You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Catskill
and Clavio Scott Caulfield. Here it is, Monday, March 11th
as we ring in the end of the regular season in college
basketball. Scott.
It's here once again as we've gone through a full what was it,
3031 games. 32 games on the season for Indiana so far.
And the season's not over yet, but the regular season is, and
Indiana ends up with a 10 and 10 record in conference.
They end up with an 18 and 13 record overall.
We're going to talk about all that coming up here soon.
We're going to talk about the game that closed off the season.
A lot of different things to talk about.
But Scott, first of all, let's talk about you.
How are you doing? You you were up early this
morning on Hoosier morning after.
So how does how was that experience?
Or did you have extra coffee to compensate for it?
I had the, the the requisite amount of coffee.
No, it was great. It was great being with Chad and
Martha. That was a really good time.
I feel like we should call this day like the end of the season.
It should be like like the Ken Palm end of projection day
because it's like Ken Palm is now like it's like just like
it's it's fun when they come out with the new Ken Palm for the
year. It's like now it's like it's the
the cement is hard on the season.
There is no more projection like the number is with the it's all
either green or red. But yeah, no, end of season it
was. It was fun talking a little bit
this morning and we'll do some more basketball talk now.
Yes, we will. Before we get to that, just
quick reminders folks. First of all go to home field
apparel, proud sponsor of the back home network.
This is of course it's it's it's March and that's when home field
shines, you know, it's just it's their, it's their period.
Like we should really just rename March Home field, you
know, January, February Home Field, April, May if.
I've ever heard one like wow. I'm shocked no one's thought of
it yet. And you're welcome, Connor and
and the crew, you can have that one for free, no Commission
required. Yes, don't use this podcast
money to buy March. Just like I figure out a way to
do both. But anyway, a great week this
week and and really this whole last couple of weeks as we have
seen home field continuing to unleash stuff.
They had vintage Jersey day today on Monday, they had fleece
mystery boxes this past weekend and just more stuff coming
there. There's going to be more jerseys
coming. There's going to be a bomber
jacket. Refresh all kinds of things, all
coming out of the home field factories as they're pumping out
materials and getting them to you, the audience.
So head over to home field apparel.com.
Use the code Home 23. Get 15% off your first order and
be sure to follow them on social media.
Great follows all the way around, keeps you up to speed on
what's going on in the home field universe.
Also reminder, we're on sub stack.
Speaking of Universes, you, we'd love to have you subscribe
there, get episodes delivered to your inbox when they happen or
shortly after they happen for free.
You don't have to go to social media.
You don't have to rely on notifications from Spotify.
You'll know because the emails will be in your inbox.
Go do that. And if you'd like to support the
podcast in any way, shape or form, you can do so through a
subscription there. And it's very inexpensive, $5 a
month, $50 a year, helps keep the podcast machinery running
and we give you some extra stuff on top of that.
We are getting ready to do our first ever live video chat just
for paying subscribers. So those of you who are in the
paying subscriber group, that probably won't happen till like
next week, right before the NCAA tournament.
But keep an eye out for that and another reason potentially to
think about subscribing. So here we are, Scott.
We're going to go and get started with the show.
An interesting end of the season for Indiana.
Let's talk about the game first and then we'll take a a little
bit of a wider lens view of what happened with the season as a
whole. And then of course, because I
know everybody's asking about it, we're going to talk about
the post game, the Senior Day celebrations and whatnot.
But first, Scott. An odd game if it was anybody
else, but it was very much an Indiana game in as much as there
were multiple runs that were put on by both teams, Indiana
starting off with a 14 to two run, they led 20 to 5.
They were up 24/7 at one point, look like they were going to
salt the game away. And then of course Michigan
State slowly chips away in the second part of the first half
and that leads into a now almost patented 22 to two run given up
by Indiana straddling the two halves.
Very similar to what happened in the game at Penn State, although
this one was much bigger. That actually swung Penn State,
excuse me, swung Michigan State up to I think it was a 4336
lead. It was a it was a 7 point game
with about 15 minutes to go and it looked like Indiana was out
of juice from 43 to 36, which is what the score was.
Indiana ends up essentially shutting Michigan State's
offense down down the stretch. Indiana has a 12/2 run of their
own to take a lead that they would not relinquish.
It still came down to a final shot.
Michigan State missed that final shot.
Indiana comes away with the victory and they do so despite
really not having a great offensive game.
But as we've seen over the course of this last couple of
weeks, their defense really carried them and allowed them to
come away with the victory here. Oh, your overall thoughts, I
guess from from the way that the game went and and this being the
last game of the season in terms of what we saw out of Indiana in
the regular season? Yeah, I mean I I talked about it
this morning. You know the that 12 two run to
me was really a nice turning I mean turning point in the game.
But it's it's a nice moment to see because we've seen that so
many times where Indiana gets up, they give up the as you
mentioned the patented run. And then given all of kind of
the funky vibes that have been circling this team this week,
that second-half and that 10 minute mark, I mean at one point
Michigan State was like an 80% you know probability to win.
You could have packed it in and this team has packed it in at
that point in other times as well and just kind of wilt away
and lose. They didn't they They went on a
12/2 run. They found a way to win.
You know you you had just unbelievable performances out of
Kalil Ware who's just been turned, you know, has been
playing great all year, has really turned it up another
notch this last couple of weeks. You know Mackenzie and Baku, 3
for 9 from three, like just another really good game.
You know Malik, Renew again, Asabi and those are really your
three major offensive contributors.
But you know, it kind of not to get macro on the micro.
That's a good name for an album. By the way.
It's my 80s pop my yeah. But you know the The thing is
like it's just it's tough 'cause you you you leave the game kind
of being like damn this is this is what I I wish we would have
seen more of this earlier. I know you and I in the.
I was thinking back to the the beginning of the year.
You know we both were kind of on the same refrain.
Like I think this team is going to be a lot better in February
and March than it is in October and November.
The trouble is we we're right. It's just the March was the
answer not not the February. And so it's like I wish we could
have just figured this out a couple weeks earlier because
it's like this team looks really good now.
Michigan State's got its own host of problems.
Michigan State isn't fantastic, but it it just kind of is like,
man, going to be just kind of forgotten away.
But the like, the team is starting to click in in ways
where it's like this wasn't even happening a couple weeks ago.
Yeah, you know, just in general it was, it was an odd game.
There were a lot of weird things in this game.
I mean Trey Galloway going out with what looked like a knee
injury and not coming back, only playing 7 minutes, you know,
Xavier Johnson did not look good for large stretches of the game,
was just wild with his passing, but also had some key plays, you
know? So it was it was a very classic
kind of good Xavier bad Xavier game you know you got.
But you know what, what one, what the game, What won the game
for Indiana again was Khalil Ware who had a monster game 28
and 12 with a couple of assists, had a couple of blocks, only hit
one free throw. But darn that one free throw was
absolutely critical as it was the one that gave them the
margin of victory. You know, Malik renew at an OK
game. You know Gabe Cups didn't I mean
he was he was at least a distributor in this game.
He he had three assists which was better than what we've seen
out of him and ultimately Mackenzie and Bako hitting those
threes was really kind of what kept Indiana afloat for a while
offensively in the second-half. It your point is really well
taken. I mean, this is a Michigan State
team that I mean they they started Xavier Booker and he
played 7 minutes for the whole game.
They got very little out of their bench he had.
A weird stat. Like, yeah, it was.
It was a very weird game and he's had, he's been very like
out of it. Like if you look at his, his
statistical performances like that as a guy that just has not
been able to to contribute regularly from Michigan State,
they got almost nothing out of their bench.
And yet there were large sections of the game where it
really felt like Michigan State was in control.
Indiana deserves a lot of credit for picking themselves up off
the mat, you know, after that big run allowed with about 15
minutes to go and getting back into it.
And they also deserve credit for the way they played at the end
of the game. I mean there were, there were
several possessions there where neither team could like make the
plays. But as that was as much due to
both teams really playing some hard nosed defense at the end
and Indiana just made kind of one more play there at the end
it was. But as you said, you know for
Indiana it was a game that you looked at the the overall setup
and you say to yourself, well, if they'd been able to have this
kind of performance in some other games defensively in
January and February, maybe they're sitting here with a
couple more victories and the entire narrative is a bit
different and it's really over this whole last four-game
stretch. It really does smack of an
opportunity wasted. And what I would like to point
out, and I think this is important, it's like it, you
know, at least at least from an offensive perspective, they've
managed to play better over the course of these last few games
without necessarily getting great offensive performances or
or contributions out of Xavier Johnson.
