Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Women's
Basketball Podcast. It's been a while since we've
talked to you guys. Amanda and I took the week off
last week just due to our schedules, but we're not back
with one of the biggest episodes of the season.
Obviously a big game on Monday, but an even bigger one on
Thursday. Coming up to tomorrow, you know
the Iowa game, I Amanda, so it's a very big the Iowa game, it's
the Iowa game, huge implications for IU moving forward.
But as always, I mean, it's been a while since since we've talked
to our lovely fans. How are you doing?
What's new in life? Yeah, I'm.
I'm doing well. Like you said we took the week
off last week because we had the pleasure of going up to Indy and
working covering the NBA All Star game as part of our class
with Mike Wells. Shout out Mike, if you're
listening, you're not because you don't listen to podcast, but
if you are for some reason, you know, thank you.
But no, that was it was super great.
I'm doing well. I'm a little bit sick, so
apologies if you know anything gets picked up or I have to
clear my throat. It's going to happen.
But no, it's it's a beautiful day out.
It's a Wednesday. Wednesdays are good days in
general and a really, really exciting game coming up tomorrow
that everybody has been like counting down the days for since
they announced the date that it was happening in the fall.
So. So it's a huge day tomorrow, but
it's also a big day here for us. Because ladies and gentlemen
making his Crimson Cast debut, please give a warm welcome.
One of the best media school students and one of the finest
basketball minds in all of the land from Indianapolis IN.
The one, the only the notorious Zion.
ZB Brown, How are How are you? I feel?
Like I should have been like running out of the corner or
something. For this introduction, that was
my. Surprise to you.
That was my surprise. That was my surprise.
Hey, man, I appreciate. It if you get an intro like
that. Well, you're my partner.
I'll I'll get you next week, don't worry.
You know, you know where your, like, friends come over and your
and your mom like turned into a completely different person.
That's Kevin right now. Shout out to Bruce Buffer for
for the inspiration. I wanted to give you a nice
little introduction, but yeah, Zion Browns.
On the podcast with us today, Zion is junior, like I said from
Indianapolis IN. Writer for the indie star.
Also Co sports director over at WIOX.
So, yeah, Welcome, Zion. It's good to have you.
It's great to be on, you know. You know, I thought it would
never happen because of Amanda over here shutting down my
dreams and hopes and aspirations, but.
I didn't. For the record, that has not
ever once happened, but. I'm glad to be here though.
Yeah, yeah, we obviously, I said one of the finest basketball
minds in all of the land. And I truly mean that Zion is,
is a great basketball mind. And I mean, he's here to help us
sort of breakdown what happened at Illinois.
So let's, you know, get right into it.
It was, to put it bluntly, just a bad loss for Indiana.
They suffered their fourth loss of the season Monday afternoon,
86 to 66 to the Illini. It was just a tough game, tough
game. Indiana had the lead with 19
seconds remaining in the first quarter, but then Illinois got
it back and never looked back. They go on and get the 20 point
win it snaps. A16 game win streak for Indiana
over Illinois and for Illinois it's the biggest margin of
victory over a ranked opponent since 1998.
A very big win for them considering where they're at in
the season just battling 500 and big win or I should say a big
loss for Indiana just because of the implications of where we are
currently in the standings and and where the season is going.
Look, I mean, to be honest, Indiana looks disconnected on
every level. So, yeah, I mean, I'll start off
with this Zion, we talked about it before, before today.
It's just, I mean, Illinois ability to go to the basket was
just the key to this game. It it sure was.
Indiana had no answer at the point of attack for for whatever
Illinois had coming downhill. And mainly it was Makara Cook,
who is one of the more underrated players in the Big
10. She had another big game against
the Hoovers, 22 points this go round and whether it was her
getting all the way to the Cup and finishing, whether it's
dropping it off to a big big or whether it was getting to the
free throw line, which Illinois had 24 free throw attempts in
that game, she just could not be stopped.
She had none of those free throw attempts.
She couldn't be stopped and the Hoosiers just were not able to
to halt the penetration, whether that was from the big or or up
top and and that's the big reason why Illinois won this one
handily. Yeah, Terry talked about it
after the game. And I'll go to you, Amanda.
It's just something that we we've talked about and I think
this was the biggest point is point of separation in the game
is Mackenzie did not look great defensively in this one.
She just got a lot of the times beat and Terry talked about it,
how there was really no protection at the rim.
And I mean I mean from I mean Zion just told us what he saw.
What did you see in the loss? There was a lot of frustration
all around and you could tell almost from the beginning.
Not I don't. Not quite.
Because in the beginning it seemed like Mackenzie especially
was being was. She was able to get around
Illinois until they adjusted to her a little bit more, but as
the game went on, it was one of those games that doesn't really
happen a lot for Indiana where you can see on their faces how
upset they are and how frustrated they are.
