You're listening to the back home network presented by home field apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cascade. When caviar joining you, it is the 11th of April. Hope you're all doing well as we head into the second third of. Of April hard to believe. It's already 1/3 over at this point and we're still waiting for some resolution on some things with IU basketball. Certainly IU football going through some spring, practice items. And some interesting things going on there.
Are you women's basketball has had quite a last week as they pick up what looked to be. Some impact transfers pulling in some really high quality players. One from Oregon. One from Minnesota, one from Providence. And so Terry Moore and her crew really starting to reload as they head into the 20, 22 23 season. So we'll keep an eye on what happens with that roster and certainly will have more to talk about with all three of these Sports as we move forward today.
Me and Scott get together and talk about some of the pressing issues with IU, basketball Scott, had some questions. I had some answers, we talked about. Oh, a little bit of everything in terms of how to perceive this IU team and what to think about In terms of the recruits coming in and try to give everybody a little bit of a reality, check in terms of what to expect and perhaps what, not to get your hopes up on. We also talk a little bit about Purdue as much as I'm loathe to do that.
We needed to chat about what happened to them in the NCAA tournament and what it means in terms of their overall Legacy. So we'll get to that as well here in a little bit. Before we do that. Just to reminder, that Crimson cast is part of the back home network and the presenting sponsor, the back home network is home field apparently.
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Anyway, let's go ahead and get to our conversation and just a reminder, folks, that you can always find Crimson cast by following us on Twitter, but also subscribe on. ITunes, subscribe on Spotify if that's your thing. And that way the episodes get delivered right to your phone or wherever you listen to them. All right, we've got Scott, we've got Galen. We've got the original Crimson cast, Voltron up and running today. Scott. How was vacation? Voltron? That's awesome.
It was good. We had a good time out in the cabins. It was funny as I was driving down there. We went to a cabin last year around this time. I thought what a world, what a difference a year, makes because remember, driving back last year and it's like, we got the fights news where the Woodson news. I can listen to all these podcasts about how great things are going to be. And then now it's We're driving back. Its I got five news. Got the Vada news, like a lot of the same same names.
Different different stories and little bit different. We know the vacation was nice, good time to get out and it's always my favorite trip of the year. Just getting it. Had cabin out in the woods and just enjoying enjoying time with the family and the dog few things illustrate the difference between Scott and me more than our ideal weekend. His involves being in a cabin in the woods. Mine involves being in a beach setting as much as humanly. Only possible.
So that's okay. Like meet you, too. I like it. All Scott doesn't discriminate. He just doesn't want to be home. Ultimately. So, so Scott's a lots of stuff going on as you just alluded to with IU basketball and we wanted to dive in and talk about some of it. We still have a lot of questions. We need to get to from the folks out there on Twitter. We're not going to tackle much of that today. But what would you like to talk
about? You've been kind of out of the action here for a little bit, and there's a lot to catch up on. So, where should we begin? I know it's tough with a group of Bloomington and MCCS. See much like I, you always has spring break the first week of the tournament. So I always got like that Thursday, Friday off school, which is great. Now, you know, with my wife school and here in Westfield,
the spring break is always late. So we're always gone look right at the, you know, we missed the, the final four and all that. It's like, I'm always now gone when it seems like this, this news, dumped of things, you know, and it's bad, because I feel like things have already kind of had their psycho. Everyone's had the five takes, the reverse takes, and it's like, we're back. Normal, you know in the end. I've kind of come down to this. Like none of this matters if we
win games like last offseason. We won the offseason for the most part. So hey, we got would soon, we got five forgot model. Like we're all talk ourselves into it and none of that really mattered. Well, Ron Harper jr. Was, you know, dropping his proverbial balls on the floor and Assembly Hall? No one was like, oh, but remember how great things were last April and none of this is gonna matter here. If we win games we make it as a nine seed in the tournament next
year. No one's gonna be like, oh man. I wish we'd done this with fight or with Mota. That said, the order of operations doesn't look good. It definitely feels like, Woodson is fully in charge, which he probably should have been, you know, that's the funny thing that people forget about, you know, Woodson got hired. He didn't get to name two of his assistants or the director of basketball operations. Just kind of bizarre for head coach to not have that much say in who he gets.
