Ah, a reference to my username(weak), and a "cutting down the nets" comment.
Good post. My point remains: fans are often optimistic. Sorry that bothers you so much.
Indiana Ranked Eighth in Preseason Poll . . .
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Ah, a reference to my username(weak), and a "cutting down the nets" comment.
Good post. My point remains: fans are often optimistic. Sorry that bothers you so much.
You are taking one fans opinion and placing that amongst everyone. I didn't talk to or read one soul who thought IU wasn't going to fall off after the attrition we felt after that season. Did we expect to fall off as far as we did? No but neither did coach. We lost two good players who ended up being lottery picks to go with three 4 year vets. This year we can look at our starting lineup and see that we could only be down one player and his replacement will be a junior who started. Completely different scenarios that can't be compared.
RPI was 19, SOS was 59. Maybe if we quit scheduling 300th ranked cupcakes and losing in first game of the conference tourney, we get better seeding.
I am not so interested in where we stand in the rankings vs having the team peaking at tournament time. Last season's SOS was weak and, while the B10's strength is not within IU's control, the non conference schedule needed improvement and us receiving it with the likes of Kansas, Louisville, and others. Win the conference and go to the B10T final and seeding will take care of itself.
When CTC's teams were weak, I could see having a schedule that builds confidence early in the season but now that the team is playing at a higher level, compared to the early years at IU for CTC, a tougher schedule is overdue and hopefully will lead to postseason success. Nova's SOS was 14th, UNC 20th, Kansas was 1st. Only Syracuse was the outlier at 43rd.
When CTC's teams were weak, I could see having a schedule that builds confidence early in the season but now that the team is playing at a higher level, compared to the early years at IU for CTC, a tougher schedule is overdue and hopefully will lead to postseason success. Nova's SOS was 14th, UNC 20th, Kansas was 1st. Only Syracuse was the outlier at 43rd.
It's not subjective. It's simply the average RPI of all your opponents. We got jobbed by the committee because we spent too much time playing community college teams, plus Minny and Rutgers turned out horrible, and our earl Maui loss hurt our schedule even more. That's what happened. You can disagree with the committee all you want, but they've been doing this (punishing teams for weak schedules) for literally decades.
gup
I would not count on it. CTC likes playing those cupcakes in the preaseason.
This season is Kansas, UofL, and Butler are good starts. Add in the ACC/B10 Challenge and IU should have an early idea where they stand.
If CTC influences scheduling, as your post implies, then give credit where credit is due for next year...especially if more quality non conference opponents are added to the schedule.
The problem isn't the quality opponents. It's that he fills in the gaps with 300+ cupcakes instead of ~175 cupcakes.
Do you believe there to be an even marginal difference? To me 175 vs 300 is the law of diminishing returns. Neither will challenge a talented team unless the team fails to work that night.
Since scheduling usually takes about 1 to 2 years in advance, we should expect to start seeing a higher overall SOS. If not, I wouldn't expect any significant improvement in post season results.
There is a huge difference in how they affect a team's SOS ranking, which is a major factor in seeding.
Last season Creighton was 84th, Morehead St was 172, Kennesaw State was 183 in SOS. I think that you got what you wanted on most schedule fillers. Losing in the first round of the B10T and having a SOS of 87 (CBS Sports) got IU the 5th seed. I thought 4th would have been good and shocked had they received a 3 seed. Higher than that and the selection committee is in Colorado sampling smokes.
We had five non-con games with final RPI of 245 or worse. And could have been even worse but Morehead and Peay somehow snuck into the top-200. McNeese was 341, fergodssakes! We could have dramatically improved our SOS by dropping McNeese and playing an extra game against Rutgers!
We can't control our conference slate. If we want to improve our SOS we have to improve our scheduling, and the easiest way to do that is simply upgrade our Sun Belt and Meac opponents to Mac and Valley. We will still win most of them, but our RPI numbers will improve dramatically.
Assuming that IU had done as stated, and that the overall schedule results remained the same (with the loss to Michigan in the B10T), what seed would you have expected?
I dunno. Maybe a 4? We got screwed thrice this year. Bad B1G schedule, bad cupcakes, early loss in Maui. All three affected our SOS this year. But if you fix the schedule AND go back and win the first game in Maui, our numbers improve enough that you are looking at 2-3 seed territory.
The committee did not screw iu. Upgrade the schedule and it won't be an issue going forward.
I can see the 4. I heard one of the pundits prior to the tournament selection, but can't remember who, that the committee weights more highly the conference tournament results than the regular season results.
With the loss to Michigan, and they were outhustled, 3 just didn't seem like a possibility. Nevertheless, I have positive expectations that next season's pre conf schedule will be better. Time for results now.
I didn't think a 3 was at all likely after the UM loss, but that's because I was taking our bad schedule and bad losses into account. If we fix the schedule, those better seeds will start becoming possible.
I believe IU will be better next season.
Yogi had to provide more scoring with JBJ out, Bad Troy sometimes outweighed Good Troy and his turnovers were killer and other than blocking shots he was not a good defensive player. IU can be better without Troy, and replace Yogi's assists and scoring with multiple players, JBJ, Robert Johnson, CUJO, OG. DeRon is a stud, CUJO is really good also. Adding DeRon to play along side Bryant gives IU the best frontline in the Tom Crean era. IU Preseason Top 10 is legit.