And you can see it from Terry Moran and you can see it from
the bench, just whether it was the the foul calls and the
refereeing, because that obviously played a part in the
the emotions of the game. At least a little bit.
You could see towards the end how Mackenzie Holmes would get,
would get frustrated about some of the foul calls and whatnot,
but it was something about the when Illinois has played Indiana
this year piece both times and you talked about Mackayra Cook
being undergraded and I've been kind of on Illinois.
We talked about this last time they played in the preseason.
They were expected to be really good and both, both at the
beginning. Of the.
Year both times that Illinois has played Indiana, we've seen
that team that people have expected to see something about.
Indiana brings it out in a way. You know, when you have players
like Mackayra Cook coming out and playing some of their best
basketball and so that was another thing.
It was like there there was something about it and you know,
they were at home and I don't want to.
It was a Monday, 2:00 PM tip. So it's not like the crowd would
have been like a fantastic environment.
But that that's another thing to consider.
It was just it was a like you said it was a disjointed game
kind of all around. And there was not, I don't know,
they never really rallied when they have in the past.
And that, you know, you go down by, you lose by 20 points,
you're you're missing something. And unfortunately, you know,
they they were missing a lot in that game.
Yeah, I just wanted to jump in and and say like, I think the
reason Illinois kind of comes into the game and to this game
and even the one earlier in January or it was New Year's Eve
rather with the mentality that can that they can beat Indiana
is not because I don't think this team necessarily.
Maybe they do, I don't know, maybe I don't think they think
they're better than Indiana is. But I think they look at it and
they say you cannot guard us in the way that we play.
And so you know you have those games where you know this
Illinois team, they may not think that against Ohio State or
or Iowa or any of the other Big 10, you know, teams that are
have better records than them. But they look at Indiana and
they say they really just cannot stop us getting to the pain and
and getting to the center of the lane.
And so you come in with that conference, they've they've
played two close games with IU, one innocently Hall last year,
one this year where they've been able to say OK, we were there
near the end and then they come in this one and they just blow
Indiana way starting with the 2nd.
Quarter, right. Well, Indiana has a specific way
of playing on both ends of the floor and when you have a team
like Illinois who can adjust to that and learn from it and and
improve, then that's that's something that Indiana's going
to struggle to to go up against. The thing with me is it just
looked like from the beginning really it just never looked like
it was Indiana's day. They they they had to find
couple first minutes, right. It wasn't necessarily from the
start, but just, I mean from the first quarter you could tell
Indiana wasn't wasn't there completely and you know,
Mackenzie didn't have the greatest performance.
Defensively, I would say Chloe Moore.
McNeil was also taken out of the game.
She's been on a hot streak the past what, 5-6, seven games.
But this is the first game in a while where she hasn't really
been as much of a factor as Indiana would like.
She had seven points, right, but she just wasn't necessarily all
there. And the guard, I think the guard
play was also, I mean we talk about the attacking the rim for
Illinois, but also it's just they, the guard play for
Illinois was a lot better, right?
And I didn't see this until after the game.
But Austin render the voice of Indiana women's basketball.
He does like, I think it's called Austin's analysis before
every game. But that was what he touched on.
He he touched on just the guards being the biggest factor in this
game. So I look.
I mean, it was, it was, it was one of those games where it was
such a weird game to watch, because not only was it a rare
loss, but it was a lot of rare mistakes by Indiana.
There was a lot of times where they turned over the ball just
whether on fouls or they just like they the the passes weren't
there. They were turning over the ball
with offensive fouls, defensive fouls.
They were just disconnected, to put it simply.
Yeah, and to me on offense, when you look at this Indiana team
and the issue in this game, you go 6 or 20 from three and I I
tweeted about this a little bit after the game.
But this is AIU team that is first in the country in
effective field goal percentage and a lot of that is because
they take a lot of threes pretty much, pretty much this year for
Indiana, their shots are coming from three or they've been
Mackenzie Holmes who's over 60% just right at the hoop.
The issue with that is when you take away the mid range, the
margin of error just disappears. Basically if if you're not
making those threes it disappears and and that's where
you know Grace Berger was so important the last few years but
Indiana doesn't have any player that can go into the mid range
and create those shots. You know they're they're playing
this style of basketball that the analytics people champion
and and I get it it is the most efficient way to play but when
the cookie crumbles and you just need a basket it gets tough.
It gets you know it, it gets scary because you don't have
that person you can say just knock down a 12 footer for us,
go just get a a 1518 footer shot for us and and get that to go.
And so that's the that's the problem with this Indiana team
when it comes to games like this and you know, these big games
where they get behind or they just need to stop a run, is that
they can't do. That to your point, I think this
is the biggest game where we have seen sort of the absence of
Grace Burger. This was the game where you kind
of watch and you're like Dang well OK this is where this is
where Grace shined the past couple years.