It's been very up and down. You know, one of the big
arguments made was that, well, Indiana would be better if they
hadn't been missing Xavier Johnson for the games that they
did. And yet the flip side of that is
he also wasn't really that much of an offensive contributor in
some of these last games. Defensively, yeah, I think there
have been some some things there that have helped.
But the point I'm making there is not to criticize Xavier
Johnson. That's not the point.
It's more this team was more than just one piece away from
being successful over the course of the Big 10 season.
This team had to start playing harder and had to start being
more resourceful with what it had and and I think what's
fascinating to me about this last four-game stretch and how
it how you differentiated from what was happening throughout
the bulk of the Big 10 season. Indiana won the two games in the
first part of this four-game stretch, the Wisconsin game in
the Maryland game, largely because they were out of their
minds offensively. You know their their offensive
efficiency in both games was close to 1.2 points per
possession. They won the last two games, the
Minnesota game and the Michigan State game, largely because
their defense was about the best that we've seen it over the
course of the year. I think that's two of their top
4 adjusted defensive performances or two of their top
five on the season came in these last two games.
And you know, to me that's there's a connectedness there on
both ends of the floor, Some of it due to necessity, with with
big men getting into foul trouble, or with having to shift
the point of attack around because you don't have Trey
Galloway triggering things in that flexibility has not been
there for Indiana for most of the season.
And I think that when you're trying to take a more sober
analysis of the macro, that's probably the most frustrating
thing about this team. It's what we've been saying for
a while. It's like this team's got so
many really talented individual parts.
Why did it take this long for them to gel?
Yep. No, I I agree.
And it's it's it's where it's hard to get.
You know, I've been trying to disassociate my kind of my
feelings from the last couple weeks, but it's it's hard to get
super excited for me A, you know, a win like this, you know,
last win of the season against Michigan State, it all should be
awesome. But, you know, in the end it's
like, you know, at this point in my life, like if Indiana's not
going to be playing for a tournament berth, it's kind of
and you know, just this is going to be the end of the season.
It's kind of like what, you know, this is the end.
It's like I'm, I'm happy they won, but it's not the NBA where
I can, you know, root for losses and get a better draft pick.
It's just kind of like this is going to be the end of the
season and then we're going to move on.
And I think that's that's where I think some fans are at as
well. Just kind of like, all right,
it's great, like you did it, but it's kind of like when it's too
late to happen. And like this would have been
great to see. And you know, like what's the
frustrating part too is like we were hovering around 100 in Ken
Palm. You know this win gets you down
to 86 and you just look back and it's like, I mean I know it's a
tough putt because it's Kansas. But like if you've just been
able to somehow close out that Kansas game, like if some of
those pieces would have come together in Kansas, like that's
a non conference Rd. You know home win.
Maybe that drops you into the 70s, sixties, like maybe if you
don't lose like 15 at home to Nebraska, like it's just it
becomes kind of in for organ. But the problem is there's so
many of these stacked up on top that you have to get there.
It's like the the hole was just, well, was just way too deep.
But this is the, you know, this is the part where it's like you
you will see that light at the end of the tunnel for this
season. It's like it really was there
for the, you know, just I just don't want this season to be
lost. It's like a bad season that just
didn't have the talent. It's like, no, the talent was
always there. It's just we had a hard time
figuring out how to get it all to work together.
Yeah. And I mean this Michigan State
game is an interesting continuation of a real change of
pace for IU in terms of how games went.
You know that they, they managed a couple games like this
throughout the course of the Big 10 season where they kind of
squeezed out wins. Ohio State both times, Michigan
State, Wisconsin. I mean those were, those were
close games up until the very end.
They just had so many games that weren't like that.
I mean really of the losses, as you look at the whole season,
the Kansas game, which kind of felt like an inevitability over
the last five minutes of the game, like you know, you really
didn't feel like Indiana was going to be able to close that
one out. The Northwestern game at home,
you know, that was one that was back and forth enough that you
thought maybe Indiana could could grab it.
And the rest of them, it's a. Low outs, yeah. 16 point loss to
Nebraska. 9 point loss to Rutgers. 21 point loss to
Purdue. 13 or 12 point loss to Wisconsin, Eight point loss to
Illinois, 14 points to Penn State, 20 points to Purdue, 15
to Nebraska and 9:00 to Penn State.
I mean it that's where it feel like the Chasm was was too great
for Indiana to leap over in the in most of those games and
whatever caused them to be able to kind of re center themselves
in that Wisconsin game and figure out what was going to
work and then shift that halfway through when the shooting wasn't
quite as good as it had been before.
You know look they were you could say they were due.
There's a there's a certain level of statistical regression
with all of this where it's like it's hard to be that
inconsistent or that subpar all season and maybe they just
needed some of the luck to swing their way and it kind of did.
They also ended up playing teams that I think were kind of ripe
for the picking to some degree at the end of the season.
And they didn't have that earlier in the year.
And that's again, that's not to criticize the wins.
It's more to point out that you know when they played Wisconsin
the first time, Wisconsin still look like a team that was going
to be in contention for like a two seed or a three seed.
They get Wisconsin at home a month and 1/2 or Mike, it was
about a month later. Wisconsin was just bleeding out
at that point. Same thing with Michigan State.
That's the thing with these last four games is it's like we want
to and not. I'm not.
I'm kind of knocking it like you won against teams at all playing
Wednesday, Thursday in the Big 10 tournament and like that's
that. What is funny is, you know, it's
like Michigan State has the logo, it has the green, it has
Izzo and it's like, but this is not, it's a team that finished
8th in the Big 10. Like, this is not your vintage
Michigan State team. And what's funny is like even
talking to some friends like they they like, oh man, like we
got a pretty good draw in the Big 10 tournament.
It's like, well, no, because if we play Penn State they beat us
twice this year and like I know Nebraska isn't normally a name
brand but like they've kicked a snot out of us twice.
So like just because the names aren't Wisconsin, Michigan State
or Ohio State, like the the Big 10 is shuffled this year.
And so I I do think part of it is just you look at it, it's
like oh you know Rd. wins are good but like you know Maryland,
Minnesota, Michigan State, Wisconsin.
Like it's it sounds daunting maybe in like 2006 but in 2024
this is kind of the mid. To bottom tier of the big tent.
Yeah, I mean it's and look again I think what you have to think
about with all of this is it's a full season.
I talked about this earlier when I did the, I did a podcast for
those who haven't seen it, where I tried to walk everybody
through how the metrics work, how Kenpalm works, how the
networks and why Indiana's struggling.
You know it it really does matter to some degree, not just
whether you win or lose, but how you play those games, who you
play them against. And it it's a weird year in the
Big 10 in that there's there's not much top end.
There's Purdue, there's Illinois and that, that's basically it.
And then everybody else is in this big glob And then Michigan
is is clearly the worst team in the league and Indiana's
somewhere in that midst. And look, they've they've
improved their overall standing quite a bit.
I think in in Torvick they were 102nd going into the Wisconsin
game and I think they're 78th right now in Torvik.
So the way they've played over the course of the last couple of
weeks has been really good. It's just that they played badly
enough and inconsistently enough for most of the rest of the
season that that doesn't really factor in, in the big scheme of
things. So yeah, you you look at the,
you look at the overall record, you look at 18 and 13.
I think the big thing that sticks out to me when reviewing
this regular season is just like what was the signature win for
Indiana this season realistically, Was it was it
Wisconsin at home? That's that's the highest or the
second highest rated team? As you mentioned, Michigan State
has really, they look like one of those teams that has really
the metrics have been overly kind to them, shall we say, in
terms of of how good they actually are.
When even the Wisconsin game five years, we're going to look
back on this and like it's still going to show a 19 year beating
Michigan State 19. But damn, that was a great win.
It's like, but realistically speaking like what was what was
the signature win for this Indiana team this season?
