You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast,
GAIL and Clavio Scott Caulfield joining you.
It is still Sunday, December 1st.
If you haven't listened to our football recap show, go do that.
It's that's more fun. It's a that's a that was a
joyful podcast. We went for over an hour, talked
about IU bashing Purdue's train in there and winning 66 to
nothing. What we should do, we should
just we should compile all the stats in every podcast from here
of the next year. Just tell a fun stat from that
game. Even if we're doing a podcast
about like NIL collectives, it's like, hey, but did you know
Purdue only had two first downs, which is just.
Anyway, I like where your thoughts are on this.
This is good. So anyway, we are now here to
talk basketball and you know, we've we've not done an official
basketball podcast yet this year.
We're very yeah, this is and this we were planning on
podcasting prior to Atlantis on men's basketball.
We didn't the schedules didn't work out.
The holidays are always a little bit tough with family.
And then Atlantis happened. So now I'm going to start off
like right at the beginning by acknowledging this looks like
we're jumping in and now talking about a situation that's gone
bad. And that has not been the
intention. It's been more like what is the
inflection point to start talking about this team this
year and where things are AT. And so that's.
We both did previews with Alex Bozich.
So maybe, maybe he's like the connector point.
We both did our previews. It it literally was.
We both have busy schedules. Alex Bozich the the Michael
McDonald of the the pot, the IU podcast scene here.
Like he works with everybody. And so yeah, I see all of our
thoughts were there individually, but we need to
start doing basketball more regularly because that's part of
what we do here. And so we're going to talk about
where the team's at, kind of what the expectations were and
and where things are trending. I did AVIP subscriber only video
on this couple of days ago. I'll, I'll probably be treading
over some similar ground. So I apologize to those of you
who have heard that already. We've got some different aspects
and different angles though. But first, before we dive into
that, just a reminder, we are brought to you by Home Field
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You know, the we've been talking so much about football stuff
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basketball's the butter for home field apparel.
I don't know if that coat totally worked, Scott, but I'm
going to go with it. And I think basketball's the
Turkey, football's the gravy. Perhaps that's that great
basketball for Indiana. They have the shooting shirt
like the they wear. I mean, unfortunately O'Connor
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It's it's some great vintage like shooting shirts and a lot
of the basketball shooting shirts are awesome.
Yeah, it's it's just a cornucopia of awesome things
and, and what I. I love the most very seasonal
cornucopia. What I also like is the amount
of small school shirts that they have for college basketball.
You know, I mean, I, I one of my favorite shirts still is the
heavyweight Fairleigh Dickinson tee that I got in honor of them
beating. Did you know that they beat
Purdue in a 116 matchup in the NCAA Tournament, Scott?
Is this the same Purdue that lost 66 Nothing in the bucket
game It's. The same school, yes, it's the
same school that that that school produced both a 116 loss
as the one seed and lost 66 nothing in the bucket game.
You're absolutely right, yes, so, but there's there's so many
good options. To choose.
It's a horn of plenty of Purdue. Lost plenty.
It's extra pie. It's just.
And that pie is Purdue losing. How did how did this get into
the home field read? I'm not entirely sure, but the
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They do a great job on Instagram, great job on X and
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It's $5.00 a month, $50 a year. We'd love to have you in that
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crimsoncast.substack.com, go check it out.
All right, Scott, well, let's dive into this.
One of the reasons we hadn't done basketball podcasts up to
this point is, frankly, we've had so much fun with football,
right? And there's been so much content
to cover. This is one of those things
where in the past we always made this transition point.
It was generally a a resigned, often times wistful transition
point in late October when our football season is essentially
dead and we realize, OK, now it's time to turn our attention
to basketball. And that hasn't happened this
year. Obviously, football continues to
provide us with great moments over and over again.
We did, you know, 3 or 4 podcasts about football over the
last week. We did seven or eight in the
Ohio State week. There's so much to talk about
with football. So it has kind of slowed our
production on basketball, but it's also just been kind of an
awkward feeling start to the season.
And you could feel that in the the preseason, like even before
the first ball was tipped, just a lot of antipathy on the part
of a lot of people in and around IU basketball.
Certainly the narrative coming into the season was one that you
could get excited about if you wanted to look at it in a
certain way. You know, Indiana had a a
disastrous season last year, but it ended on a a semi OK note, at
least in terms of the the last few games of the regular season.
They went out, spent a ton of money in the transfer portal and
got some talented players. And we heard commentary from
Mike Woodson throughout the course of the offseason that
there were going to be changes and how the team played
stylistically that they were, you know, at one point in
October, I think he said they were shooting like 2728 threes a
game in practice. And so, you know, when I went on
inside the hall, I don't remember exactly everything you
said, but I think it was a similar vibe.
But it was like, you know, I was talking to Alex.
I was like, if all of these things happen, if, if these
players hit the ground running and if they gel as a team and if
there is actually some stylistic change and if Indiana can do
some things on the recruiting scene, well, suddenly, you know,
things look a lot better than they did.
And, and, you know, a lot of the the problems in perception for
IU weren't just the losses on the court last year or the way
the team was playing, but it was also losing at the time.
You're only committed recruit Liam Mcneely.
And then even into this fall, you get one recruit in Trent
Sizzly, but you lose three or four other targets.
You got people saying we'll just do everything in the portal from
now on. You don't really need
recruiting. But you know, the idea was if
all of the chips fell where they were supposed to, this could
have been a special season for Indiana.
And I'm not here to say that it can't still by by some
trajectory get to that point. But the road is now incredibly
hard. And I think we've got enough of
a sample size to get a sense of how this team is playing and is
likely to play as they move through the rest of the
campaign. And and it's got a lot of people
on edge. So, Scott, that's kind of the
backdrop to things. I don't know.
Did you have anything else to add in terms of your thoughts
coming into the season? Yeah, I mean, when I when I was
with Alex, you know, my my feeling is, and unfortunately
it's still kind of the same. And I think I speak for a lot of
people, I was coming into this year and kind of like, let's
just wait and see. Like let's just wait and see how
this team does. I'm cautiously optimistic.
You know, I've been saying for a while, you know, this offseason
was great. You get, you know, great
transfers, you get some recommits.
It it was good. But I I was on record saying I
thought last offseason was really good.
You get Khalil Ware, you get McKenzie and Baco A live star.
I know he's not transfer portal, but you, you know, in that
offseason, you got a lot of talent last offseason and it
didn't get you into the tournament.
And so that's where I'm like, well, the the answer just can't
be to continue to get more talent.
Like, OK, you Got Talent, but I, I think you also had talent the
year before, you know, and I also think that the one thing
you didn't mention to set the table, which which was real and
happened was, you know, some of Woodson's comments at senior
night, kind of the, you know, the true fan comment.
We don't need to dig into that deeply, But you have this kind
of a bit of a divide in the fan, you fans that are kind of
annoyed and just, you know, it's not quite going where people
want it to go. And I feel like a lot of people
just said, OK, that that that's fine.
