You're listening to the back home network presented by home field apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cask ale and clavius got Caulfield joining. A it is the 18th of January at 2022 or back. Once again with more podcast goodness, here surrounding, Indiana University. Athletics as IU. Basketball picks up their first road win of the Season, knocking
off Nebraska, last night. If you missed it, Scott and I got a, did an assembly call postgame show takeover, which they're probably still regretting all the way into the afternoon of the next day, but we had a good time and certainly our thanks to Andy bottoms for hosting that Scott. Good to see you again. How are you doing? I'm doing, well. Yeah, poor Andy had to deal with both of us. It was they sent out.
The call and I we both kind of responded to the same time was not meant to be a takeover, but it was so sometimes these things are just Cosmic like that. It was meant to happen. Yeah. Anyway, we're going to talk IU basketball. We got some questions from you, folks. We have some thoughts of our own as Indiana heads into a very important stretch of the season, so we're going to talk about that and field, some questions. As I you gets ready to take on Purdue coming up this Thursday.
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Code is home Scott Hoosiers. Let's recap quickly what happened yesterday, and the game Indiana knocking off in Nebraska, by the score of 78 to 71 and the Hoosiers. I mean, they did what they were supposed to do. They didn't win by, they didn't cover the, the spread was nine. I think Ken palm and torvik. Had it about a 10-point game, but they did pull off the victory. It wasn't necessarily comfortable. But you really never got the sense that Indiana was going to
lose the game. At least I didn't at any point during Game and they managed to finish it off without Trace Jackson Davis, on the floor. He took a fall by taking a fall. I mean, his legs at cut out from underneath them, by a Nebraska basketball player. And that should have been whistled as something more egregious than just a foul, but I guess we'll leave that aside, but the Hoosiers did what they needed to do. It was a workmanlike victory on
the road. I was generally fairly impressed and I think that a lot of people seem to not be in terms of the overall. All way that they played but again, you know, it's like one of those deals when you go on the road in the conference conference Road play is brutal right now. They're just haven't been that many wins on the road for teams in general. And even like Ohio State who was in the top 25 up until this past
week. Had to go to overtime at Nebraska to beat Nebraska. Oh, yes, Michigan, blew them out by like 35 points. But hey, you know, why would I use any evidence? That doesn't support my argument? I don't know. You have any quick thoughts on that game? Anything that you've had time to? Ruminate on here, over the last 18 hours or so. Now, I mean, my main takeaway first off. I'm just going to go back real quick. The get-together for the Illinois game. I will not be there. Unfortunately.
I have a nephew who's getting married in Boston, and I already committed to that before the dates were picked. So, I might hop in virtually. I'm bummed because this is the first time we're all getting together in a while. So that sucks. So, but anyway, if you guys come to that, please come, and if I'm not there, that is why I will be in Boston. I mean, that happens. But if that gets cancelled, then maybe I'll be at the game. But that's, that's neither here. Nor there is one of those
people. No, I'm not. Don't read into it. They'll start going nuts over that. Not that anybody would even notice. And, or care for the Nebraska game, what I mentioned on the post game last night, kind of been thinking more about it. You know, I'm, I'm like you, I'm Pleasant. I'm okay with the victory in that before Trace Jackson, Davis went out and you kind of have to bifurcate the game Bo before he went out. And then after he went out before he went out.
You know, the game got kind of ugly and it got kind of ref heavy and it got slow and it was kind of what happened in the Iowa game. When we lost control of the game. We never able to get back and find that he poised similarly, in Penn State, you know, with Nebraska. It's not the same type of opponent, but they were able to basically keep a 10-point margin
stable. It kind of ebbed and flowed here and there they never let Nebraska get the lead, the never felt like they lost control of the game again knowing Nebraska made a lot of mistakes along there, but Indiana was in a good spot. And then even when Trace Jackson Davis went out. It got a little tighter and didn't look as good, but they still held on mean that was, that was a game that was there, you know, for the giving up so to speak and it wasn't. So I'm happy with that.
And yeah, I mean, it would have been nice for us, just put them away and kick their butt, but I don't think, honestly, this is kind of one of those were a win. Is a win. Like we beat them by 20. I don't know if anybody is like, all right. Now. I feel good that we're going to be Purdue, whereas, we didn't look fantastic to the night last night, but I'm still like my Thanks for the Purdue game. Haven't really changed whether we won by 25 or not against Nebraska.
Yeah, I mean, look, there's just you might get a style points Victory on the road, but they just don't happen that often. I mean, any road Victory doesn't happen that often for Indiana at this point. And as I think I said yesterday, you gotta walk before you can run with some of these. I just think stylistically. It's going to be ugly until Indiana gets either better players that are more capable.
Able of executing at a high level, both home and away or this group of players gets more confidence in what they're doing on both ends of the floor and figures out how to apply that for 40 minutes. You know, I think you've seen I you play well in spurts on the road. Obviously they played well in the first half against Wisconsin, they played well in the first half against Iowa.
They played well in the second half against Syracuse, but they got to put it all together and ultimately, I'm glad the haven't won a game. On the road narrative is done. I'm, you know that we've put that to bed and I think there's going to be opportunities on the road. The rest of the way, if this Indiana team is able to continue to grow and I think that that's still what's happening with this
team. Last night's game was really interesting to me because it was actually one of the better offensive games that Indiana has played all season. If you go by barked or Vic's website, that was the best game adjusted for opponent, that Indiana has played on offense All Season, that's a good sign that, that would happen. In on the road, the downside is that was one of their worst defensive performances and some of that was Defensive indifference more than anything else.
Some of it was just Nebraska hitting a lot of shots early on, and I don't know that water ever totally found its level on that. But yeah, overall, I was, I was fairly pleased with the game. It was an important game and it's one that you're just like, okay, we can put that in the record book. That's a victory for Indiana, move on to the next game, which is I guess where they're at right now, with all of It's obviously a little bit of concern.
Over Trace Jackson, Davis is Health, but he tweeted out right after the game yesterday that he's planning on playing against Purdue. And I'd be surprised if he wasn't, he may not be 100%, but it'll be close enough to 100%.