Not, I mean look she's a professional she, I mean there's
very few players in the country that lived in the in the mid
range area like the way that she did when she played.
But yeah, I mean I 100% agree with that too.
I mean you're just playing either on the outside or right
under the basket which can work and has worked.
Look, let's not just spread to Indiana here.
I mean, it's only their fourth loss of the season.
But. Still, they just looked very,
very exposed on Monday. And it's not like you need Grace
Berger. You just need somebody.
It. Doesn't have to be.
A WBA level. Player You need somebody to just
make shots more consistently than they have been because
we've seen it from people that like, you know, they can shoot
the mid range, but they can't do it efficiently enough for it to
be a reliable way of scoring. Well and the thing about the mid
range is you have to to get there.
You have to create a shots exactly.
And nobody on this team, you know you see that occasionally
from Colleen Moore, McNeil but but nobody on this team can
really just consistently I'm going to you know have a tight
ball handle get to my spot and. Fire, right?
Yeah. And and it's it's just
frustrating because I don't know I felt like Terry was I I hadn't
seen Terry as disappointed in a while right And and it's just
there was a clear disappointment.
Well, you can stomach losses to ranked teams, but you get this
one is a lot harder to kind of process.
Just from a the wide perspective of like this is an unranked team
in the middle of the big time. You're in, you're the number 14
team in the country and you just got beat and you got beat pretty
bad. And I I hate to get like, to say
this as if there's not plenty of season left to play this year.
But this was maybe one of the first moments, the first games
where I was watching the middle of this game.
And I just thought to myself, like, what is this supposed to
look like next next year? You know, it's like.
There was a lot of time for that.
Who are you supposed to turn to? Like what's the goal?
What's the plan going forward? Obviously there's still so much
left to be decided in the 2024 season, but I just, that was
just something in the back of my head as I was watching the
Illinois game. Like, I don't.
I don't really know what there's still what there is to look
forward to that that is currently on the roster now.
I want to also bring up a point, the rebounds.
Look, I I, I understand rebounding numbers are are not
always the best indicators of how the game went.
And I, I know coaches really don't like that when you ask
about, you know, rebounding, especially after the game.
But Illinois, I rebounded Indiana by 4:30 to 26, but there
was just times in the game where I was like nobody's following
the ball off the basket, off the off the glass.
And it goes back to what I was saying earlier, just I think the
post play for Indiana in this game was a little worrisome,
just moving ahead. Look, Lily Meister is only a
sophomore and she's a player that they're trying to develop.
And so somebody like Mackenzie Holmes potentially, right?
I mean, she's her own player, but like when you're playing
against a player, an all American at the same position or
you're playing with a player like that, you're going to
obviously pick up a few things from her.
But I mean, Lily and Mackenzie just looked.
They just were two or three steps behind throughout the
entire day and rebounding was Shawna Green touched on it after
how happy she was for how her team did on the glass.
And I I it's just I was a little bit shocked with the way this
game played out. Again, it was a it was a game
that I it was just rare for Indiana to lose in this type of
fashion. But I don't know.
I don't know. Yeah, well, and disappointing
too, because, you know, the one of the bigger pieces of news
going into it at least was that Sydney Parish was going to be
back and that, you know, nobody knew where she was at
necessarily. And I think we kind of saw that
maybe this wasn't the game to bring her back for because she
didn't really look on top of it a lot of the times.
And there was, I think some there was, I noticed
miscommunication or like lack of adjustment, just she was wide
open on the perimeter calling for the ball and nobody was
like, look, I remember I think Yarden had the ball and Sydney
was calling for it on the perimeter.
She was wide open and there was just no pass there because I
Yarden didn't realize that she was there or something like
that. And so it was.
Because for the last few weeks, that's been Lexus bargain.
So you're like. I'm not passing.
For the ball in the corner. Yeah, right, exactly.
And so that I noticed that kind of that stood out as another
thing that was like, OK, this is just another thing that's not
really going right for them right now.
And this, this is something that they're going to need to figure
out. Like immediately, if you're
going to have Sydney Parish back against Iowa, she's going to
need to be a whole lot more productive than she was against
Illinois. Thank you for bringing that up
because I I forgot to put it. You're welcome in the sheet.
But I was also curious just to see how much she was playing.
She only played six minutes throughout the game and it was
clear that that they wanted to feel it out with her.
See how she responded when she touched the court again.
But like you said, she just didn't not necessarily look
ready and and that leaves a big question mark for tomorrow
night, right? Like, what do you do with her?
Do you push the limit in arguably a must win game or do
you again just see how she responds?
I don't know. I mean, that's a conversation
that they're having right now probably, but.
You you have to think about the Big 10 tournament and the NCAA
tournament and like everything like that because like by no
means is Indiana out of anything.