Yogi had to provide more scoring with JBJ out, Bad Troy sometimes outweighed Good Troy and his turnovers were killer and other than blocking shots he was not a good defensive player. IU can be better without Troy, and replace Yogi's assists and scoring with multiple players, JBJ, Robert Johnson, CUJO, OG. DeRon is a stud, CUJO is really good also. Adding DeRon to play along side Bryant gives IU the best frontline in the Tom Crean era. IU Preseason Top 10 is legit.
I know it is not the same but back in the 50's UC could not win a championship with the big O and the year after he left they won the championship.
You know, I could really care about the non--conference schedule. I can only point to the conference schedule at 15-3, a conference that at one point had 5-7 teams ranked in the top 25 in the country. Yeah, would have been nice to have played a tougher non-conference schedule, but you know what? Those conference teams Indiana played just didn't roll over, play dead and hand the game to the Hoosiers either.
A conference that was 5th strongest - and you're bragging about that?
Most at 1 time was six - preseason poll.
Here is the Hoosiers B1G opponents up to the first Iowa game - with TO's listed:
@Rutgers - 23
@ Nebraska - 14
Wisconsin -19
Ohio State -12
@ Minnesota -13
Illinois - 11
Northwestern - 10
@ Wisconsin - 19
Minnesota - 11
@ Michigan - 12
@ Penn State - 15
You had 2 NCAA teams out of that group - and one had to beat IU in the first round of the BTT to get in. That schedule was SOFT.
really? we had a pre-season rank of 22
we had two burger boys, conf 6 man of the year returning, and all kinds of 4 stars
sure, you talked to people who thought we would fall off...but to like #80?
pshaw
The NCAA, on the other hand, cared a great deal about the non-conference schedule, since it featured a number of ultra low ranked teams. Further, they considered the Big Ten no better than the fifth best conference, which served to offset somewhat IU's regular season title. That, plus the typical BTT early loss, really hurt IU in terms of their seeding, which was predictably less than some erroneously believed it should have been. Again.
Interchangeable players who can defend different positions is the direction that the college game is going.
with Indiana in particular..."too many wings" is just another way of saying "not enough interior players".....Without size, no team will win a Natty. We have Bryant...thats pretty much it...unless you count next year. Wings are great...but breasts are great also.
Just think what this last year would have been without Max.
Crean is incredibly fortunate to get a guy like that in June. And that's not gonna happen every year, wither - so then what?
I believe, IU should be Top 10 and a Final Four contender next season.
Yogi and Zeisloft will be missed but their points and assists will be replaced by JBJ, RJ, CUJO, Newkirk, Green, Gelon
Front line will be even better with a Sophomore Bryant, OG, Morgan, Sr. Hartman, and a Freshman DeRon.
If Troy comes back IU will be deeper, but more turnover prone.
Bryant, DeRon, OG, Morgan, Hartman front line is the best front court in Coach Crean's tenure at IU.
I think Beifelt may be the one piece lost that will be more difficult to replace, but we have several Forwards and Centers capable of stepping out and spacing the floor for open 3's, or 15 footers.
Yogi and Zeisloft will be missed but their points and assists will be replaced by JBJ, RJ, CUJO, Newkirk, Green, Gelon
Front line will be even better with a Sophomore Bryant, OG, Morgan, Sr. Hartman, and a Freshman DeRon.
If Troy comes back IU will be deeper, but more turnover prone.
Bryant, DeRon, OG, Morgan, Hartman front line is the best front court in Coach Crean's tenure at IU.
I think Beifelt may be the one piece lost that will be more difficult to replace, but we have several Forwards and Centers capable of stepping out and spacing the floor for open 3's, or 15 footers.
The issue you ignored was defense which, once again, will be a key difference between good and great with this and every Crean coached team. Unless it improves substantially, IU will have trouble residing in the top 10 for any length of time, and they won't fare well in the post season.
It's amazing how every success is just Crean being incredibly forunate. I guess things just "fell perfectly into place"? LOL
So guys like Max just show up on your doorstep every time when 2 of your guys toke themselves off your team, right?
Devin and Hanner got busted late in the school year. Losing both of them - especially when IU would also end up losing Holt at the start of the school year - without a capable replacement would have been devastating.
Yet you don't see how fortunate Crean was for Max to become a Hoosier?
The Max we saw this year at Iu is not the same player that was at UM for 3 years. I guess that was just Max working hard and had nothing to do with our coaching staff working with him.
Balony! Everyone knows the coaching staff never works with anyone to make them better.
Max being in a system where he was allowed to have freedom offensively - along with being injury free - allowed him to post better numbers than he did at UM.
What I'm talking about is the leadership Max provided to this team. Ask yourself this: What if Max doesn't win the appeal to transfer within conference? A big part of IU's success this past year was due to the influence he gave to the team.
Let's say Hanner and Devin don't get caught tokin' in the dorm. Max never comes (unless Priller suddenly gets homesick in June) and then you still lose Hanner and Holt in August (cause guess who was the driver in the car when TB and Holt got busted for illegal possession? Yep - Hanner).