I'd be surprised if if that like really negatively impacted and even if it did, I think the adrenaline will take over for him in that one and he'll be able to do what you would expect in to do before we talk specifically, I guess about Purdue, we did have some questions from the folks out there. They're on Twitter. And I wanted to try to tackle a few of these. I just think one real quick thing about Grace. Sure, go ahead, before we get to those questions.
I meant to dig into this deeper earlier today, but life and work out in the way. But you know, the we do have the only thing that to be slightly concerned about is traced it say he's going to play and he'll be okay. So you have to take him at his word on that from Twitter, but he took a sip, you know, similar situation after the Syracuse game. He took a fall in the Syracuse game. That game he came back and
continued to play. So maybe less of an injury in there, but he took a pretty hard fall in that Syracuse game, the two games after were probably two of his, you know, based on offensive rating and point performance, two of his worst games of the season so far, you know, against Nebraska he went, you know, 5411 shooting had 14 points, but in 80 offensive rating and then Wisconsin, the game that we lost, you know, he went 4 for 10, only had nine points, 101 rating, and then,
you know, Merrimack Notre Dame. Seem to kind of bring it back to where he was. And so, that would be my only thought of concern is that if this is a similar type of injury, again, we have no idea how that their similarities or maybe. But it was a knee injury in the Syracuse game. He fell on his hip in his gait. Okay, but but all I'm saying is, you know, that would be the only thing of concern is like, it's a lingering type injury.
So, yeah, we'll see. I mean, I don't think is any way for us to know it's, it's always a question mark. When it comes to that. I look people pick up. Practice that we don't know about that affects day-to-day operation sometimes on that. So I would pump the brakes on being too concerned and we'll just have to see how it plays out. I think you'll probably be as close to fine. As you can be. Given that a steel two-thirds of the way through a season
essentially. Anyway, some things to go over as far as questions or concern from the community and we're going to start off with a question that was asked earlier. Earlier on by striped ology. Is it fair to say the most important factor for this team is to play Closer or to play Closer to potential or where individual stay within their own unique defined roles versus when they get leads. They tend to take leeway and go outside those roles. Most issues can be traced to this in my opinion.
So I guess the question kind of, you know, reduce it further is our people freelancing too much when Indiana gets the lead. I don't know if Totally buy that as a fiery. I'll have to think about it, some more, you know, Scott, my Impressions from watching, the team are simply that the team has a lot of Ebbs and flows in terms of how confident they are in their offense. How willing they are to push the
ball in transition. And, you know, I think you have to take opposing defenses into into the factoring of how Indiana's offense is playing as well.
Generally, speaking from my observation, at least And the problem that Indiana's run into consistently is that they are fairly easy to disrupt if you can deny Trace Jackson Davis, the ball in the post and you're not getting significant, you know, moving or without the ball and action being taken by whoever's playing at the two and the three, or the three, and the four depending on the lineup that's out there, Indiana's
offense tends to stagnate. I think, whenever you don't have Xavier Johnson, Running the point, the conduct of the offense becomes a lot less conducive to scoring for different reasons. When Rob Fitness. He's running the point, as we've talked about throughout the course of the Season. He's incredibly tentative with the basketball. He tends to pound the heck out of the ball, you know, as much as we think rightfully criticized, Archie, Miller's, offenses for being unimaginative
and being slow. You look at Rob finna see out there and how he runs the Mike Woods Offense versus how Xavier Johnson runs it. And it's like, man, you know, I'm not letting Archie off the hook, but it seems like a lot of that issue might have been just the way Rob fantasy approaches playing basketball, where it's just very deliberate. And so, and then he had Trey Galloway, certainly is better in terms of these more decisive. He'll move towards the basket.
He has, it does a lot of disruption, but he's also a lot less careful with the basketball which ends up leading to more turnovers still. And I think that, you know, so a lot of it for me going back to the original question isn't so much guys getting outside of what they're supposed to be doing as much as it is. When the first option isn't there. I think this team still struggles to figure out what it's supposed to be doing. And even though I think the piece is work better and are
more dangerous individually. They still struggle to really come together and play as a unit. And to me that's probably going to take that's not something that's likely to get. Fixed this year. I think we're going to see spurts and maybe those Spirits get longer. But to me, the bigger issue is just how do you get this team to really play as a unit? Both on offense, and on defense, consistently possession after possession. Yeah. I love all of our listeners. I love questions to me.
This is a bizarre question because I think the problem with this team is the opposite of what this question is about to me. The problem with this team is you have a lot of players who are very one-dimensional and they They are always one-dimensional.
Like if you kind of just go down the line up, you know, Trace Jackson Davis is obviously in a world of himself, but he's, he's an interior player like this would kind of using this logic of it. You know, once we get leads, guys, go on their own would kind of be like, you know, Trace bringing the ball up and popping threes, which I also wouldn't mind too much if you'd listened to me in the past, but he doesn't do that, you know race Thompson is similar.
He takes a couple threes here or there, but if you look at his shot chart, you know, it's been pretty much, you know, three. He'll take one or two threes over the Course of three or four games. Like it's kind of over one over 114 to like, oh, you know, 00. He doesn't take a ton. So, you know, you look at like, Parker Stewart kind of just takes a bunch of threes and doesn't do anything else. So he's attempted 22, point shots this year. He's attempted 75, three-point shots.
He's shooting 46% from three. I like that but he's also been pretty good what he drives. And so this would be like if we get a lead if Parker Stewart suddenly starts taking the ball and driving it in, he's not doing that, you know, Miller cop for the most part either pass. Azure when he drives he shoots and he kind of does that. So I well I appreciate the question. I think it goes back to what you said. I think this offense is very easy to get stagnant stagnated by other defenses.
And the problem isn't so much, the guys are doing their own thing. It's just that guys continue to do what they do, you know, fantasy continues to kind of dribble and not be massively proactive with it. And so, yeah, I hear the words coming from but I think it's the it's not that And I think if anything the players on this team are for the most part, A lot of them are very one-dimensional and they are very true to their character. Even we get leads or when we're down.