Like I'm not, it's not awesome. But like, and then, you know,
there's also the truth of football kind of just swept
everybody up and it's like, all right, we'll wait and see and I
will wait. And you see how IU basketball
does. And as you've mentioned many
times, it's true. It's kind of like, all right,
well, there's not a lot of great non conference games until
Atlantis. So you know, they're going to
beat SIU, they're going to beat Eastern Illinois.
I mean, hopefully they they do and they did.
It's like, all right, well, I'll kind of check in when Atlantis
comes out because that's kind of the first real test.
And we'll see are some of the things that I'm cautiously
optimistic about going to happen.
And and we're hitting this kind of again, a little bit of, you
know, we're hitting this at an odd time because it's already
all happened. But that's how I was coming into
the year feeling that, you know, I, I, I, I want things to work
out, but I was very dubious on a lot of the things I was hearing
because it's stuff we've heard years before is that, you know,
this was all the things we heard last year is like, all right,
without trace Jackson Davis. Now we can see the real offense
that Woodson wants to install. You know, he wasn't able to do
it because you had such a skilled big man.
He had to run a big offense and they didn't do anything and they
they kept the same offense. It's like, all right, well then
why is it going to be different? This year was kind of my
question. Like we've had three years now.
Like most coaches, especially in their mid 60s, don't just start
tinkering with the offenses that they run.
And then it was like, what we brought in so much talent.
And my counter was we brought a lot of talent in the year
before. Like this is back-to-back years.
You brought a lot of talent in, you know, how, how is, and this
is, you know, last year, not only do they disappoint, they
seem to have a hard time coalescing that talent and kind
of creating a team atmosphere. How is that going to work this
year? And so I, I, I think that's the
feeling that I was having. I feel that with a lot of the IU
fan base and people that I talked to is kind of just like,
well, I'll check back in when it seems like they're they're kind
of on the right track or things are going the right way.
And thus far it it isn't quite there.
And so I worry how this season is going to go just from a vibes
point of view, because it does feel like a lot of the fan base
is kind of like, all right, well, show me like, you know,
show me why I need to be excited about this team.
Yeah. I mean everything you said,
absolutely. And I really do think so much of
the perception of the of the program right now amongst
regular everyday fans, like people that I talk to, people
that I sit next to, people that that follow the podcast and, and
people that I've seen commenting on Assembly Call.
People are just sitting next to just like Galen is going on a
bench and like, you know, how are you basketball?
Talk to me. I don't need I went so it's
funny you say that. I was at the UNC Greensboro game
and was sitting in not my normal seats and just sat down and this
older IU fan next to me. Just starts going off about, you
know, well, we got some problems on this team and it was and it
went it went for quite a while. But you know what I sense
really. But real quickly I was the South
Carolina game and I saw somebody at half time like, oh, Scott
from Crimson cast. OK, we're sitting by Galen.
Our seats are open. Do you want to come sit with us?
I'm like, it's like people are trying to connect us on a date
and it's. Like we're on the opposite sides
of the stadium for a reason, guys.
No, I'm kidding. That's not true, Scott.
Scott always invites me over to his seats one time a year, which
is great, so I find. You to halftime.
You didn't show up that time. I, I, well, I was, I was with, I
was with my kid and, and she wanted to do a lap.
No, I'm totally derailed. No, it's fine.
But the the the commentary I hear from most people is.
Is kind of. Split in a couple different
ways. There's the people who were
really put out by Woodson's comments and the timing of those
comments. It's, it's really one of those
things, I think where you, you had a bad year and OK, you felt
as the coach, like you got unfairly blamed.
You didn't like the fact that people were talking negatively
about your, your job. I get all that.
But you got to have, in my opinion, a little more of a
sense of the audience. Most people that are at games
and most people that are following along with IU, yes,
they're frustrated because you follow up a couple of tournament
appearances with a year where you're not making the
tournament, where your team looks like all of the bad
memories that everybody had of the Archie Miller era.
And you know, you've got your athletic director actually still
having to apologize for your comments as late as may, like,
whatever the, whatever the, the purpose of the comments was.
And I've heard people argue, oh, it was just intended at the
online audience that was aggressively calling for
Woodson's job. Even if that was the intent, the
way it was taken was, wow, this is kind of arrogant.
Like this is not a season where you need to be proclaiming
yourself is like, I'm going to be the coach here for a long
time. And you know, the true fans
understand and are rooting for us like you.
Just that that creates the potential for division and
that's it was it was the wrong time to do it.
Or, you know, it was, it was not not the right venue, especially
senior night when you're supposed to be focusing on on
the players. And so it did set the table for
a bunch of IU fans who I think otherwise would have groused
about the year, but probably wouldn't have thought any more
of it other than what they got to figure all this stuff out.
It kind of created a little bit of an internal referendum on,
well, does Woodson really know what he's doing here?
Like is, is this plan going to work?
And the, the refrain I hear over and over again and, and I think
it's a, it's a fair argument. It's like, can you really trust
Woodson to make all these changes and do the things that
he's that we know that Indiana needs to do?
And, and for many people, they didn't trust the idea that
Woodson was going to be interested in making those
changes. The talent that they brought in,
in the portal was certainly impressive.
And I think people rightfully got excited about the idea of
Miles Rice and Omar Balo and Kane and Carlisle.
And, you know, how are these guys going to plug in?
Bryson Tucker was an intriguing pick up at the last second from
a recruiting perspective. And you had, of course, Malik
Renew coming back. You had Trey Galloway coming
back. You had what looked like all the
right pieces. Mackenzie Mbako was likely to
take a leap, and he looks like he kind of has, at least
offensively. The problem, though, is that so
much of the excitement that people should have been feeling
about this year was largely tempered through this idea that
we don't think Indiana's actually going to be able to
compete at the level that we'd like to see Indiana compete
because of the system that's being utilized and because of
the lack of likelihood that that system would materially change.
And that that's what made Atlantis worse to me, I think,
is that you had not only did you have, you know, the a bad game
against USC Greensboro. And then you come in and you get
blown out by Louisville and it was not as close as the final
score indicated and you lost by 28.
You get severely outclassed by Gonzaga.
I wouldn't say that you got blown out by them, but it was
essentially a 20 point game from about the 10 minute mark of the
first half all the way through. And then you win a meaningless
game against the Providence team that does not look very good
this year at all, the way that you lost the Louisville.
Game and the Gonzaga game. Put on display most of the
offensive problems that haven't been fixed that are going to
haunt the perception of Mike Woodson and his Indiana teams
probably for as long as he's here, unless there is a
demonstrable change in the way that they approach the game.
And then there's the added problem.
And again, this was a problem that was under the surface all
last year and it rarely got specifically talked about, but
it's starting to rear its head again is that the defensive
effort does not appear to be there.