But, you know, in totality a lot of not ideal news, but again, I think winning cures all. But my question for you on this that I haven't fully gotten is, You know, assistant coaches come and go. So the idea that like, you know, just just a dangerous, a assistant getting fired is not the end of the world. I'm curious for AI. You guy who came in just a year ago and again, like an IU guy
with a lot of IU history. Why did it feel like again from my perspective just felt like he was kind of Done Dirty on the way out. Like, it felt like it was kind of a lot of like those articles being lined up or it's like all right. Now we can kind of Russell Wilson, left Seattle's like everyone had a, had a hit piece ready to go. It felt like five, kind of got kicked on the way out the door. Or where maybe he shouldn't have been. I don't know. That. That was my take.
I'm curious your thoughts on why? It didn't feel like it was more like, hey, Dane, fives. A great guy. Just didn't work out here at felt like a little more like no. No, we fired him. And here's a couple hit pieces from pigs. Well and other spots too, I mean, look, I think and understand folks that, you know, and what I do for a living. I look at the stuff all the time. Analytically. And look, this happened when, you know, when Terry Francona got fired by the Red Sox, it got
it happened. Like you said, with Russell Wilson, happens all the time. And I think a lot of the reactionary pieces about Fife leaving on both sides were Overdone. I think that there's always a desire on the part of the people in and around a given program, who are there to put themselves in a position where they don't look like the bad people by doing X, Y or Z. And you know, I think that with with someone like five, there was a real concern that people would be up in arms about him,
essentially getting fired. Unless there was some reason That was given or reasons given that would justify it in the eyes of. And even then, I mean, you know, certainly we saw and heard the chatter on Sports, Talk Radio and on message boards, people really didn't like that. And so a lot of that stuff is damage control.
Yes, it's unfair. I think they're even when there are grains of Truth in it. I mean, as you mentioned assistance, leave all the time players, leave all the time and you don't normally see those sorts of things coming out. But the flip side of it is it's kind of The nature to I think on both sides of the equation. Make yourself look as good as possible while making the person that that's leaving. Or that did you wrong or whatever. Look bad in in retrospect. And so that's to me, it's not
great. It's unfortunate. But I think a lot of it, whatever the root cause, and whatever was true and whatever is false. I think ultimately, there was just a personality conflict there that spilled over into some other are areas that. And I don't think that in this era of social media coverage where everything is so immediate and it's really out there to get people fired up. I don't know how much people really need to get too into the Weeds on that.
It's part of this larger soap. Opera that takes place with sports in general, and IU basketball, in particular. And ultimately, I don't know that it does anybody a lot of good unless you're on the inside and we're part of the dealings. It really doesn't affect. The program that much. I think, I don't think it necessarily affects the way that you as a fan are experiencing the program or at least it doesn't have to. Yeah.
No, that's kind of been a joke. I've said, it's like, we're starting to debate, like, what's good and bad about our third and fourth assistance. Like, we're Deep In The Weeds. Like it's, I don't look at guns at me. I'm a peripheral fan of Gonzaga. Like, I know, Mark Few is their coach. I don't, I couldn't tell you who their third assistant is, and it doesn't matter. And like if there's if you told me that their decision and got fired at Gonzaga next year, going into next.
As much, okay. I still think you'll be pretty good. But so I it's none of this stuff really matters that much. So yeah, that's that's where we are today now. Yeah, it's it's tough and I feel I'm glad things have subsided a bit and, you know, particularly if the rumors are true that the Dane five kind of land on Thad, Matta staff and Butler. I think that's a great landing spot for him. And I think he would do really
well in that role. And I think that the assistant coach set up that, Indiana. Seems to have it looks like Woodson's comfortable with that moving into this year. And I think that's great. And ultimately, I think that's the something that we can put behind us. Now that March is gone and we've turned the page into April, at least, I hope so. Because as you say, you know, part of the problem with the lack of success for IU is, we end up getting caught in these sorts of conversations, and
these sorts of arguments. And it's, it doesn't matter, like nothing that it gets said, or reported at the level that it's Then I think really ends up resonating. It just ends up exacerbating, an already difficult situation among fans and with fans perception of the program. Yeah, and then men and we're kind of we're recording this on Friday April 8th that we're kind of in a flux spot because we still, we've had the people, you know transferring.
I went to see my dad right after like Michael dirr announced and we were just kind of talking about basketball and he's like, he was like a hundred percent sure that tomorrow Bates had. His name into the portal. Like, no, he hasn't. Well, no, he hasn't like it's like no, like it was like this back and forth, but we were still waiting to hear about Trace, Jackson, Davis, and race Thompson.
