NCHoosier32

agree. absolutely kills me to give them credit, but he does a really good job.

i know the feeling. on a basketball note - i generally want to stockpile the most talent i can get and make it work. this plan is clearly not working right now though. gotta do a better job of getting pieces that fit. how Painter is able to hit at such a high rate with guys who fit his system perfectly is super impressive to me. i hate the SMELLERMAKERS as much as anyone on here, but he gets the right pieces more often than not and they are mostly guys i wouldn't even want at IU!

totally agree that that is what we need and am highly skeptical that we will get the level of play that we need out of him on a consistent basis.

i agree, but take it a step further... any minutes that we have a combo of 3 of these guys on the floor at the same time are ugly offensively: Ware, Reneau, Walker, Banks, Sparks. pretty easy to understand why. none are wing players offensively. problem is Mgbako is the only 3 on the team and he is better suited at the 4. so any time he is out, we either have 3 of those guys in together or now we can go XJ, Cupps, Galloway which is definitely better. until X came back, Gunn and Leal were the only other options which wasn't much better.

i think it is tough to say that the staff developed him a whole lot. he had very high expectations coming in. again i'd argue that the staff got him off to a slow start by not turning PG over to him. when they were left with no choice due to X's injury, then he started playing like a one and done.

i honestly agree with almost all of that

this is exactly what i'm saying. now if we lose this one...ugh.

hmm. i didn't see it that way. sure, he was a freshman PG and made his share of TOs, but breaking a press doesn't generally fall on one guy. if the other guys are not in good position, etc it can make the main ballhandler look bad. he wasn't perfect, but we were way better with him at point than with XJ. and i don't think that was playing JHS out of position at all.

not going to see a coaching change for at least a couple more years, but Beard is a dude. look at Ole Miss.

i disagree. i think JHS always has been a PG and played as well as he did because he got to play PG. he was able to create for others or create his own scores.

So...just to pile on the doom and gloom...I'll start with XJ...we didn't look good before his injury and he didn't look good before his injury. Back it up to last year and consider this - many say we would have been better with him and I say not so fast. JHS had always been a PG and was preparing to play off the ball because of XJ. I'll argue we were as good as we were because JHS played PG last season and it would have never happened had XJ not gotten injured. Next, I totally agree with the program being in purgatory with Woodson comment made previously. We could have done worse. I like the excitement he has created and some of the recruiting he has done. Don't think we can fire him any time in the near future, but also don't think he is going to get us to the level we want before he retires. So...we wait. I said coming into the season that the key would be Mgbako being good enough immediately as a college 3 that he would lead us in scoring. I said that because I knew playing the 3 would be a tough adjustment, but that that is where he'd play on top of us really having no other 3 on this roster. Well, we clearly see he would be better as a 4, but we just don't have the personnel to even consider that. Also, still trying to figure out why in 2024 we have an open scholarship. I'll keep watching every game and getting excited when we win home games. Just mark my words... we'll turn around and win Sat and half the people on here will say we made adjustments and all is good. Then we'll lose at Rutgers and we'll have another thread like this, then repeat...All right, I guess that's about it.

i'm thinking after last night people may change their prediction of how many road games we'll win? gonna have to go undefeated at home for sure and somehow win a couple on the road. kinda tough to imagine.

this is what i was trying to say and nearly everyone was quick to tell me i was wrong. sadly, we don't really have any better options, but i just don't think he makes us much better. he doesn't play smart on either end for some reason.

or...you could always just not vote.

will always disagree with the idea of no game MVP in a loss or even more voting for someone who didn't play because you're upset. kind of takes the legitimacy out of this whole thread. i get it. we're all upset (other than maybe a couple posters who i assume will remain positive), but don't pout. just vote for Ware and move on.

honestly i'm a little tired of being an underdog vs teams like Nebraska. i want to get back to INDIANA being expected to beat teams like this at home or on the road.

i absolutely do not think so, but that's just my opinion.

doubt what?

fair enough. not great teams and seems plausible. add Michigan who we already beat on the road. do you see us going undefeated at home? if so, you think 15-5 in conference? i'd be VERY happy with that and absolutely think we'd be in the tourney for that.

that's fair and would put us at 20-11. i would like to think a 20 win season for IU is still tourney worthy, but is it? i hope so. still kind of think we'd be biting our nails going into the BTT.

absolutely great point about Illinois. i do think we could possibly win that game if the wheels are coming off. also i wasn't being sarcastic about the teams you said. i could see those as possible wins. i appreciate you naming the weaker ones. if you were a betting man, what do you think our conference record will be?

that's fair. i definitely don't have time to watch other random B1G games, so you know that better than i do. i would just caution that we only won 4 road conference games last year. it's not that the other teams are great. it's just tough to beat them on their home floor. pretty hard to point to games that give me confidence we'll win more than that this year. now that said, i get your point that Purdue is really the only impressive team. could we beat anybody else on the road? sure. i agree. how many of those games do you think we'll win?

fair enough. i am curious what others think. it has been so hard to get road wins in conference. if we get those 5 along with the Michigan one, i'd be very happy. i guess that's assuming we win all of our home games. we didn't do that last year. if i counted right, we won 4 conference road games. just wondering what most would predict if they went through our upcoming conference schedule and had to make a bet with someone. i say 9-9 from here, so 11-9. that would put us at 19-12 going into the BTT. i would think we'd need to have a solid showing. just my thoughts and prediction. i hope we go 18-0!

so, i get your stance is that no one is allowed to be "negative" other than you when you're upset, but this time i think i'm being more realistic than negative. i mean, i hope we are about to go 20-0 in conference, but just because i want that, should i say i think it will happen? i like this team and it's potential. that said, serious question - how many road conference games do you think we'll win? road wins are awful tough in conference even against weak teams. has been that way for quite a while now. we were 12-8 last year. without even diving into other ratings, just looking at the rankings you have Purdue, Illinois, and Wisconsin ranked. Ohio St, Michigan St., NW are all receiving votes and we are not. anyway, i'm saying looking at the schedule i think somewhere around 11-9 or 10-10 seems reasonable. i think that would put us on the bubble. what is your honest opinion? you think we go undefeated at home? what road games do you expect us to win?

i really wouldn't want to bet either way. seems like the best bet would be we finish around .500 in the conference. win almost every home game and lose almost every away game? if so, we are looking at 19-12 going into the B1G tourney. would that be enough with our not so great SOS and poor showing pre conference?