Whether it's the effort or whether it's the the plan or
some combination of both. And it's probably some
combination of both. IU let's guys drive the lane on
them all the time. They let wide open threes, they
move the wrong direction. There was a breakdown that I saw
of that Louisville game that was done by a a YouTube commentator
who focuses on teams not playing well.
He just ripped Indiana apart. And every piece of video
evidence is like I he's yeah, he's not wrong here.
So you've added these additional issues of perception to to
what's going on. And you've also, as you alluded
to, left yourself in a position where you now don't have any
good non conference wins and you have no route to pick up good
non conference wins. And as we know, that matters a
lot when it comes to the tournament.
And the tournament was always what people said was like, it's
it's this or bust. It's like Sweet 16.
Like we have to see some tangible progress as far as
that's concerned. So it's just a bunch of things
all at once right now, Scott, and none of it's good at this
stage. Well, what what Atlantis also
leaves you with is another season where you're not going to
have a a kind of a signature non conference win, which is
something that Indiana was, you know, in the heyday when you and
I were growing up was known for. You know, you had non conference
games. You always have the game against
Kentucky. You know, you you obviously
would get big Big Ten wins, you know, in which was beaten Purdue
with was that gedy when they were ranked number one.
But but part of, you know, what's important and also, you
know, what's been talked about is, you know, getting the non
conference schedule up. And that was one of those
refrains like, all right, the first thing Woodson did is he
upgraded our non conference schedule, which he did and he
gets credit for. But it was, you know, middle of
last, you know, beginning of last year was kind of the
discussion. All right, he's done a good job
of getting the games back on the schedule.
Now we got to start competing in those games and maybe, you know,
moving toward possibly, you know, hushed tones, winning one
of those games. You know, we're not even at the
competing level. And and that's that's the scary
part. And you know, it, it it's it's
very frustrating. And sometimes, you know, coaches
are coaches are always in spots where the post game stuff,
there's nothing good they can say, you know, they can't come
out and just say, you know, hey, we suck.
Like no one's ever going to say that.
But it is frustrating and just again, kind of goes to this lack
of understanding how your comments are going to be taken
when you just get boat raced by Louisville and you come out, you
know, a Louisville team that I I think brought zero points back
from last year, a complete team of all new players.
And your post game comments are, you know, we really got to
figure out how to gel together as a team.
We have a lot of new pieces. It's like, well, Louisville
doesn't seem to have that problem.
And they have a first year coach and you're in year 4.
And then this is from a large picture.
This is something I've talked about ad nauseam.
You know, when you look at coaches, wherever they are kind
of is where they are by year 3 or 4, you know?
And so if you're looking at any of the coaches at the top
echelon of college basketball by year three or year 4, you have a
pretty good idea of where they're going to be.
A, A coach who takes a team to a national title in the last 1520
years, it's very rare that they're still having a hard time
competing in big games in year 4 of their program.
Normally by year 4, you're seeing those things happen.
That's what's concerning. But.
This season specifically, you know, you mentioned this in the
VIP video, but it just we will rephrase it again because it's
going to come up over and over again.
The problem we had last year is that we had no good non
conference wins. And you know, people can look at
it and I've had friends like, Hey, it's it's November.
You still have all the big 10. It's like, well, but the big 10
comes around, unless you're going to go like, you know, 15
and two in the big 10 or whatever number of games is, you
know, you're you're going to win some, you're going to lose some,
but so is everybody else. And you're not going to be able
to really gain anything on your metrics.
Your metrics are kind of going to be mostly locked in once you
get to the big 10. And what's going to help you is
those non conference games, much like in 2023, we had that road
win Xavier, which just kept giving dividends throughout the
entire year as they stayed highly ranked.
And then that helped us with our metrics.
I, I don't know, man, it's, it's tough.
And you know, for a program that builds itself on trying to be at
the top level, to have another non conference where you're not
going to have any real, not even competing with the big boys is,
is tough. And, you know, I, I think it's
going to continue to be something that hampers us
throughout the year as we get into the meat of the Big 10
schedule because you're just going to have a real hard time
showing where are those tier one Rd. wins.
I mean. But let's let's.
Look first at style of play a little more in depth and what's
what we're seeing in terms of the numbers.
And then let's talk about the schedule 'cause I think these
are two separate issues. And it's like, again, I wanted
to, I think leading by talking about kind of the atmosphere
around this is important and, and I think 1.
Atmosphere thing just in a word that you talked about was just
it it is interesting to me you said you know division, those
kind of division, the fan base it is really interesting for
years was always the talk of we got to bring an IU guy back it
it's interesting that you know people weren't happy under
Archie. It didn't feel like there was
division. It was just like hey this guy's
not doing a great job we probably need to move on.
It's really interesting that you get an IU guy in who you feel
like would would understand what the culture is and all that and
then. Now you're, you're, he's the one
kind of causing division. I I think that's interesting.
It's, you know, I, I've thought about that a lot because you're
right. And it's actually kind of an
underrated aspect of this. I mean, Mike Woodson has done a
lot of things that have helped to restore some aspects of
traditional IU basketball culture and I think he deserves
credit for that. I think it was something that
was needed in terms of smoothing out the remaining ruffled edges
that still exist from the night situation and everything that
fell out over the the 20 years after that.
But I think what's increasingly true is that is no longer
important to the level that it used to be.
And instead what is important is the style of play and the roster
management like that has become so paramount.
And if if you think about the. The teams and the coaches that
are really faring well right now in college basketball, it's, you
know, coaches that have created a style of play that really
works for what they're doing and they've been able to recruit to
that effectively. The way that they're approaching
the game is a lot more modern in terms of either their defensive
performance or their offensive performance.
And I think the big problem that I've.
Seen out of Woodson is, you know, so much of what gave the
what gave the Knight era basketball teams the moral
authority to be viewed even in seasons where they weren't
playing as well as they could have was this idea that, hey, we
know this system wins. We know that what Indiana does
on offense works when it's worked to perfection.
Indiana's really hard to beat. They win championships.
We know defensively the same thing.
And I would say that Woodson is simply not demonstrated in any
of the years so far that this system that he's tried to play
on both sides is actually sufficient to winning anything
other than a middling level of basketball games in the
conference. And so I think a lot of the way
that Woodson tried to address the crowd and tried to address
himself within the context of of that and a lot of Woodson's
defenders, that's the piece that's missing.
It's like you, you can't act with that approach unless you've
got the results to back it up and those results just haven't
materialized. And yes, there have been good
individual moments. There's, you know, there's been
the wins over Purdue, there was the win over Kent State and the
tournament. You know, there were there's
been other little things like that, the win at Xavier, But if
that's been undermined, not just by the overall lack of high end
wins and and competing for championships, but it's also
been undermined by these particular types of performances
where you get a bunch of really highly committed, highly
invested IU fans flying places to watch your team play games
and you get embarrassed in those games.
And much like, I mean, the previous games, it's been kind
of one offs, you know, you, you, you go to Vegas, you get blown
out by Arizona, you go to Kansas, you get blown out by
Kansas, you go to New York, you get blown out by UConn.