I don't know what. I really don't know what the
answer is. I guess it's either the
Wisconsin game, because that really did seem to kind of pull
them out of the tailspin, or maybe it's the game at Ohio
State, which that win actually looks better and better, even
though that the, you know, that particular game came before
Chris Holtman got fired. But for Indiana to come back
against an Ohio State team that's, you know, despite what
you would think with their record hovering around 50 in the
net and around the same in Ken Palm and has played really well
down the stretches, has gotten some scalps that to be able to
come back and win that game in the way they did, that might end
up being the game you point back to and say that was the
signature win. The problem with that is that's
not a very good signature win like either of those games.
I think for for about a month and a half, the signature win
was our win at Michigan because we we didn't know how bad they
were. And it's like, hey, that's a
road win. Like that's a great Rd. win
that's going to get you in the Big 10.
So so this is where. It's a great question.
I mean, the answer might be the game that is happening is
Michigan State. And and and look, this is not
again, if if people are listening to this and being like
why you guys are being critical that this is really intended
more as a benchmarking thing. I mean last year there were,
there were like 4 games that you could have pointed to as the
signature wins for Indiana. You know, probably the biggest
one was the game at Mackie and that was like clearly like yes,
that that game, the fact that they they won by 8 at Mackie was
a huge accomplishment. The game at home versus Purdue
fell into that category. The game at Xavier fell into
that category. You know you could even say that
the game that they had at home against Michigan State where
they won by 13, that was a pretty good Michigan State team
from the metrics. You just don't have wins like
that on the record this time around.
And I I find that interesting to think about because you know if
you're you know as I've been searching for a way to
contextualize the regular season, in my mind it it really
is just kind of a regular season that's been devoid of any
meaningful peaks that really made you feel like wow Indiana
basketball that's that's the brand.
Even a couple years ago that you know then Woodson's first year
you had to win at home against Purdue.
You you had a couple of you had the the neutral court win up at
Conseco against the Notre Dame team that was still kind of
halfway decent. You had the win in the Big 10
tournament against Illinois. Obviously something like that
could happen in the Big 10 tournament for Indiana still.
So we'll we'll keep our powder dry.
But in the absence of that, it was kind of a an extra
nondescript season for Indiana without a whole lot of peaks.
And I think you you add that into the lack of tournament
contention. And that's where a lot of people
have been, I guess a bit angst filled about where Indiana
basketball is at. Yeah, there was some commentary
from some newspaper online about how, well, gosh, Indiana was
picked to finish sixth in the Big 10 and they finished sixth
in the Big 10. So people need to chill.
And it's like, wow, way to cherry pick stuff and and ignore
all of the context that went into that.
I mean that's that's that that level of reasoning is kind of
fascinating to me because it's like oh you matched your pre
season expectations. Why are the fans upset?
Is about as tone deaf of a commentary or an analysis as I
can think of. Especially when you failed to
take into account, oh, you finished sixth in a three-way
tie in a conference that wasn't particularly strong.
And what you did, finishing sixth got you nowhere near the
NCAA tournament. Like, that's probably why people
are a little bit upset, and probably why they don't feel
like chilling, at least in terms of reacting to how the season
went. I I could not agree more.
I I've heard that a couple different places from a couple
different media members. They like well hey I picked them
to finish 6th and they finished 6th or I picked and finished 7th
they finished 6th that that's better and it's like yes, but
when you pick them to finish 6th or 7th it was always followed by
comma and a seven or eight seed in the in the NCAA tournament.
Like it was always followed like we kind of ascend.
I think you and I were in a similar boat.
Like I fit it. I picked like you know I thought
we'd finish you know 4th to 6th in the Big 10.
So hey, I'm right too. But I I thought that would be
accompanied with a berth in the NCAA tournament.
I didn't think that 6th place in the Big 10 would be not making
the tournament like you can reverse it.
It's like I don't think people would be like you know I I
picked him to finish 7th but you know like if we finished 7th,
the Big 10 but we were in a you know a ten seed.
I think the the heat will be turned down a little bit like
this is not something that you can you know you can't market
this if you're IU of like hey we we've met the expectations of
our Big 10 finish like we are about a couple things here
that's the banner going right under the all time March Madness
number one all time March Madness theme like the number
one meet the benchmark of our of our Big 10 expectations.
We don't out kick our coverage we cover it's like in relation
to Big 10 success we talk about it in terms of Big 10 titles.
I'm sorry like there isn't like, hey we finished top 6 like so I
I I agree with you a million percent.
I just don't think anybody would have thought that a 6th place
finished wouldn't even be close to the NCAA tournament, which
that's that's the really frustrating part is it's not
even that we're not in the tournament, but we're not even
in the bubble discussion. We're not even in the NIT
discussion. Well, we're in the, we're in the
NIT discussion now, but yes. But I mean, but we are, but
we're not. But Indiana had to win four
games in a row to get into the NIT discussion, which I think is
the boy that you're trying to make now.
It's I mean, and look, in 2022, Indiana finished 9th in the
conference and got into the NCAA tournament.
In there were 911. Yeah, in 2020, the season that
were, there was no NCAA Tournament.
Indiana was tied for 10th that season and would have probably
barely gotten into the NCAA tournament.
So again, this is where the what we picked you to finish at this
particular spot in the conference standings and you
did, that's meeting expectations, really misses the
mark. I'm just, I'm fascinated that
that's the argument that people are making, especially as we've
talked about when you consider the talent that's on the roster.
And so anyway, all of that said, Indiana has set themselves up in
the postseason to at least have some more play and and this is
going to be an interesting thing.
So Indiana, as Scott just mentioned, is really not in the
NCAA tournament picture. If you want a broader discussion
of this, check out the podcast that I did earlier on Monday
where I laid out where Indiana's at in this in the seating and
selection process and why they're so far outside.
But just to kind of Cliff notes it for you here, Indiana at what
like 93rd in the net right now and about you know they have
their, they have some metrics that are OK like their SOR which
is strength of record is like in the 40s which is pretty good.
But their BPI which is ESP, NS metric is actually I think worse
than their Ken Palm rating. Both of those are in the 90s,
Torvick's in the 90s. Like all the metrics say, this
is an Indiana team that's significantly far away.
And the problem that Indiana has to some degree is that the Big
10 tournament draw, while favorable to winning multiple
games, is not favorable. For Indiana to pick up the types
of wins that it would need to even get close to the
discussion, And here's what I mean by that by Indiana finished
6th, which means they're going to play either Penn State or
Michigan, neither of whom are anywhere close to the NCAA
tournament themselves. So you win that game A, you're
going to have to win by a sizable margin or else it's
going to hurt your net rating, it's going to hurt your Ken Palm
rating, like it's going to bring you back a little ways.
Then you have to play Nebraska, and Nebraska is, while a good
team. Of the four teams that I think
that Indiana would have wanted to try to draw in that next
round, they're probably the weakest team in terms of their
actual tournament resume, maybe Northwestern.
But Northwestern, I think is more safely in the field than
Nebraska is because of the wins that they've collected.
I think both teams are going to get in, but in both cases you're
just talking about teams that aren't going to move the needle
that much. If Indiana beats them on a
neutral floor, you know, knocking off the Nebraska's 37th
in the net, knocking off the 37th ranked team on a neutral
floor. I mean, it'll be a tier one win,
but I also just think from a an on paper perspective, that's not
going to make the tournament selection committee say, gosh,
we really need to pay attention to this Indiana team now, Then
you get Illinois in the next round.
Now that's a better one, but that's essentially the last win
Indiana can pick up before the NCAA has finalized who they're
planning on having in the field. So if you beat Illinois, well
you've got a real and that's assuming it's Illinois.
It could be Iowa or Ohio State theoretically.
But if you beat Illinois and you're in the Big 10 title game,
well, there's an easy way to get into the tournament at that
point, which is just win the tournament.
But if you lose the tournament, the way that this has always
worked out, unless you were in the tournament going into
Sunday, a close loss to Purdue or whoever in the Big 10 title
game isn't going to be a decisive factor.
Because as we saw even two years ago when Indiana went on that
run and and beat Illinois and almost beat Iowa, the tournament
selection committee doesn't really rate these post season
tournament games that much when it comes to getting people into
the field and and having it adjust their seating like
dramatically. So what you're going to end up
with is unfortunately a situation I think where Indiana
just has to win the whole thing to get in.