I think those are kind of the big dominoes to fall on the transfer side of where you know, I think our team's going to really depend on whether their back or not what direction our team goes. I don't know, you know a lot of people I've gotten really hung up one way or another on the race and Trace thing. And, you know, some people have convinced themselves as like, well, we're not going to be good, unless they're both back or at least one of them is back.
Some people have convinced themselves that both of them need to leave and that you just need to hand the starting position at least at the for, I guess, over to Jordan Geronimo. And then, like hope that you've got a solution at the five. Look, here's the thing. I think that it's easy to get tied up in thinking that there's Going to be a an ideal circumstance, by which the roster will take shape and that
we don't really know. I mean, we went in the last year, you know, Xavier Johnson was on the roster, but I don't know how many people really looked at that guy and said that guy is going to be our starting point guard. Most people assumed it was going to be robbed fennessy and that's just not how the the year when at all a lot of people went into last year thinking, that, that Tamar Bates was going to be a major player in terms of Minutes and points and so forth and that
just never materialized. Meanwhile, I don't know that many people were looking at Jordan Geronimo and saying that, that guy's going to make a huge impact down the road, and he ended up making a really big impact. So, as you, and I talked about many times it just, it's speculation is fun. But it really means nothing at the end of the day. Because not only do you have the uncertainties of how players are going to play with each other.
You also have the uncertainty of who's going to actually get better in the offseason. You know, my favorite on this is Ways, you know that that summer and fall leading into what ended up being Mike Davis, is interim year. As people were thinking about, who was going to be playing Major minutes and making a big impact. Nobody was saying, hey, you know, Tom Coverdale, that's the guy that's going to solidify his hold on the point guard position and really become an everyday starter.
I mean that Tom barely played his first two years and that, that kind of thing happens pretty regularly, you know, as much as Victor Oladipo was a relation is sophomore and Junior years. There were a lot of things that happened is freshman year where you were like, well, maybe he'll round into something of an athlete, but he probably won't be. He certainly won't be scoring double figures or anything like that and how wrong we were. So, look the I think it's an along along those lines.
I'll hop in one of those lines. I think it's, I listened to your pod with Father, James Antonio's Rania, the, the Hoosier hotline guys. And they went into this little bit of assembly call. I've heard this before and it is funny. We He's starting to see this for people are kind of looking at the lineup next year and it's like, oh we already have, you know, you got to have Drake out Roy Galloway and you can has Avery Johnson and like you're going to, you know, put your fee nose coming in.
It's like, all of a sudden we already don't have enough minutes. Are the guys that we have. It's like that. That's your point. Exactly. As not, the way it works. And I've heard the talk of like, you know, well, gosh next year, you know how you two split minutes, but he between hoods Ruffino and Xavier Johnson, like, you know, you're gonna have to give Hood At least, you know, 20, 25 minutes.
And it's like, I've always all the guys that point guard that I know on the roster, including our freshman, who can play at a high level, with in the Big Ten. I got one name. His name is Xavier Johnson's, but I know that guy can do it. And and this freshman thing is always, it's always kind of, you know, my I got two Hills to die on the talk about this pod, but one is like, the, let's just not expect too much or freshman. I kind of looked at UV. Take Xavier Johnson.
Give me a second to get to my point. If you take a look Xavier Johnson's year this year, does he have? 12 points of 12 points. A game offensive rating, 102 and the usage rate of 66 and we made the NCAA tournament. So you say, all right. I need a freshman over the last 20 years who's had that Baseline. So averaging 12 or more points. Having an offensive rating will call it a hundred or over with a usage rate of over 65 and the team made the tournament in the
last 20 years. You'll how many freshmen have met that bar for for Indiana for Indiana to? To it was more. I thought I thought it was too as well. It's actually for, okay. Let me see if I can guess them. Yeah, Cody, Zeller. Yes, Eric Gordon. Yes, Yogi Ferrell. Nope, James Blackman jr. Yes, and then Trace Jackson Davis. No interesting. Gracie. Gracie, right, Christie, right? Wow. Okay. Yeah. So so if you look at it based on points per game. You know, are coordinates like
an outlier 20 points. A game offensive rating, 110. They made the tournament Romeo Langford had a good freshman year, but they did not make the tournament Bracey, right? They were a 7c that year, James backs in junior. They were attend seed. Cody, Zeller. They were four seed and then TJ D &, DJ white also had statistically, they be better years and Xavier Johnson, but they did not make the tournament.