Fortunately of the second game here, it's like 2 games in a
row. The style of play that you have
chosen to play with your chosen roster, the roster you went out
and spent multiple millions of dollars on in in NIL was looked
inadequate. Like looked looked like a a
second tier team compared to not just Gonzaga, who everybody
expected, but Louisville, who brought in what 13 new players
and a new coach that that is really hard to come back from.
And and so I think about that and it's like Woodson is still,
if I'm playing, you know, our amateur psychologist here a
little bit. I think he's still proceeding
from the idea that, hey, this system works.
I know it works. And what's working against him
now is a lot of IU fans are looking at it and saying we're
not seeing the results. So how can you be this dedicated
to this system that isn't working and speak, you know,
like when you're talking about the kinds of things that were
mentioned on senior night, those resonated with fans because I
think the fans were like, well, we might listen to that if we
were seeing more results. And now this season starts the
way that it has. And I think it didn't take very
much. For a lot of fans to get upset
really quickly because that was the base level that they were
coming in with. When the last thing before we
move on Atlanta. So I, I look at like my
father-in-law, who is, is a sports fan, but not deep in the
weeds of IU. And you know, we're up in, you
know, we're up in Fort Wayne for Thanksgiving and I turned the
game on just to watch a little bit of it.
And he's like, oh, man, IU still having trouble.
And it's like he's done like he, he's like, he doesn't have to
win my father-in-law. But like that, you know, you and
I are a different breed. People listening to the show are
very invested in IU basketball and we're going to live and
breathe in and out. Part of what made IU special was
people would check in and be like, oh, wow, they're good.
Like you, you'd get this kind of ancillary fan base that kind of
builds up. And that's what gives you the
power to to be a major blue blood.
Those people check in like these Atlantis games are really
important, even the Vegas ones, the New York ones, like they're
important because over the holidays, people start to kind
of check in and those, you know, passive fans kind of look up.
It's like, oh, Nah, we still are getting blown out by Louisville,
man, that sucks. All right, well, I'll check in
later. It's like then they won't check
back in and you, you, you, you start to lose the momentum And,
and it's just, it's a bummer that again, you had another high
profile and you weren't even able.
To compete anyway. No again, yeah.
So when we look at the numbers, here's what's disturbing to me.
And you know, when you hear all this talk about, you know, we're
going to change the offense, shoot more threes.
I mean, let's start there because that's that's become is
something that really you clearly separates Indiana
offensively from what other teams are doing, teams that
Indiana would like to aspire to be as a program in terms of
success. Maybe not necessarily like be
exactly them. Indiana is shooting better from
three. I talked about this in the in
the podcast that I did the other day.
They're shooting 35.8% from three.
That's 89th in the country. That is significantly better
than what they shot last year. Last year they were shooting
32.4% and you know, 35.8% is about a percentage point less
than what they shot in the the year that they went and and beat
Kent State in the tournament. Trace Jackson Davis is senior.
So you you do like to see that. And the free throw shootings
gotten better after three straight years of the free throw
shooting being bad, they've actually jumped their free throw
shooting by 12%. Last year it was 65.4 or 66.4,
this year at 78.1. So you you are seeing some
positive changes in terms of shooting.
The problem is that is the rate the, the three-point average
that Indiana is shooting in terms of the amount of threes
that they're shooting in relation to the overall points
that they're scoring is 29.9. The three-point attempts to
field goal attempts, that is 300 and 48th in the country.
And Scott, I, I got news for you.
There's only 364 teams in Division One.
Their assist rate is still high, but that's always very high as a
very assist focused team. But just that right there to to
be after seven games, 300 and 48th in the country in field
goal or three-point attempts as a ratio of overall field goal
attempts that I mean, it's a, it's bad strategy in an era when
so many teams get so many points from the three-point line.
But B, it just looks so out of step with the teams that
Indiana's trying to compete against.
And that has a direct impact on recruiting.
It has a direct impact on just the overall perception of the
program. Yeah, I mean, I I see it with my
son who who I coach in basketball.
He just loves to shoot threes. And it is something that kids
like to do. Is it something that's been
brought up a couple of times that, you know, when you watch
this team, it's like, man, does that look like fun to play?
It's like probably not. And and that's what a lot of
recruits see. But here's the thing, you know,
the a couple a couple points that you brought up, you know,
the what's odd is the years that we've shot better from three.
You know, like Woodson's first year, we shot 33% from 3 wasn't
awful. We were taking more.
Sorry I'm messing this up. His first year we shot 33% from
three. We took 31% of our shots were
from three. The next year, Trace Jackson
Davis is senior year, we actually shot better from 336%.
We were 39th in the country, but we shot less.
We shot 26% of our shots from three.
So as we get better shooting threes, we take less of them.
And and the other argument that that always kind of I roll my
eyes is the idea of like, well, there's a lot of ways to win
basketball games. Like, OK, there is you, you can.
But if if you're going to be 350th in the country in any
aspect of any of the metrics, whether it's rebounding or two
point percentage or free throw or steal, like if you're going
to be this off the mark of everything else, you have to be
elite somewhere else. And if so, if you're not going
to shoot a bunch of threes, fine in that scenario, as you and I
have talked about, knowing basketball, you probably need to
rebound at an elite percentage. You need to be unbelievably
efficient with your two point shots.
You're probably going to go to the line a lot.
You got to be really good at free throws and you need to be
really good defensively. And you got to pick one of those
things and maybe be in the top 20 in the country.
And I think that's the problem is this is being wrapped up in
like, hey, man, the group think everyone's got to do the same
thing. It's like, no, but then then
where are we elite? Because if you're going to be
this hyper deficient in one area, you know, that's the
problem. And the last thing I'll say is
where it is really frustrating is it's just so unmodern with
the way basketball is played, but it also just is the way it's
played. You know, you get down by 7 to
10 to Gonzaga and it's like you, you can't come back when you're
just hitting. You know, it's two and they hit
a three and then two and then they miss and then it's like 2
and then a three. Like when other teams are
shooting threes at such a higher clip than you are.
You really have to find a way to get ahead in every game and kind
of grind teams out 'cause once you're down by 10 or 12 it
becomes unbelievably hard to get back into the game when you're
just taking twos every time. There's another aspect to this
and it's something that's become a big problem now it's it's a
recoverable problem. But you know, when in Mike
Woodson's first year Indiana turned the ball over on 17.2% of
their possessions, which was actually top third in the
country, that in good like you know, it was 101st in the
country was the ranking. The year that they were the four
seed, they only turned the ball over on 78% of possessions,
which was better, excuse me, a 16.8% of possession, 78th in the
country. Now, what's interesting to me is
that last year Indiana turned the ball over on 17.5% of
possessions, almost the same number as Woodson's first year,
but instead of ranking 101st, that percentage now ranked
208th. And what you can take from that
is that a lot of teams across the country got better at taking
care of the ball. Indiana got worse.
