No I do not think you need to go any deeper than 7 players honestly. Galloway just cannot foul out again as we will mostly play 5 players 30 plus minutes a game.
Fair assessment (at least in my mind) as we hit the home stretch
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The X injury hurt but injury excuses kind of get old to listen too. Every team I can think of other than Purdue had injuries at some point this year they had to deal with. Would we have a few more wins with X ? Maybe? Who knows this team is all over the place and X would not have changed that alot they are just to up and down.
None of them are going there to become PhDs . . . or professors.
DUKE sure recruited as an NBA launch pad later in Coach K's career. Early on, my guess is that K used the connections a student made at DUKE to sell the school . . . as a differentiator from UCLA, Indiana, UCONN, Ohio State, or UNC. I think Collins is doing that at NW at this time of the program's development.
That’s not exactly what I said but will leave it at that as this isn’t going anywhere
I tend to agree. X had great contributions but neither he nor the team played consistently. It’s pure speculation to say this team would dominate if all bodies were healthy. Would have been interesting to see.
yes they did..and their season derailed at that point. I think they are something like 2-6, maybe 2-7 since then.
Taking the 2nd-best player off any team for 20+ games makes that team worse, not better. Especially a Sr. PG. It just does.
Arguing against your point is either ignorant, or disingenuous...or both.
Its either obvious at the macro level you said...or it becomes MORE obvious when you start peeling back specifically what we lacked without X in the lineup, and how we played without him.
Having him as the tip of the spear defensively would have easily equated to 3-4 more wins. 4 more wins, and we're B10 outright champions, and likely looking at a 2 seed.
That’s my assessment as well in bold. Likely both NW games, the away IA game, and the MD game are wins with a healthy X in the lineup for the entire season.
Here's my take on this years team. Keeping in mind that this is so much guesswork that it hardly qualifies as an opinion. That said, I'm kicking off another week on my own today, so why not chime in.
My guess is that this roster is ill fitted for the style of defense that Woody wants to play (particularly without X). As long as we don't face an opponent who can figure out how to expose our weaknesses, we can look pretty good at times. Often, though, even in games that we win, we get lit up here and there, but in the losses we can't stop the bloodletting and the offense can't keep up.
My other guess is that, unless we get a very fortunate draw, we'll run into a team that can put us on our heels really quick. I'm hoping that we can finally get some hardware in the BTT that way this group will have something to hang their hat on. I really like this group of players and think they've done really well considering they were brought in to play pack line D, which probably suits some of them much better.
My guess is that this roster is ill fitted for the style of defense that Woody wants to play (particularly without X). As long as we don't face an opponent who can figure out how to expose our weaknesses, we can look pretty good at times. Often, though, even in games that we win, we get lit up here and there, but in the losses we can't stop the bloodletting and the offense can't keep up.
My other guess is that, unless we get a very fortunate draw, we'll run into a team that can put us on our heels really quick. I'm hoping that we can finally get some hardware in the BTT that way this group will have something to hang their hat on. I really like this group of players and think they've done really well considering they were brought in to play pack line D, which probably suits some of them much better.
"JHS has to stay out of foul trouble...the 2nd foul in first half yesterday was ticky tac and unnecessary."
Agree that JHS has to be cognizant of fouling... but to his defense.... McDaniels and Bufkin had their hands all over our guards all day long and no calls. That's what frustrates me.
But after re-reading what I posted, I feel that JHS did a fairly decent job of staying out of foul trouble this year over all.
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Good grief, the conference is ALWAYS (except 75 and 76) a combination of what you do and what others do against each other.
They didn't win the BT so they didn't meet the preseason picks but do you think those picks would have changed if the people picking would be told that Trayce had back issues, X missed enough games that they are redshirting him and there was other players that missed chunks of time?
I don't think it is a coincidence that to my knowledge, PU and NU did not have any injuries problems. When the league is as balanced as this year, that can be a big factor.
Spot-on. We're doing pretty well defensively with our hold-overs (Race and Miller), but versatile guys (eg Chris Murray) give us fits. This should be Geronimo's off-season focus, become a defensive stopper. He has the body for it.
Let's cut down the nets in Chicago to break another curse and the rest from there is gravy.
You ask me what those prognosticators would think if they knew but you are judging with hindsight as well. The fact is that they didnt live up to the hype - insert your reason here For why that is. Should we hang a banner because they are in second place?
This has been an inconsistent team in the way theyve played to the effort given. I would love to have seen what could have been but some of you need to back off the “if it wasn’t for injuries IU would be in sole possession….” There no way to know that. We do know however that it was an inconsistent regular season.
Excuses or explanations?
Really this is not hard. It is not just losing X and Race for many games, but JHS was out, TJD played through major pain once he returned. JG still not playing. Really you are just being obtuse thinking you are some how holding a realistic view point.
Am I? With all of the injuries, why did they continue to play? There was no way for them to win.
Do the injuries explain the game at Rutgers? Iowa at home? Etc. Are injuries the excuse for everything that went wrong this season? I never claimed that injuries didn't have an impact but the injury excuse for all outcomes is a little too simplistic, even for us obtuse fans.
I mostly agree about the injuries, My team is on the floor etc..
My brother suggested that I ask an actual coach that he follows on twitter to answer a few of my questions. I gave that a try, but I'm still perplexed about a few things concerning our D. The coach guy says that we're basically still running a form of pack line, which really makes some our analytics confusing... oh well
