You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast, Galen Clavio, Scott Caulfield joining you. It is Tuesday, November 21st. It's Thanksgiving week. Scott and I are both back from the Big Apple. We witnessed Indiana do what everybody thought they would do, which was go one and one in the Empire Classic. Not a lot else to talk about, so we'll just leave it here. No, but talk to you guys next time.
Yeah, absolutely. Might be best for all of us at this point. No, we have to talk about what we witnessed out there at the Garden, as Indiana did not really perform well in the first game and did not really perform well in the second game. But at the end of the day, the results were what most people thought they were going to be, which was that Indiana would lose the first game and win the
second. We'll talk about how they got there and we'll talk about where this team's at, 'cause this is already an exhausting season and we're only five games in. And that's. Yeah. Anyway, before we get to that, just a reminder, we are brought to you by home Field Apparel. As you heard in the opening bumper, we spent a wonderful morning on Sunday morning at the home field party. They hosted something at the Storehouse in New York City. It was a great event.
It was packed. Two of the the highest selling fan bases for home field apparel, Indiana and UConn were there. There were a few Texas people there. There were some crisis actors that were hired to play Louisville fans that were there and and it was a great time. It was awesome.
We enjoyed it. Connor and the crew put on a great party so our thanks to them hopefully if you were out there you got a chance to go. We got a chance to see a bunch of people some of whom we saw at other events like in Vegas last year, some of whom we hadn't met in person yet.
A lot of people came up and we're very complimentary of the show and and we're complimentary of you folks who really appreciate you listening and we also appreciate you going to the event and helping to support home field apparel and but if you haven't shopped there yet, you know normally we give you the 15% off code. If you haven't shopped there yet, Scott, we don't have to do that this week because it's Black Friday time and you can use the Black Friday code to buy
stuff for 20% off. What a deal. It's amazing. They do this every year. It's incredibly generous. So dive in. Use the code Black Friday, all one word. Get 20% off whatever you're looking for at the home field apparel store. I don't know how many Bomber Jackets we saw in the last couple of days, Scott, but there were a lot of them for for all kinds of teams. It was delightful to see. Go get yourself one of those.
Go get somebody in your family something that you think they'll love or that you love and and want them to wear. That's always my favorite move on these things. I I don't care what you want, Scott. I want. Well, not you specifically, but like, if I was, if I did feel that way about you, will you? Yeah. Yes, exactly. I would. I would buy you what I wanted you to wear. So go to homefieldapparel.com. Black Friday is the code 20% off.
Check them out right now. Well, I'm really losing my power on the podcast. Like now. Now you're making me dressed a certain way. It's like, this is getting weird. I have a They had a nice little run of. I mean, it's not hidden, but it's like they release stuff so often I didn't even notice. They had a great Cardiac Colts collection from the 95 Colts. So I have that sweatshirt coming. I think it's coming tomorrow, so I'm excited for that. So go check out.
Home field was awesome. The event was awesome. Great to see Connor and I echo what you said. People came up to us at that event. I had a couple people at Madison Square. For a garden, I'm I know I'm loud and I guess my voice is distinctive. People like, hey Scott, like, hey, love the podcast and it's. I appreciate all of it. It was funny. I sat down for the games and Alvin was the gentleman sitting next to me and he like within a second he's like, you're Scott from the podcast.
All right, well, you're you're about to get the, the full, the full thought. And what's funny is not to give away secrets here, but he's like, oh, this is going to be fun. And I'm like actually, like, I know that on the podcast, you know, Galen is kind of reserved and very, you know, specific about what he talks about. I'm a little more off the handle. I would say that we are reversed at the game. Like, you are a little more bombastic than I am.
And so it was kind of like an interesting, like, no, it's actually like, you know, Galen is more like me during a game and more like I'm more like, no, I think that's fair There There are demons within me that come out at games. If anybody that's been with me at a football game absolutely knows that. But on the podcast? Yes, I I I essentially kind of lobotomized myself for however long we record and then I'm back to my normal self afterwards.
So yeah, but Alvin mentioned that it it is this happens for me with you sometimes that he listens to our podcast like 1 1/4 speed, which I do as well, like 1.21.3 sometimes. And it's funny, like, I'll be listening to like one of your preview pods. And then I'll call you for something. It's like, man, is Galen's talking really sluts? Oh no, It's because that's just normal pains. I've been listening to Speed Up
Galen for a while. I have no clue how you people listen to podcasts at anything other than 1113 is good. Once you get to 1/5, it's like doing cocaine. Like it's like your brain is scrambled. I've tried. I can't do it. I've, I I have to listen to it at normal speed. I'm sorry. So anyway, all right, let's talk about the basketball games. So we're going to focus, well, I guess we got to focus on a little bit of everything. I mean, look, you all saw the Yukon game.