They kind of all do what they do. The next question I want to tackle this from our friend Hooper ROTC. Is it an over reaction to say that Miller cop has not been the player fans hoped. He might be. I'm gonna let you start with this because you were one of those people that was a little
bit skeptical. I think part of it's hard to answer this question because I guess if you were expecting Miller cop to come in and be like the second or third leading scorer, obviously, you would be disappointed in how he's played. If you weren't expecting that then I guess the answer would be no, but we should probably talk about expectations and what Miller cops actually been doing, you know, and Scott you weren't you weren't opposed to Miller cop, but you weren't exactly
driving the bandwagon either. At the To the your, how how what's your overall reaction to Cops time on? I use roster so far. I mean, it's funny. I was thinking the answer to me is like no, he's cooked completely met expectations of what I had for him. You know, I I take this back also to you know, Joey Brooke.
I felt like this is a very similar corollary that would enjoy Brent got here Suddenly It's like oh this guy's got experience and then like, you know quickly when he became injured, it was almost as weird like well, you know, but Bronx injured. It's like all right, but he's like our fourth best player, maybe fifth like during those years and suddenly to be like, hey, our fifth best player is
injured. Like now the seasons could put it's like that's you're not allowed to make that argument. Like or like you're you're conflating too many things. Like I'm I'm sure Ohio State if right now front got hurt, wouldn't be like, oh, well, there's art, you know, let's pack up and just wait for football season, you know, if you look at the numbers, Miller cops, offensive rating is pretty similar to what it was at Northwestern.
He has a couple games where he hits over 100, but a lot of games are in the 70s and 80s and that's kind of where he's at now. In fact, I mean, you could look at his numbers and say, he's actually been Better here at IU. Then he has been at Northwestern and this is what I saw with him at Northwestern. It's like he was the, you know, third or fourth option on a team that you know, last year. Let's pull up their record and it wasn't wasn't good.
You know, last year. I'm just filling time, you know, last year they were 9 and 15 the year before they were eight and twenty three. So, I mean you have to really subpar years and he wasn't even the best player on those teams. You know, this is where I always want people to pump the brakes with the reality of these transfers is that, you know, when you're getting a bad team second or third best player like yeah, he's got big 10 experience.
But you know, it doesn't mean that he's going to suddenly, you know, where I'm not. I don't know. It's just like that. This is exactly what I was expecting. And I think he's in, like I said, the numbers are actually better now than they were against when this, you know, first, two years in Northwestern, so cops, interesting, you know, to me, I think we're have been disappointed in. Cop is the for the amount of minutes that he's getting. And as of right now, Miller cop on the season.
Has played the third most minutes of anybody on the team. He's only behind, Trace Jackson, Davis, and race Thompson, and it's, you know, if you look at his statistics, he's actually contributed fairly. Well, he's got a pretty good offensive rating. He's about round 109 110, which is pretty good. He's, you know, he's shooting could be a little bit better, but he's shooting 37% from three and that's, that's his strength. He doesn't turn the ball over.
He's got one of the better turnover rates on, not just on the team but in the conference and he doesn't commit fouls. Generally the big problem with Miller cop to me is that it's basically two fold one. He's offering very little on the boards. Like he's not rebounding. He liked the the difference. Tween when, you know, when he's like, you think about how he, and, I know he's in a different spot on the floor, to some degree.
But even on the defensive end, he's not rebounding the ball particularly much or well and he's basically non-existent on the offensive glass because he's just hanging out on the perimeter, the whole time. That's okay. If you're then turning around and taking shots, but he's not taking that many shots, you know, for a guy that's playing, almost 62 percent of available. Or minutes.
He only uses about 14% of possessions, which is if you look at the Ken Palm numbers, that is what you would classify as a limited role player. This is a guy who just there's not a lot of decisiveness or urgency on the offensive end and unfortunately, his defense just isn't very good. It's better than Parker Stewart's defense, but it's still not great. And so you feel like unless cop comes out and hits two or three shots right away. You're like, well, why was he out there?
Now? The flip side is cop, has done a lot of little things throughout the course of some games. This year that I think have contributed positively to victories. He was a key cog in the Machinery. Not so much in terms of his scoring against Ohio State, but he picked up four rebounds. He had an assist in that game, you know, you look at a game like trying to give another good example here. He was obviously a key part of of that Syracuse game that
Indiana almost won. He played pretty well in, you know, in certain aspects of things against Minnesota. He had two offensive rebounds to go along with two defensive rebounds and two assists in that game. But, you know, I am a little bit disappointed. Just in as much as with what he's done over the course of his career in the Big Ten. I was hoping that the, you know, the slightly more defined role in the more restricted role. He played a lot of minutes at Northwestern the last two years
about 80% of minute. His sophomore year played 78 percent of minutes last year and you know, he struggled on offense last year, but he was still able to contribute, you know, for a guy that shoots ninety five and a half percent from the free-throw line. Why can't he do more things to get himself to the free-throw line? And he's 21 to 22 on the season stuff like that. So, you know, I was expecting him, I guess to get more integrated, it Indiana's offensive attack because he's
got skills shooting the ball. All that Indiana could utilize but he's just not taking advantage of opportunities. He's not he's not putting himself in the flow of things. Same thing with Parker Stewart. Mind you, I feel the same way about both of these guys to me. We need to see more of them doing things in games on offense because that's really what they are able to contribute. Yeah.
I mean the the only thing that I'll end this with is and this is not towards you but I think towards some people who you know, when we look at these fifth, you get the same thing with with, you know income. Freshman. You suddenly want them to fill all of these holes and do things they didn't do. Like again, you know, Miller cop is shooting better from 3 than he did last year at Northwestern a little bit lower than he did his sophomore year. His two point percentage is slightly less.
But, you know, his defense to your point. That the defensive rebounding percentage is actually the best of his career evolved as offensive. Rebounding. Percentage is pretty much kind of where it's been his whole career. Like he's actually doing exactly what he did in Northwestern.