And so that like you said, you know how much do you push her
and how much do you, I guess for lack of a better term, save her
for for post season play or for a little bit further down the
road. Because like you, the worst
thing that would happen, what you absolutely don't want to
happen is that she goes out and she plays really hard against
Iowa and then she re aggravates something or she gets hurt again
and then you're out and like you're you're down one of your
starters again and then you probably even in a worse
situation than you were beforehand.
So it's there's a lot to consider that I'm glad I don't
have to think about, honestly, because that's a lot.
I don't. I don't know where Sydney Parish
is kind of like percentage wise or what percentage she's at, but
this does remind me of Mackenzie Holmes two seasons ago when she
she banged up her knee in in late January, early February.
I don't know the exact dates, but then she came back and and
she, you know, she was fine. She's still a great player, but
you could tell it's just like this is not 100% Mackenzie
Holmes. But she's just.
But they need her. But yeah, she's out there going
through it and and that's that's what this reminds me of.
As of right now, I don't know if Sydney Paris will recover to
100% by the time this season ends, but it doesn't feel like
that's where this is going, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I I think, I mean, we'll see you come Thursday.
But I mean, what would you guys do?
I mean, I, I, I, I I don't know. They say like the.
The reason I ask that is because after this loss Iowa is a must
win. I think tomorrow, tomorrow I was
if you. Want to host in the.
Tournament, you guys just about to bring that up that because of
the loss they're now outside. I mean, they're projected to
finish a fifth seed, which means that they won't be hosting.
And right now if they were to stay at that fifth seed, they
would be going to Syracuse and playing over there.
So look, I think you got to be Iowa at least once, right?
If you're not, if you don't do it Thursday, tomorrow night, you
do it in the tournament, in the Big 10 tournament.
If you match up against them or if you go on and and play in the
tournament championship, I I just don't know.
But yeah, I mean Sidney's pair, Sidney's injury is something
that that really, really as I didn't think it was going to be.
Obviously it's big when you lose a starter, but I didn't think it
would impact the team in the way that it has, right?
It it's impacted the line up a lot more than I think even
again, I don't want to speak for anybody on the team, but I think
that a lot of people even on the team sort of didn't realize.
Yeah, and I don't know if people knew then.
This is kind of just speculation on my end, but I don't know if
anybody really knew how long she was going to be out for.
Yeah, when it first happened, I feel like it was not there.
There was a level of uncertainty that there was like, OK, well,
we just wait a few weeks and she'll come back and she'll be
fine or something like that. Like it wasn't like a an earth
shattering, like, Oh my gosh, we don't have Sydney Paris, sorry.
And we won't have her for like a month and 1/2 or whatever it is,
you know? And so I think that has also
played a part in it is like the mental aspect of just like
here's another game where we're not going to have somebody to
rely on and we have to figure it out.
And that's hard. That takes a toll on everybody
in the program to to lose somebody like that and for
everybody else to know that they have to step up consistently and
not knowing when they're going to be able to kind of go back to
what they were doing because they were, they were very
successful when Sydney was playing, obviously.
And so to to not have any sort of certainty if that was the
case for them is I can imagine it takes a toll on everybody.
Yeah, to me it's just very concerning.
The fact that basically even even with sidneye injury that
the team has no faith or the coach.
Dad doesn't seem to have any real trust in their young
players. That you know, you you're
looking at this box score and you know, Lily Meister played 9
minutes because obviously she played the 9 minutes that
Mackenzie Holmes wasn't in the game.
But then nobody else played more than six off the bench.
And you know, it's hard to have a team and say, especially when
you know, you're going through a long, grueling season, we only
have six players that we actually trusted.
I mean, Kevin, I know you're a Kansas men's basketball fan and
that's been their big day. They have like 4, right?
It's it's so like, I mean, you know, so like it's like you you
need a good at least seven, you know, ideally maybe like 9 that
you can actually trust in that. You know, any given game, if
something goes, you know, a certain way, they can play 15 or
20 minutes or more. And this team just does not have
that at all. If you go back to the 2122.
Season, so you said two years ago?
Yeah, two years ago, where they were two years ago.
That's why they lost. I mean it was, it was a veteran
team, a team that had a lot of leadership.
I mean, Nicole Cardano, Hillary Alexis School Bay, Allie
Patberg, Grace, obviously and then Mackenzie.
I mean, there was a team that was very well built only through
the starting five. If you go off of it, they didn't
really have anybody and that's the reason why they lost to
UConn. That's sort of the reason why
their season ended. And to be quite honest, that's
kind of been one of the few points of criticism for Terry
Morin's teams this past couple years that she just hasn't built
been able to build a team that has 8-9 players that can
actually see the floor and be productive at any given moment,
right. It's usually just been the
starting 5 and that's it, yeah. Well, and the hopes were high, I
think this season and even last season, because she was talking
about how she was more confident in her younger players and at
the beginning of the season she seemed more confident in them by
a long shot. And it's just as the season has
progressed and as the team has kind of grown into itself this
year, it's it's becoming clearer that you can't really rely on
the younger players to to play the kind of basketball that
unfortunately I think they need to be playing.