So kind of a weird setup there, but it's like, you look at next year making the tournament should be the goal. So the idea that you're going to have your hood Shafi, no, come in. In and have a year where he's basically playing at the same level of Xavier Johnson this year statistically and you're making the tournament. We just don't have a lot of experience in doing that and, you know, Zeller and Eric Gordon are kind of outliers.
Like those are just the kind of freshmen that you don't normally
see. So all that saying is just that the idea that you're just going to take these freshmen and plug them in is unlikely, you know, when I have this I went ahead and did it. I started every guy in the last 20 years, everybody under Xavier Johnson has a lot of guys, You know, Noah vonleh and our mom Bassett Yogi Ferrell and you know, Justin Smith and drawn Davis like a lot of guys who turned it appear to be pretty good players who had very, very
pedestrian freshman years, and that's much more than Norm. So, it's just, as we're doing it. It's fun. We have a good time. But like, let's just be careful when you start sliding eyes into being like, well, he's going to get 20 25 minutes and you're going to get 15 points out of him. And the idea of like, we're not going to have enough time at either the Physicians, like, believe me. We'll get to February. It'll be like this year.
With tons of time for tons of guys and look, I think it's an understandable tendency among fans and pundits. You're always wanting to unwrap the next present under, you know, whatever holiday vessel you happen to utilize, whether
that's a tree or something else. And and look what we've seen is that the guys who made the most consistent contributions to IU in the last year were Xavier. Who while he transferred has been playing college basketball for a while and race Thompson, who has also been playing college basketball for a while, that was his fifth year of Eligibility.
And in certainly Trace Jackson, Davis had a very good year, but it was, you know, there was a big trough in the middle that frankly you didn't get out of race Thompson or, you know, Xavier Johnson got better as the season went along. So, you know, on the one hand we've said for years that I you needs to get older, they need to get more experienced. And yes, it's nice to have talented freshmen coming in.
But I'm with you 100%. I think just cordoning off 20 to 25 minutes and saying it's going to go to this freshman and you have to play them that amount. Look, I think you, you have to play the players that are going to produce on a regular basis. And you sometimes get the Eric Gordon types who come in and they are immediately. The man, they're immediately able to contribute but that is in the IU annals of History,
very rare and even more. So I think Because a lot of the promising or really exciting freshman that we have had have generally been plugged into teams that haven't been that good. Noah vonleh being a great example. I mean the ones that you mention Bracy, right, you know, they went to the tournament that year but keep in mind, you know, they've got a bunch of veterans on that team that that he's able to slide into and it wasn't a perfect fit. But he, at least had that
support structure around them. You look at the next two years of racy, right? Where they don't go to the tournament either year and you start to see some of the issues Cody. Zeller. His freshman year, you know, he's got Jordan holes and Christian Watford, and Victor Oladipo. And will she he already on the roster and that group had forged and identity of the verdell. Jones was on that roster as well, obviously. And you can go down the list.
This is where I think if there's not a lot more in terms of defections off of this team. I think Jalen Hooch, Fino has a much better and ncj gun for that matter and Banks. I think this is where they have a better chance of succeeding in a way. Say scoop Bates didn't this year because he had to get plugged into an environment where a lot of the pieces, as we talked about many times didn't fit
together, particularly. Well, and where they're just hadn't been a lot of winning over the course of the last four to five seasons. So, just pump the brakes. It's fun to speculate. It's fun to think about this guy's got to play like this. I'm just not going to put a lot of stock into it. And obviously, you aren't either. Yeah, well, and you mentioned the pieces, not totally fitting together.
I'm just gonna start, I'm kind of pinball on around here, but A question that you asked Tony on that podcast was, you know, what was wrong with the offense? I'm driving back from from George and I thought I was thinking about it and, you know, to me it's like a two-fold, there's a problem and there's also not a problem. I think part of the problem is, and this is Trish, Jackson, Davis is a talent and a great player. But, you know, he does present a
problem. This is again the other Hill that I've been dying on forever that you know, he, we need to give him an outside, gamer needs to be able to do more than what he's doing offensively because the, the starting lineup, as it was consistent played a lot. You had Trace Jackson, Davis just basically eight feet from the basket at all times. And when he left his Defender didn't leave with him.
So there's a Defender there, you have race Thompson, kind of doing some of that and then you basically had Miller cop and Parker Stewart like they went to the corners because there was nowhere else. As for them to go on the court, they couldn't go in to go out because there's, there's a two Defenders there for race. And traces, guys. They couldn't go out and then go in because there's already a
Defender standing there. And then he has Xavier Johnson at the point and like the, the geometry of the Court never seem to fit all of that said, you know, as I was thinking about this as I was driving again, like the end of that Rutgers game is a prime example that, you know, we needed a three. What's in, Drew up a play, where Parker Short came off a curl and head a way. Open three from the top of the key, like, all the issues that we have with geometry.