He's doing it here. The only thing to your point, Is he's not getting to the line as much, but it's only by a slight percentage, you'll percentage point, and he's also using about five percent less possessions a game. So maybe that's it. But, you know, this is where he's basically doing what he did in Northwestern. And I think this is where we get in the fallacy as we see these guys like, oh, like he's got this set of skills.
It's going to be awesome. We plug them in and he's also going to do X, Y and Z, which she's never shown of doing. And I think that's where the trouble with the expectation of cop is that they people are expecting him to suddenly, you know, go, A line or be a distributor or do things that like he just doesn't do it really. Like he's having a slightly better year than we had last year at Northwestern. And we're disappointed because I think we were expecting things, he doesn't do.
Well. I think part of it though is like you could look at for instance, Alfonso plumber on Illinois who two years at Utah, you know, he was a pretty good three-point shooter. You know, he shot, good percentage at volume. You think it was 38 percent last year. He's coming to Illinois and he uses, you know, he's not using a As many possessions as he used at Utah, but he is I think being a lot more effective with those
possessions. He's shooting the ball better and he's going to end up. I think shooting more threes. Then he shot last year. It's like well, is this just as it a utilization issue or is it a situation where the player is kind of holding themselves back? So I don't know what the answer. I think it's an interesting question. I do think that a lot of the new guys are getting unfairly criticized. I do agree with you on that.
I think Xavier Johnson's probably the one that gets the most unfairly criticized but Miller cop and Parker Stewart, kind of fall into that category, but I think it's different people criticize Xavier Johnson because he does too much in their eyes, and they criticize cop and Stewart, because they don't do enough. So, if we could, if we could dial one down slightly and dial to up, I think we'd be at, you know, that, that's that perfect spot, but we're not quite there
yet. Anyway, cops in a tough spot, because he's a bit of a slow starter, but then he's also like, just out of the rotation for the last 10 minutes. So it's like, he's kind of, it's like, you can't I have both and I'm not saying he should be in the rotation at the end of the game, but he's not in the closing line up. But again, you're also a slow starter. So it's like that's not a great recipe to make to make.
Hay. While the sun shines question from one of our listeners, curious your thoughts on Rob fennessy, having the worst offensive rating on the team other than Christian Lander and it's not even close. I noticed the only played three second, half minutes against Nebraska with little reliable guard play. As I, you just going to have to play in many ways to bolster the Fence, so if you listen to our assembly, call broadcast last night, you heard me go in on this and just to rehash.
What I said yesterday, because I think it's important that we establish this. Like, first of all, I don't get any pleasure out of talking about this, but the reality is Rob Fitness. He's having among the worst offensive Seasons that we've seen from a player that gets decent minutes in a long, long time. I mean, Christian land. Our last year, barely over. 20% of minutes. Played had a really really bad offensive. Rating of 69 .7 finish.
See this year's at eighty one point seven after that game yesterday. If you go by the Ken pom ratings and even if you look at torvik, which is free. And I know a lot of you like to look at the torvik site for this and you should because it's a really good site. I mean, you you look through all of the players and you know, what torvik does is basically try to provide an example.
Like not just of offensive rating but also total Tribution across a wide variety of statistics and the two worst players on the team right now, or the three really are Bates, Lander and fennessy Bates. Yeah. I think there's a lot of things going on there with, you know, personal situation, and just kind of his overall kind of settling in as a freshman Lander. We know, has been injured and is also at his struggles.
But fantasy was somebody that we talked about before the year is really hoping that he could take a leap forward. And at the very least, maybe slightly, Improve on what he was doing last year for this team and instead it's gone. The other direction. I mean, Rob is he's playing fewer minutes, then he played last year, but he's got a significantly worse. Offensive rating. His shooting is significantly worse.
I mean, last year, for the season, his effective field goal percentage, which for those of you who remember takes three pointers into account by counting them. By up basically one and a half shots. His effective field goal writing last year was Excuse me, his effective field goal percentage. Last year was 41 percent this year. It's 36 percent and almost all of that fall off, has come from to Point Land as opposed to three point land where he's only shooting 30.6% from to so far on
the season. To answer the question. That was asked. Ultimately, I you doesn't have options at the guard position that can work. I mean I the people that say we'll play tomorrow Bates at guard know like that. You want to talk about a bad recipe there Bates is still trying to get his head together as a two or you know, somebody on the wing trying to put him in a position where he's making decisions where the basketballs
going. He's not ready, you know, Trey Galloway. We're seeing the yin and the Yang of Galloway because he obviously came in and contributed greatly. Against Ohio State, but he still makes a lot of bad decisions with the basketball. He gets himself up in the air with no, where to go. You know, he's still trying to fix those parts of his game.
He's better than he was last year, but he's still struggling with that and Lander. As we've said when he is healthy, has been a turnover machine like nobody else on the team. So you are stuck. Essentially at point guard with either playing Xavier Johnson who's got a cap of about 27. 28 minutes that he can effectively play a game or playing Rob fantasy, and I think what you I
noticed the same thing. That the person asking the question noticed, which was that Rob was basically gone for most of that second half. And I think I'd have to anticipate the reason for it was his offense is a mess and last night. His defense wasn't good enough to make up for the lack of offense. There have been games with Rob where his offense has surprisingly showed up. I mean, obviously the Minnesota game, he scored what 13 points in that game.
Even the Penn State game? I thought was A pretty good game for Rob. Overall. He had, you know, he had the three at a couple of shots from two that went in. But last night was a game that you just couldn't have robbed on the floor and you were forced to towards the end but it wasn't a good thing in that his man scored on him a couple of times and he just he had trouble being in the right position and he couldn't provide anything offensively. I don't know what the fix is
here. I mean, I think Mike Woodson has managed this situation about as well as he can. He's given Rob. Opportunities after, you know, after not executing to come in and execute. He's consistently, put him in the lineup.