There's not really another scenario.
Well there's all, I mean people are also just people like, hey,
newsflash. Like if you get to the
championship game, I'm assuming the committee will be like, all
right, well, if Indiana wins, we'll put them here.
If they don't, they're out. Like there's there's probably
not there's not just not enough time for after that game in the
25 minutes before the selection show to be like hey let's sit
down and all re meet and see how you know St.
John's metrics versus Indiana is now they've lost the prize but
hey you know if they want in they can win and if they win
we'll put them in at that spot and if they lose they're out and
and you know whether that's fair it's like hey don't if you don't
want to be in that position win a couple more games earlier.
So I'm with you like this is a point where and this is kind of
what I've been talking about. You know I continue to harp on
this point. It's like you know if if we want
to get if Woodson and everybody wants to get some of the
momentum back and some of the people back like at some point
you have to over deliver. You can't just continually
deliver right at expectation coming out, you know, a
four-game win streak at the end of the season to still not make
the tournament. Like, while it's nice that
that's not, that's not getting everybody back on board that you
might have lost, winning the Big 10 tournament is a good first
step. You'd be like, oh, that's tough.
Like, well, at some point you got to do something tough.
Like at some point you got to do something unexpected that would
be unexpected. Like, if we're here next week,
next Monday, talking about how we had a run where he beat Penn
State, Nebraska, Illinois and I don't know, Northwestern or
Purdue, I'd be like, dude, Galen, like, that's now seven in
a row. Like this is there's something
here. Like, we might have figured this
out. And once again, it's like maybe
Woodson has, you know, now it's like now there's two out of
three years. You had a team that was kind of
DOA and came into March and they figured it out and turned it on
in the tournament. Like you can change the whole
narrative in four games. So go do it.
If you if you want to change that narrative, go do it.
Yeah, I mean, that's that stated about as plainly as it can be
stated. And and look, ultimately it's an
easier path than you would have gotten.
It's just not a it's. It's not as ideal of a path.
If you were as legitimately trying to pick up wins, they
would move the needle. Get in.
Without winning the tournament like it's not the best path, but
the best path maybe win the. Tournament.
But the the larger point is Indiana just left way too much
work for themselves coming into this and that's that ultimately
ends up being the issue. Because look even getting into
the NIT is not a sure thing for Indiana at this point.
And that is partially because of you know the way that the NIT
selects and the fact that once you get past about the top 6065
teams in the net, that's when you start drawing out of the NIT
field. And Indiana's their 93rd in the
net. So they're probably further down
the list and again they don't have a signature win or things
that they've done away from home that you could point to and say
This is why you would want to include them in the the runner
up tournament essentially. I say do have the metric of of
meeting the expectations of some sports writer and where they
were going to finish. That's there's that.
So I look at this tournament as an interesting opportunity for
Indiana. And you know, obviously, I mean
there's a lingering concern coming out of the game in in in
terms of where Trey Galloway's knee situation is at.
He left early, he he was on the exercise bike for a while, he
was walking up and down the tunnel.
I could see all this from my seats and he just never came
back in. And so you do worry about that
because Indiana fortunately doesn't have to play Wednesday,
but they do have to play Thursday.
And so hopefully Trey is able to come back and give it a go.
When you get down to what Indiana can do, I mean you want
them to play Penn State because Penn State, a win against Penn
State's going to help the metrics.
But you want to talk about a team that's a little bit scary
for Indiana, just in terms of Penn State's demonstrated how to
beat Indiana twice now. And Indiana has really seemed to
struggle with what Penn State does.
I do worry about that particular matchup.
I mean, you know, you look at the the way that the games went,
you know, over the course of the the two games, the season
against Penn State, you know, in the first game, they just let
Penn state-run roughshod over them offensively.
Penn State hit 12 threes. They scored almost 1.4 points
per possession. Indiana didn't score badly in
that game. Penn State just scored
significantly better because Indiana's defense was so bad.
And even in the second game, Indiana's downfall again was
their defense. Penn State shot 9 threes in that
game. It's a team that shoots a ton of
threes, which is just a team that Indiana has struggled
against. Now that you know what I am
interested in, Scott the The one great equalizer in these Big 10
tournament games is that nobody's on their home floor.
Nobody's familiar with the shooting.
Teams that overly rely on great shooting sometimes struggle.
We actually saw that with the Indiana women last week in the
Big 10 tournament. They just couldn't get things to
fall in the second-half. But that said, you know that
this is the type of game where Indiana has to be able to come
out and say we're playing at a different level than even we
were two weeks ago with the last time we played Penn State.
We're not on their floor. We're on a neutral floor.
You know we've got a real opportunity here to do
something, but it's a two way St. and I think you know the
issue that you have with Penn State as much as Indiana's
playing probably their best, most consistent basketball of
the season right now. Well, Penn State's doing the
same thing. They've won three out of their
last five and that includes wins against Illinois, Indiana and
Maryland by a significant margin.
They're a four point favorite against Michigan in the first
game of the of the big 10 tournament and their offense has
been kind of hit or miss. Their defense has been kind of
odd to watch. They they've certainly had some
bad games, but this is, this is like the bar, the floor for
Indiana. I think if they lose this game,
they probably don't make the NIT.
If they win the game, I think they're probably in the NIT.
And then it's a matter of, OK, now we're off to the races, what
can you do in that next game against either Illinois or one
of the two teams coming out of their bracket?
It's just a really interesting scenario for Indiana.
Yeah. I mean on the surface, you know
I like again I like the draw of the Penn State, Nebraska getting
into the quarterfinals, assuming it's Penn State, you know if
it's Michigan, we'll we'll see. The only thing that is, is a,
you are right about the shooting.
The other thing that I don't particularly like is I know it's
hard to beat a team three times in a row and that would be the
case for both Penn State or Nebraska.
But the thing that both Penn State and Nebraska have is that
the way that Indiana was was playing those games and lost
those games is like we we made runs in the like the Penn State
game, we had the run in the first half at home and then we
just kind of wilted and let Penn State get back in it and then
just gave up and couldn't get it done.
The the Nebraska game, similar things.
So, you know, it's it's one of those were like, had we played
Purdue last year in the Big 10 title game.
There's a world where I think if we can get up by 5 or 6, produce
like, Oh my God, how do we, we don't have the key for this
Indiana team. I think the reverse is true here
for two games in a row where even if we get up and like we
did against Michigan State we get up 20 to 5 on Penn State.
You know Penn State can go to the huddle and be like all
right, like we've been here before with this team two
different times this year. We know just give it a second.
We know they're going to cool off and we know we can come back
and we know we can take this down.
I think Nebraska has would have the same mentality.
So that that is what concerns me about those two teams is they
they both seem like that. And then on the flip side, you
know, while the shooting sometimes struggles in these
arenas that are a little bit different, you know, both Penn
State and Nebraska also do have that ability that if they are
shooting well, they can just blow your, blow your socks off.
And that is that is the other concerning part.
So on paper it's better than you know us probably I'd much rather
play these guys than Purdue and Northwestern.
But you know, this is again, we're Just because Nebraska's
not normally a Big 10 power doesn't mean they're a bad team
this year. Yeah, well, look, so much of it,
as we've talked about all season, I think is going to come
down to defense and how Indiana attacks things defensively.
Yeah, that's been the. I think the key for Indiana over
the course of of the season is when they've played well,
they've had at least a modicum of good defense coming and it's
made life difficult on the opponents.
And then when they haven't played well, that's generally
been absent. And you go that whole stretch
between the the first Purdue game and the last Penn State
game and it was among the worst defensive performances that we
saw all season out of Indiana outside of the Auburn game,
which was, you know, kind of the nadir of the whole season.
From that perspective, how much of this is sustainable from
Indiana is going to be the interesting question.
And you know, this is honestly where you look at.
I look at where most of the, the, the real improvements have
come from, from Indiana in terms of individual play and you're
you're getting the best basketball the season out of
Khalil Ware. You're getting pretty good play
out of Malik Renew when he's able to stay on the floor.