You know Kevin, Kevin and we've talked about this when you bring
in Lily Meister to for Mackenzie Holmes who puts up 20 plus
points in pretty much every single game.
You need more than two points in eight minutes from from somebody
like Lily. Like you need her on defense and
she's she's grown up a lot on defense.
But you you need that scoring to come off your bench and that's
something that Indiana really just doesn't have.
And they can't really rely on their bench players to score, it
seems like. Yeah, and look it it's it's
weird though because like you look at this, you you look at
the bench, right? And you have two freshmen,
Julianna Lamendol and Lenae Beaumont.
And then you have Lily Meister, who who had a productive
freshman season, especially towards the end of the year.
For a freshman coming. For a freshman, exactly.
But then it's just it's again, it's just there's no, there's
not a lot of depth to this team. I mean, Lily Meister can only do
so much, but she also, I mean like you touched on it, she only
gave you two points in 9 minutes.
But also you're playing your your first option on the bench
is only playing 9 minutes. Yeah, that.
I mean, what does that, what does that tell you?
And by the way, I think we talked about McKenzie Holmes's
injuries. I think if McKenzie Holmes is
someone who just had been healthy her whole college
career, she's not Newly meister's not even playing 9
minutes because Mackenzie Holmes would be playing 35 minutes like
the rest of the starting lineup does.
The only reason she does it is because they are preserving her
and her knee, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
No, that's a great point. It's just and.
And here's The thing is is OK. I mean, what is it today,
February 21st? It gets you through at least a
good portion of the season, right?
But when it comes to tournament time, when it comes to post
season play, that's one of the biggest flaws.
I mean, when you look at national champions, men's,
women's, basketball, it doesn't matter.
It has to be a team that you can trust.
The 8th man, you know what I mean?
Because there's always going to be just one game, you know if
you're talking about making a deep run where you just or do
you just need that from somebody you're not expecting.
And and right now Indiana is just you know which six players
and really which five until we really see Sydney Paris fully
back integrated. You know which five players you
know you're you're scheming against, basically on the other
side. Yeah, and not only that, and and
this is not a shot at LEXIS Bargester at all, but she's,
she's other starting five, but she's not really a scorer.
I mean, you can't trust her to score the basket.
I mean, she's there to dig, to direct traffic and pass the ball
around. But she's not going to give you.
I mean, she gave you six points against Illinois, but really, I
mean she'll give you what? I don't know what she's
averaging, but she'll give you 4 Max on any given night.
So I mean, you only really have four players on the floor that
can give you 10 plus points. I mean, it's not a recipe for
success. But anyway, so Indiana loses 86
to 66, their fourth loss of their season.
Really tough one, really tough loss all.
It's going to have huge implications throughout the rest
of the season. But now on to the biggest game
of the year. Obviously everybody's been
talking about it, everybody's been marking down the days on
their calendar, but it's Iowa week tomorrow.
The hot guys coming to Assembly Hall obviously.
Last time the hot guys play the game, it was against Michigan
when Caitlin Clark took over the all time scoring record and also
recorded a career high 49 points.
Last time the teams met, obviously, was in Iowa City when
they lost. When Indiana lost 84 to 57 on
January 13th. Amanda, we were all actually, we
were all going to go. But yeah, it's just the weather.
Bad weekend. Mother Nature.
Mother Nature did not allow it. But I know it's going to be,
what, 55° here? Yeah, it's going to be nice.
So, but yeah, look, obviously one of the biggest games of the
year and now even more so with the the Illinois loss.
But I guess, I mean what should we expect from Indiana?
What? I mean, it's difficult because
you're coming off a very hard loss.
You were kind of hoping that Sydney Parish would be back for
this one. Well, she's probably going to
play a little bit, but she's going to be very limited unless
something crazy happened in these past couple days.
But Indiana right now, I know. I know.
We usually save this Amanda for after we talk about the game.
But if you ask me who I think wins tomorrow, I think it's
Iowa. I agree I plain and simple
straight. Into the picks.
Yeah, we don't usually do this, but this is we're going a
different route. I I would lean towards Iowa as
well as Iowa. Unfortunately, that's kind of
like the basis for my for my reasoning.
But we we know what Iowa is capable of and we saw what they
were capable of when they played Indiana last time.
Not just Caitlin Clark, but everybody else.
Molly Davis had a great game. Kate Martin had a great game.
You know, people they're, I was stagged.
I was really, really good. And they're the kind of team
that I think kind of similar to Indiana.
They feed off of each other. But The thing is, is that they
really, they always have Caitlin Clark to feed off of, whereas
Indiana sometimes doesn't have that one person but you they
like. That is that is a team who has a
leader on and off the court who is going to give you a spark
every single game in some fashion, like in some fashion or
in every way. And so I think you know, you you
think about them coming in to Assembly Hall into what is
essentially going to be a sell out.
