That’s alright, I didn’t want to go to the NIT anyway.

Okay, everyone back to your seats, no need to rush the court

In the same way that many were too quick to point to wins over Illinois and Minnesota as proof that IU has “turned the corner,” losses at home to Northwestern and Iowa, while disappointing, are not necessarily the harbingers of doom they are made out to be.  A lot has played into IU’s poor record this year, some of it concerns me for the future, some of it does not. In this blog post, I’ll try to sort out whether to be concerned or not concerned.

Inconsistent Defense: Definately concerned Irregardless of the talent on the court, it is imperative that IU put forth a better defensive effort.  For IU to have an entire week to prepare for Northwestern, and then play defense like they hadn’t seen the Northwestern offense before was disconcerting to say the least. I don’t doubt that IU will see an influx of more talented players in the next few years, but defending doesn’t require talent.  And the concern that even more talented teams will fall short due to lack of defense is a legitimate worry.

Passive attitude: Concerned- I’ve often thought that the reason the offense goes through Verdell Jones III so much, whether it should or not, is because he’s the only one who has shown any desire to be aggressive. While his determination is often a negative, because his skills don’t match up, it’s a concern that the more talented players like Christian Watford and Jordan Hulls don’t possess the same quality.  There’s obviously a balance that needs to be reached. Sometimes judgement is the better of valor, but I’d like to see Hulls in particular adopt more of a “screw you, I’m scoring on this possession no matter what” attitude.  In the last 4 games, Hulls has gone from taking 17 shots against Iowa to 9 shots against Michigan and Northwestern. Despite not missing a free throw since the Kentucky game, he’s only gotten to the line for more than 4 attempts once.  Defensively, there’s a similar timid mindset at times. The  revelation that Will Sheehey was the only one who wanted a specific defensive assignment on Saturday, says a lot about the more experienced players. I think this is what Crean is talking about in terms of accountability. No one on the team seems to want to be the guy everyone else is counting on, at least not for more than a stretch here or there.   How much of that is Crean’s responsibility versus how much is the player’s responsibility? I can’t answer but I think both have some blame. More important to future seasons, is this a trait that can be developed from the current group? Even as talented freshmen come in, there needs to be a culture in which all players are comfortable holding each other and themselves accountable.  Whether dictated by the coach, or dictated by each player to one another, this culture is something that has to change.

The incomprehensible substitution pattern(aka why the hell is Daniel Moore in the game?!); Concerned, but slightly less so; In conference play, Moore is only averaging 4.5 minutes per game. He’s broken into double digit minutes twice, once against Michigan when Jeremiah Rivers had 4 fouls in the first half, and once against Minnesota when Watford was out, Jones was still limited to fewer minutes, and he still played the fewest of anyone in the game.  As for why players play well for a few minutes then get subbed out for seemingly decade long stretches, I have no answer for that. Other than this is a question almost every coach gets asked. Well every coach except for Thad Matta, who apparantly doesn’t believe in bringing substitutes.  There are so many factors to consider that the public has little or zero knowledge on,  that I’m inclined to give a coach some benefit of the doubt. But whatever the reasons, it’s important that Crean find more than one or two combinations where the players are all clicking. If he can’t do that, then any substitution pattern is going to fail. 

The inability to close out games/win close games: Not concerned-

Since pitchers and catcher’s have just reported, we’re three months from my favorite time of year, the annual “This team is 10-0 in one run games, the manager’s a genius who instills in his team a will to win.” declaration by the media. This will be followed of course by the team going 0-10 in it’s next 10 one run games, where the media will ask what happened to the team, and if the manager wants it bad enough.  I looked at Tom Crean’s record in games decided by 5 points or fewer. Since he came to Indiana he’s 5-12, including 2-4 this year. Is this because he’s a poor in game coach, who is consistently getting out strategized at the end of games? Most likely not, coming into this season, Crean was 44-42.  For comparison’s sake, I looked at Thad Matta(who has one fewer year coaching,) and Bruce Weber(who has one more year

Can any metric that Bruce Weber performs well in be a reliable metric? I say no.

coaching.) Matta was 31-29 coming into this season and is 35-30 as of today, Weber was 49-40 coming into this year and is 52-45 counting this year’s results.  Is Bruce Weber really a great late game strategist? Or is the average of a .500 record going to eventually bring him back to the rest of the pack.  Crean’s gone 5-12 in close games while at IU, but he’s gone 28-61 overall. I think the overall record drives the close game record, more than the close game record drives the overall.

Overall, there are still a number of reasons to be optimistic. IU will gain talent, and gain experience over the course of the next few years.  I don’t think anyone was wrong for looking at IU’s talent this year and believing an NIT berth was attainable. While this season has fallen short of those expectations, that’s how it works. Some seasons the Hoosiers will outperform expectations, while other seasons they’ll underperform expectations.  It’s far too early to tell if this year’s disappointment was simply because they weren’t lucky, or because they weren’t any good. It’s also far too early to tell if IU will ever be good again.

* I used SportsReference.com and Statsheet.com for my research.