I think there's there's an interesting portal into a different dimension when you know where there's there's that play at the end of the. There was a sequence there in the Yukon game. Indiana had kind of chopped the lead back down just slightly and it was, it was I think 50 to 43. And Indiana there was a there was either a turnover or a
missed shot. Xavier Johnson gets the ball and he has an outlet and it looks like he's about to throw it and he gets his pocket pick from behind and then UConn scores as a foul on Malik Renew. And basically from that point the game completely went off the rails. Now I don't think Indiana is actually pulling that game out down the stretch, but you know, I it was interesting because when you go back and look at that UConn game, UConn was
clearly the better team. But Indiana did do a few things in that game for about 25 to 30 minutes where you're like, you know, I I can, I can dig this. Malik Renew had a tremendous game. You know, Khalil Ware, even though he wasn't shooting the ball well, was getting to the free throw line. He was rebounding the basketball. You know, you you got a fairly decent game out of Trey Galloway, at least from a
scoring perspective. You didn't get a lot out of anybody else, which then we'll get to that in a second. But you know what was a little disturbing, I think about that game was that after efforting, at least a decent amount for about 2530 minutes, Indiana just completely looked like they gave up at that point when things started to not go their way and it went completely off the rails. And and it was, that was really a tough game to sit there and
watch. And you know, we, we were both in Vegas last year watching Indiana lose to Arizona and that game, you know, certainly felt like Indiana just got obliterated. And then you go back and you look and you're like actually Indiana only lost that game by 14. And and it wasn't nearly as bad actually, once Indiana kind of pulled it back in the second-half as it as the Yukon game was, they just gave up at the end of the Yukon game effort wise.
Then you go into the Louisville game and I'm doing these as a pair, Scott, in the Louisville game, Indiana was like an accordion. Like there were moments where they were giving good effort, they were playing well. They they look like they had some flow on offense. They look like they knew what they were doing defensively and then you could go to the next possession, the next half
possession. And Indiana looked like they had no clue what they were doing, had no idea what they were supposed to be doing, had no idea how to defend, had no idea how to pass. And they finally, luckily ended on a streak where they did know what they were doing. The accordion, I guess, compressed at that point. And they were like, Oh yeah, we actually are the better team
here. But that combination in concert with what we've seen already up to this point of the year, I think really highlights to me there's two major problems with this team. You know, one of them is kind of a micro problem, which is that individual players are so inconsistent in what they're doing and how they're doing it. And there's almost nobody that you can point to on this team and say that guy is going to play well for 40 minutes in any
given game. So that's that and that's that's a big micro problem, but it's really like a bunch of individual problems that happen to be in the same pack. The the The larger problem, though, is Indiana looks so rigid in everything that they do like their players, just fundamentally after watching them up close for for really the last three games, because I've been to the last three, when things are going great, players do generally seem to have an idea of what they're supposed to do.
And the moment things tilt slightly off axis, this team looks like it has zero clue how to adapt. They have zero clue how to deal with adversity, adversity. They have zero clue how to handle it when a player they're expecting to be there isn't there or or isn't having a good game. Both of those are really big concerns Scott, but and you know I think you can maybe fix the
individual issues. I I think that, you know, we've even seen a little bit of that and we'll talk about some of the individual players as we go down the stretch here. But man, that macro issue, this team looks like a 0 Unity, 0 cohesion that you know, they are reliant on individual guys getting hot and doing things. They look nothing like A-Team at this point. And it's still early. I mean, we've still got quite, you know, there's 1/6 of the
season essentially is over. But man, to be at this point and not look like you really know what you're doing as a unit, you know, all the people that I've talked to you and I have talked about it like that's where the alarm bells are going off for me. I don't know how fixable that's going to be down the stretch. Yeah, I mean I came away with with with kind of SO2 high level thoughts as well.
I think the Correlator between the Yukon and the Arizona game from the from the year before is is apartment here's, you know last year. What we were kind of fighting all year was who was going to be our third scores? Like you knew Trace, Jackson, Davis, you Jalen Hood, Chaffino. And then it was like, you know, once Xavier went down, it's like, who's going to be that third score? And it was like it was race some nights, but it wasn't race some nights, you Miller, Cobb and like that.
That was always what it felt like last year's team was missing was who's that third person going to be? I felt that a lot during the Connecticut game. Although the trouble is like the 2 scores. With last year like Trace, Jackson, Davis, just you were going to get what you were going to, You could guarantee on him giving you a 100 plus offensive rating game with, you know, 22 points and eight rebounds or whatever. That was a rock solid foundation.
And you Jalen Hood. Chaffino, even on his bad games is going to be good. It's like that game against Connecticut. You had Khalil Ware. You had Malik Renew. That's kind of all you had going. You know Xavier got into foul trouble but like that is you know, you know an ability is availability. Like he gets into foul trouble unfortunately a lot. And then you saw it similarly in the Louisville game it's like you have two players. This is my my one fear for this team is we saw it last year.