I think is if it's not officially a sell out, that's
what the general consensus is. It's going to be probably the
best crowd of the season. People are going to be into it
because there's a it's a rivalry and people don't like Iowa,
people don't like Caitlin Clark. So that it's going to be a, it's
going to be a tough crowd. And so in some ways, you know,
that would sway it in favor of Indiana.
But I was no stranger to playing in front of these kind of
crowds. And because I've done it before
and they've, they've come away with the win against whatever
team they're playing. And I think when you have
somebody like Caitlin Clark to feed off of so consistently, who
loves playing in those big environments and knowing where
Indiana is at in their season and knowing the differences in
the mentalities of these teams is it's really hard to say that
Indiana's going to be able to pull this one out for me.
Yeah it's just it's just I don't know I I think a lot of things
internally have to change in order to to get this win.
I mean the last game against Iowa was it was not pretty at
all. It was.
It's weird because the four
losses that they've had have kind of been pretty similar.
Just blow out losses 20 points plus where the post players got
speed up and Indiana got speed up as a whole and and whatnot.
But I mean look, if you look at the numbers, last time these two
teams met, Caitlin Clark had 30 points, 11 assists, 5 rebounds,
20 for 21 from the field and then six for 16 from three.
Typical performance from Caitlin Clark.
Which is crazy to say, You know, did she?
Start like was it like over five or something for three, I
remember. She's over 5 or over six.
She's. Gonna buy a three in the first
quarter and then like somewhere in the middle of the second
quarter she just couldn't. She just slipped.
Yeah. And which?
Is that always happens? Yeah, and it it's it, it was
another game where the guard play wasn't necessarily there
for Indiana. You needed more production from
your guards and it was a tough one for Sarah Scalia and yarding
Arizona. Also, we talked about it how
Indiana's typically a very good 3 point shooting team, but they
only shot 5 for 20 in that game. From deep it it it was just a
game that really Indiana never found its footing.
Indiana never really got into a groove.
And again, that's kind of been the theme in the four losses.
You know it's crazy to talk about the team in the way that
we are considering they're only four losses in, but it's just
with Iowa and especially Ohio State this year credit to them
they're they've you know turned it up a lot lately.
You you have to play near perfect and now because of the
Illinois loss you're you're you're getting pinned up in a
corner and and time is running out.
There's only three games left. Well and it it's not to say that
Indiana can't bounce back from bad losses because they have
every single time they've they've lost those other three
games. But they weren't going out and
playing a team like Iowa right after that.
And so in like in theory like the way that I, I look at it,
You know, I don't want to say that Indiana's not going to be
able to to come back and and regroup after the Illinois loss
because I I fully believe that they will.
But I don't know if they're going to be able to do it fully
enough for Thursday to to be able to come out and and get a
win in the way that they have come out and gotten big wins
after big losses because it's Iowa.
Yeah, it's. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's a
really a really good way to put it.
I mean, it's just Iowa. I mean, it's Iowa, been one of
the top teams for the past couple years and and you know,
it's when you have the best player in the country on your
team, right? You're always going to be
favored in some sort of way, right?
But Zion, I wanted to ask you sort of a technical question
about just Caitlin Clark. And I mean, what makes her so
good? What allows her to be such an
effective player? I mean, she's averaging 30 plus
points a game. I mean, we've never seen a
player like this really in college basketball as a whole.
But I mean, in your eyes, I guess, what is it about her
style of play that allows her to be so such an impactful player?
I think everybody focuses on the shooting, and rightfully so, but
when I watch her, she is one of the fastest players with the
ball in her hands that I've ever seen.
Like I think without the ball in her hands you get.
You put her in a race and there's a decent amount of
players that could beat her, but actually functionally dribbling
the ball and and moving as quickly as she does it, it's
ridiculous. I don't know how she does it
because she she and I know part of it is her, her how long she
is. She's 61, I think 6 feet, 6-1
maybe. So that's taller than than your
average point guard especially in college basketball and and
she just gets downhill. And so the fact that she could
do that and then the fact that she could just step back on you
or or shoot a three just right in front of you whenever you
know it, it is you know just something we we don't really see
a lot. And so I think that's what makes
her so special. And that's what the challenge
is, is figuring out, oh, and then by the way, she's just the
best passer in college basketball.
Yeah, it's. Like by the way, it's.
Just like very a very complete player, especially when you talk
about with the ball in her hands.
So, I mean, I just, it's all of those things combined, but the
the ball handle and the way that she gets to the rim is just
really special. Her court awareness and her
ability to see pathways, whether it's for herself or for her
teammates, if she's able to get them the ball is astounding
sometimes. You know, you watch it on TV and
you're like, I never would have seen that ever.
