After home losses to Penn St. and Nebraska, it's not too early for a post mortem on this season's men's basketball. How did a team with this much talent perform so poorly?
1. Losing Xavier Johnson was critical. IU has no other point guard with his combination of skills. With a healthy Johnson, IU almost certainly picks up a few more close victories.
2. Poor free throw shooting. Nothing to see here but lack of confidence. Unexplainable.
3. Poor 3-pt. shooting. Just don't have enough long-range shooters, although static offense fails to get shooters open.
4. Having many new players means less continuity playing together and less general sense of "team".
5. Failure of bench players to sufficiently contribute. I thought IU would be one of the deepest teams in the league, but that didn't materialize.
6. Incredible balance in the league. All teams had to deal with this, but it's unusual to have so much balance between #3 and #14.
7. Finally, I don't claim enough expertise to analyze a coach's performance, especially in terms of playmaking. I can't presume to give advice to Mike Woodson or suggest anything he could have done to overcome his team's limitations., beyond bringing in one more point guard from the portal. But after this year, recruiting could suffer. Maybe Purdue's recruiting strategy of looking for hard-nosed 4-year prospects with high upsides should be a consideration?
1. Losing Xavier Johnson was critical. IU has no other point guard with his combination of skills. With a healthy Johnson, IU almost certainly picks up a few more close victories.
2. Poor free throw shooting. Nothing to see here but lack of confidence. Unexplainable.
3. Poor 3-pt. shooting. Just don't have enough long-range shooters, although static offense fails to get shooters open.
4. Having many new players means less continuity playing together and less general sense of "team".
5. Failure of bench players to sufficiently contribute. I thought IU would be one of the deepest teams in the league, but that didn't materialize.
6. Incredible balance in the league. All teams had to deal with this, but it's unusual to have so much balance between #3 and #14.
7. Finally, I don't claim enough expertise to analyze a coach's performance, especially in terms of playmaking. I can't presume to give advice to Mike Woodson or suggest anything he could have done to overcome his team's limitations., beyond bringing in one more point guard from the portal. But after this year, recruiting could suffer. Maybe Purdue's recruiting strategy of looking for hard-nosed 4-year prospects with high upsides should be a consideration?
