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Saturday will be very ugly.

Hopefully they bring in some extra security for the team and Rob and Romeo in particular. Those idiots will be out for blood.
 
Hopefully they bring in some extra security for the team and Rob and Romeo in particular. Those idiots will be out for blood.

The on court fight between Minnesota and Rutgers players the other night was the second time in 62 years of watching Big Ten basketball I have seen multiple player and/or assistant coach ejections. The first was at the same Williams Arena venue in January of 1972 involving Gopher and Ohio State players. I had just celebrated my 30th birthday, my boss, Big Ten Commissioner Wayne Duke was making his first visit to a Big Ten basketball game since his undergraduate days at Iowa two decades earlier and Big Ten rules were about to undergo a significant rewrite! Could it be that elevated floor?
 
It could be. Depends on how much we look in the mirror this week.

You can look in the mirror all you want, but if you don’t have the personnel, you don’t have the personnel. We aren’t hard to beat. We have a starting lineup that’s 6’8”, 6’7”, 6’6”, 6’1”, and then either a 6’3” or 6’4” guy depending on if Green or Durham starts. Hmmm, I wonder if we’re gonna get out rebounded or if teams will go inside on us. Our 6’8” guy, Morgan, can’t be too aggressive on defense because if he goes out with fouls, we have zero inside scoring or rebounding. I’m better Morgan is also one of our best three point shooters too. Davis is perpetually injured and Fitz can’t play basketball at all, so that leaves you with Moore as your only other inside option. Green, Smith, & Durham can’t play defense. They weren’t recruited by CAM and probably wouldn’t have been in the first place. He did the honorable thing by trying to keep the kids that had already committed to play for Crean, but he also didn’t have a helluva lot of options for getting all new players in the ‘17 class.
 
The on court fight between Minnesota and Rutgers players the other night was the second time in 62 years of watching Big Ten basketball I have seen multiple player and/or assistant coach ejections. The first was at the same Williams Arena venue in January of 1972 involving Gopher and Ohio State players. I had just celebrated my 30th birthday, my boss, Big Ten Commissioner Wayne Duke was making his first visit to a Big Ten basketball game since his undergraduate days at Iowa two decades earlier and Big Ten rules were about to undergo a significant rewrite! Could it be that elevated floor?

That Minn/OSU fight was really an ugly display. The one Minn player pretends to be helping an OSU player off the floor after a hard foul, only to knee him hard in the groin. When the OSU player goes back to the floor, a different Gopher comes over and literally stomps on his head.

Still can’t believe that.
 
Moore and Forrester have to be better than Fitz and oft-injured Davis. Just play them already.They can't give us less than the other 2 and McRob.

They don’t have to be, but even if they’re equally bad right now they should get the PT to help with development and experience.
 
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Hopefully they bring in some extra security for the team and Rob and Romeo in particular. Those idiots will be out for blood.
2 or 3 more losses and they’ll need more protection from “one of the most passionate and knowledgeable fan bases in CBB”, a lot more than they will from 3-4 hours in Mackey.
 
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2 or 3 more losses and they’ll need more protection from “one of the most passionate and knowledgeable fan bases in CBB”, a lot more than they will from 3-4 hours in Mackey.

Doubt that. Just try to stay under control Sat. When the Purdue mentality becomes crowd mentality, it can be ugly.
 
2 or 3 more losses and they’ll need more protection from “one of the most passionate and knowledgeable fan bases in CBB”, a lot more than they will from 3-4 hours in Mackey.

Just remember, at least a few of the IU SUCKS and F U IU chants need to be changed to COURTSENSE SUCKS and F U Courtsense! Help make it happen...at least a few of the times. Please.
 
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Maybe. The one good thing about our remaining schedule is every game is winnable (besides at MSU) if we play well. The downside is we can lose almost every game (besides Rutgers at home) if play like we did Monday. As bad as we played, IU, still has enough talent to win most of its remaining games. If Archie is any good, he will have this team in the tourney.
 
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True.

But If you cannot get fired up for Purdue, something is wrong with you as an IU player.

I just collectively don't see this group getting fired up about much. One of my chief complaints about TC's players was that he didn't seem to value toughness like other coaches. Each game, as I watch our guys not help, appear lost or disinterested on D or jog up court I try and guess at who the toughest players are in the game. Usually I don't think of one of our players until at least #4. Who do you think is the toughest player on our roster? Hard to come up with a name. I still go with Zack because I see him diving and making hustle plays and think he's playing through back pain or injury.
 
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I just collectively don't see this group getting fired up about much. One of my chief complaints about TC's players was that he didn't seem to value toughness like other coaches. Each game, as I watch our guys not help, appear lost or disinterested on D or jog up court I try and guess at who the toughest players are in the game. Usually I don't think of one of our players until at least #4. Who do you think is the toughest player on our roster? Hard to come up with a name. I still go with Zack because I see him diving and making hustle plays and think he's playing through back pain or injury.


The thing is........same as last year. We had some guys depart, and thought it would help the chemistry/toughness. But we are seeing the same crap as last year from Smith & Green, and Fitz and McRob (sadly) and Moore are literally incompetent at playing basketball.

I don't know whether to assign some of the blame to Archie, or to conclude that no coach could get much out of these guys. With regard to Smith & Green, he's shown incredible patience, not that he has much other choice.....
 