Mackenzie and Bacco's played pretty well, but that's is that
going to be enough over the course of, you know, going into
a tournament where everybody's kind of hit the reset button to
really come out and and play at a level that would be, you know,
necessary to advance. And that's the big question
mark. I'm just, I'm really fascinated
by the overall mentality of the team right now and if they
believe that they can do things that it seems to tie directly
into their ability to go play defense.
And when they don't believe, that's when they struggle with
those things. Well I I think one of the keys
is, you know this kind of got lost in the shuffle with all of
the the the, the bad stuff going on outside of the team.
But you know starting on January 27th against Illinois I'm just
going to read off Malik Renews either foul fouling out or fouls
he had. He fouled out.
He then injured only played three minutes then fouled out
four. Fouls fouled out.
Fouled out four four fouled out four and then last two games
three and two. So it's it's slowly getting
better but there was a good month month and a half stretch
there where Renew was back into the fouling out foul problem
again and that's something that just we we you cannot have,
especially in a short tournament like this where you know in one
game you might be able to get through it but it's like the low
that you're going to have to put on where in Embako if Renew is
in foul trouble and for fouling out like you just you you can't
have that. So that is something that, you
know, was becoming a problem at the end of the year.
Riot itself for two games. But it's like Renew has got to
continue to stay on the court, even if that means not not
getting fouls. But I I have a hard time
believing in that because it was like as the season was going on,
he was getting a little, a little bit more.
It's like he was starting to get in some real foul trouble these
last month and 1/2. Yeah I mean and and look that's
I think IU deserves some credit for figuring out how to adapt to
games where they weren't getting the same sort of performance out
of renew. And and a lot of that's been
Khalil, we're picking up the slack and and really becoming a
primary force not just in terms of scoring but in terms of of
his rebounding in terms of of some rim protection.
I mean that was really obvious in that game yesterday which was
pretty interesting to see. So look, I the the other thing
I'll note is that Indiana from a from a rebounding perspective.
Has gotten better not. I mean yesterday was one of
those rare games where Indiana was really good on the offensive
glass. What I think is kind of
interesting is, you know, they're not grabbing a lot of
offensive rebounds themselves. They're relying pretty much on
just good shooting to to get the ball in the basket.
They weren't even, they haven't even relied that much on going
to the free throw line, which is good because they're not hitting
their free throws. But what what is interesting to
me is defensively, I think that they've, they've done a better
job of of not surrendering as many rebounds as they were
before. You know, they had a little bit
of trouble with that in the Minnesota game, but fortunately
Minnesota couldn't hit the ocean, you know, and there are
other games they've been at least passable in terms of
keeping teams off of their offensive glass, which is a key.
I mean you know so much of what we talked about earlier in the
year it felt like Indiana just was they were struggling so much
to to to rebound on both ends. Again, an effort and a focus
thing, much like the defense that has gotten better.
I just, I wonder with the reset, I wonder with, you know, going
back to Minneapolis after a few days off and you know, getting
basically to play a team that played the night before who's
already going to be in a little bit of rhythm, how Indiana
manages all of this. But look, I think if you looked
at the way that Indiana's played and said, I think Indiana can
make the semi finals of the Big 10 tournament, I think it's a
very reasonable argument. I I think it, I think the idea
that Indiana with the pathway they've got that they could beat
Penn State, beat Nebraska and then be playing Illinois on on
Saturday, that's that is 100% a possibility.
And overall, you know, I think given how that unfortunately the
season has progressed that's that's a pretty good way to
finish things off. If you could get to Saturday
kind of get solidly in the NIT field and make a good accounting
of yourselves against the team that you didn't play that badly
against in Champaign, then all right, that's at least
something. Yeah, I completely agree.
So we'll see what happens with all that.
Indiana's first game is the last game on Thursday, Scott, so
you're talking like a nine or 930 tip depending on when the
the game before, which will be Ohio State, Iowa is done.
That's a late night. A lot of people are going to be
disappointed in that. But you know, it's interesting.
I, I don't have very good memories of this particular game
in the Big 10 tournament. I remember very clearly Indiana
being I think it was a three seed and getting knocked out by
an 11 seed of the Illinois team. This was back in like 1998 where
it was like, wait a minute or is 99 actually where it's like, OK,
we got the night game, everything will be fine.
And then it's like 10:30 at night in Indiana is losing by 20
and it's like why why did we stay up for this and.
I'll be Illinois to the finals of the Big 10 tournament.
Like as the eleven seed because the worst seed of the time.
Yeah, that's right. That's very good memory.
We have a we have a history of losing in almost every possible
spot in the bracket. I was just about to mention like
I could pull up any any example. Well, you know the 4-5 game.
I have bad memories of this year.
I mean, it's it's really a House of horrors, my God.
But, well, I I that's going to be a really interesting one.
And I'll be curious to see how the vibe is because you're going
to have it's an interesting set of games that day.
Minnesota. Michigan State those are two
teams that have they've they've Michigan State's underperformed.
Minnesota's probably over performed but Michigan State's
the better team. Wisconsin and probably Rutgers.
Rutgers. Maryland man that's that's what
they show like people in Guantanamo.
Like they they force you to watch all three games of the
Rutgers Maryland series in a season.
But the the winner that'll be playing Wisconsin, who's who's
certainly struggled, Ohio State, Iowa might be that might be a
great game like that might be a real fun game.
And that's going to be the game that leads into the Indiana.
I assume it's going to be Penn State.
Michigan looks DOA, but that's that's a really interesting
table setter for that Indiana game, that last game of the Big
10 tournament. Yeah, and and honestly the the,
the, the game before whoever wins that playing Illinois the
next week, the next day would also be pretty like an Iowa
Illinois game could be fun to watch or an Ohio State, Illinois
game with the way Ohio State's playing now could be fun, so.
So anyway, we'll talk more. Obviously as the as things go
along, we're not going to do like a separate preview for for
whoever Indiana plays. I mean the I'll I'll give you
the preview right now. If they're playing Michigan, I
will like Indiana's chances. If they're playing Penn State,
I'll say well, Indiana's got to figure out a way to to shut down
Penn State's 3 point supply. Otherwise I don't think that
they're going to have much of a chance of keeping up offensively
and that's essentially all I would say about either game.
So you congratulations folks, we saved you a podcast.
There you go. All right.
Well, let's let's go to the topic that has been buzzing
around since yesterday when it happened, which was the post
game comments by Mike Woodson and and some of the players
during the senior night celebration.
And this really, you know, I think the big thing that people
have largely focused on is, is Mike Woodson's evoking the idea
of true fans and doing it multiple times and really doing
so in a manner, you know, if you go back and listen to the
speeches where it really seemed to be trying to like draw some
kind of delineation between groups of fans within the
Indiana fan base. And yeah, I was there, it was
kind of shocking, isn't exactly the right word.
I was, I was surprised the first time.
It got progressively more surprising as it continued to be
used. And then there was a kind of a
defiance about it that also popped up in the post game,
press conference comments as well.
Scott So let's let's start with Woodson's comments.
I wanted to get your overall feelings on them first and then
I've got some thoughts as well. Yeah, I definitely have
thoughts. You know it.
I was saying it this morning on the Hoosier morning, the the
Hoosier Morning After podcast. So you know, it's kind of a
repeat of that. But you know, here's the thing,
it's something that Osterman has said on one of his podcast last
week and I I promise I'll, I'll get to the point.
But he he was, he was talking about how you know and if you go
to other field for being talk of the Indiana fan base being kind
of irrational and a little bit, you know, too, too hyper, too
excitable. It's like look, man, go go to
Kentucky, give them 30 years of not winning a title and 30 years
of like making the tournament 40% of the time.
And then check in in 2054 and see how they're doing.
Like see what the angst level is year in, year out.
Do it at North Carolina, like you know, the the, the, the, the
talks about Auburn football in Indiana.
It's like, dude, Auburn football had a title in 2012.
They've had some success. So the part that is all part of
the Stew, like you can't just, it can't just because Mike
Woodson came in two years ago, like the last 20 years didn't
happen. They happened and and to me,
it's kind of like you don't get it both ways.
You can talk about how Indiana is, you know, one of the number
one or #2, you know, Twitter follow, you know, fan bases, you
know, they travel. They go out to all these things
like they're super engaged, all that like with that comes
expectations, Mike. Like with that it's kind of like
riding, you know, a, a, you know a horse that's been untrained,
it's like or a rodeo, you know, rodeo bull.