You need three guys to kind of get things going. I'm not sure I can trust any of our guys right now to be the two to get going. Like when you look at Xavier Johnson this year, you know he's. He had foul trouble like his, you know, outside of Florida, Gulf Coast, he's had three thousand against Army 3000 against Wright State, four against Connecticut, did a little better, two against Louisville. But like he's getting into some foul trouble.
You look at, you know, Khalil Ware he's looked really good but got into foul trouble against Louisville and he had a pretty good game against Connecticut, but didn't shoot, didn't get any two point field goals like 2 threes and then all from the free throw line. That's not enough to be like that's the one guy I'm going to get. And then Malik renew, I'm with you. We had a. Great game against Connecticut.
Also had a good game against Louisville, but also he fouled out of the game against Connecticut and got into four fouls against Louisville. And while his fouling is not as bad as it was last year based on positioning, you know that is one of those things that you look back at. You know his fouling now is because he's one of the primary
players on offense and defense. And that's looking back like that was a skill that Trace Jackson Davis had where it's like, hey, I can shoulder 90% of the load. And then also not get into foul trouble. That the other thing I will say the other high level point is, you know, I was talking to a couple people about this. You don't need to hit a bunch of threes to win games, but then you have to be doing other things at a very high level And to leave New York. This team in two games goes 4
from 24 for three from three. That's 16%. They played OK defense against the two teams from three that they played. You know Louisville and and Yukon combined went 12 from 4112 for 41. But the the staff that scare me there is not only that we shot 16% but that other teams playing modern basketball are shooting 41 threes in two games. For us to only take 24 is not ideal. To only hit 4 is really, like,
unbelievably trouble. Well, OK, I'm going to start with that, but there's a much larger point. I want to get to that. She goes back to your Trace Jackson Davis point. So on the three-point thing, look, they hit 1/3 in that Louisville game and it. I went back and watched the game when I got home today and some of that was bad luck. Mackenzie and Bako had some good looks. They were good shots. He didn't hit the shots. That's going to happen.
What's concerning is that everybody isn't hitting the shots from three. And yes, they're not taking as many, but this is where I push back on. You know, as much as I don't like the fact that Indiana isn't taking more threes, it's because Indiana does not look like a team that is capable of hitting those threes. And at this point, and and look, there's a whole separate conversation to be had about why Indiana has a roster that can't hit the threes. And it actually ties into the
point that I'm about to make. But realistically speaking, just firing threes for the purpose of firing threes when you can't hit the threes, when your guys are either not physically capable of hitting the threes or mentally capable of thinking they're going to hit the shots, would be truly stupid. Like Louisville last night, You know, this is the thing that, you know, I would love it if Indiana would would have offense that would be able to be run for shots.
Nobody's proven that. They're able to hit the shots right now and that's a separate thing. That's a roster building thing. But this team right now is shooting 23.4% from the three-point line on the season under under 25%. Scott, it's 300 and 42nd in the nation. They shouldn't be shooting. Threes, so far, they shouldn't be shooting threes, but you know that's because they don't have the players on the roster who are capable of hitting the threes.
And I think Mike Woodson has had to just say internally, I have to design an offense around the fact that I have a roster full of people that I created, Not me, but Mike Woodson, I created this roster. I'm to blame for that. But I got to essentially make chicken salad out of this because there's not a lot that you can do at this point. It's it's November 21st, like you can't go back into the
portal and get a guard. You can't go back into the the recruiting process and get a A you know the rules are. Weird. Now, I don't know. But you know, that's a great point. You know, you, you know now and I know there's people who have been like, well, see, they should have gotten more guards. Here's where I think that I'll push back on that. And this is where I have a little bit of sympathy for Mike Woodson through the first five games.
To me, a lot of attention has been paid to Mackenzie Mbako, and I get it. And he has been at times an absolute zero on defense. He has been at times just not there. Offensively, his offensive rating is 89. I get it. But where I think most of the blame lies right now, in the way that this team is not performing both from the perimeter and overall, is in the 10 years of experience that Indiana is supposed to have at the two guard positions.
That is frankly not showing up from the beginning of the season. Xavier Johnson and Trey. And this is nothing personal with these guys. But these two, who are among the most experienced players that you have in the Big 10 at their positions, have simply not performed at anywhere close to a level that you would need to have in a season where you're trying to replace the rock of Trace Jackson Davis, who you could rely on consistently to
perform offensively. You know Xavier Johnson, I don't know if he's injured and he I think he may still be like having some residual issues from the ankle. If if it. I hope to some degree that that is the case because if not he is just simply not been adequate. He is complaining constantly on the floor. He is not really doing what needs to be done offensively. He's throwing a lot of, you know he's throwing passes where they shouldn't be, whether it's out of bounds or to the wrong
players. He's not driving effectively. His defense has really been pretty subpar. I think he's had good moments, but he's had a lot more bad moments, a lot more bad moments than you would expect from a guy with his level of experience. Trey Galloway is barely at a point per possession in offensive rating. Trey Galloway is shooting 3 for 14 from the three-point line this season, a season after he shot 46% from the three-point
line. You know, this is where this entire House of Cards that Indiana constructed around this roster appeared to be, if I've deduced this properly after the first five games was that we have two singular talents at the four and the five in Malik Renew and Khalil Ware and those guys. I mean Malik Renew. Honestly, I don't think he's getting the plaudits that he deserves, not just for his scoring. I mean he's he's shooting 68% from the field. That's that's tremendous.