When he's been hot. He's played him minutes, you know, there hasn't been a game since he came back from those three games out in November, where he hasn't played at least 13 minutes, and in most games, he's playing somewhere around 20 to 22. And yet his offensive performance has not gotten better since the season started so, Unfortunately, I think Indiana is kind of backed into a
corner with its backcourt play. And, unless somebody Rises to the Forefront out of that group of fennessy, Galloway and Lander, and really demonstrates that they can contribute effectively on both sides of the ball. You're going to be stuck with these games where Rob is just incapable of helping on offense. His defense has to be Dynamite on in those games. And unfortunately, last night
was not one of those games. Yeah, I mean it's it's it's bummer because even going into this year, you know, one of my thoughts was this was an area that you could have real Improvement that you know, maybe one of Fitness these problems. I brought this up on the on the preseason podcast was maybe it was Archie Archie Archie is offensive system was in Rob's head and being able to just play free under you know, a coach like Woodson would allow him to kind of get some of these
shackles off. But everything you said is dead-on and I think it comes from a point where like most IU fans. We we want to see Rob succeed. Like there's a real like I want to see this guy do well and I'm in that camp but you're right like the numbers just don't back it up and you know, his defense is good but offensive ly. It's like, what? I'm going to go through some
other players. I know you did a great statistical breakdown and also last night on the assembly called, go back and listen to it. You were Dynamite with the numbers, but some other guards, just in the recent history, who kind of driven fans nuts at times for different reasons, but you look at a guy. Robert Johnson, whose turnover percentage was still his senior year still lower 19.3, percent turnover, assisted turnover
rate, not great. But you know, Rob Johnson shot 38% from 34 his career, you know right now finishes shooting 29% from 34 his career the season, he's shooting 27%. You look at a guy like Al Durham, his turnover rate is picking being I'm not going through all these stats here, but Al Durham, you know, didn't have great turn over to assist
ratio. But again, Career 34%, three-point shooter got the line was a career, you know, 78% free-throw shooter, you know, Rob also gets the line below, 65 percent from the free-throw line. That's not good, you know, Devante green who drove people bunkers his senior year. His assist River rate was only 17.4%, not great, but still better than Rob is this year. And you know, Devante green was a volume shooter. Still shot 37% for his career from three thirty five percent
of senior year. If he was a 71 percent free throw shooter. And again, I'm sure Cherry picking numbers here, but the trouble is like offensively. It's like, I don't know. What, what is the thing Rob can bring, and your point is dead on. We need his help. Like, this is the real, travesty is like, if he could just improve it, just a slight amount, just kind of be a level below. Rob Johnson, and Devonte green, and Alder. Mmm. There'll be tons, more playtime
for him. Like we need more of that backup point guard, but he's not even at those levels. And again, like, it's Mean to me, what you look at it, like a career 29%, three-point shooter. Like it's just it's it's tough. But again, we are four years in like, take covid out of it. And we'd be, you know, ten games left in his career.
He might get one year more year based on the covid thing, but for it's very abnormal at this point in a career for someone to change who they are and it's probably more abnormal for someone like this. Who's unfortunately, the trend line is kind of stable or going down. We had some questions in. In relation to this James, Turner, Crimson cast, 260 co-host of crimson cash is Xavier. Actually, you know, I'm going to say that. That's a different question.
My bad. They've question related to Rob. So this has been Evan deal. Should Lander get Rob's minutes on nights when Rob looks iffy? Know? I think again, we keep coming back to this if people keep asking this question and how do you rob has struggled greatly? But how do you take Rob out and put a guy in who in the minutes that he's played? Has a forty percent turnover rate on possessions that he uses.
I mean, that's, that's absurd, that's a huge number and, you know, Lander in the, in the minutes that he asked why this isn't, this isn't, you know, it's not prorated or something. This is based upon Apples to Apples minutes, comparison. Landers got a worse, offensive rating, and frankly, just from the eye test, is pretty is pretty bad defensively to, so
that's not the answer. I think if you're going to really make a change in terms of rotation, you have to say, Say, well, we're going to make Trey Galloway the backup point guard, but that's not. What would some likes to do. If you'll notice what Woodson tries to do is instead of putting robbed in a position where he's not playing at all. He'd rather have robbed at the to and have Galloway or Johnson
out there running point. If it's a situation where he's trying to get multiple guards out there to give his wing players or his post players. Some rest. It's not a good solution. I think, honestly, I feel bad for Woody in this situation because his play Just need to play better like, like a be finished. He just has to like play better Lander has to play better. We don't know what's going on in practice.
But what we see in the games, I think, is an accurate reflection of what Woodson has to deal with and what he has at his disposal, and it is inadequate in the backcourt. And I think Tamar Bates fits into this as well like to some degree. If you could rely on Trey Galloway as a backup point guard and you could rely on tomorrow Bates as the backup to, I don't think you'd have a concern. With what fantasy was doing, but you haven't been able to rely on
either of those players either. And so that creates a situation where you have to play Rob and you just have to hope that Rob has his head in the game. And unfortunately offensively, I we we talked about this before the season. We got you. Remember, Jared asking some questions on the preview podcast that we did about? What kind of role is Rob Fitness.
You going to play Tada? I said at the time, I don't think he's going to get enough minutes to make a huge difference on. He's The minutes but he's not making a difference. And if anything I think his lack of offensive contributions combined with the inability for his defense to make up for the lack of Ovens of contributions is really created a set of problems that this team struggles to solve at times. And I'm not trying to I'm not pinning it all on Rob. Don't don't get me wrong.
But if you're going to play 40 percent of available minutes, you got to do better than only scoring eight tenths of a point per possession that you use. You just have to is Duncan. Eventually more useful this year than Michael dirr know. I would say, Duncan hasn't here's the thing, and I think it's important for us all to keep in mind.
We have a tendency as fans sometimes to look at the whole roster and say, oh, well, this person hasn't played that much, but surely, they're better than this person that's playing, and I think you got to keep in mind, two things. One, the coaching staff sees these guys every day in practice, Michael dirr, is a player that has Division 1 experience. He has sighs.
