2020-21 Indiana Athletics thread

[Sollozzo]

We won because we played strong defense and simply out matched them physically. Good to get a win in a game we had to have, but my god this team’s shooting is just atrocious. Painful to watch. In typical IU fashion, we were abysmal from 3 and the foul line. They’ll be going home Thursday if they bring another shooting performance like that (which is likely unfortunately).

Thankfully we took it inside more in the second half. Much better to give it to TJD a bunch instead of watching X have some garbage missed layup or watching one of our “shooters” brick it. This is why I could never criticize TJD at any point of the year. He’s surrounded by junk shooters. Imagine how great he could be if defenses actually had to respect our shooters.

Geronimo was HUGE.

What sucks is that they play hard and have really good defense. If our offense was average or even slightly below average, we would be a team to watch out for in the tournament. Unfortunately, our shooting is just such abysmal trash that I’m afraId this run will end pretty quick unless we catch some major fire.

I think this game showed that we got what we deserved with the play in. It’s not like we blew Wyoming out. We are an inconsistent team that had a disappointing conference season and is total trash at shooting the ball. We didn’t deserve anything more than the play in.

[PacerDude]

I'm hearing IU's early departure for Portland was delayed 3 hours due to plane issues. Anyone heard the same?

Yeah - saw an article earlier about that.

Shouldn't be a big deal. These are kids. Flashback to when you were 18-19 years old. You could play all day, grab a few hours sleep - play all day again. Feeble excuse if they use it for some reason.

[Trader Joe]

Let's talk about TJD...
What happened that he went from a first half offensive player to a full game offensive player? Regardless of the game he was having you could almost always count on him disappearing or at least faltering in the 2nd half. Especially in crunch time. But all of a sudden... no more.
He's a player that gets all his points at the rim, and his percentages were deceptive because he might not miss in the first half, and falter in the second half. But now, no more. He's hitting as well early as late.
He's also hitting his FT's at a decent clip. I wouldn't want to foul TJD at the end of a game.

The one thing that seems like it might be exploitable is when he makes up his mind to back down his defender in the post, he's susceptible to a double coming down and digging the ball out. That strategy doesn't tend to get the ball out of his hand with a pass. He's been pretty good hanging onto the ball and finishing the play though. The exploitable part is whoever drops down to double can probably commit more fully to the double and digging the ball out. I don't think you have to worry much about the player you're coming off of on the 3 point line. One, TJD would have to pass it back there, which is not all that likely once he's committed to backing his defender down... and two, until IU proves they can hit 3's TJD is by far the larger threat.

In fact, I started wondering if teams were more apt to let TJD get his in the first half to make sure IU didn't get it going from outside early. Figuring as poor as they are from outside, if they can make sure they start the game cold, their mental state (and offensive adjustments) will make sure they finish cold. But that would be a lot of games to go back and watch and see if teams were less likely to double TJD in the first half compared to the 2nd half during the BT season. And regardless, these last few games, they are definitely doubling him both halves and he's making them pay. The 'new' (recent history) outlier would be the MI game where he had a poor first half, and flipped the script and was strong in the 2nd half.

This is probably one of the more impressive runs for an IU player in recent history, fully living up to his billing, and doing it on both ends.

The run he's on right now has never been done in NCAA history from an output + efficiency standpoint

[Trader Joe]

It was ugly but people always tell me teams that win in March can play defense and have at least one guy they can play through in tight games. IU has that. St Mary's is scary but if I were them as a 5 seed I wouldn't exactly be thrilled about this draw especially because they play a very slow pace and are a bit of an offensively challenged team.

Woodson's advanced stats about his offense are promising also as IU produces good shots in almost all metrics, a lot of the guys just can't hit them.

[PacerDude]

Never forget Jimmy V - survive and advance.

They don't care how - they just care who.

[Bball]

My word... some IU fans on social media don't seem to understand that listening to a national broadcast isn't the same as listening to Don Fischer call the game. The days of Chuck Marlow and Laz or Kitchel calling the games on channel 4 are long gone. These are not IU announcers... nor IU broadcasts... they are 'game' announcers. They just might be critical of bad play on either team... or maybe aren't 100% dialed in to every last player on IU's team. And when you're in a down season, and not a top 10 team, it's not like they are likely seeing IU on TV or highlights all that much. Heck, for a top 10 team, if you follow college basketball at all, you can't avoid seeing a top 10 team at least a little bit.

I thought the announcers were embarrassing themselves on the one out of bounds play where they completely missed the ball off the Wyoming player's foot. They did know to look for whether it hit X's heel or not, but totally missed it was kicked by the Wyoming player in the first place. So they were lost in wondering if he'd actually hit the ball, and then whether if he had, did it then go off of X's heel. They ultimately decided it did not, but stayed lost on whether anything showed the Wyoming player hitting it.