Or 68% from 2. He's actually shooting slightly less than that 'cause he's missed some 3 pointers. He is 100 and 89th in the country. And assist rate, he's got an assist rate of almost 27%. You know, he has been essentially the IT was amazing just going in the post and like just making plays.
He was unbelievable. He's essentially had to be the point guard playing at the four because the guards that are supposed to be doing that, the experienced people who are supposed to be running the offense, have not been capable of running it the way that it needs to be run. And then defensively, he's getting a lot of times hung out to dry because those same guards aren't stopping penetration, and he's having to defend two people at once.
Khalil Ware is still kind of learning how to play in this system. That said, he's one of the more efficient players that you're seeing in the country right now in terms of usage. He's actually rebounding at a really high level. You know, defensively, offense is a different story. We'll talk about that in a minute. He's not turning the ball over. Like, I don't know what else those guys are supposed to do.
And the Just as I looked at it over the course of the last 120 minutes of basketball, I'm just stupefied. That have all of the things on this roster that aren't working. The two people who are the most experienced who should be carrying the load have just not been able to do so. And then you got to throw in. CJ Gunn has not performed. CJ Gunn is on the season seven for 17 from 2 and O for four from three. He is now 2 for 28 from three.
In his career at IU his offensive rating is 67.7 which that's real bad Scott like that's that's you. That's almost unplayable. You know Gabe Cups I feel bad for Gabe Cups has had to play a lot.
Gabe Cups is not capable of of contributing right now as an as a guard from an offensive perspective and he's really starting to get found out on defense as we saw in the two games in New York City. So you know when I when I think about the problems that are present with this team, I think about a lot of the micro issues and we've talked about some of
them. But the big issue is this team isn't going to run unless the the senior guards can go out there, give 30 plus minutes a game, play well on both ends of the floor, set the tempo, hit shots and put people in the right position. And frankly, until that happens, or unless that happens, I don't know what the path is for Indiana this season and and for the people who are like you needed to get another guard in the portal.
That would have been nice. But if honestly, you could have gotten another guard in the portal, and if Johnson and Galloway, who you were counting on to be your primary people, were performing at this level, it wouldn't matter who the other guard was in the portal. You would still have, I think, a lot of the same issues. Yeah, I mean, Trey Galloway played 32 minutes. Against Louisville and had a 30 offensive rating. He didn't.
He didn't. Score until like the eight the 9 minute mark of the game and it was on a it was on a tip steel like Dr. Layup off of a block that Caleb Banks got. I mean yeah. Go on. Sorry. No. No. Yeah. And I mean I'll say this like I I feel bad. This is always my joke in the in the offseason it's always like man we have too much depth. We're going to How are we going to find time for these guys? Like it always? It always turns into where we're at now.
But I I feel bad for, like, you know, for for CJ Gunn in this respect that he's being thrown in, Like, if I would have told you, you know, 2 1/2 months ago, it's like, hey, we play Connecticut. CJ Gunn's playing 20 minutes. You'd be like, what happened? Did the team get arrested, like in New York? Like, like he's being put into a position where he's having to play more than he should. And then, you know, Caleb Banks played really well against Louisville. But this is where I do feel
uncomfortable. It's like. He played 25 minutes against Louisville last season. He only played more than 10 minutes five times and he had more. Did not plays than more than 10 minute a games. Playing like you, you can't expect to get 25 minutes and 130 offensive rating out of Caleb Banks. Every game, maybe, but like every game moving forward. And this is, this is the. I mean, when I left those games, it's just like.
Kind of exactly what you were saying is like when one thing goes wrong, whether it's Xavier having a bad game or getting in foul trouble or Mackenzie and Baku, you know, not playing defense well or getting in foul trouble or even, you know any of the starting five getting in foul trouble. It it becomes a very tenuous bench very quickly. And it's just a lot of people that like I'm not even sure who I can trust on the starting line up.
And then you get to the bench and it's like then you're getting a lot of minutes of CJ gun and you look at. You know Woodson and it's like, you know guns not shooting well. But I don't. Where else could you go? Like at that point, it's like Xavier is in foul trouble. Like who else are you going to put in Like it got real thin real quick. I will say I I'm not as
sympathetic towards gun. I mean gun gun was gun averaged 23 points a game for a pretty good high school program in Indianapolis or like Lawrence whatever, you know he's the all time leader in Lawrence N history and points per game average. He was a, you know, I I don't know I don't like a super heralded recruit but he was at least a recruit that people thought was going to come in.