He has physicality. He's not a big 10 starting caliber player, but he's a guy who can give you, you know, probably six to eight minutes, maybe 10 if you really need him, but Logan dunk him hasn't shown anything at this point. He, I mean he is clearly the last man on the bench for this Indiana team and I don't think that it's accidental that we haven't seen him that much. I mean, you have a different take on this. Water, would you agree? No. No, I'll sorry.
I don't mean to jump in there. I don't know. The three questions were all connected. No, I think this is. This is the end result of Indiana fans, kind of coming in over the last 15 years. And being put into a blender of how you deal with a coaching staff and we're kind of stuck with some of this. Now, what I mean by that is when you and I grew up at hate to be old man Caulfield here, but when you and I grew up, you know, we lived in the bob, Knight era, where we trusted the coach.
That was based on three national championships. Heated team, but I was kind of looking at you know, rosters like we're in college. Like you never saw articles in the IDS like about you know, she Luke gimenez. We starting over Michael Lewis, like no like we just we knew
that the roster was set. We knew the guys were in places or supposed to be. We trusted the coach, you know, but you get you know over time like in the crane are you had a lot of talk about like all these guys are great in practice with deflections and they don't show it in the game and fans were like, what kind of what's going on here and then, you know, it's
funny in the Archie era. We almost kind of turned it around where like I felt like I was being beat over the head of like you just got to give this system time. Like just trust that the coaching staff knows what they're doing. And it's like we all kind of got to a point. We trusted too much and it's like, you know, at some point do we need to win some games or like just keep trusting that pack lines going to be good.
And now it's like we flipped around again where it's like, well now we don't trust anything. We see and to your point. It's like let's let's give Coach Woodson some of the benefit of the doubt that he knows what he's doing. And let's Trust that this lineup is set up in a way, and I'll sing. This is partially an issue with an IU fan base. That just not used to dealing with getting five-star recruits and they're not all Zion Williamson, like it, just not.
And so, yes, Christian Lander was Mark, a five-star recruit by some Services. I've said this before five-star recruits. Don't become not all them become starters, not all of them go to the NBA like maybe christianly under will one day. I hope for his sake he does but you know, there's a long history of five. Stars who didn't play great in college and they're not all going to become great players that we love to tout Oladipo. I do to the reverse of this happens two and three star guys
turn into great players. And so I think we have a lot of things kind of Confluence in here at once where it's and I also, I think you have fans who are just like we got to have a better option of point guards. Like we don't, it's not a viable option. He's not worth discussing, but I think it's funny how so many fans were kind of willing to give Archie benefit of the doubt for four years. And now it's like We need to give that benefit of the doubt to coach. What's that?
He understands what he's doing, and he understands he's seeing these guys in practice and I'm not saying we always have to give understanding all the time 24/7. But at this point it's like trust that Woodson knows who's good and who's not, and if he's not playing guys over and over again. There's probably a reason I put a Emilio in that category for me.
Like I love his shooting ability as a theory, but I'm not like overly pissed and he's not play more, because I'm assuming that it's in practice, his defensive ability, his inability to get his own shot, his wife. He's not playing, like, I'm not thinking like Woodson, just like, why can't you see the shooting? I see in the 12 seconds. I watch warm-ups. Like I'm sure there's a lot of reasons, Anthony Leo's not playing and he needs to get better at certain things where he'll play more.
Do we had a related question to this from Bob Rathbun? The fan narrative around IU, basketball feels so - and at times unfair to the first year coaching staff /. New players. Stepping back, is this team performing differently than preseason expectations, and the answer is no, I would argue. I think this team has one more loss right now that I would have projected that they would have had at the beginning of the season.
I didn't project that. They were going to lose at Penn State that's looking like less of a bad loss. Every every week now, I mean that, that Penn State team, are they going to make the NCAA tournament? No, but they've been really competitive in a bunch of games. I mean, they, you know, and look Indiana should have won that game. I think actually Indiana played better than what the final result indicates.
Add in that game, but every other game, I went back and looked at my preseason projections every game. I projected them to win. They've won every except for that one, everything that I projected them to lose so far. They lost right now. They're on track for a season that will be, you know, roughly. I would say 20 and 10 and 11 and 9 or 21. + 9 + 12 + 8, which is about where we thought they would be. And I think it's pretty much
what this roster dictates. This roster has a potential wooden award candidate, you know, an All-American caliber player, and Trace Jackson Davis has some good role players and has a bunch of question marks and a bunch of guys who have incomplete games or limited games. And so, you know to me I've yet even, you know, even that Iowa game. Yes, they lost the lead and they gave it away on the road. And in fashion that I guess we
would consider embarrassing. I didn't find any of that surprising and before the game Indiana was projected to lose that game on the road and they did. So to me. Yes, I could be upset with some of the things that they did to lose the game in the game. But the reality is everything they've done so far. With the exception of the Penn State game is right in line with what I thought. And I do think that Woodson.
I think the overall atmosphere around the program is pretty bad from fans from media in general because there's just so Little patience. And I get it. I mean look, this is this is the byproduct of, really not having fielded a team that you could feel good about from beginning of the season to the end of the season. Since 2013. That was the last that that 2012 2013 team. Yes, 2016, Indiana won the Big
Ten people. Forget, people gave up on that team when they played in Maui that year, they lost two out of the three games. They started poorly people expected cream to get fired. Like by December of that year, they surprisingly turned it around and it was like a feel-good story and instead of building on that. They went right back to missing the NCAA tournament.
The following year. He had you know, the full four years of the Archie Miller experience and it was very disappointing and people are not in the mood to give this coach and this staff and this group of players are particularly the new players, the benefit of the doubt. And there's not much you can do about it other than just realize that. People are not going to be satisfied until Indiana's playing at a higher level.
It's not fair. But this is where the program is out right now, and I don't know what the answer is for that other than stop getting on Twitter because you're just not going to escape it anywhere else, and Twitter just happens
to be a place. And, you know, so other social media to a lesser extent, where people are going to vent their frustrations, even if they're not necessarily, if it's not Woodson's fault, or if it's you Do you know the not saying that Woodson isn't without criticism, but I also think a lot of the criticism has been a bit over-the-top and is entirely colored by what we've seen the last seven or eight years.
