was I had the the guy who does my pest control here at the
house. He's always big basketball guy.
We always talk basketball. But he he said something that
made me think of something that you said he was talking about
like he was woodsing a turn around.
He's like, well, hopefully he can like hopefully, you know get
some recruits in and kind of like did the knock on wood and
I'm. I was kind of like, well you
know I went back to thinking about the the think you guys you
and Coach Tossani talked about it in the post game of Indiana
State. It's like I don't want to start
becoming, you know just pure defender of Woodson here because
you we've had concerns. I think there's legitimate still
concerns but it's like let's give this guy some credit like
he's doing a really good job. And you mentioned Hood Shafino
like I go into this year, I look at you know Jalen Hood Shafino
you have a player that's both player and coach.
They both get credit. But he went in and kind of had
to understand how to play college basketball.
And then immediately it's like, Oh yeah, and everything you
thought about like who you're going to be playing with with
Xavier kind of being your your point guard tandem, like that's
not going to happen. So now you got to change it on
the fly and they were able to figure that out.
So I just, I I think that there's a lot of kind of not
credit being given to Woodson on the recruiting.
And then with the same team, I think we're going to see a lot
of that going into the season of like, well, can they put it
together, can they do? And it's like.
He's shown a lot of history of putting a lot of these things
together and last season, just looking at it a little bit with
a little bit of distance, it's like, you know, losing Xavier
Johnson was huge. You got a freshman back there
and they all figured it out. And it's like, again, it's on,
it's on Huchafino, it's also on Woodson.
But it's like, I'm not sure that that that the staff's getting
enough credit for that. They're not.
And I'll just, you know, I think the mainstream traditional beat
coverage of I U has been pretty fair in terms of evaluating
Woodson. I think a lot of the radio and
and podcast and and other sorts of coverage has been wildly
unfair and unrealistic to Woodson on a variety of levels
and and his staff in terms of what they've done thus far.
And I I don't understand the mentality behind it.
I think I understand to some degree where it's coming from
but that doesn't make it good or right.
You know I I think that ultimately the you know and and
look I think our friends that inside the hall have done a good
job of of covering pretty evenly on things.
But I just Woodson has gotten some levels of criticism that
just baffle me given the state of the roster when he took it
over and what he's done over a two year span and what he's
dealt with in terms of injuries. Now you're getting audiences
with recruits that Indiana only was dreaming about having.
Think about them and now it's like, well, you better land some
of them. It's like, well, yes, of course,
but like let's let's celebrate some of the steps along the way.
I I think a lot of this goes back to you know just how out of
whack a lot of the way that people think about I U
Basketball has gotten over the course of time where we it's
funny like you know, Woodson is is significantly overachieved
like a lot of the stuff that Cream did.
Yet people got into this habit of like lionizing what Cream did
and minimizing what Woodson and his staff have done.
It doesn't make any sense and it's.
Funny because it comes down to like a like I, I look at last
year, think something you and I talked about a lot and we're
going to wrap up here in a couple minutes.
You know, last year we were protected see.
Like we were protected see in the tournament, which to me is
like that's you're giving yourself an opportunity.
Like should we have played better against Miami Sherlock.
But Miami was also red hot like you did.
You caught the wrong team at the wrong No, no, Scott.
Scott, you didn't hear the whole team quit with 10 minutes to go
in the game. You didn't hear that you that
didn't register with you. They just quit.
They should all be taken off scholarship.
That's that's that's the truth. Sorry.
Go. On Oh no, it's because of NIL
dollars. Like they were just mad about
there too much travel. No, it's but it's like if they
win that game. They're in the Sweet 16 and like
I hear people talk about like, wow, you know, Indiana's got to
get the Sweet Sixteens again. It's like, well last year like
I'm fully aware they didn't make a Sweet 16, but it's like last
year everything was in line for a like that to me was a Sweet 16
type season. I'm not trying to make, you know
excuses here, but like you, you were protected seed you did
there. Like you didn't win that game.
Like that happens. Like teams can have really good
years and not make the final four.
Teams can have bad years and make the final four like to.
To me it's like you've got to be at a seat at the table and be in
a spot where you are ready to take advantage of that.
And I don't know, it's like I just, I get frustrated because
to me it's like last year was like that was great.
If we can do last year, every year, that's great.
Like to me that's fantastic because not every year like last
year, is going to end with a loss in the.
Around 32, you're going to win some of those.
Anyway, I'm it. It's just it it was funny having
that conversation two days ago about like just again having
that, but so we we shall see. But it's going to be an
interesting year. I think it's a good schedule for
us. I agree, yeah.
All right. Well, I will get you.
I know you have to go. We'll let you go.
But want to thank everybody for listening.
As always, this is the first of many basketball podcasts we will
have. We're getting there.
It's like it leaves. I'm looking at my trees right
now. The leaves are starting to
change. It's time to go to a home field
apparel. Spend that, spend that money.
Use promo code HOME 23. We want to thank you all, Galen.
I'll let you say it because everyone else is stealing your
tagline. Like, I don't want to say, bring
back the bison there. We go.
I'll let you finish off with that, but I want to thank
everybody. So for Galen, this is Scott for
Crimson Cast signing off.