You still Drew up a play that got your best, three-point shooter, a wide-open three. He didn't hit it. And it's like, who's and I remember telling my buddy at the time, like, which one's gonna take crap for this but it's like, I don't know what else you can do. Like you got, you've got the best shot for your best shooter and he missed it. Like look, I don't want you but they'll print date. They end up running another play. They got Stewart, another good shot. He hit the shot.
They ended up losing the Rutgers, but it's like that. It is part of the problem it and I look at that play. As kind of, I go back to we pulled up here like in 2009 creams. First year, the team went six and twenty five. I think we could all agree. Not a great season, but that season, the one thing that I took away was Matt Roth was 57 for 153 from three chop, 37 percent from three, but I remember during that said, I think he had like nine through or nine threes against Illinois.
I remember that Seasons like that team didn't have much. We had a young verdell Jones, you had Tom Prichard yet, but Like Matt Roth could shoot threes. But yet Creed was running an offense that got him open threes. When the defense was like, we all we got to do is worry about this one guy. There's not a lot of offensive weapons on that team, and I remember thinking like Creed's pretty damn good at offense. Like if he's able to get Matt Roth, open threes with this
team, that's pretty good. And it turned out that Creed was really good at running an offense. Period. Stop there. But so the fact that Woodson is able to get open shots for his guys, you know, I do think I don't want to be an apologist for. But it gives me a little bit of those same feelings that like this is a an odd roster, where if he's able to get sand, run some really good sets guys
aren't hitting shots. Maybe we get guys, who can hit shots, things are going to look vastly different. It's entirely possible. I mean whether you want to be of the mindset that the offense was bad because guys weren't hitting shots, you know, because they were just not capable of making them or the offense was bad because it wasn't giving guys
shot opportunities. I'm I guess more The former Camp than the latter Camp because if you look at the offense as a whole, there's some things that you can take away. That said, well at the very least, the offense under Mike Woodson was able to shore up some things, you know, Trace Jackson Davis, being an example. He posts his best shooting percentage and is best effective field goal percentage of his career in this past season, you know, he's able to increase his
abilities on the offensive. Glass even though percentage-wise it was you know, is about the same as it was a previous year, but it within where the offense was. It was almost a more impressive contribution and you can go down the list. I mean, race Thompson was more efficient offensively than it was the previous year. There's a lot of things, both internally and externally, that you feel like the pieces were there. The execution wasn't there? The actual we're going to carry
this out and hit the shot. I don't know if that necessarily changes too much, and maybe it's just a matter. Or of more practice, more interactions more. Here's what you have to do at this time. In this situation. It does take a while to get players to think along those lines to get rid of the ball when you've got the shot as opposed to waiting and looking around understanding the difference between those things
and even something. As Elemental as the pick-and-roll, which we finally saw start to work towards the tail end of this last year. I just, I think the big question
ultimately for the offense. Is whether the missed shots and the droughts offensively are something that can be addressed through schematics and through training, or whether that is something where there's just, there's a fundamental issue with the players and their ability to execute and I don't know what, I don't totally know what the answer that is. I think it's probably an execution issue rather than a
plans issue. That's not to say that the plans couldn't be better in a lot of spots, but I do think that a whole nother Of working on execution. Probably gets this team. A lot closer knowing that last year, most of their execution time and practice was spent on defense and we certainly saw some improvements in that area. Not just collectively, but also individually.
Yeah, I mean, the only trouble is you have like, you know, you did lose your best, you know, statistically best three-point shooter and Parker Stewart, you know, you're going to be based you hoping, you know Xavier Johnson keeps shooting at the level he is it is. I know you talked about in the Other pods like it's baffling that out how bad we've just gotten as a program. And getting three point shooters. I did do that research.
I was looking at Armand Franklin and what providence Al Durham Alger up. Yeah, like I look at their numbers at how like they didn't get that much better when they left it just it's wild. The three-point shooting. How are your board? Just not able to get it but it's well, that's right, cooking stuff. That's the word. A lot of the recruiting. It's weird. It's like Armand, Franklin's a great example. I mean Armand, Franklin was a pretty good three-point shooter for Indiana.