Yeah, I mean it's funny, you know my prediction beginning of the year and you can go back and check it was we're going to fit it. You know, I think we'll finish 5th to 7th in the Big Ten and we'll make the NCAA tournament as it sits right now. We're seventh in the Big Ten and it's a very tight window right there. But we're seven the Big Ten. And in the last Bracketology going off, ESPN's, if you look into the of Mike, we're in nine
seats. So we're solidly in the tournament and I must do, I'm as guilty of this as anybody else. I look at that as like, okay, but we still gotta Play Purdue Michigan, you know, the next five days, like, alright, well, let's, let's wait and see how those games gonna. I feel like I've been talking to people about this.
You know, I remember at the Crossroad classic talking to a lot of people and that was, you know, coming off of the loss to Syracuse in. Wisconsin, you know it both 20-point down and losing a 20-point lead and people are like, oh my God, what do you know how you feel about?
What's it now? And I was at that time, I was saying like I'm nervous but we're still on track to finish, fifth to seventh of the Big Ten. We're still on track to make the tournament like those those two losses didn't derail. That and then after we lost a Penn State, I talked to some friends and they were, you know, oh my gosh, we lost a Penn State, like this is the end and it's like, you know, I was like,
yeah, it's going to be tough. I think I said this podcast, you know, Ohio State Minnesota, two home games. We got to make some. Hay, but at that point, I was still telling me we're still at this point. We are still on track to make the tournament. We're still on track to finish that 527 range and you know, similarly as we sit here now the Iowa lost like you said, we were projected to lose it as we sit here.
Now, we're kind of in a similar spot to before that, Ohio State Minnesota, run, like, Like we have two tough games at home or three of you three games at home to a pretty tough. You would assume with Michigan and assuming they're playing. But as it stands right now, we're still on track to finish. Fifth 27, the big tent, we're still on track to make the NCAA tournament. So I'm with you. I I'm also, you know, game to game unhappy. I'm not the Iowa game. I was pissed.
I was throwing stuff in the Syracuse game, but when you take a step back, we're still on track to meet the goals that I had for this season, and I do think it's a little bit curious, how I get it. It's been a long 20 years, we want we want it to happen. Now. We look at other programs. Like it's got to be happening faster. But you know, it is curious that were, you know, we're not there. And you know, it is funny.
People are looking at, you know, Ben Johnson and Minnesota like, you know, they were off to a great start. They've lost four in a row like they're 15 and the Big 10, they're 10 and 5. Now how you feel about Minnesota's chances right now their 90th and Ken palm. And so for the people who are looking at that as like, oh my God, they're 10 and one first, your coach. Why can't we have that? Like, well, I'd rather be where
we're at now. So some of this You have to let play out and I'm normally the one being told to step down off the ledge, but I would tell people now like we just we need a little bit of patience on this and we are still you know, the torvik has kind of like the trajectory of a seasoning. We're still on track to make the tournament and we're still on track to, you know, finish 5th. And 7th the Big Ten. The last thing I will say sorry, is I'm going along here.
But the last thing I'll say is people are like, oh we gotta get some Road wins, like look at teams on the bubble every year for the Silly tournament like teams that have five or six or seven Great conference wins on the road. Like they're not on the bubble like they're in the tournament. Like look at the resumes of teams on the bubble. They suck like couple of years ago. We were going to make the tournament when covid hit like look at our record that year. We had the two Road wins.
When was against Nebraska, like, you can be really, you could basically win all your home games, drop a couple here and there have to kind of what you would consider bad Road wins and you're going to make the tournament. So anyway, yep. No, I agree with With all of that couple things I will add on to that really quickly.
If you're looking for things to be optimistic about Indiana has the best defense in the Big Ten. If you take the entirety of the Season as played by all of the teams, they are 12th in the country in defensive efficiency, and it's a good conference for defense, has a bunch of teams in the 20s. Indiana is the best over the course of the season in the conference. And even if you just look at conference, only play because we've got a big enough sample
size. Now, most every team has played six or seven games with Exception of like Michigan. Indiana is tied for the best conference only defensive efficiency with Illinois. They're both at 95.6 and Indiana's been slightly better in terms of opponent field goal percentage. So, you know, this is the promise that the Archie Miller era never actually delivered on like you go back and look at for you know, for as much as Archie was defense for his defense first last year's team.
Finished 12th in the conference in defense. The year before that team finished eighth in the conference ended. Defense the year before that. They finished ninth in the conference in defense. So you got to give Indiana some credit because within the confines of the conference and in comparison, this is a really good defensive team and hey guess what offensively?
They're not great, but they're middle of the pack, their eighth in the conference and offense this year, you compare that to, you know, last year they were also eighth in the conference, which makes sense because you've got similar players, but go back to previous years. They were 12th in the conference in offense and Me 20, they were 11th in the conference, in offense, in 2019. They were 10th in the conference and offense in 2018. My point is, there are
measurable. Improvements that Mike Woodson and his coaching staff have been able to execute with an incomplete roster, a roster that's got a lot of shortcomings. They've managed to figure out a way to put themselves solidly in the middle of the pack in offense and at the top of the Heap and defense and that
matters that is something. The other thing about the defense just to be positive about like like you mentioned we're first in the conference and that's with two guys in our starting lineup in Miller cop and Parker Stewart who I would
not call a defensive specialist. Like, you know over 30% you starting lineup are guys who were just defenses not their Forte and you have guys coming off the bench where you know, I would say Jordan Geronimo and Trey Galloway are eager to be good at defense but aren't there yet. And Tamar Bates is still learning. So you have a team where it's like, well less than 50% of them. I would consider a really good
defensive players. And so it's like we're still first so imagine 23 years from now when you're getting guys in that Woodson want you know that are full. Total Woodson guys. Well, and my cuts will ask a question about Jordan Geronimo. We're not going to have fully time to get into, but I will say that, you know, Geronimo has become the first player off the bench because of his defense because of the energy that he brings particularly on that end. But also because he's not afraid to shoot.