Now, of course, well, it, well, Indiana got worse relative to
everybody else. Now you can attribute that to
OK, well, OK, you lose Xavier Johnson, you've got Gabe Cups
and Trey Galloway doing most of the ball handling.
That's a rough spot. You would, you know, you'd be
like, OK, fine. This year, Indiana's turning the
ball over on almost 20% of possessions, 19.7%.
Both real and relative, right? Right.
There's 275th in the country and that is a disaster.
It's a disaster for a team that doesn't take a lot of threes
because if you're turning the ball over on two or three
additional percent of possessions throughout the
course of a game, that is two or three possessions that if your
opponent hits a three, you've double whammied yourself on.
And and so you put yourself in a position where your possessions
have to count even more. And unfortunately for Indiana,
it it, it doesn't make a lot of sense that they would be having
this many turnover problems because they got a point guard
like they brought a guy in at point guard who was supposed to
be, you know, the, the answer there that was that was what was
going to fix the issue that Indiana was having.
And, and if you look at Miles Rice, like his, his assist
rate's been really good. He's he's got an assist rate of
22.6. He's 300 and 17th in the
country. His turnover rate is 25.3%,
which I mean, that's, that's wildly not good for a starting
point guard. Last year, by comparison, Gabe
Cubs had a turnover percentage of 24.8%.
And in the games that he played, Xavier Johnson had a turnover
rate of 25.6%. So the reason I bring this up
is. It almost feels like the
offensive discipline that Indiana was playing with those
first couple of seasons under Woodson.
And maybe a lot of this had to do with the fact you had Trace
Jackson Davis drawing players in defensively.
He could. He was a very good passer out of
the post. That's gone now.
Indiana doesn't have that aspect of their game.
And so it takes what's already kind of a tenuous offense to win
games with and makes it even worse to win games with because
you're you're just missing those extra possessions and that's
points that you can't afford to not score.
Yeah, no, I I completely agree. And it won't again, it just goes
to a team that looks kind of undisciplined.
I mean, it's something we talk about in football, a lot of team
that turns the ball over a lot. It it it oddly, it's oddly they
they look disciplined and undisciplined.
And what I mean is like they turn the ball over a lot.
They miss defensive assignments, but yet they look disciplined in
a way that Archie's team look the same way where it's like
they're they're so in their head of trying to run whatever system
they have to run it. It's almost like at times
they're not playing basketball. Like I remember there's
something Tony Adrani and I talked about, you know, with
like Rob Phenisee, like just kind of looks like dude, just go
play hyper. Like he looks so in his own
head. And you see it with the way they
play these Woodson teams the same way.
It's like they're so focused on trying to play whatever this
style is and get to the right place that they're not playing
basketball and they look both disciplined and undisciplined at
the same time. Defensively, this was one of the
things we talked about a lot at the end of last year.
And you know, as much rightful attention was paid to how bad
Indiana's offense was at times down the stretch last year,
defensively they were pretty deficient as well.
You know, they finished last year going off of Ken Palm, 84th
in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency.
You know, so the idea was, always, and this was where I was
a little skeptical about how good Indiana was going to be
this year, but I was going to give them the benefit of the
doubt. It's like you were 105th in
offensive efficiency and 84th in defensive efficiency.
And if you're going to be a team that's going to compete for a
Sweet 16, both of those numbers probably need to be in the top
20, at the very least the top 30.
So, so far this year through seven games and you still got a
little bit of leakage from last year in the stats.
But according to Kenpom, Indiana's 48th in adjusted
offensive efficiency and 71st in adjusted defensive efficiency.
Even if you take Torvic, which is generally a little bit kinder
to Indiana for whatever reason, through these metrics, Torvic's
got Indiana 37th offensively and 65th defensively.
Still not good enough in either category.
The the defense is a real issue because you've obviously got
much better rim protection now with Ballo than you had last
year where wasn't quite the same type of rim protector.
I mean, last year Indiana was 54th in the country and block
percentage, they blocked 7.6% of of shot attempts.
This year, the block percentage is lower, but Indiana's 18th in
the country. So they do have a legitimate rim
protection right now, but it's not translating into defense.
And the reason why, Scott, if you look at the numbers, it's
not shooting percentage. Indiana is actually doing a
pretty good job of holding their opponents.
Their opponents are only shooting 29.9% from three.
They're only shooting 48% from 2.
Indiana is doing fine in those areas, but where they're getting
killed right now is on the offensive glass for the other
team. Indiana is allowing a opponents
to get offensive rebounds at a 33.5% clip.
That's 200 and 91st. And for those of you who've been
following along, you know that an offensive rebound surrendered
means an extended possession and a greater chance for the other
team to score. So that's what worries me.
It's like you've got 2 bigs, and unlike last year, you've got two
bigs who are pretty much in vicinity of the post.
They're not rebounding, they're not getting good rebound
performances out of their guards or their swing men, and so
they're undoing themselves there.
Now, is that a system issue or is that an effort issue?
It's probably a little bit of both, but it's worth noting.
Indiana was bad last year. At that, you know that where
Indiana really fell down last year defensively was they didn't
force turnovers. Well, they're forcing more
turnovers this year. They're forcing 4% more
turnovers, but their offensive rebounding allowed has gone up
by 4 percentage points. So whatever gains they've gotten
in the turnover forcing, they've lost in the offensive
rebounding. It's it's all true.
Here's what's wild in Woodson's four years, you had Trace
Jackson Davis, who we can all agree was, I mean, a little bit
undersized, but just a unbelievable post player at IU.
The next year you have Khalil Ware who had a phenomenal year
was lottery pick or a high first round pick, if not a lottery
pick. And then this year, by the way,
you also had Malik renew there in over, you know, overlapping,
though growing as a player. This year you have Malik Renew,
who's a a very solid home grown post player and you get Balo,
one of the best portal post players, you know, a 7 foot
beast of a guy. I'm looking at the offensive
rebounding, both defense, you know, against the defense and
our own offensive rebounding. The only year we've ever been in
the top 100 in the country, it was Woodson's first year.
Our defensive allowed offensive rebound, we were 64th in the
country every other year. I mean, right now we're 200 and
91st in the country on giving up offensive rebounds and us
getting offensive rebounds. We cracked it at 99 in the
country. To have that string of big men
coming through this and kind of becoming big men, you and
running your entire everything as a big man centered offense
and defense, to have these really sub optimal rebounding
numbers is kind of wild. And and that's, you know, just
taking a step back. That's what's so frustrating
with all of this. Galen is this is on the heels.
It's not like we lost recruits or we've had it.
Yeah, yes, Xavier Johnson was injured last year, but this is
coming off of back-to-back years where I continue to say you give
Woodson an A or an A+ in what he brought in talent wise in the
offseason in both, recruit in both.
Sorry, not recruiting, but well, some recruiting, but mostly in
flipping, flipping recruits and in the transfer portal.