I guess it's like you got to tame this and you tame it with
wins. But if you're not, if you're not
winning like this is going to start to get unruly very quickly
because it's big fan base, it's passionate and there has not
been a lot of success. Not all that is the current
coach's fault, but it is it is a reality.
And so I I get tired of the the crutch always going back to
being like it's a fans fault for being too passionate.
You did this like look this is part of the gig.
Like like you always say, it's like being, you know that the
head of a church like this is part of the gig.
Getting pissed at your fans is not the thing.
And by the way, as true fan, like dude, I'm an alumnus.
I've been a varsity club member for 25 plus years.
I've been a season ticket holder for 25 years.
I don't Boo players, I don't Boo coaches.
But you know, I I wasn't there this weekend.
Like, is it? Am I the fault now?
Like I pay my checks, my checks clear.
Is that make me a true fan? I it, I don't like it.
Like I'll just I'll end it there like it bothers me.
I'm not a fan of it but I do think like the other option is
people can just check out like go check out Memorial Stadium
most of the time. That's a fan base that's pretty
much kind of checked out and not fully engaged.
Do you want that? Because that is the other option
if you want the Super fired up hyper you know fan base that's
giving you a war chest in nil dollars.
Like with that comes some responsibility and it also comes
kind of wrangling a bit of a a a a fan base that has some
volatility so that it's like you, you don't get both sides of
it where everyone's just kissing your ass and giving you all the
money and showing up and flying everywhere and not expecting the
minimum level of results. So I'll start off by saying
this, I didn't take the comments personally.
I mean, but this is, but I think what your reaction and what we
see with Coach Tom Sony on assembly call, a lot of people
have taken the comments personally and you've had people
say, well, he's not talking, he's talking about the Internet
trolls or this or that. Well, I think my biggest issue
with the comments from Woodson is that if you're going to make
comments like that, you really need to say exactly what you
mean. Like exactly what are you
talking about, like what what line are you drawing and and and
who are you? I mean I I'll.
So I was there in Assembly Hall yesterday for the game.
True pan, I hear you. The number of people who just
left after the game and didn't stick around for the Senior Day
speeches was was, was pretty. I mean, you know, there's
normally a lot of people that filter out.
It felt abnormally large this time around, where I would, I'd
say 85% of the building cleared out and maybe it was 80%, maybe
it was 75, maybe it was 90, but it felt like almost like the
vast majority of people left. So you know it.
It's interesting that Woodson chooses that moment in time to
not just say something like that once, but to, you know, not
contextualize it, to repeat it and to essentially draw this
line in the sand between people that he perceives as actually
supporting the program versus everybody else.
I think when you are the most well known, highest compensated
or close to highest compensated person in the entire state of
Indiana, when you're you're better known than the Governor,
when you have a larger group of people that you are essentially
kind of over than the Governor or any other figure in the
state. You probably need to be a little
more circumspect in those types of comments.
Because ultimately what you end up with is yes, Woodson has a
has every right to say those things.
Whatever he, you know if he wants he wants to to tee off on
his fan base or portions of the fan base or wants to argue that
some people aren't actually fans, it's fine.
Yeah, he's an he's an adult man. He's he's getting paid a lot of
money. He can do whatever he wants.
But what you've seen last night and what you've seen today is
why that's a bad idea. And the, you know, even Bob
Knight who often gets you know, referenced with anything any
Indiana coach does. You know when Knight would refer
to people who were being critical of him.
And there were plenty of IU fans that were very critical of Bob
Knight. I I don't really recall a whole
lot of instances where he decided to address specifically
like some kind of a divide in the program's fan base.
You know he had obviously the famous line in the 94 senior day
that you know what the I what they bury me upside down and my
critics can kiss my ass. Well that's not fans that don't
like me. That's critics.
There's a there's a terminology difference there and I think you
know just ultimately a lot of what you said is is dead on
accurate in terms of this is ultimately a guy who's been the
head coach at IU for almost 3 full years and has not
accomplished very much so far. You know that he's made two NCAA
tournaments, one of them barely. You know, in the three seasons
that he's been the head coach at IU, his teams have lost fourteen
games, 12 games and thus far 13 games.
They've finished in the top four of the Big 10 once and that was
that was obviously last year. They've got one tournament win
in those three seasons and they'll leave to this season
with one tournament win unless they go on a miracle run and win
the Big 10 tournament and then win a game in the tournament.
So I just, I just wonder what's the point in coming out and
drawing that kind of a line in the sand?
Are you, are you trying to develop some kind of internal
like US against the world mentality for your players?
Maybe that's the case because we heard that out of Anthony Leal,
we didn't really hear it out of Trey Galloway.
He was a little more, he was softer in his comments, which
was probably more appropriate for the moment.
But I just, I don't understand where the haughtiness of Mike
Woodson's comments, not just there but in the post game,
press conference comments as well.
I mean, he had one comment in relation to a question from a
media member. It was like there shouldn't be
anything floating around about my job.
I've done my job well, I'm sorry.
As you just said, the if there is indeed a standard of Indiana
basketball, which Mike Woodson talked about glowingly in his in
his introductory press conference three years ago or
for whatever, 4, three, yes, four years ago, 3, whatever, My
math is bad. You know what I mean?
His introductory press conference if you're going to as
a as a university, an athletic department, put forward your
basketball program in a way that demands, as you've talked about
many times, this this very high level of financial support on
the part of fans in order to just even get in the building.
If you're, you know, if you don't acknowledge that there
have been significant problems with consistency over the course
of the three years. Like, I just, I don't understand
where Woodson thinks he's doing himself or the program or the
university any favors with those kind of comments, especially in
a ceremony that's really supposed to be about celebrating
the players that and the and the however long they've been in
uniform. The four years or you know, or
less than that obviously for the transfers.
But the whole thing just kind of seemed tone deaf to me and.
And yeah. I don't, I don't want to keep
piling on but it's something that you know it it it feels and
Chad and I talked about this morning it it feels kind of just
like you haven't earned the right to to get this snippy.
But I felt this a lot this year is that you know it it
definitely feels like between this this comment you know IU
releasing the statement that you know we are keeping Woodson, you
know people are feeling the heat.
So like there there's that. But, you know, throughout this
year, you know, whether it's Woodson, like, you know, hey
man, you know, I'm, I'm going to coach these guys the way I want
to. And like, we're running the
sets. We want to run like, you know,
hey, it's just injuries. Like, don't bug me about this.
Like there's very much kind of a, like, hey, you, you haven't
earned the right to ask me these questions.
Or like, you know, you haven't. It definitely feels like he's
coming at it from this approach of like, why are you bugging me
with this? Like, I'm the coach, like, and
it's like it doesn't work that way anymore.
And by the way, it doesn't really work that way if you
don't have a lot of success. Like, could Tom Izzo do this?
Yes, like, but he's also built a respect of that.
And you know, yes, Woodson, you've had a great year in, you
know, great career in the NBA. You're also not Eric Spoelstra.
You haven't won multiple NBA titles like you were an NBA
coach, which makes you at the very upper echelon of coaches.
Like very few people get to that level.
That is true. You also, like, didn't win
multiple NBA titles or get to NBA championships.
Like you're not at the upper Crest or the upper Crest.
Just it it it it's like you you haven't earned the right to be
this snippy. And and part of me that gets
nervous is like all right man, like the the burners are turned
up now and this is what we're getting next year if things
don't go well. Not, not, not we're not getting
you know, prognostication on that.
But like, let's just say things get a little bit rocky next
year. Like, dude, the Burners are
going to get hotter. Like how are you?
Going to handle. And you're not.
You're not talking about, like, Twitter burners.
You're talking about the actual. I'm talking about, like,
physical oven burn. Like metaphorical oven burners.
Yeah, like the things are going to get even more, you know, more
uncomfortable. And like, how are you going?
Like, this is the only thing that makes me concerned is like,
you know, now that suddenly it's not a love fest and oh, I you
guy coming back. It's like we're getting a little
bit critical and he seems to be buckling pretty hard under the
pressure to like the first Senior Day when things aren't
great. This is not the best reaction.
So anyway, it's just I'm with you.
Like, I'm not sure what the point is.