But you found it and nobody else, nobody else on the courts
side. And that's that's like the crazy
part is that she just sees these things that she makes it happen
and nobody can do anything about it.
And that's, again, where being 6 feet tall helps her as well.
Because, you know, there's a lot of really good point guards that
that may see the same things Caitlyn Clark sees.
But if you're 5/8, those are hard.
I'm speaking from experience here.
Those are those are hard passes your entire life playing
basketball. There's been so many times in my
life where I feel like I see you in that corner.
I can't get it there because I'm small.
You know, when you're taller than the people in front of you,
it's a much easier pass to make. Yeah, I think also, and I know
this is very well known just because of the crazy shots she
makes, but it's also the range that that Caitlyn Clark has is
is astounding. I sit there and watch or make
some of the deep shots and I'm like just how, Yeah, it it's
with ease, just the ability. She also has one of the quickest
releases in all of basketball, which is obviously another thing
that you know for you to get off your shot in a matter of
seconds. I don't know how I think Fox
Sports actually had like a graphic or they did some sort of
demonstration in one of I'm sure in one of the in one of the
games, in one of the games. And I I don't remember.
I don't want to throw out how long it takes for her to get our
shot off, but it's extremely quick and and so that's another
thing. And look, I mean, we can keep
talking about her because she's, you know, the greatest.
Player and just as a sign. Now I know multiple Indiana
Fever people will be there tomorrow.
I I've been working to get names.
I've not received the actual names.
I would assume that the GM when done and the head coach Chrissy
Sides will be there, but I'm also curious to see if any
players will show up with those two and if the president of the
team, Allison Barber, who never really comes to college games.
But I I have a feeling Allison Barber herself may be there too.
So. This would be the game.
It's a it'll be a a big game and and we'll know if they're there.
We know we saw them. I could buy you games last year
too, when they were scouting out Grace Burger.
So yeah, expect to see them sitting on the courtside well.
The Here before you go, Amanda. Sorry.
But I mean, that's a good point. Just because.
I mean, in a year from now, more than likely she's going to be
wearing an Indiana fever jersey. So.
But Amanda? So I found Caitlin Clark's
release time, which is the same real from three-point range,
same release time as Steph Curry, which is 0.43 seconds,
which is, you know, the fastest that you can probably ever
release a basketball. So just to.
Say that again 0.4. 0.430 is for release time same same as Steph
Curry which we've everybody's seen the comparisons with Steph
Curry just in general and how they shoot but that was that
like an. Average.
That this is just I'm I I guess so I don't really know, but this
is the number that I found. I mean, that's that's insane.
Yeah. I mean, I.
Mean. It would have to be.
For those that are listening, just think about that that it
takes her less than a second 'cause.
If you think about think about the end of games, they say that
like .4 is the amount of time you need to get an actual like
jump shot off. But even when you see a game and
it's like there's .4 or .5 left, a player would like catch and
almost just like tape it towards the rail because you can't
actually gather and bend your knees.
She does that and she doesn't bend her knees a lot, which is
crazy, but she gathers and puts it up in that time on average,
like whenever. She for three-point range.
That's ridiculous. The amount of power and strength
that you have to have. And it's not like she's like,
not that she's not strong, but she's not like built like you
don't look at it. You don't look at her and think,
Oh my gosh, she's very strong. And like, she has muscle.
But you can't. It's not like, as visible as it
is for somebody like Grace Burger, for example.
But the power that she has behind her shot every single
time is crazy. So if I were to ask you guys
what Indiana like the thing that Indiana needs to do, obviously
you got to try to stop Caitlin Clark as much as you can.
But when with a player like that, I mean you you you can
only limit her so much, right? I But what is the thing that
Indiana has to do in order to give themselves the win tomorrow
night? Limit Caitlin Clark and stop
everybody else, which is you're not like, you know it's not
going to happen. You can't do that.
How do you solve but hunger? Yes, right.
World Peace. Because that's, well, that's
that's the problem is that there's not a way to stop them.
And I, Terry Moran has talked about this before, we're like,
you can't stop Caitlin Clark, you just have to try to slow her
down a little bit. But that was their problem when
they played Iowa last time because that at least in the
beginning, they were able to, to keep her from making three
pointers and and starting off with a bang.
But other players did because Indiana couldn't control the
rest of Iowa's team, which you're not going to be able to
do because it's the way that that team is made-up.
You can't just stop people from scoring or from playing
basketball because they're all so good.
So I think that is the mentality that they're going to go in with
is try to limit Caitlin Clark and and try to limit everyone
else, but more to the extent of like stopping them from being
productive. But I don't know if you're going
to be able to do that. Like, I don't know if the way
that these two teams match up, I don't know if there's a way to
really be super successful in in doing that, but I don't really
know what else you could try to do.