His sophomore year shot 42%. We thought gosh, that's a big loss. He shot. 29.6% Virginia this year. You know, Al Durham was was a pretty good three-point shooter for Indiana All Things Considered. I mean, it wasn't a great exhibition, but he was in the 38 percent range his last two years that I was shocked. 23% at Providence. This last year. There's a lot of things. That go into all of this. And the one thing that's hard for me and you, and I think anybody watching IU is, how do
you analyze? What is Woodson? And what is Woodson's approach? And what is the overall way that this team is playing like, how much of that is just latent in, what's been built up and what people have known versus? What is an artifact of the new system in the new approach to things. I don't think we know that yet one season is not enough of a Ample size, to be able to say, for sure. It's why we were so patient on Archie, because we looked at it was like, well, we knew the
talent level had dipped. So it's like, you got to give it two or three years to figure it out, and make sure that this isn't working. And then I think everybody figured out that it wasn't working with Woodson and I know everybody's impatient, but I saw enough positives on defense, that makes me think. All right, give them a year on offense. I think they'll figure that out too, but we'll see. I could be wrong on that.
Yeah. Yeah, well, but the other thing too is, you know, he has a full off season this year as an office and he has his whole staff. I mean, that's the thing is, you had guys like, I'm not saying Pfeiffer motto. We're bad or good but they were not Woodson's hires like that is definitely what I take from this offseason is this is now Woodson's program. Like now he has the keys, he is in control this program making
the tournament. I think allowed him to take some of that control and it's you know, it's It is a good thing. But like it's, you know, again when we hired cream, he brought his whole team and we hired Archie. He brought his whole team in it's bizarre to hire Woodson back. Hey, you don't get to of the, the off, the Accord are spots and the basketball off spot, will hire those on our own and you'll get, guys, you can meet on, you know, first day of work. So this is this is his program.
It is his now and you know, we will see where it goes, but I'm with you. There was enough, positive on the ending. I'm trying to stay positive because it's yeah. There's been a lot of what you could perceive as bad news. But in the end, none of it.
Is that bad me Fitness. He's the only one that's a little bit of like I wasn't expecting him to transfer, but you know, people transfer people decide to go for a bunch of different reasons, you have some transfers and then, you know, the coaches, those things leaving is, you know, it is normal business. And like I said, if we win games, none of this is gonna matter now.
No, I mean most of the external or the side drama tends to bleed out whenever there's something better to pay attention to. And there just hasn't been we need more of that. So let's let's get more of it. Into the system, please. I got one more thing. I know you're tight on time. Yeah, but just a I've heard this in a couple different places, you know, we had a and I want to get your thoughts on the st. Peter's beat of Purdue and we've talked off the pot.
I want to get it on pod to which is just just fantastic. But you know, the Big Ten doesn't win a title again. I heard it on a couple of Indiana pods, you know, what's the problem? And I'm as guilty as anybody else. Like I've I talk to Jess settles about it. Like, you know, is it officiating? I think there's some of those things. I would just say a bit of a scarecrow argument. You know, the last couple years
have not been good. But there's a great article on 538. I recommend you go check it out. It's called where to the big Ten's March magic go but you know from 2000 2019 the Big Ten had 16 teams, make the final four of the most of any conference 48. Sweet 16s, which was just too shy the acc's 50. So it's you put the most teams in the final four for 19
straight years. A lot of it and I hate to just kind of push it away, but it's like a lot of it's just Just, you know, you have some bad games. You have some bad matchups, like if any one of those if Michigan beats Louisville, we're not having this discussion. Like any one of those games. Go a different way. And Michigan State cash was one of those in like, we're not having any of these discussions. We've been a really good league for a long time. I do agree.
The officiating doesn't help us in the end. I think the way these teams are constructed, but when people are like, oh, we need more high level Talent. It's like dude, three to four of the top 10 picks in the NBA draft. The Big Ten players like we have top level Talent, we have top. All coaches. I'm not sure. We have top-level officials. But I do think this idea of what we have now. Even want to 22 years. Like we've got to you know, we've got to change everything up.
It's like, all right, the last two years has not been good. But if you make the bar like making the most final fours, we've done that like making the most sweet 16 s where s the country doing that like you're setting the bar at only one team gets to do it every single year. So just throwing that kind of counter argument to a scarecrow argument out there. No, I mean, look, there's something to be said for that.
It hasn't been a complete wash. I mean, but it's it's irksome when the Big Ten with all of its financial resources and all of its Brands isn't able to win a title. When the titles, what matters. Yes. The final four is absolutely matter certainly, but if all you're doing is getting final fours. While the ACC or the Big 12 or the SEC, or winning the national championships, you're going to be perceived, you know, however, unfairly is it conference that just can't get it done?