You know, you could easily say something similar like, hey man,
like no way to have expectations, like, but damn it,
we're going to get it back. And like you, for all you guys
who stay, like we're going to get you something better next,
you know, you can do it a different light.
And I know it's like it's tough being a coach because like
there's no right way to answer. Like we all want him to make
give him me a Copa. And then when he does, it's
like, well, damn it, you know, why don't you know better And
like why don't you, You know, like there's really no right
answer you can make as a coach and we're kind of pissed either
way. But that's the relationship,
man. Like that's why you make four
and a half million dollars. That's why we're fans.
Like and that's I just I I I continually get, I don't get it
when it's like the it's it. It always seems to come back on
the fans in IU and maybe it's the same in every other fan base
but it's like in football you and I have this discussion like
once every, you know 1.2 years where it's like it's always the
fans fault. Like they're they're either too
somehow the IU football fans are too fanatic or they don't show
up enough or you know there's not enough passion.
It's like on that side of the street it's like nobody cares.
The fans need to care more. The fans are ever showing up and
then on this side of, you know, the the complex, it's like, oh,
the fans care too much like, well, what do you want?
Why is it always the fans fault? Like I just don't understand
that. Well, I just.
Yeah. I mean, it's always the fans
fault because the fans aren't a person.
The the the fans are a concept. And look, we have a tendency to
pick the the worst exemplars of behavior and use those.
Greg Doyle did this in in the column that he wrote after the
The Mcneely news came out, where it's like, let's let's pick the
the worst stuff or the stuff that's the most extreme.
And then that becomes a proxy for all fan behavior, which is
of course garbage. That's a nonsense, you know,
logical approach to things. But that's what people do
because people tend to equate what they see to what reality
must be, even if that's not always the case.
Now, I will say that what's fascinating about this whole
thing is like a lot of people have taken the fact that there
were rumors, unsourced rumors, you know, rumors that didn't
have names attached to them, rumors that weren't coming
through traditional press circles.
You know, that we're on the Trilly Donovan Discord or or on
some of the other message boards that cover Indiana.
They have taken those. They have noted that, wow, OK,
these these two players are coming back.
They're not apparently, aggrieved with Mike Woodson, so
therefore everything must be hunky Dory.
And everybody was just making everything up because they were
trying to get Mike Woodson fired.
I find that approach fascinating, but it also kind of
fits in with this whole thing that Woodson's doing with these
comments, which is drawing lines in the sand.
And what's what I find fascinating about all of that
is, and I think you pointed this out really well just a couple
minutes ago, you really need to try to after a season like this,
a season that, I'm sorry, by any objective measure of Indiana
history was it was a big disappointment.
You know what was, was a big 10 championship in the offing?
No, of course not. Nobody picked that was missing
the NCAA tournament by 30 plus spots on the bubble.
A likely scenario. Not according to most of the
projections I saw. I know we had a few people who,
you know, thought that Indiana would be worse, but most people
had them in that 567 range and thought they'd be in the NCAA
tournament, albeit as a lower seat.
That was what we thought as well.
The play hasn't been good enough all season.
The players have been disappointing you, You know, at
one point you were leading the nation in flagrant fouls and and
players getting ejected as such. You know, at one point you went,
it felt like entire stretches of games where you weren't even
thinking about shooting a three. Your offense resembled something
from 1984. Your your defense was a sieve.
You know you've currently got 0 recruits in the hopper for the
2425 season. You've currently got 0 recruits.
You know in, you know, strongly leaning towards you in the 2526
season that we know of. You're likely going to lose your
best player and most consistent performer over the course of the
last month and 1/2 to the NBA Draft.
Rightfully so. You've got two other players who
are what I would charitably term as, like Portal risks at this
point, and you've got a bunch of players who haven't really
developed, barely played down the stretch.
I say all of that because this is the offseason where you
desperately need to get everybody under the tent and say
things didn't go great this year, but gosh, we made it
through. We've we've finished off
relatively strong. We need everybody's support as
we move forward. And I guess that's where my
biggest problems with Woodson's comments are, is that he went
out and had a chance to either leave it alone and act like it
wasn't bothering him in the program or he had an opportunity
to go out and try to reunite things.
And instead he chose the polarization option.
And whether or not he was aiming that those comments at a very
small subset of a small subset of online fans or whether he was
aiming that at everybody who hasn't been unquestioningly
supportive of IU. He left it so open for
interpretation. And then kind of his doubled and
tripled down on it where he's not going to talk about his job
and his job performance. And he thinks he's done a great
job and his job or whatever words to that effect.
And he's not going to talk about recruiting, even though that's
what's got most people freaked out again.
It just all seems so tone deaf and so divorced from the reality
that A this is a program, which, as you said, is one of the most
supported programs in the country.
And it's got fans who have been sold a bill of goods that has
not come due for 25 years. And there's a variety of reasons
for that. But it's also a program that's
going to need people to donate to NIL, It's going to need
people to buy tickets. It's going to need people to
travel to the Bahamas. It's like, you know, the number
of people as as as you've talked about, as I've talked about on
previous shows, as we hear from people across the board, the
number of people who are just kind of checked out on IU
basketball in general. They don't find it entertaining.
They find it a slog to watch. A lot of times there's just
there's not a huge amount to be like really proud of on a
national level. To decide that this is the
moment that we're going to draw lines in the sand and say true
fans and not true fans seems really, really dumb to me.
I, I echo something. You know, you've my wife has
done this to me. You've done this for me, good
friends done. Like, I've had moments where
should I say something about this particular thing?
You're like, you're like, no, it's not going to change
anyone's mind. And you know in the end here
it's like I, I, I almost wish Woodson would have asked
somebody about like, hey, I'm going to say this like, no,
don't. Because honestly, like if you
want to get people back, a comment at like, this is not,
you know, I wasn't going to hear this and they'd be like, oh man,
you know, I really, I took a moment, took some stock and I
really changed my mind like what's going to change and that
this is, I guess the part I'll end with.
It's just like it is kind of tone deaf to the reality of
this. It's like this has nothing to do
with Mike Woodson as a person. Mike Woodson's love for I you,
Mike Woodson's playing time here.
This is just, I want my basketball team to be good and I
want the coach of that team to be.
I want the team to be good and therefore the coach will be good
because those things will go in. And it's like if you want to
change the narrative, Mike, go in again, go in the Big 10
tournament. Like that's how you change the
narrative. Not not being pissy at Senior
Day or talking about, you know, things that happened online.
Go in the Big 10 tournament, like go do something about this.
Go do something that is beyond what we are expecting, you know?
And I think that's the part that that bothers me, is like, it
does feel like once we get into these discussions about fans and
support and true fans and real fans, like, we're circling the
drain of how far this, like where this is going to go,
'cause like once you get into those, we, we've been there with
football many times. Once we're in the true fan
discussion, like this is just a race to the bottom and now we're
just waiting for the clock to run out and we'll wait for a new
administration to come in and solve things.
And then we get our honeymoon period back again.
I mean, that's honestly, it is not a good sign.
So it's like just focus on winning the Big 10 tournament
like and that that shouldn't be a bridge too far.
Like maybe not this year but at some point we got to do it.
Or or focus on getting this offseason so right that you can
go compete for a Big Ten title in a national championship next
year. Like go focus on those things
and in the end and then guess what, the support will be there.
Yeah, I mean that's that's about as straightforward as it gets.
And and ultimately look, I'm glad that there there's more
support that had been rumored for Woodson among certain
players based upon the comments that were made after the end of
the the Senior Day or during the Senior Day celebration from
Anthony Leal and from Trey Galloway.
I think that's great and I'm, I'm glad that the team is
playing better and I think that that's excellent.
I I just think at this point Indiana's acting like a team
that's being unfairly criticized and most of what's been out
there has been pretty fair criticism.
And yes, are there people who have unreasonable voices?
Sure. There's people that have
unreasonable voices all over the place.
I I'm struggling and Scott, maybe you missed this and and I
certainly have missed it, but maybe someone has.
Can you find me the senior day celebrations from other teams in
Indiana's situation where their coaches decided to try to call
out certain people in the fan base or drew lines between true
fans and others? I I haven't seen any reports of
those things anywhere. Maybe it's happened.