He seems confident and he's able to grab rebounds like that. The fact that Woodson has been able to cultivate him and he showed flashes of it last year. I mean, let's let's, you know, it's not all Woodson, but the fact that he's been able to harness that relatively effectively and you look at geronimo's overall contributions on the season, you know, he's here you're starting to see more and more opportunities for him
to come in and contribute. A lot of it is very much dependent on what's happening during a game. And sometimes you need that. And I think last night was a good example. Sometimes it doesn't, it's not as big I think Geronimo is going to be big in this Purdue game this week because he brings a factor that Purdue doesn't necessarily have a good answer for, so it's going to be really fascinating to watch that play out.
Anyway, last question that we are going to get to from our friend Jared over at assembly call. We're on the same page. That Indiana. Absolutely can win on Thursday night. Even if Purdue is rightly favorite and probably more likely to win, but assuming I you does win, what's your best description / projection for how it will actually play out?
On the court. I'm going to let you answer this first Scott, and then I'll go. I think it's, I think, the way that it plays out is very similar to the Ohio State game where we just see our defense be able to really put the clamps down on a Purdue team. I don't think you're going to see us some you don't think you're going to see the kind of window we had against Wisconsin or sorry.
Sorry Minnesota where you know, they just pack it in and let us shoot a bunch of Threes. We just go nuts from the three-point line. It just doesn't feel like that's the Win. It Feels Like if we win. It's going to be a Ohio State type win.
Our defense played that that defense, you look at the defensive numbers against Ohio. State is just it's otherworldly what we held them to and I think that's what you're going to need to see, you know, and like we were just talking about this team is going to win on defense, you know, you're not going to see offensive explosions. I don't think you can, you know,
expect that. I think what you would see is defense leading to kind of, you know, good offense, which is what you saw in Ohio State. There was a good defense, which led to some nice fast breaks and you really kind of stymied, Ohio State in to do. Doing things that they weren't good at and just guys not playing effectively.
I think. Also, you know, what, we hope to see is what we kind of started to see in the Nebraska game is just, you know, the bigs of Purdue, you know, Williams, Ed Lee, you know, getting into foul trouble and Indiana. Biggs not if you see. No, I mean even even eat ET is there's no l in it. Sorry. I was getting IV in the its pronunciation problems that I have just Continue to have, but I think you see, you know,
Purdue getting into big man. Feel frontcourt, foul trouble and Indiana. Not I think those are kind of your paths to Victory. I think the crowds going to be really good. You know, it's it is what it is. It Assembly Hall, it's going to be good. If the game stays close that you're going to get a boost, their this team plays better home. We know all of that, but I think those those would be the ways that I see a path to Victory to me.
The big thing is Indiana has to score, like I just produce got the best offense in the country. They are the most efficient team and largely that is because Purdue does a marvelous job at hitting the shots that they take. I know that seems very straightforward, but they are their fourth, and their fourth in the country. In three-point field goal percentage their eighth in the country and two point field goal percentage. They don't get their shots blocked and they get a lot of
offensive rebounds. So look, I think Indiana can do some things defensively. They're they're going to be at a disadvantage. If you know, Anytime. Yeah, because obviously you've got Ed and you've got cherry on Williams that are going to be in there all 40 minutes.
So you're going to have to have lights out, defensive performances from race, Thompson, from Trace, Jackson Davis from Michael dirr when he's in from Jordan Geronimo, and you know, you're going to have to figure out a way to make it. Let make life hard on Purdue without fouling. And I think that's that's the big question mark that I have for this IU team is what?
Their approach going to be to do that, you know, if I mean producer really well put together team but I think, you know, we've seen some teams be able to have some success and look Purdue also, as you know, can shoot badly in certain games. They didn't shoot the ball particularly. Well from long range in that loss to Rutgers, you know, when they played Wisconsin, they they shot the ball. Pretty well from outside.
They didn't shoot the ball. Well, whatever, whatsoever from inside, so can you emulate The style of defensive play that you know, they can go either direction there, but you can't let them shoot well from both and I'd rather they shot well from outside, I guess. Because even though that's a bigger momentum play. It doesn't rack up as many points as you're going along. So offensively to me though. The big story for Indiana is they have got to figure out a
way to consistently score. The can't go through these long droughts. They can't have these whole periods of time. Like we saw in the number. The game where they just look like, they don't know what they're doing offensively. And that's going to take frankly. I think Miller cop and Parker Stewart hitting shots from outside. Because if they can do that, that's going to open up the inside, which will allow Trace Jackson. Davis to do what he does. It allow race Thompson to clean
up on the glass. There's nothing special. I was talking about this before. A lot of this is motivation. A lot of this is effort, a lot of this is Will and yes, Purdue is a daunting team. Mmmmm, but IU has the capacity to win this game, especially at home.
And a lot of it. I think is mentality, Indiana has gotten themselves into positions against Purdue over the course of the last several years where the mentality of Purdue was stronger than the mentality of Indiana that has to be the first thing that changes so we can talk about all these little individual elements But ultimately if Indiana comes out and plays with a mentality like they played against Ohio State, Going to have a really good chance at winning if they come
out and play like they played against Wisconsin or against Penn State or Iowa. I don't think they're going to win. Yeah. Anyway, think that'll wrap it up for us. Just a reminder. We are brought to you in part by the power rank. You can check out the power rank.com for PhD, level analysis on college, basketball, coach football, and it's a great resource if you're interested in wagering, if you're just interested in figuring out, what's going on. It's a good place to go.
So check out the power rank.com /, AC as Ed Fang will get you signed up for his free newsletter and you'll be That you did. Anyway, Scott we got to run out of time here, as always a pleasure, good talking to my friend. Thanks to all of you who wrote in with questions. We will we didn't get to all of them. I'm sorry. We had a limited amount of time and we went over it by like 30 minutes. So even with that, it didn't
work. Anyway, we'll catch you folks on the flip side, bring back the Bison, go Hoosiers. So long, everybody.