And I do think that if you look over the history, the teams that have made, Made the final four have been teams that are comprised in a way. That is somewhat similar to what you see every year out of the top, ACC teams teams with a lot of high level Talent, that's athletic. That's offensive. Oriented the generally play at a faster pace. And that is something I think that doesn't really mesh. Well. And I talked about this on the, the senior counsel podcast
earlier last week. It's not something that mesh is particularly well, Well with what wins you games in the Big 10, you know, that having that like the if you think about the Villanova, we also may be awesome more teams with, you know, five level 1 infractions and FBI investigation, but you know, I mean maybe but let's not kid ourselves about the Big Ten being innocent on that front, you know, I mean, you know, the the reality is when the best of the Big Ten in the final four
has met up again. Best of these other conferences, they've lost. And that is a problem because we can talk about final fours. All we want is like, what we're better than the Pac-12. And it's like, well, I would hope so. But you know, the reality is the Big Ten much like in football. The Big Ten wants to be judged on championships, the same way that the SEC does in football. The same way that the ACC does in basketball.
The difference is those conferences are winning championships and the Big Ten is not and you know, as much as people want, you know, you can we use the 20-year Mark as Michigan. State won the title in 2000. Michigan. State was the only top seed left standing that year. It was a very lucky break of the
bracket for them. And look, there's other teams that have had lucky breaks of the brackets, but it's, it's gotten to the point where when you think about the last time, the Big Ten was really able to claim. Without question that it was the top league in the country because they were winning titles and they had a bunch of of top-level athletes every single year.
I just It's it hasn't resonated enough or it hasn't resulted in enough actual championships to ever feel like you can make the argument that the Big Ten is clearly the top League. I mean, this year that was supposed to be it was a really deep League team. Didn't even get a team out of the sweet 16. And you think about that
Villanova game. I've learned of a Kansas game in the final for the difference, in the way that that game was played and officiated where there was what one or two fouls called in the first. Ten minutes of each half and then you compare that to what you see in a Big Ten game. I think certainly something needs to be done, just to acclimate the team's to what it's like to play at a high level where athleticism and skill are more important than
physicality. That's that, that is fair before we wrap up just because short schadenfreude is fun. You and I talked about it, but you know, this was a 20, you know, 15 years you're kind of building up to this team at Purdue and One of the best teams Matt Painter has had a bracket that breaks. I mean, could not have broken better for any team to be like, hey number one seed, got number two, seed and gone like it. Is there outside of them.
Be like, hey, we're just going to move the regional the Mackey. I'm not sure what else? They could have done the made this better and you don't get it done. It's not, it's a close game. No one gets injured. You know, wow. Like that. That is hitting a brick wall. I know it's you. Hey, I, you'll even get out of the, you know, there. Their game against st. Mary don't care watching, Pretty loose like that is awesome. This is worse than the loss.
We had the Syracuse because at least Syracuse the four seed they made the final four. And you know, I don't know, man. That is that is a tough tough L to throw on there. I mean, it's all the things I just said about the Big Ten Purdue is the Big Ten in miniature that they are. They all the stuffs on paper, the talent, the accomplishments, everything is there. Except they don't win titles.
And you know what's fascinating to me about this Purdue team is, this was clearly from a an overall Talent perspective. This should have been the the season that Purdue was able to win the conference title. The, the Big Ten tournament that and the national championship should have loosened able to get to the final four as you mentioned. You know, they play of that. Yeah, they got none of it. And there's no real explanation as to why for the amount of
talent that that Purdue team. Team had to not play better defense and to put themselves in a position where they would play a team that got completely outclassed an out talented by North Carolina and Purdue who, you know, of course, earlier on in the season, beat that North Carolina, team on a neutral
floor. The fact that Purdue was an able and Matt Painter, wasn't able to figure out a way to game plan effectively against st. Peter's, despite having two guys above 610, who have very little Double scoring. It's, it's hard to take anything away from that other than, that's why Purdue has the reputation that it has. And there's not a lot else. You can say, as much as Purdue people might want to get mad about that.