So you I have a really hard time saying, well, it's talent OR
we're not rebounding because we don't have the big men like you.
You had a generational big man, you had a lottery pick, big man.
You know how maybe the best portal big man, it can't be
talent. So that's why the the spotlight
continues to turn toward the coaching staff because in the
system, because you've had probably the best two years of
talent acquisition on this team and you're still seeing these
numbers that don't make a lot of sense given what you have on the
team position wise. Yeah, I mean, that's where I
keep going back and forth because there's clearly moments
when IU individual players just aren't doing the right things.
But it does kind of feel more systematic.
And and and it's it's a problem that it can get fixed, but it
needs to get fixed fast. And this is where, you know, to
some degree the lack of good non conference opponents may be a
silver lining to some degree, but it may also be fool's gold.
Because I could see Indiana going out, winning the next few
games, coasting into the, you know, the start of the, the,
the, the real Big 10 schedule in January, thinking they've got
this stuff solved and then having it fall apart.
And that's kind of what's happened to Indiana over the
course of the last few years. If you think about it, like go
back to Woodson's first season and you had a situation where
Indiana, they were 16 and 5:00 and 7:00 and 4:00 at the end of
January. And then they lost five in a row
and seven of nine. And they managed to pull
themselves together in the Big 10 tournament, but they were
very close to not making the tournament at all the following
year. It kind of worked out, but
still, you know, Indiana lost four games down the stretch from
January 31st to February 28th and and only won five in that
stretch. You know, last year was
obviously a real problem and that happened earlier from the
beginning of January to the end of February.
They lost what, 12345678 of 11 games?
And so I do worry this year with the amount that needs to be
fixed, either in the game planning or in the effort or
some combination of both. You don't have a lot of live
ammo experiences really with IU going up against good
competition. And while there's nobody stellar
in the Big 10, you've also got a lot of teams that are solidly in
that kind of 15 to 50 range. And those are the teams that
Indiana has tended to struggle with in the Big 10.
Those are the teams you've got to figure out how to beat
consistently. And I don't know, and I don't
think any of us are going to know until they actually start
playing those games, whether Indiana will have fixed all of
the problems that we've seen pop up here over the first seven
games. I mean, I'll, I'll ask you this
in kind of a roundabout way, like based on where we're at
now, what do you think Indiana would have to do win wise to get
into the NCAA Tournament? And, and I, I ask it with this
caveat, is it right now on Ken Pom we are projected to go 17
and 14 and 9:00 and 11:00 in the Big 10.
That's a projection, right? Things can change.
That's not going to be where it goes.
But I've you and I have been looking at Ken Pom for 20 years
now. I will say this, it's normally
not far off. Like normally you don't see a
team projected to go 9:00 and 11:00 that goes 15 and five.
It could happen, it probably has happened in some spots along the
way, but most of the time you're looking at maybe a two to
three-game variance and that's pretty extreme.
So looking at that as like, you know, if you say that twelve
wins is probably everything going right for Indiana, maybe
13, is that enough to get us, you know, solidly in the
tournament? What do you think?
So a lot of it depends on who the wins are against, not how
many wins there are. And this is where Atlantis, I
think we're going to look back on it and say this was a real
problem. And, and look, a lot of it is
bad strategy, frankly, in terms of scheduling because I, I
mentioned this on Twitter. I also mentioned it on the.
The the the. Podcast I did earlier, let's say
Indiana beat Louisville. Let's just say they won that
game. You're you're so right on.
This they would have played West Virginia and Oklahoma.
They wouldn't have played Gonzaga.
They wouldn't have played. They actually kind of got lucky,
you know, in terms of a shot at playing a good team.
Gonzaga lost that first game, yeah.
And then we, you know, they of course, Indiana loses that game
anyway. But you know, you can't take
bracket style exempt tournaments and just count on the idea that
the best teams are going to advance.
And that's been extreme this year.
I mean, look what happened in Maui with UConn, Iowa State
losing in the first round. So you look at the schedule now,
Indiana's best win is a home win against South Carolina, who's
not going to make the tournament.
They just beat Providence, who's also not going to make the
tournament. Their remaining non conference
schedule, they have four games left.
They have Sammy Houston State who's 126 in Kenpom.
They're not going to. That's not going to matter.
That's not going to help. Miami of Ohio is 185th in
Kenpom, that's not going to help.
Chattanooga is 171st in Kenpom, that's not going to help.
Winthrop is 165, that's not going to help.
And the problem with these games, and this is where we've
talked a lot about the ideal approach to scheduling, you've
got to beat those teams by at least the margins that you're
being projected. And that's hard against those
kind of 100 to 200 style teams, especially if you are not
totally clicking as a a roster yourself.
Because right now Indiana, according to Kenpom, in order to
get positive benefits metrics wise going to have to beat Sam
Houston State by at least 12, Miami of Ohio by at least 15,
Chattanooga by at least 15 and Winter by at least 15.
And this is. Or this is a team this year and
last year that it looks like they have a hard time locking in
for 40 minutes, which is what you have to do to put some of
these teams away. And I mean, all you have to do
is look at that UNC Greensboro game, right, which was another
one where they needed to win by more points than what they won
in that game. Now, they did give them credit.
They beat Providence by significantly more.
So they do have that gear. My point, though, is that you
take those games out, none of those four games are going to
help Indiana make the tournament.
And in fact, they could all hurt Indiana's chances of making the
tournament. If they don't win convincingly
in each of them, then you get into the Big 10.
So right now, Torvic is projecting Indiana with an
overall record of 18 and 13 and 10 and 10.
Ken Poms got them at 17 and 14 and 9:00 and 11:00.
Prior to the Providence game, the projection was like 16 and
15 and 8:00 and 12:00. So if you look at the schedule
that Indiana's got right now, first of all, I'll note that if
you take the Ken Pom probabilities right now, it has
Indiana losing 6 games and eight of their last ten in a row, six
in a row and eight of their last ten from the end of January to
the end of or to the middle of March.
Looking at the Kenpom projections, January and
February would be a We might need to get the Counting Crows
to redo their song along December and make it long.
January and along January you have loss, loss, loss, loss,
home win against Maryland and then loss, loss, loss, loss,
loss, loss. And then win, win.
And then two more losses to close out the season.
So what are the marquee games left on Indiana's schedule?
So you've got there, this is where you first look at Rd.
games. So here's the road games that
Indiana's got the rest of the season.
They've got to go to Nebraska, a place that's been a joy to play
in for Indiana recently. What you said before and it's
like it's 100% true. It's just like take a period it,
it shouldn't be that way. Like that's insane that we just
like Nebraska, like we keep adding these.
We should be getting rid of like Wisconsin being a house, but we
just keep adding houses of horrors to our Big 10 schedule.
It's like East Lansing now. Nebraska, Really.
Sorry, no, you're right. Then then that's your that's
your December Rd. game. That's on a Friday.
That's that's a great Friday right before finals.
