How is that program this much better than us? I’m sick. Meanwhile those ass hats in West Lafayette will once against be dancing along with 7 other teams from this conference that we should dominate.
Rutger. Mother trucking Rutgers.
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It's called toughness... pure and simple.
The name on the Jersey doesn’t mean you “dominate”. Gotta earn it. Every year. We (Rutgers) are working our tails off to earn it.
This. Indiana is not tough.
Rooting for you guys. You have guys that are mentally tough and IU is a collection of mental head cases. Plus, your coach is one of the most underrated in the conference. This gap between the two programs is evident.
Well, it was a great win for us on the road, but both teams are very similar in that we struggle to score at various times during the season, which is why both teams in are the positions we're in currently. I hope we both win our next games and make the Tournament.
And the Gap is getting bigger.... 5 straight now for Rutgers over Indiana and Rutgers has now won 7 of the last 8 with Indiana. They have quietly started to dominate the Hoosiers.
Honestly, who hasn’t dominated us over the last 5-6 years?
What do you guys have coming in, though? I like your Coach, but to me this uptick is all about Baker and Harper. Aren't you likely to lose both this year?
Baker gone for sure, this is already year 5 for him because of bonus Coved year. Harper probably gone but I think both he and McConnell can get bonus year if they want.
Is't that one of the football schools?Penn St... we're very competitive with them
Most of us have some concerns for next year. Baker is done. Harper could come back but 99.99% he won't. Ron Harper Sr. tweeted last night that he will be at the Penn State game Sunday because it's Ron's last home game. Sounds like he is going pro, whether that ends up being the NBA or somewhere else.
So next year's team starts with Mulcahy at the 1, Cliff at the 5, possibly Caleb back at the 3 as the best defender in the conference, and.... ? I think we need one or two impact portal guys. The bench guys like Hyatt and Mag have shown talent in spots but are raw. Reiber got his lunch stolen by TJD last night, but he's a capable stretch 4 / backup 5 option against the non-giants in the B1G. (He is way too light to body up with the Purdue guys, for example.) Pike has developed some of the guys we have, and he will have to do it again. I expect a step back next year unless we land some scoring from the portal.
I think you also have to add "teamwork" to that list. Rutgers and Wisconsin play a great team game. When Purdue is on, they do too. I haven't seen that quality in this year's IU team very often. It's there, but under stress, the team reverts to one-on-one play.
Great teams are greater than the sum of their individual parts. I struggle seeing how IU’s “parts” fit together.
I would imagine Harper is gone, as I think he'll have NBA interest. Not sure you can build a team around McConnell and Omoyuri; both seem more like hustle guys. Those 2 and Mulcahy I guess could be a core, but you'd lose the heart of your team to me in losing Harper and Baker.
Rutgers will be fine. Pikiell is a very good coach and as long as he continue to recruit mentally tough kids they'll continue to win games going forward.
This is true, but the current difference between IU and Rutgers is very simple - Ron Harper Jr. As I have said all year, the B1G teams above IU in the standings all have one (or more) stud who can score on you in multiple ways. We do not have one such player. Almost every one of our close conference losses has boiled down to the other team's best player making huge plays at nut-cutting time. We have no such player. We've been good when we have had X and/or Phinisee hitting 3's - which they ordinarily do not do with any consistency. Every one else on this team is absolutely predictable offensively and therefore we are easy to defend.
We are statistically (and probably literally) the best defensive team in the league. But if you can't score 70 with relative ease you are going to lose a lot of close games to teams with more talent. That's us in a nutshell. This IU team is one prolific offensive player away from being one of the top teams in the B1G, likely in the nation. Unfortunately, we do not anything close to a prolific offensive player.
That's due to a lack of discipline, a trait that appears to have been lost through the years. "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" is a learned behavior, the "4 is to 1 as mental is to physical" quote a dying some of us remember.
To an extent yes.
Rutgers has a team full of dogs and we don't. It's why IU has lost 5-6 games in the last 4-5 minutes of regulation this year. I don't think IU is overly talented collectively and coaching at times has been suspect, but there isn't a single player on the roster that has a killer instinct. There's not one player I trust with the ball in his hand to go out and win a game when it matters. Rutgers has 2-3 of them.
To me, it's he and Geo Baker. Both of those guys are tough and they play well together. Harper is the better scorer, but Baker is the better defender and ball handler. I was surprised to hear Mulcahy leads them in assists.