I just collectively don't see this group getting fired up about much. One of my chief complaints about TC's players was that he didn't seem to value toughness like other coaches. Each game, as I watch our guys not help, appear lost or disinterested on D or jog up court I try and guess at who the toughest players are in the game. Usually I don't think of one of our players until at least #4. Who do you think is the toughest player on our roster? Hard to come up with a name. I still go with Zack because I see him diving and making hustle plays and think he's playing through back pain or injury.

I agree with you overall, but Morgan is a tough SOB. He played through multiple dislocations his freshmen year (most players wouldn't have). His issue is he is forced to play center.
 
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The on court fight between Minnesota and Rutgers players the other night was the second time in 62 years of watching Big Ten basketball I have seen multiple player and/or assistant coach ejections. The first was at the same Williams Arena venue in January of 1972 involving Gopher and Ohio State players. I had just celebrated my 30th birthday, my boss, Big Ten Commissioner Wayne Duke was making his first visit to a Big Ten basketball game since his undergraduate days at Iowa two decades earlier and Big Ten rules were about to undergo a significant rewrite! Could it be that elevated floor?


I looked but could find nothing about a fight in the Minnesota-RU game.....what happened?
 
I agree with your overall, but Morgan is a tough SOB. He played through multiple dislocations his freshmen year (most players wouldn't have). His issue is he is forced to play center.

Maybe, but I'd hope to see more out of him regarding toughness on D. Helping out, protecting the paint and especially talking and getting after guys who aren't giving effort. Just don't see that and I would expect it from a senior leader.
 
That Minn/OSU fight was really an ugly display. The one Minn player pretends to be helping an OSU player off the floor after a hard foul, only to knee him hard in the groin. When the OSU player goes back to the floor, a different Gopher comes over and literally stomps on his head.

Still can’t believe that.
The knee to the groin after a fake attempt to help Witte up was a nasty cheap shot. And the Stomp on Witte's head against the floor was purely violent. Minnesota crowd booing Witte while being carried off of the floor after literally being assaulted by several Minnesota players was totally classless.
 
Maybe, but I'd hope to see more out of him regarding toughness on D. Helping out, protecting the paint and especially talking and getting after guys who aren't giving effort. Just don't see that and I would expect it from a senior leader.
Need to pkay Moore and Forrester in the post on D to share fouls and keep Morgan on the court!
 
I just collectively don't see this group getting fired up about much. One of my chief complaints about TC's players was that he didn't seem to value toughness like other coaches. Each game, as I watch our guys not help, appear lost or disinterested on D or jog up court I try and guess at who the toughest players are in the game. Usually I don't think of one of our players until at least #4. Who do you think is the toughest player on our roster? Hard to come up with a name. I still go with Zack because I see him diving and making hustle plays and think he's playing through back pain or injury.

I tend to agree with this assessment. Toughness didn't seem to be something Crean recruited much, especially in later recruiting classes. Morgan is certainly tough, but his leadership skills don't seem to translate to much. He's a good player, but he hasn't been making anyone else better. Romeo is similar.

But...we are still better than we were last year, based on kenpom. Purdue presents an interesting challenge. Our defense is designed to stop a team just like them--if we decide to actually play defense. And their defense has been worse than ours this year. If we can beat them on the road, we'll probably jump right back up to where we were before the Nebraska loss.
 
PU 89-54 vs Rutgers tonight with PU making 50 %...14/28 3 pt shots. In other words, it doesn't look good for us, come Saturday at 2 pm EST.
 
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Re OSU@Minny '72, Dave Winfield came off the bench flailing. Somehow not kicked out or suspended. Musselman was a real POS.
 
Re OSU@Minny '72, Dave Winfield came off the bench flailing. Somehow not kicked out or suspended. Musselman was a real POS.
Games with Musselman-coached teams were always ugly to watch. In an era when a typical score would be in the high 70's to high 80's (no 3 pt. shots back then) games with Minny were 44-41. They played extremely slow and there was no shot clock. I believe this was also RMK's first year, which ushered in much more tenacious defense. OSU had Witte and Alan Hornacek, an All-Big Ten shooting guard. Witte was known as a scrapper who liked to swing his sharp elbows alot (you could do that back then). It was also a time when there was a lot of racial tension on some campuses, particularly at Illinois where Coach Harv Schmidt faced a player strike and held student tryouts to fill out a squad for a game in mid-season and at Michigan State where Coach Gus Ganakas faced a similar situation. I wasn't at the game but saw film the next night on the news. I always thought thereafter that Taylor, Turner, Behagen and Winfield were just thugs from the 'hood and was flabbergasted that Winfield was never punished and indeed, was held up as a sort of role model in MLB. It was a bad year for the Big Ten.
 
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PU 89-54 vs Rutgers tonight with PU making 50 %...14/28 3 pt shots. In other words, it doesn't look good for us, come Saturday at 2 pm EST.

I saw that score this AM, quite the beat down. I am only familiar with Edwards and Haarms plus Cline due to his problems, Edwards is a stud and I think Green needs to wear him to try to keep that under 25.

I don't know Easter but his Mom was talking trash about him dominating Romeo so I suspect that is the assignment. Romeo is very very...very good at drawing fouls so they will have to rotate assuming the whistle is fair Sat.
 
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