Real motivation on the road there.
If you're any TI don't care who you are.
Indiana, whoever, then their next Rd. game in the Big 10 is
at Penn State, another place that's been just a tremendous
trip here lately for Indiana. Then you go down the list, you
got to go to Iowa. Again, not a place Indiana has
historically played that well at.
Ohio State that that's a marquee game.
That's the type. And Indiana did go in there and
win surprisingly last year. But you've got a new coach.
That was kind of the game that got Chris Holtman fired, if I
remember correctly. They have to go to Northwestern,
not a place Indiana has played particularly well, and also not
a game you're going to get much juice from because
Northwestern's 65th right now in Kenpalm.
You're that's not going to count as a good win at Purdue, at
Wisconsin, at Michigan State, and then you get at Washington,
which Indiana is projected to win by a point.
And then you got to also do at Oregon on the same trip and
Oregon's legitimately good. So out of all of that, your
marquee opportunities are at Ohio State, at Purdue, at
Wisconsin, maybe at Michigan State and at Oregon.
So I think you got to win two of those games if if you have no
non conference victories, I think you need two wins in those
types of games. To try to develop a resume that
isn't just a. Hold homecourt right and and
hold pretty good serve. At home you can, you can afford
a couple of losses at home. I don't think, I don't think
you're at a point now, especially with the unbalanced
schedules. But it's like look at the teams
that Indiana's got coming in. They've they've got Illinois and
I'm this is not all of them. This is just the marquee ones.
They get Illinois at home on the 14th of January.
They got Maryland, who's semi decent on the 26th of January.
They're 34th in Kent Palm. They got Michigan, who looks
legitimately pretty decent. They're 22nd in Kent Palm.
You got UCLA on Valentine's Day, who's 17th in Kent Palm.
You've got Purdue on the 23rd at the Sunday game and then you got
Ohio State at home, so that's six games there and you probably
need to win five of those four, four.
I think if you win 2 Rd. games, you could afford to go four and
two in those, but you got to win all the rest of your games as
well. Now, again, I'm not saying
Indiana can't do that. I think Indiana's got the talent
to do it. I don't think Indiana is playing
a style of basketball or playing consistently enough over 40
minutes that they will be able to win all of those games.
But that's essentially the road that's in front of them.
And oh, by the way, you also can't afford the random stumbles
that we've seen Indiana have consistently over the course.
Of, you know, really the last decade, you know, you, you can't
afford to lose at home to Penn State like Indiana did last year
when they lost by 14. You can't afford to lose at home
to Northwestern like Indiana did last year or Nebraska like
Indiana did last year. You're just not going to have
that flexibility. And and that is something that's
really concerning. It's going to take a level of
consistency and focus that we just haven't seen on the non
trace Jackson Davis rosters thus far.
Where does that where does that stability come from this year?
You know, is this where Trey Galloway's able to take the team
and put them on his shoulders? I don't know if Trey Galloway's
really capable of doing quite. That from where he sits within
the the pecking order on the roster and what he brings to the
table. But I'm not sure who else it
comes from. And that is a real concern as
you think about like gaming out. What would Indiana need to do to
even make the field, let alone be in an advantageous seating
situation? That seems even more difficult
at this point, unless. You see a big turn around when
just making the field does feel and we're just we're talking
here, not saying it, but if that becomes it does feel like that's
moving the goal posts because it always felt like this year it
was like, all right, well, this is this is a roster where you
could compete for a big 10 title, No worst be third or
fourth in the big 10 and really go for a protected seed in the
tournament. You know, this is I'm I'm sorry,
I'm going to take a step back just and and go back to the
schedule. But you know, I was also
thinking of this, that it it it it it feels like we're losing
the thread of of what Indiana basketball was just little bit,
little bit. And what what I mean by that is
as you're rattling off that non conference, I think back to you
did a great podcast couple years ago, one of the the history of,
you know, sports. You did like 93 Indiana
basketball and you look at their non conference and it is just
banger after banger. It's like just a great, you
know, greatest hits album, just, you know, play the top 15 team,
top twelve team. But that was something, you
know, I remember going with my dad to games, you know, every
November in Assembly Hall, like, Oh yeah, Kansas.
No, we got Kentucky coming or not Kentucky, but you know, we
have we have Kansas or we have, you know, a spunky UTEP team or
just you you'd have a lot of these big games.
Now as a ticket holder, it's like, all right, I get South
Carolina that that's awesome. Like and that like that is
something real. As somebody who pays for
tickets, it's like it does suck that all of the non conference
games are just kind of garbage wins that we kind of struggle to
get through. And then the other piece is, you
know, you mentioned like Trey Galloway, so much of Indiana
basketball has. And I, I, I take a minute while,
as I say this, I don't want to get too far down this road, but
it's been about having a team of, you know, people from
Indiana having, you know, and I don't believe you have to
recruit just the state to, to be good.
But the, you look at the title, the, the really good teams have
always had some Indiana kids on it.
Like that's always been something and that's been
something unique about Indiana basketball.
It's not just UNLV. We're just going to get dudes in
and just pay to play and do it. Like Indiana basketball does
have an ethos. So I don't want to get into
going the right way. But you've always had Indiana
kids kind of lead Indiana, even in the last couple years.
You have the Yogi Ferrell team. It's kid from Indiana, Cody
Zeller. You know, that team had also
had, you know, Jordan Halls and it can work.
Look up at West Lafayette like they're doing with Indiana
players up there. You kind of lost that thread
with this team as well. And now it just becomes all
right, man, just win. Like it's like, all right, I'm
not paying to see great games in the non conference.
I don't really have players that I've connected with or that have
come through the Indiana basketball system, which leads
to your point of like, who really is leading this team?
And I think this is all part of that Stew where it's like, all
right, it just now it's it's a business decision, like just win
games because that's all you. You've kind of ripped away all
the other pieces of playing some unique teams and not having, you
know, that that threat of Indiana players on the team.
Yeah. You know, look, it's, it's one
of those things. There's a, there's a cultural
aspect to it. There's A and what I mean by
that is when you're the, the basketball's changing, college
sports are changing.
And, and so I think it's really easy to get caught up too much.
And well, we used to do things this way and we had success.
But I think your point is valid because there's, there's clearly
we've had good individual players come in.
Khalil Ware was a good individual player that came in
and he performed well. He got himself drafted, but
there was just like that team was not very good.
And so, you know, you've had that in IU history before where
you've had good individual performers, but then you've had
things not work, you know, well, for the team overall.
Walt Bellamy, I mean, he was on teams that were on probation.
So it's kind of like, you know, great player, top draft pick and
couldn't quite get it done. But it's Noah.
Noah Vonleh is another one. Yeah, absolutely.
So these things do occur, but I guess what what's problematic
here is you're, it almost feels like you're not giving yourself
the best chance to win with those types of players.
And as you mentioned, there's a, a gradually less tied in core
of, of, of fans because you don't have the this constant
success that's tying you to the program.