Yet it was RIGHT there... he kicked it. One replay showed it perfectly and showed it didn't hit X's heel. But that is not even the replay they kept looking at. Although, in their defense, a producer should've been in their ear pointing out the kick.

The refs got it right and even told the announcing team. So no harm done... And it certainly wasn't any anti-IU bias on the part of the announcers. Just a clear example of not exactly the A team on the game.

[D-BONE]

It was ugly but people always tell me teams that win in March can play defense and have at least one guy they can play through in tight games. IU has that. St Mary's is scary but if I were them as a 5 seed I wouldn't exactly be thrilled about this draw especially because they play a very slow pace and are a bit of an offensively challenged team.

Woodson's advanced stats about his offense are promising also as IU produces good shots in almost all metrics, a lot of the guys just can't hit them.

Yeah, I honestly know nothing of St. Mary's other than they beat Gonzaga, play deliberate and slow, and can be questioned about overall conference strength. Just the fact that they are slow paced/relatively low scoring by itself would seem to play into our hands. Hope so. Heck, maybe even one of Kopp or Stewart even make a couple threes. That's literally all it would take. Each of them hitting a couple, along with maybe another three plus energy put backs from Geronimo, TJD and Thompson inside, X breaking down the D, etc.

[Trader Joe]

Yeah, I honestly know nothing of St. Mary's other than they beat Gonzaga, play deliberate and slow, and can be questioned about overall conference strength. Just the fact that they are slow paced/relatively low scoring by itself would seem to play into our hands. Hope so. Heck, maybe even one of Kopp or Stewart even make a couple threes. That's literally all it would take. Each of them hitting a couple, along with maybe another three plus energy put backs from Geronimo, TJD and Thompson inside, X breaking down the D, etc.

IU is now 10-3 on the season I believe with the roster at full strength and I think all of our notable wins came at full strength as well. We're definitely not a tradiitonal 12 seed from a talent standpoint.

[Sollozzo]

I gotta see some shooting before I get my hopes up about our chances. We had to grind it out against a team that had 17 turnovers because we are so awful at shooting the ball - and that’s with TJD having a near perfect game.

If we play a team that starts getting hot from 3, it’s over.

Hopefully we go straight to TJD instead of seeing a bunch of junk from X.

I just can’t get excited about a team that has so many abysmal games from 3 and the foul line, but let’s see what happens. Hopefully I have to eat some crow tonight.

[Bball]

There is sub-section of fans, that are such homers, that they don't realize a national broadcast is not the same as listening to their local HS team's radio team call a game.
Let alone, that the announcers, or broadcast hosts, will sometimes analyze the matchup and pick who they think has an advantage or will win. ...And that is NOT biased announcers.
Geez this crap bugs me.
And then they won't let it go.

[Bball]

Anyone think IU has a comeback in them?

[Sollozzo]

Anyone think IU has a comeback in them?

Nah, IU is the type of team that teams have comebacks against...:not the other way around. You have to shoot to have a comeback and IU cannot do that.

[Sollozzo]

People were complaining about Michigan being seeded over IU. The committee got it right- Michigan is better than IU. A couple of Big 10 tourney games (which no one cares at all about unless you win the entire thing) doesn’t change it.

[Sollozzo]

We are light years away from being any sort of respectable NCAA contender.

The Wyoming game was telling. Wyoming mostly sucked - a sloppy turnover prone team.....yet we still had to grind it out to get an 8 point win against them, and needed a perfect game form TJD to do it.

This team is truly one of the worst offensive teams I’ve seen at any level of basketball. Downright awful.

[Bball]

Woodson's use of the bench, all season long, has been terrible (IMO). No rhyme or reason to who would play and how long, nor any consistency developed with rotations and roles. No player could possibly know who he'd be coming in for, and when, nor could a player have any idea about when he'd be coming out. Nor the incoming player know what role they'd be stepping into.

With Galloway and Phinisee's injuries, there was some opportunity to go a little deeper and get some players some extra experience and maybe find some depth. But that didn't happen.

Bates disappeared down the bench. Leal was relegated to cheerleader status. And Lander right there with him. Then Durr got some spot minutes. But with a sporadic role. Bates all of a sudden got some minutes after being bench fodder for weeks. But again, sporadic mins.

Geronimo probably ended up with the most consistent role and mins, but even his role and time off the bench changed and changed again this season.

What I'm wondering about, was this 3 game BTT run, and finally making the NCAA enough to overcome the losing streak, and now this blowout first round loss? Because I can see some use of the transfer portal as being a serious consideration for players who either want consistent minutes... consistent roles... or a better chance to make, and advance, in the NCAA.