Yeah, I I really want to see how Indiana decides to guard the
Caitlin Clark ball screens because in that last game and
and really every time they played her at least that I can't
remember, they've been in a drop and it it allowed her to hit
those threes and and some of these games she's just missed
threes. So maybe that's what you hope
and and and pray that happens. But even even against Illinois
they were in a drop and they still got right to the middle of
the paint. So I don't I don't really know
what you do. I know it's dangerous to double
team her because of how good of a passage she is and all the
shooting around her. But I I'd be interesting to see
if they at least try it a little bit.
The issue is you're not that you're not that tall behind
McKenzie Holmes which makes it a a big dilemma because you don't
have anybody to help in the paint.
But yeah, I don't know what what the strategy would be, but I I
would. I would see if they throw some
traps at her early, because I think that'll be a way to just,
at the very least, you could say she's used to playing us in a
way where we're dropping back and we're just having Chloe
Moore McNeil fight over the screens.
But if you trap her early in that game, she's going to be
thrown. She could be thrown off a bit by
the fact that IU specifically is trapping, because that's not
what they do. Right.
Well, the last time they played here, Chloe Moore McNeil did a
really good job defending her. She did.
And and you know, that's the thing that like Indiana has the
capabilities to limit her because they've done it before.
It's all about, it's all about getting over those screens.
That's why they struggled against Illinois.
That's why Caitlin Clark was able to go off in the first game
this season. If if you can get through and
get over those screens, it it changes the the math.
Basically it changes how hard it is for Caitlin Clark to get
those shots off and and how close you are when you contest
them. If you can't get over the
screens, good luck to you. Yeah, well, and if you're making
her take shots that you know there is, like you said, like
she's missed shots before. It's not like she shoots
perfectly. And so maybe at A at a point you
want to force her to take shots instead of having her be able to
give the ball up to somebody else.
I would love to sit not just with Indiana coaches but just
coaches in college basketball. Just sit down and really see how
they go about with their Staffs to just really limit Caitlin.
Like, I would love to sit down and and see what those
conversations are like. Because I mean it it nobody's
been able to find a a clear solution to stopping Caitlin
Clark. The team that's done it best
probably wasn't Nebraska in that fourth quarter in the game they
when they beat them and and that was I know they went heavy into
a press and and into a little bit of a boxing one as well.
Indiana has that in their bag. Go for it.
But I'm not sure they really do. But so that that'll be hard.
But that is the one game I've seen this season because I I
know the numbers pretty much look the same all four years,
but just the eye test to be she's looked the best this
season that she has over the whole four years of her career.
This season, that was the only team I saw.
Just kind of give her enough issues to really win the game,
yeah? So the Hoosiers take on the hot
guys tomorrow night on Peacock, 8:00 PM Eastern.
We'll all be there. It's going to be a fun one.
Top 15 battle in women's college basketball, the biggest game of
the year. It's sold out.
It's a white out area at Assembly Hall.
Even though they're wearing black uniforms.
Even though they're wearing black uniforms, Everybody and
everybody, Everybody and everybody, everybody and anybody
is going to be there tomorrow. But yeah, so keep up with us on
Twitter, all three of us, and then on Post Game Stories,
Inside the Hall, Indy Star, check it out.
Zion's going to write very good story.
Amanda's going to write a very good story.
I will probably do two stories tomorrow.
I'd assume we sure. Well, we'll see what happens.
Yeah, we'll see what happens, but.
Going to write not a good story. I will.
Write they'll. Write really good stories and I
will write. I will do something, but anyway,
thank you Zion for joining us. Hopefully you had a good time.
Obviously love your insight. A Very.
Nice little surprise in the beginning.
Nice little surprise. I was like, you know what I was
thinking last night? I was like, how, how could I
make this money? I was like, what could I do?
I love that you said last night. That means that, no, that this
means that Kevin, first of all, happy birthday, by the way.
I know, I know we both said it to you, you know, when was your
birthday? But Farless Thursday was his
birthday on Monday. But that means that you were
like you were sitting upstairs thinking, how am I going to
introduce, how am I going to introduce Zion on the podcast?
Tomorrow I think you should clip that intro and make it like the
intro. You're real, you're real, you're
going to get music behind that thing and everything.
That was great. You know, The funny thing is, is
I was at upstairs thinking about how am I going to introduce,
that's what I was writing when when you were like, Kevin, are
you good? I was because that's what I was
writing because, and I'm not going to lie, this morning while
I was in the shower, I was like, all right, we're going to
practice this. We're going to see how we're
going to introduce sign. Did the marriage of yourself.
No, I just did it in the shower. Did.
You do it out loud. Yeah, I was.
I was just saying it out loud. I was like, I was like
practicing. I was like.
What is going on in? There, my roommates probably
like, who is Zion Brown? Like, is Zion Brown here?
Like, whatever. But anyway, thank you Zion for
joining us. It was super fun to have you.
But as always, we'll be back with another episode next week,
so enjoy the game and we'll talk to you guys soon.