We've got people, you know, constantly saying CJ Gunn's just like one shot away from really getting it going and meanwhile and again, open. Shots in New York they were not even close He and and this is it's it's not that he's not capable of hitting all the time but he'll hit a shot. There was a nice in that second-half there was like a nice curl off of a baseline out of bounds play that he hit a shot off of. Nice looking shot. Had the same shot a minute later.
Bricked it. And you know what worries me about Dunn is, you know, if if he's not capable of contributing, then he's not capable of contributing. But I think a lot of the calculus of the season was this is a guy who's going to take a leap in the offseason. You know, you could make the argument OK well, last year he didn't have, you know, a clear pathway because Tamar Bates was
clearly in front of him. You know Jalen Hitchafino, you know you had obviously Miller Cop had to get minutes and and was a key player out there. Trey Galloway was getting a lot more minutes and was a lot more efficient offensively. And the fact that was we talked about with the lead guards you've got a problem. But then that the fact that gun I would argue is actually taking a little bit of a step back. I mean you know for the season last year Gun's offensive rating
was really bad. It was 78.8. And you know, for those of you who don't understand offensive rating, if you're at 100 you are averaging a point scored per possession used. Which isn't. I mean, that's really kind of if you're not at that minimum, you're not doing particularly well. Trace Jackson Davis for comparison, last year was scoring on about about 1.2 points per possession that he used. Which is really, really good for
gun. To go from a 78.8 offensive rating to a 67 percent offensive rating is real bad. Gunn last year from two, shot 48 percent, 15 of 31. So far this year, he's shooting 41% from 2, seven of 17. Now, does that mean that CJ Gunn's not going to figure it out this year? Of course not. But he hasn't figured it out yet when he's gotten a significantly larger amount of minutes. He's played about three times as many minutes so far through this season than he played last year.
And I'm just not seeing the signs here, Scott. I mean, it is, it is really starting to to concern me. And when you plug that into the much larger issue of the fact that Indiana's just not getting consistent guard play and gun, from what we've seen out of him is not a guy that can initiate offense. He's a guy who is supposed to be on the receiving end of the initiation. I I, you know, if he can't hit shots, that's a real, real
concern and yeah, go ahead. No, no I was, I mean the the the other thing too is you know you're you're take we are taking a lot out of these two games. But the the issue is it's all we have to go with. But you had three games against very subpar teams to start the season and they really underperformed in all three of those games where it's like man that they don't look great, you know against these teams and it
wins better than a loss. But it would have been nice to have one of those games where it felt like you had it under control and you never did. And then you come here and you play 2 high level opponents and you you. Get, you know, wiped off the court basically by one of the, you know, top 15 teams in the country and then a team that Louisville, I mean, we'll see what they do, but they're ranked 100. I mean, they're they're ranked right in the area of Wright State right now.
They're right below Harvard, who Indiana plays next. But but they had trouble, you know, kind of closing out Louisville and they had to really, you know, do some odd things to get there. And you know, you're you're right about the shooting the three. I'm not saying Indiana needs to shoot more threes.
I'm just. The the the trouble is you know the the question always was you know is is is this offense built around chase tracks and Davis you know or is it because of the personnel you have and definitely looks like we have another season we don't have the personnel to shoot threes. That the the trouble is you know most of the game is going to people shooting threes. So it's like a lot of.
Whether you can have a really efficient offense or not, like if a team gets hot from 3:00 and you're not a three-point shooting team, you're kind of screwed. Like it's just that you're not going to win that game in today's basketball. But what allowed IU to get away with the last two years is you had just an unbelievably efficient player in the post and right now it just doesn't look like we have those efficient players or the ability to get them the ball. We're not rebounding at a good
clip. Like if you're not going to shoot threes or you're going to shoot 10 or 11 a game and make two or three. You've got to be way above average in like rebounding or efficiency or steals or Turner's. You have to do something better or. And that's what really worries me is that I don't see where we have that one guy who's just going to crush it or the one thing we're really good at. We seem to be kind of average everywhere else. And then we don't shoot shoot threes well.
And it's like that's a really bad recipe. Well, look, there are some things Indiana does well. I mean, they they do shoot twos really well. They're they're shooting 58 1/2 percent from 2:00 so far this season. That's good. They're getting to the free throw line, the second most of any team in the country. That's good. I mean, they're getting to the free throw line on 59% of their field goal attempts. That's nuts. Like the amount of fouls this team draws is is really way up
there now. They're not. They're, I don't think they're converting at a high enough average to really make that worth it, you know, and that's something that we hope will improve. They did look like they were shooting fruit throws better in New York City so maybe that will carry back over to Assembly Hall. But look I get what you're saying and I think there's two separate issues. I don't know that the style of play is being. I don't think that the. I don't think that the style of
play is a a choice. I think the style of play is being dictated by the personnel. Agreed and and that's a separate issue. But again, it's like you know the the problem. And then it sounds like I'm just like defending Woodson Here. I look, Woodson should have done better. But when you've got players who are supposed to be able to shoot from deep, supposed to be initiating the offense, supposed to be able to drive and set people up, supposed to be able to enforce spacing and they're
not. I don't know, like I'm not sure what you do at that point. As a coach. You could say, well yes let's go get people out of the portal. But you're not bringing starters in for the one or the two because your your starters were the guys that were coming back from last year, you know. So what are you what are you sweetening the pot with? Are you saying, well, no, sorry, five star guy that we got from Duke.