You don't have the development of players.
And again, that's probably going away just in general in college
basketball. But it does leave Indiana in
this weird spot where so many of the things that the program was
built on just don't seem to be working particularly well.
And what's the solution? Like, how does that get
answered? And this is where I my hope, and
just to kind of finish things off here, my hope was that we
were actually getting changes that that the systems were going
to change, that the teams were going to go out and play with a
renewed sense of togetherness and focus.
And look, that could still happen this year, that the
system's changing becomes progressively less likely every
time we see, you know, a game go by.
But the the effort levels and the intensity and the focus
could still be there and coalesce.
I think that's what Indiana needs at this point.
And I think as as much as the fan base reacted negatively,
understandably so to those Atlantis games, you know, they
did react well to like Langdon Hatton playing really hard and
Luke Goody showing fire in the in the huddle.
That's good. We want to see those things.
People like the effort that Trey Galloway gives.
You know, I think that I've liked individual moments with
Miles Rice and I'm hoping that he's going to settle in.
I've liked some of the individual moments on offense.
With Renew and with Balo. But then there's been some
things with fouls, with Renew, with defensive effort, with from
Balo, where you're just like, OK, I can't feel completely
great about that. And you can kind of go down the
list with every player on the roster.
There's something to like about all of them, but they don't
really seem to be coalescing into something that you can feel
confident going into a game and saying, hey, we're going to win
this game. That's my big hope for Indiana
is that that changes over the course of the next couple of
weeks that you really start to get, you know, you you get
Mackenzie and Baca rolling on both ends of the floor as
opposed to just the offensive side.
You get Cannon Carlisle back from injury.
You get Bryson Tucker more minutes and hopefully get his
overall offensive performance up.
There's there's so many little things that add up to big
things. I just don't know what the route
is for Indiana other than that that because right now they kind
of are who they are. They're going to have to play
significantly over their heads moving forward to be
significantly better than they currently are right now.
And I'm not sure that that's the trajectory that they're on at
this point. Yeah, I mean, I would just I
would caution everybody and I have to caution myself too.
Like just don't don't get yourself in the in the the
thought process. Like, well, they can just start
shooting more 3. It's going to be like if this
team is not going to do that, like we there's enough evidence
now that would be out of the realm.
So I look at it as I'm curious to see where they're going to
try and become the most efficient in the country at.
Are they going to try and bring their turnovers down?
Because I, I think rebounding would be the place to go.
And that's what I would be looking at is can they become
just an elite rebounding team on either side of the ball?
Can they just get more and more efficient on offense or maybe
bring their defensive stats down?
I would just urge everybody don't get in the fallacy of
like, oh, well, they can just start shooting more threes.
Or you have the one game where Mbako, you know, shoots, you
know, 6 from 10 from three. It's like, all right, now we're
going to start shooting threes. Like, I don't think that's going
to be the route because it just hasn't been.
You've had these old blips of games where you shoot a bunch of
threes and then we go back to either not shooting threes or
shooting them poorly. I, I think that's, I think
everyone's in a better mindset. If you just start looking at
other places like, hey, maybe and I think hopefully the
coaching staff is doing the same thing.
You know, they they have this. We've we've railed on the
schedule. But the good thing is you do
have this moment where you have a nice little basically month
runway between now and January 5th where you can be in the lab
and can you work some stuff out? And can you work with your post
players to get them to put the effort and the discipline to go
out and and rebound at a high level?
Because there's really nothing. This team is big.
Like you watch them, it's like, dude, this team is big.
They're large, They're they're imposing.
There's no reason why they couldn't be a top 2030 team in
the country on offensive and defensive rebounding.
And if you do that, it covers up a lot of the three-point
shooting, It covers up a lot of the turnovers.
So that that's what I'm going to hopefully look for over the next
couple of weeks because they they do have a runway to get
5678 wins here kind of right. The ship put the Atlantis thing
behind them and then get into the meat of that January
schedule with hopefully kind of a new identity in those
respects. Yeah, I mean, from my point, you
know, from my vantage point, when I look at the stats as we
close things up here, like you've got two top 300 scorers
from an efficiency perspective in the country right now in
Mackenzie and Bacco and Malik Renew.
You have a top 50 guy in assists in Trey Galloway in relatively
limited minutes. You've got Omar Barlow, who's
got one of the best effective field goal percentages in the
entire country. These are not numbers that
should be equating to A5 and two team whose best win is at home
against South Carolina and who lost by a combined, what you
know, 44 points against the two teams with a pulse that they
played on their schedule so far. So look, the pieces are there.
There's got to be more coalescing.
There's got to be a different approach.
I think the rest of the way. I think you hit the nail on the
head and I hope they get there because man, the last thing I
want is another like war in in IU basketball.
The last thing I want to see is is more angst and more
infighting and people going at each other.
It's just, it's been so long and look, I think IU fans are are
right to be frustrated, but got to just make things so much
easier If IU as a basketball team could pull themselves
together, figure out how to play as best they can with this
system that they're playing. Because when they're all playing
at that level, as you said, they are kind of they're a top 20
roster in terms of talent. It's just a long route to get
from where they're at right now to that.
And fortunately, they still got 2/3 of the season to do it.
So, you know, maybe that's the silver lining or 3/4 of the
season to do it. Yeah, no, and I, I agree with
you. I don't, I don't want to have
another slog through January, February, get to the infighting,
have all new factions created like we, we just it it'd be nice
to have a season that just kind of didn't have a a massive
anxiety point, which I think we've talked about.
It's been like 9 or 10 years and it's been quite a while.
It it's really, it's, it's been a while.
I'll just leave it at that. Like it's, it's been a while.
I would like to have a season where we can just focus on some
good basketball, look at the wins and it would be nice to get
into March and be solidly in the tournament.
Like we were tour, you know, whatever.
Two years ago we we had the four seed like that.
That would be nice. It'd be nice to be off the
bubble. Yeah, well, we'll see what
happens and certainly we'll be back to talk more basketball.
Indiana with a big game coming up this week.
Two big games in terms of just maintaining the course and
starting to get things back on track as they play Sam Houston
State Tuesday at 7:30 and then a Friday home game against Miami
of Ohio. So all of that coming up, we'll
see what happens with it all, but we appreciate you folks.
Just in Georgia football team made the NCAA basketball
tournament like they they with three losses.
They're good enough to make their they're they got a better
protected seat. So there you go.
They got a four seat already. So those set those boys.
Deserved it, they really did. So anyway, for Scott, I'm Galen.
This is Crimson cast. Thanks again for joining us here
as we cover IU basketball and we'll continue to cover IU
football. More programming coming up later
on this week. Might have a live watch party
going for that Sam Houston State game because we've also got the
College Football Playoff reveal happening at the same time.
Lots of stuff going on. Anyway, we'll catch you folks.
On the flip side, bring back the Bison, stay, never daunted.
So on everybody.