Agreed - anything can happen over the course of the B1G season. I do feel optimistic about the roster we have and the non-conference slate that will prepare them for the gauntlet in Jan/Feb.
yep. I just have a hard time seeing a jump from 9th to 1st in one year. Has that ever happened? Maybe its all too common but doesn't seem like it.
I see Michigan did do just that from 19-20 to 20-21 seasons. Seems like the exception though and not the norm.
How we lost those games? We were in every single game outside of UM at home who we later beat.
IU was 2-5 in conference games decided by 5 points or less and that includes IU's win at the Barn where Minny went on a 25-6 run to end the game and it doesn't include the OT loss at Ohio State where IU lead by 4 with less than a minute remaining. 9-11 was good enough for 9th, 4th place finished at 12-8. Close out just two of those 6 games and I'm guessing most people's outlook is much different heading into this year.
Exactly...we blew a lot of leads. Just a mild concern that "trait" from last year's team might not be solved. Lots of reasons to think it will be though too. If JHS can be any sort of lock down defender against opposing stud perimeter players...that alone will win us more games, as an example. But we will be relying on a lot of the same players that blew a good number of late leads.
Both teams had more talent the following year and a returning PG in Yogi and X. For the 2016 team they lost Yogi in 2017 and the team sucked. Had IU lost X they wouldn’t be ranked this high.
I think Iowa will be solid. Kris will be really good. McCaffreys are solid. They have some other long, athletic players. Their backcourt is what will determine their level of success. Similar to Purdue I’d say.
Probably not 13th to start the year but JHS as the #1 PG I don’t believe would lead to a serious drop off.
Perhaps, but who is our third PG? In other words, with no X, and a freshman as a starting PG who backs him up?
That is horrible I hate these huge conferences vs the old round robin even with PSU we could get by with 11 playing 20 games. It really makes a conference title meaningless
Ironically, for a while when we had eleven teams we only played 16 conference games.
Well thought out. It is quite a jump, but we did have some pretty close games I felt we should have won. And if we are even a little better some of those may go our way. And if those other teams are even slightly worse, that doesn’t hurt our chances. I guess we will see. The only thing that is certain is that if we don’t finish at the top, some people will bitch about it.
I don’t know, personally I hope they only do that for like Purdue/Indiana and Michigan/MSU. These manufactured rivalries like Illinois/Northwestern are just lame, and we might as well just rotate it.
Lol, okay I mean we’ll take a guaranteed game vs. one of the worst programs of all-time … but there are only really two Big Ten rivalries (IU/PU and UM/MSU) that anyone would get their panties in a wad if they missed a year, IMO.
I blocked that one out of my mind. Kohl center is IU bball hell.