We're not going to play you because we're going to get this, you know, three star or sub three star guy who is a, you know, A6465 guy. We're going to play him instead. That's probably not going to happen either. So it this is like the worst case scenario for what could have happened with this roster set up. Woodson still deserves the blame and and the coaching staff I think should have been able to figure something out whether
it's pushing the pace. They've actually pushed the pace a lot more than they did last year. But turning into it just a complete run and gun team, you know, doing something different with the way that they're handling their sets. I mean, those things should all be on the table and maybe they'll evolve that way.
I think what they're trying to do right now is say, all right, here's the cards we know we have, we know we have Malik Renew, we know we have Khalil Ware who's good about 6570% of the time, we're hoping that we can coax Mackenzie and Baco to a point where he can start hitting threes. I mean, that was the thing I I was actually kind of heartened by the fact that Mackenzie and Baco, after almost, you know, fouling out at the beginning of the game, came in and took some
threes. He they did that against Wright State. It didn't work out quite as well, but I think most people, if you recall, were like, wow, that was actually pretty good. Mackenzie and Baco game in that he was involved offensively. He scored 13 points in that game, and it's just like he went entirely backwards against UConn. The fact that he came back in that Louisville game and in the limited amount of time at least tried to take some shots, I thought was actually a good
thing. I don't think that you can just relegate that guy to the bench because again, the folks that are saying run three guards, who and what are you going to get out of them if what you're getting out of your guards right now is demonstrably worse? I mean for as much as people have said start CJ Gunn instead of Mackenzie and Bako.
I would just point to the statistics sheet and say please justify your your thought process here and at this point Mbacco's five games into his college career. Gun is a season and five games into his college career.
I I'd love it if gun and is. Again I'm not trying to overly criticize gun but it's like I don't know what the justification is for playing him right now because he's not performing when he's been out there and you got a better chance of jump starting Mbacco I think then you have of letting guns shoot out of whatever issues he's having.
But then all the the here's the other issue though this is just I I just I didn't want this to turn into just a big complaint fest Scott. But I think it's interesting kind of working through this and just talking through it with you. You know there just needs to be more consistency people have to be able to come in and do roles.
I was. I was really, really excited with what we saw out of Caleb Banks in this game against Louisville, yo. Had a an offensive rating of 130, you know, grabbed 8 rebounds, had three blocks, had three assists, had three steals. Indiana doesn't win against Louisville without Caleb Banks, but that's the first time we've seen Caleb Banks have that kind of a game, maybe in an Indiana uniform. I mean, you might go back to the Ohio State game at home last year, but that was not really
that close of a game. Like, he was really needed in this game and he stepped up. Anthony Walker, you know, he was another guy. If Indiana doesn't get what they got out of him in the Louisville game, they don't win the game. He, you know, scores 11 points, grabs 7 rebounds, hits 5 for five from the free throw line, you know, plays 20 minutes. That's the first time we've really seen Anthony Walker look like a guy that you could keep on the floor for a long period
of time. Are those signs of things to come or were those just blips on the radar? I guess what worries me is it feels like the evidence is like, no, those were going to be blips on the radar. And I hope we're there. I hope we're that that's not the case. I hope that this is actually something that jump starts some consistency out of those guys because it looks like Indiana's going to need it.
But right now, all we've got is that one game out of those two guys, and it came against the Louisville team that frankly isn't the greatest from a defensive perspective. The other person I want to highlight, talk about everybody, every person I want to highlight is Peyton Sparks because I think his his game against UConn. The stat sheet doesn't look great, but I I thought he played really well for what he was asked to do in EU Conn game. And then his stat sheet again
doesn't look. I don't think his stats are ever going to look awesome, but he's a guy who comes in and does exactly what he needs. He's he's very physical. He's like a rock down there. He he put some bodies on people and his numbers against Louisville, I mean 4459 points. He he did exactly what he needs, I thought. He was good in both of the games.
I hear what you're saying. You know, my hope is that between the three of them, because you look at Walker's, you know, numbers for Miami last year and he only had, you know, one game where he had double figure points and that was against Saint Francis, the 336 team in the country. You know, some of that is based on that was a pretty loaded Miami team and he wasn't getting a ton of minutes.
