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Historical oddity

Epictetus

Freshman
Aug 30, 2006
517
107
43
If you had been told in December that--going into the last week of the regular season--the Hoosiers' NET ranking would be virtually tied with Duke and significantly above Kentucky and Michigan State, you would have been pretty stoked, no? Sounds like Top Ten territory.

But no, actually it's barely Top 60 territory. That's how historically weird this season has been.
 
If you had been told in December that--going into the last week of the regular season--the Hoosiers' NET ranking would be virtually tied with Duke and significantly above Kentucky and Michigan State, you would have been pretty stoked, no? Sounds like Top Ten territory.

But no, actually it's barely Top 60 territory. That's how historically weird this season has been.
Like football, I think the impact of Covid on college sports has been significant for some but debilitating and devastating for others. I think you’ll see a return to “normalcy” on the gridiron next Fall, and probably the same for basketball next winter.
 
Perhaps Covid and the on-campus precautions (recruiting, freshman acclimation to college life, isolation....) have been more impactful for the teams that extensively use the OAD model like UK and Duke? Teams that rely more on experienced players (Like the teams at the top of the B1G this year, Baylor, Gonzaga--in Gonzaga's case, perhaps an experienced team with an injection of one top OAD talent)- these teams are having very solid seasons, Covid be damned.. Hell our friends to the north are having a better-than-expected season and they even lost their outside sharpshooter to Covid for a few games.

Pretty obvious IU's problems have little to do with Covid. So when normalcy returns, IU's program will still have the same major issues. CAM isn't getting a get-outta-jail-free Covid pass from me. It's time.

Curious to see if UK and Dookies can right the ship. I would think K must be contemplating retirement at some point soon. ( I'm sure there is some horrible Brad Stevens-to-Durham NC scenario in there somewhere but I don't even want to think about that).
 
If you had been told in December that--going into the last week of the regular season--the Hoosiers' NET ranking would be virtually tied with Duke and significantly above Kentucky and Michigan State, you would have been pretty stoked, no? Sounds like Top Ten territory.

But no, actually it's barely Top 60 territory. That's how historically weird this season has been.

A tournament without Kentucky, Duke or MSU would be just weird.

OTOH, a tournament without Indiana is fairly common. I’m totally used to it.
 
Perhaps Covid and the on-campus precautions (recruiting, freshman acclimation to college life, isolation....) have been more impactful for the teams that extensively use the OAD model like UK and Duke? Teams that rely more on experienced players (Like the teams at the top of the B1G this year, Baylor, Gonzaga--in Gonzaga's case, perhaps an experienced team with an injection of one top OAD talent)- these teams are having very solid seasons, Covid be damned.. Hell our friends to the north are having a better-than-expected season and they even lost their outside sharpshooter to Covid for a few games.

Pretty obvious IU's problems have little to do with Covid. So when normalcy returns, IU's program will still have the same major issues. CAM isn't getting a get-outta-jail-free Covid pass from me. It's time.

Curious to see if UK and Dookies can right the ship. I would think K must be contemplating retirement at some point soon. ( I'm sure there is some horrible Brad Stevens-to-Durham NC scenario in there somewhere but I don't even want to think about that).
I always thought Stephens would be enticed by Duke. We'll see when K retires.
 
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