The only ocean I know well makes waves. I've heard of this "Billy" but have never been in tune with his discography. I listened to the one referenced for about 30 secs. It's not my style. I imagine I would feel the same upon hearing Loverboy.
I first heard that phrase in 1971 when someone took a photo of me wearing a makeshift hat I made with that particular phrase on it. The words have haunted me all these years. I never got going when it got tough, the going, that is.
It's like they say: "You can't go wrong...with a Billy Ocean song."
I heard the Dead cover Caribbean Queen once.
Yeah, heard that last night too, but I just think of Baker as their primary ball-handler so guessed he was their best assist guy.
Well at least u can count on one or two B10 wins depending on the schedule. (IU)
I can keep explaining this although I can’t make people accept it…
This is a direct result of the Crean cult 10 years ago. We buried our national image 30 ft deep and poured 20 ft of concrete on top of it. Without a time machine I don’t know how it ever comes back.
This is a direct result of the Crean cult 10 years ago. We buried our national image 30 ft deep and poured 20 ft of concrete on top of it. Without a time machine I don’t know how it ever comes back.
I would agree, just from the limited RU bball I watch. I guess that's the confusing part about RU guys coming here and crowing. You guys have a good tough squad, but on the big stage, still aren't accomplishing a lot with them. You're dominating IU in the most dismal period of bball in my life.
That's why I'm saying, right now the program to my mind is Harper/Baker and they make Pikiell look good right now, but how will he look without them?
Mulcahy is better than Baker at finding guys in positions for big shots. Baker is better at creating his own shot by attacking the basket or with his step back. Mulcahy does a good job of backing down smaller defenders and attacking with good pivot moves if left one on one against them.
How exactly did you incur the TBI that makes you repeat the same nonsense over and over ? Maybe the reason you can't make people accept it is because it's idiotic as well as a massive lie. Perhaps you would do much better if you were communicating with the inbred rubes who still believe Trump won the election. (My apologies for injecting politics here, just drawing an analogy about thinking reasonable people would believe an outrageous falsehood because the same person repeated it constantly).
You speak as if this is transitory and has only been going on for a year or two. I’m 30 and we’ve sucked for basically most of my life. Certainly my adult life.
Rutgers has had nearly as many bad losses as we have. How do you explain that if they are so mentally tough ?
Be careful not to confuse a lack of confidence with a lack of toughness. Last night, Kopp and Trayce's late free throws, and Stewart's three were tough plays.
One of the most true things I ever heard in a long coaching career was that "confidence is simply demonstrated competence". Confidence leads to making winning plays, and confidence comes from absolutely knowing that you can and will make the play. When you aren't positive you have the skill to succeed, you are far more likely to fail.
This IU team lacks essential offensive skills to be great, plain and simple. We are every bit as tough as Rutgers, we just lack someone with Ron Harper's skill set.
You're half right. Our defense was more that adequate to win last night. A boatload of empty second-half possessions was the difference. As has been the case all year, make half of the wide open threes we missed, and eliminate half of the unforced turnovers, and we win that game in a rout.
You've lived through lots of "bad years" but not making the tourney 6 straight years across 3 coaches and 2 coaching changes is the worst of that period to me. You've also seen a couple B10 championships and a #1 ranked team and a tourney team the year before that upset UK. Much better than the last 6, imo.
well, Pikiell is a player development guy. Baker and Harper were not big time recruits. The hope is that he’ll continue to find and develop guys.
Rutgers had a couple bad losses back in November with Geo Baker either banged up or out completely. With their backs against the wall and the tournament a long shot, they mustered wins against Michigan State, Ohio State, Illinois, and at Wisconsin and in pretty much a winner take all game last night, snatched a game in the final 3 minutes they had no business winning. We don't execute down the stretch, rather we wilt. See Wisconsin x2, see @ Ohio State, last night against Rutgers, etc. That kind of mentally tough.
We aren't near as mentally tough as a team like Rutgers. We lack any players with a killer instinct. Ron Harper doesn't do anything special offensively. He's a career 33% 3 point shooter and barely shoots above 40% from the field. Yet, he wants the ball in his hands at the end of the game. Call it confidence, call it toughness, call it whatever you want, the stage is to big for our players when it matters. It's our season in a nutshell.
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