But you know, my hope is it's like he has a little more experience and a lot of the guys we're talking about, my hope would be between Sparks, Walker and Banks of that three headed monster. One of those guys is going to have a game where he plays well and then you can kind of lean on him during that game. I I feel like of those three,
honestly. Feels like Peyton Sparks is the most consistent of what he's going to bring you is that you can put him in for 1520 minutes a game or 15 minutes a game, I should say. And he's going to not. And he's going to play physical without fouling and give you some points and and give you some good defense. And so you know, you hope between Walker and and Banks is one of them can have a little bit of that offensive outburst
that that you need. But again, it's like now we're back into that same and we have that same problem last year where it's like who's going to be to step up and like some games no one does and some games like, you know, 80% here and five. Percent there. And it's like, and that was all based on two guy, you know and even Jalen Hood Schaffino, you go back and look at like he was inconsistent. Also last year he was really good, but he also had some inconsistencies.
Tracy is the only one who was a rock. So it's like we're back to this, like trying to find even who's our number two guy. Yeah, well, look, you're going to get inconsistent performances out of young players. And that's just how it is. And this is, I guess, where my concern is really with the guards, because you have to get consistent performances out of those guys.
There's no reason for there not to be consistent performances out of people with the veteran presence that both of them have that they've seen so much, they've been on these teams. And again, I'm not saying that it's not going to happen. I'm saying it hasn't happened yet.
And I think that's the the, the root cause of a lot of the issues that we're seeing this team and I. And I guess that maybe is why I'm not like, I'm not so panicked about the season that I'm like, well, gosh, this is it like the there. It's hopeless.
As as we did talk to a few people who felt that way out in New York. But I do worry right now, you know, as I go back to my original comments, unless, unless Johnson and Galloway can between themselves get a handle on this team and say here's how we're going to play and we're going to be the ones that are leading it. We're the ones that are enforcing what's going on offensively and defensively. We're going to set the temp, but we're going to have good games more often than not.
We're going to keep our cool. We're not going to complain to the referees constantly. You know, we're going to take shots when we have openings, not just stand there timidly at the three-point line. Not sure what to do. And in in telling, unless that happens, the idea that Malik Renew and Khalil Ware are going to somehow be able to lead this team to success from the baseline doesn't seem really plausible to me. And, you know, last year's team
was kind of wonky. I mean, you know, some people didn't like it. You know, they they, they liked some of the results. But I think a lot of people were a bit dissatisfied with just how it felt on a night in, night out basis and there were a lot of games where they just kind of felt a little junky offensively. And I, you know, I get that. But last year's team, there was some cohesion even even when Xavier Johnson went out where you felt like there was a plan
that was being executed. And, you know, Jalen Hoochafino developed so well down the stretch that it really helped to make it work. And you know, if most people, if you remember that swoon that happened at the very beginning of Big 10 play, that's about the closest I can come to thinking about a period of time that reminds me of what Indiana's
going through right now. That period right after Johnson gets injured at Kansas and before Jalen Hitchafina would really kind of got in his head wrapped around the idea that he was going to have to be the leader. And frankly, before you know, Trey Galloway really got his head wrapped around the fact that he was going to have to be an every night performer. You know, IU look like they were going to struggle that whole season and then they figured it
out and turned it around. That's the one thing that I guess I'm positive about is that if that that light can go off, there's no reason why this can't turn into a successful or reasonably successful season. This this team clearly, you know, as much as we talked about ceilings, this team has a lower ceiling than we thought and that's fine.
OK. You know, it's unfortunate, but that's that's the way it is. But if the guards don't figure it out, the ceilings going to get significantly lower and that I think is probably what we should be worried about at this stage. And then that's what I'll be watching as we move. Forward. No, I think those are all fair points. I think your points on on Xavier Johnson are valid. I mean it's as as a six year senior like you need him to lead
this team, have a clear head. One of those fouls against Connecticut was just totally bunk. That got him, you know, got him his third foul and put him on the bench. But. It's like, you know, what's interesting is like he, he also needs to be the one to kind of step up and be like, look, he should be probably of of all the people, he should be shooting more threes. He's shooting 50% this year.
He's been, you know 3837%, you know to be the third leading, you know, #3 on taking threes like that needs to change immediately like either in Baco or Gallo and you start hitting him for me to stop taking them because they're they're a combined what, 4 for like 27 from three. You know. So Xavier needs to either step that up or do more of it. But no, I agree. You know, you look at Johnson, you look at Galloway like as
your leaders. I don't think anybody was expecting, you know kind of as much kind of you know uneven play out of them. But you know, I, I, I'm on the positive side. Khalil Ware is really good. We just got to find other ways to get him the ball. But honestly too he he can pop out and probably shoot a little bit more like he's some. You know, this is where Woodson kind of has to have almost ear blinders on.