As much as people might Point their fingers and say, will you, I, you fans have no room to comment. Look, you, you have to be able to judge a program by itself. And, you know, produce constant thing is they're they're tired of living in the shadow of, I you, but you don't get out of the Shadow unless you win something. And you at least get to the final four and it looked like it was a affair complete that they were going to get there and they
couldn't get their. So I take a great amount of joy out of it because I got you just you get very tired of hearing about Purdue and you know how supposedly Superior that program is and what they've built and they still when the rubber meets the road have been incapable of doing it. And there's been a variety of reasons for that over the last 40, some years, but it's always the Same result. And I think that's hilarious. Yeah.
No, I mean, and they are they're a great consistent Big Ten team. Yeah, like they, they could put up 20 23 wins a game a season. It's how I will end my buddy, Dan. I like, I was calling him before the sweet 16 lamenting like, damn, like Purdue's going to the final four. I guess it's happening this year and he's like, hey is that painters? Killer coach like? Yeah. He's like you'll be all right.
Yeah. No, I mean and then after the game Barkley was like, that was the worst coach game Versailles, Barton was Ask you like I don't know what the hell they were doing. I mean, it's like Barclays reaction to Kansas in the first half of the national title game, which was almost as bad and would have been given given the relative, you know success level of both of those teams in this year. That wouldn't have been as bad certainly as Purdue losing to st.
Peter's. But it still would have been pretty bad. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how you come back from. This is painter. Like what I mean? Could he have success down the road? Is he going to continue to recruit? He still relatively young?
I'm sure. But it's kind of like we're Gene Katie. Not after about you know, 15 years into his career at Purdue. You're just like, all right, Jane you've had Glenn Robinson. You've had Melvin McCants and Everette Stephens. You've had all of these really, really great players. You've had teams that have won multiple Big Ten titles. You can't get to the final four like at some point. It's not, it's not bad luck.
And yeah, so that's it's going to be interesting to watch because they're not going to be as good next year. And it's as we know as I, you fans, it's incredibly rare. To get the types of rosters together. That had the offensive Firepower. That, that Purdue team did. It's amazing, that they kind of pissed it away. That is, that is what I think for a lot of people was the end of created. I you like that team that lost to Syracuse.
I think for a lot of us realize like that team was so perfectly. Constructed like that team, you know, I think we would've been okay losing in the final four to another one. See, but like, we just, it's like we were better than that. Sit, that Syracuse team. I think that was, that was the end of really, to me like that was the start of the end of crean and This could be the same thing for painter.
And yeah, I think the difference is I you fans have ridiculously high standards and for Purdue fans. I mean, are they going to do better than Matt Painter?
Probably not. I mean like it's hard to Envision. Another coach being able to come in and have the level of success that painter has had its not to say that a coach probably couldn't do better with the talent, but I don't know what other coaches going to come in in that environment and get as much out of that program as painter has because as much as Purdue fans want to argue to the contrary, it's just it's not a national championship caliber program. It's it never has been.
I mean least I can maybe it was in the 20s and early 30s, but that was that was a hundred years ago at this point. So yeah, we'll see what happens. I'm tired of talking about Purdue already. So anyway, I know that'll wrap us up this time. We're going to do more will have an upcoming podcast. We will chat with you folks about some things will tackle some questions back with great. All right, Scott. Good talking to you.
Thank you to Scott for writing me for that relatively brief, but inspired or at least relatively fast conversation. Perhaps inspired is going a little bit too far, but we had some fun with that one. It was good to talk with Scott again about what's going on with IU basketball. And as we try, this is always a rough time of year in terms of trying to figure out. All right, you know, when is the season officially over, when do we officially get to the
offseason? And you know, with the recent news, of course that Trace Jackson Davis is going to test the NBA draft Waters, that actually came out after the podcast that Recorded, we didn't I decided. Well, you know, everything that we said is still quite pertinent because frankly tjd announcing that he was going to test the draft Waters, but retain eligibility changes. Nothing about the conversation that we just had. So still a lot unsettled for Indiana in terms of its roster
composition. You know, like I said, we're recording this or I'm recording this section on the 11th. By the time you hear this three or four people could have left, or we might discover that everybody's coming back. It's really hard to say. At this point. So just buckle up and enjoy the ride and understand that this is happening across college basketball at this point.
So we'll see what happens with Indiana and where everything finally lands, my thanks to my partner Scott Caulfield and my thanks to all you folks for listening in throughout the course, not just of this podcast, but over the course of this entire basketball season, my thanks to home-field apparel and to our friends in the back home network. We will be back with more podcasting coming up later on this week or next week, depending on How news warrants
for Crimson cast on Galen? Clabby will catch you folks on the flip side, bring back the Bison song, everybody.