It just seems I'm just trying to imagine like John Calipari
trying to pull something like that at a senior day at Kentucky
where his team was going to miss the NCAA tournament and how that
would have gone over among those fans or?
Dude I have Kentucky fans in my life for here they they want a
fire Cal party who get somebody else.
I mean like they're they're ready to be done with him and he
has a title and he's done well with them.
No, it's it's something I talked about this morning is like and
you know this way more than I do being in media but it's like you
there is there is also this like, you know, I don't know
15,000,000 people watched the Oscars last night.
That's a real that's a real something.
And then like there will be these news stories where it's
like, man, this went viral. It's like there is no way to
like viral can be 10,000 views and like it's really a nothing
burger. And so some of this like, oh
man, like IU fan base is going nuts on this or like man,
they're they're they're going viral on this mean tweet.
And it's like maybe it was the same 70 people retweeting
something. Like there is there is no way to
like like figure out what what is viral and what isn't like how
far it is. So sometimes this gets over,
nothing gets overblown and then you get guys like Greg Doyle
writing the stuff about how toxic it is.
It's like, well there's small areas of the Internet that are
massively toxic. But I I don't know.
I. In the end, winning solves all
of these. Ills.
Well, and this is the thing I, what I'm fascinated by moving
forward is like how how does the how does Indiana play over these
last couple of games, however many it is?
It could be one game. It could be three or four or
five games. How, how does the reporting
occur? You know, because look, I mean
there's there's no secret like if you go to likepeaks.com, like
there's been some very, very blunt criticism and you know,
highlights of of Mike Woodson's problems or inadequacies on the
recruiting trail from from that site.
You should go check that out yourself.
There's been, there's been, there's been, we.
We talked about this in the previous podcast we did.
When you've got, you know, Sam Vicenti who covers the NBA for a
living or when you've got, you know, other podcasts that are
just like dropping stuff, you know, I it's hard.
It's it's really hard to believe this isn't just a me thing.
I think just in general, like the idea that all of that is
being made-up and that everybody's picking on poor Mike
Woodson, not oh, these are actually artifacts of things
that are occurring. And wow, you know, you've also
had a season that was really below expectations that that
seems to track with things. And you're also recruiting
significantly below expectations, not just as as
Indiana, but just as a big 10 school that's got the amount of
nil budget that Indiana's got. I don't believe there, Mike.
The The idea that there's some kind of grand conspiracy against
Mike Woodson in the Indiana basketball program by a small
number of people who are somehow so crazy and toxic that we can't
name them but they're but they're so good at what they're
doing that they're orchestrating this nationwide campaign to
create problems for Mike Woodson that that seems silly to me on
its face. The thing that I'll say is I
think that where some people are getting ahead of themselves,
myself included, is you know we need to see how this offseason
plays out. Right now as I see it based on
everything we've talked about, you know what we have in the
recruiting portal, which is nothing and then the how the
transfer portal is going to work.
I don't see how you put together a roster that's going to compete
for you know an NCAA berth or or get there now.
Like this is where fans are wrong.
Like you need to give and I'm, I'm wrong on this too.
Like you need to to let the process work itself out and and
then maybe there is a path that you and I and other fans don't
know about And there's the the things are already lined up to
happen and we are going to nail the right portal people that we
need to put together a team that can get us there.
And and I would love this is where fans are easy.
I'd love to be proven wrong and like that's great.
We're dumb. Like that's right.
But you know this this is where you know you you see some of
this and like you know in the Tom Allen era where it's kind of
getting you know, we got to focus on more Leo and this and
that. It's like dude Tom you got to
focus on getting this team to be better like because most you're
going to be fired and that's what's what happens.
That's what I would look at. That's what I would look at.
This is like Mike like whether you're true fans or non fans it
doesn't matter. You have a bunch of if you win a
title you have a bunch of fake fans.
Like you need to worry about putting together a team that
could compete at a high level next year because if you don't
you're probably not going to be a coach next the year after.
No. It's funny, funny to mention the
football thing because I remember we did our pre season
previews and it was like you guys are being too negative to
that, To that it's like well actually we were too positive
and. And and and like and I I can't
help but think about the way that we evaluated Indiana
Basketball's offseason last year.
And it was, well, Mike Woodson and his staff deserve the
benefit of the doubt in terms of they they OK.
They've, they've looked at the roster, they've gone out,
they've done XY and Z, They brought these people into the
portal or in from the portal. And they're going to try to
integrate these other players. And it's going to work because
of the fact that we now trust Woodson because he was able to
take the previous year's team and go to the NCAA tournament
and finish tied for second in the conference.
Well, you didn't really live up to that level of trust.
You know, if you look at the choices that were made, the
choices in many cases were wrong.
They were right choices. Certainly Khalil Ware ended up
being a a really good pickup in the portal.
Mackenzie and Baco, after some struggles, ended up becoming a
pretty consistent piece. But you ended up crafting a team
that was less than the sum of its individual parts.
And as you point out, you know if Indiana's strategy, and we'll
get into this more once the season's over, whenever that is.
But it it appears Indiana's strategy is going to be, we're
going to try to outspend everyone in the portal for the
best players. And as we've tried to point out
over the last couple of weeks, that's a really, really iffy
strategy. I've yet to see anybody
effectively do it in a way that added pieces to a team that
didn't already have a bunch of pieces already there that it
could just plug into the system. And we've also talked about,
well, Indiana's going to have to change their system.
And again, that seems very implausible given what we've
seen the first three seasons. So look, this is where again, I
think we talked about this last time and and we'll wrap up after
this, a lot of the criticism is less about the season
disappointing as it was. It's about the trajectory which
it, you know, it's the question of do you get concerned about
the the runaway train when you see it like way down the tracks
or when it's getting closer to you.
And I think that that's the concern here is that Indiana's
put themselves in a position where they're they're going to
have to do something that nobody else has really done in this
portal era in order to put together A-Team.
That's going to be not just like NCAA tournament berth
competitive but significantly more than that and and that's
that's you know because because ultimately again if this was
truly a speed bump year what is that's the one question like
what is success for Indiana basketball and I think we have
to keep coming back to that. So that's that's where we're at.
It's kind of like the micro of this season that you know at the
beginning I remember having podcasts with you go back and
listen to it, you know after the the you know Louisville that
that Connecticut Louisville game and we're talking like end of
November. It's like we have a podcast and
we're kind of like all right well we you know because after
the sorry keep on saying after after the Auburn game it's like
well we kind of got to win the Kansas game or else like or else
the the metrics are just going like in mid-december you and I
were talking about and you were leading the charge give you full
credit. Just like the path has already
really narrowed for us to make it NCAA tournament berth and you
knew that in mid-december and you could look at that and be
like oh you haven't played the whole big 10 season and like you
never know And it's like OK those things are all true and
like a lot of things could happen that are outside the
metrics like they didn't this season played out about the way
you thought it would. We're 10 and 10.
We're 500, the Big 10 and here we sit March 11th and we are
nowhere near the bubble and that's exactly what we knew in
December. And I I think that's similar to
what we're looking at the, you know, where we're looking at the
program moving forward like you and I just look at things like
that are just kind of concerning warning bells As you look a
little deeper, if you look at the very, very 25,000 foot view,
it's like, yeah, in December of this year Indiana was seven and
one with a road win in the Big 10.
You can be like it's silly to think we're not going to make
the NCAA tournament. It's like, well, so here we are
and you could look at it from a very high level and be like, all
right, two years in a row, you made the tournament, you missed
one year. It's like, what's the big deal?
It's like, well, because we see the issues that could be coming
and those are, you know, whether they have or haven't happened
yet, they are real, real issues and your your the the road is
narrowing. Anyway, so anyway, that'll wrap
things up for us on this show. Thanks to all you folks for
listening. We'll be back in action later on
this week. Indiana back in action as well
later on this week, as they'll take on the winner of Penn State
and Michigan in the Big 10 tournament.
And of course, at the end of this week, we'll find out both
whether the men are in a tournament and where the women
will be in the NCAA Tournament. For Scott, I'm Galen.
This is Crimson Cast. Thanks for joining us.
Thanks to home field apparel. And thanks to the whole back
home network. We'll catch you folks.
On the flip side, bring back the Bison.
So long, everybody.