Some people like when I'm talking about not shooting threes like hey clear and Xavier's not for you guys. Like you guys can pop because there's a couple couple shots in that Louisville game where Ware was open and kind of hesitated and passed off. Like, no man, you can shoot and it's only three for seven but 42% for the year, like he can
shoot those. We've got to find more unique ways to get him the ball so I'm I'm you know I I love this I love this low post kind of off you know we've become like you know Penn State was like linebacker you like we've become like you know big man you it feels like we're really developing big guys your points about we just need some some guards to to get the ball to us I'm I I'm with you on the swoon as well that the only concern is after Harvard comes another
rough part of the schedule and and we've always you and I have both been on the same page things could start off rough and they could get better but you know if if you end up you know losing Maryland Michigan Auburn Kansas you you can get to a point where you start off almost too low to even get recoverable come January February. Well, fortunately, Maryland's bad right now, and I'm not as worried about that game.
But that said, if Indiana doesn't start playing better, they they could lose to Harvard. Let you know I'm not, you're not even getting to the Maryland and Michigan and Auburn games. But yeah, look, I'm, I'm glad to some degree that the heat is going to stay on this IU team because I think you could get some fool's gold if you were getting that Morehead State, North Alabama, Kennesaw State stretch now, you would think, oh, we've solved a lot of these issues when you clearly haven't.
And ultimately. You could lose all of those games. Not the Harvard game, but you could lose all. You could lose all those remaining games and it wouldn't be unrecoverable, you know, I mean, losing, losing to Kansas, losing to Auburn, losing to Michigan. It's it's really, at this point, it's like, can you get the plane lined up with the runway so that you can actually land the thing down the stretch? And it seems implausible when you watch how Indiana played
against Louisville, but it's. Until it's off the until you, until you're not capable of doing anything with the season anymore. I'll choose to believe that they'll figure something out as they move forward. But man, there's just got to be a lot of changes. And that's that is a real concern that the defense was actually better than. I think people really realized it was against both Louisville and Connecticut. But the offense just. Just clearly wasn't good enough
in either game. And the fact that Indiana had to go to a junk zone with like 4 minutes to go to pull out a game against a Louisville team who has not exactly lit the world on fire over the course of the last several seasons, and particularly the last couple of seasons. If you're if you're just like, ready to give up on the season right now because you don't think it's going to be recoverable, I don't know that I can necessarily blame you.
At this point I'll take the the the opposite approach of that is that you think they had, they had to go to zone but whatever maybe maybe this team has to play somes up maybe just the way
the team is constructed. But you know you had a point there where you know it it with about 16 minutes to go, 14 minutes to go in the second-half you were an 83%, you know win probability you're up 48 to 42. Within 5 minutes you're suddenly down 60 to 55 and and you know this is they know they shouldn't be losing to Louisville. Like, I mean suddenly you're looking at the six minutes left, you're down by six or five.
A-Team could have folded there like I think in that swoon we saw, I think it was Penn State last year on the road where it just they got down and then it just Penn State poured it on, you know. So the flip side of this is, yes, they had to go to a zone, but hey, like I said, maybe they got to go zone this year. They finished on A13-O run like staring into an abyss of losing Louisville and having some real problems to start this season. They did turn it around.
They did what they had to do and they won the game and they won it by 8. I guess Louisville, I mean, I get, I get it. They did it. I get it. I'm just saying that's if the concern there is like the. This is not the kind of team that you can have that kind of a performance against. Good credit for them for coming back with the fact that at one point they were up 46 to 37 and let Louisville go on I think a
20 to six run. To take the lead in the second-half after having had essentially the game under wraps a couple of times and let it out again, that is almost as off balance or like offsetting concerning as the run at the end of the game to win the game was satisfying. So we'll see where we land on the scales with that and we'll talk about it more as we get into this Harvard game. We'll talk about that obviously on Monday. Anything else, Scott, before we wrap up?
No, no, it's it's fun and I love, I love the road trip. So it's I'm happy. I'm happy we did. It was fun to have two games to go to this year. The road trip was a lot of fun and hopefully everybody that was out there had a good time and man, we were lucky, Scott, because we did not have to listen to that broadcast crew. While after going back and watching the game, I don't know how you people at home did it. You know, complete credit to you, man that was that was a rough broadcast.
So anyways, no, you will. Don't. Please. If you go back, like put some light jazz on in the background, just mute the sound. It's better for you, I promise. Don Fisher dub over is always the best way to go. Always. Yeah, always. Anyway, all right, we'll wrap things up. Thanks to all of you for joining us. We'll have a old Oaken bucket preview coming up later on this week. You don't. I'll do it by myself as I've been doing for the last few weeks.
I just don't want to give you a break around the holidays, but look out for that Crimson cast women's basketball show just dropped. Be sure to check that out as well, as the ladies are in some interesting action this week that you'll want to check out, so be sure to tune into that.
And be sure to tune in to our friends across the back home network, Assembly Call, the Doing the Work podcast Film Room with Tony Edrano. Lots of great stuff to catch up on. For all those folks, I'm Galen Clavio. And for Scott, I'm Galen Clavio. We'll catch you folks. On the flip side. Bring back the Bison. So long, everybody.