Ep 845 - Talking Hoops and Football in May

You're listening to the back home network presented by home field apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cask ale and clavius got Caulfield joining me. Once again. It is Sunday. The 22nd of May we haven't Stood in a while. We're back. We're excited. We barely talk to each other. In this time. It's been a nice break, you know, we've spoken are you know, we've had some, some therapeutic sessions, the lawyers have gotten involved and then not but you know, we're back.

We're in good shape now and Scott. It's very good to see you again. How are you doing? I'll just stand by. It's not you. It's me and it's not you it's me. No, I'm doing it. I'm doing fantastic. But yeah, I texted you a couple times. You've been busy. Than yesterday, you text me back and I'm like staring at three yards of mulch on our driveway and like, well, sorry, Gail migraines. Come on. I got to get this mulch taken care of. No, it's been.

It's been good. And we have, we have good news to talk about. We're a week away from the Indianapolis 500 race tracks and Davis was coming back. We're in a good spot. A lot of good things to talk about. We're going to talk. I you Athletics, both men's basketball and football today. We got some questions from you folks out in Twitter land, and we're going to try to answer some of those. And just kind of talk about our general feelings about where

things are right. Now. If you're new to the show, we don't podcast a tremendous amount during the summer because there's generally not a lot going on. But and you know, there has been a lot going on with IU basketball and now we know pretty much what the roster is going to look like unless there's something really unusual that happens over the the summer months, which is hopefully nothing along those lines occurs

football. We've also pretty much got an idea now of what the really Is going to look like. And it just feels like, there's some stability as both of these teams go into the fall, or I guess into the summer and then that'll lead into the fall. So we're going to talk about some of those items, answer some questions. First of all, just wanted to remind you all that. Crimson Cass is part of the back home network and the back home.

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Yeah, and I'm not really in Arkansas guy. It's one of those shirts. I probably wouldn't choose to wear on my own, but that's okay because you, you know, sometimes we need to be introduced to things that we wouldn't otherwise choose. Who's ourselves and that's really what your friends don't feel apparel do with big new Saturday, is they put something into your life that you might not have put into it otherwise and then you find that you really enjoy it. Some of the designs in the last

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I'm a gold member or so. I got some note. I've not fully signed up for that. But I All-American which means I probably spent a mortgage payment on home field apparel. It's a nice way of saying it but hey don't sleep on Arkansas mean. Dude, you and I started this podcast with a very simple Theory. We're gonna talk about IU Sports and hopefully one day Scotty Thurman. Listen to our podcast. So, you know, maybe Scott, he's listening coronavirus Williamson any of those, you know, Or

Arkansas teams there listening. Go. Arkansas is now at home field, go get it. Yeah, I mean anytime we can celebrate Duke not winning something, we need to even if it's 20 years after the fact. But it's a 30 years after the fact. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, let's um, let's dive in. Let's talk about things. We had some questions. We're going to get to those in a second or a start with IU basketball and you know, Scott we kind of had an inkling.

I think the trace Jackson day Might be coming back. He makes the official announcement earlier this past week and it essentially completes the IU roster for the upcoming season. I guess, first of all, your overall thoughts on the fact that I you goes through this offseason and they end up coming back with not just Trace Jackson Davis, but they also bring back race Thompson.

They also bring back Jordan Geronimo, you know, got three guys that honestly, I think at the end of the season we looked around and were like it's possibility. The two, Maybe all three of these guys might not be here and they're all coming back for this upcoming season your overall impressions of that first and foremost. Yeah. Well, it's funny when the day that Trace announced was like Friday and I had a super busy

day. But, you know, and I was, we were starting to talk about, you know, doing something and my buddy, Teddy, one of my best friends out in California. So, I checked was like, what's your take? I just didn't have time to get back to him when he's like, no, take like what's going on in there? Zach? Where's the paws? Like? Why did the Pod so there are People clamoring for the Pod but I do. I love where we're at now because I feel like this is

going to show my age. I feel like we're the old Sports reporters. I love that show on ESPN with Mike Lupica and Bob Ryan and like the old sports reporter show. But like we've had time to digest everything and we'll have a nice take here on the front end. There's nothing but like, it's been a great offseason. I'm like getting traced Jackson Davis. Pack is kind of the cherry on top like that. That really, really helps everything. It's much better to bring him.

I'm back then to not my two thoughts are this is that I'm going to take it a bit of a zag on this first off. I do, I feel a little bit in a way, traces had an odd career and I feel for him, because a lot of things, kind of conspired for, I feel like for maybe him to have the career, he wanted to wear the, you know, the first year he was here was The Archie Miller year and it's like that that cut gets cut show short bike over. Like if they make the tournament

that year. He might just go pro after his freshman year and You know be gone, you know, his sophomore years was a full covid year, you know Woodson brings him back and then from all accounts. That sounds like he, oh, he got covid during some of the MBA workouts which might have limited his ability to get where he wanted to go.

Maybe as a second round pick and have some of those listen to Scott Agnes talking about this, you know, he didn't get the five on five workout, but also just didn't get to a talk to teams and meet with them and show them what he could do. And so a lot of things kind of stunted his growth but on the flip side, it's like Ni L is here which also allows him to get paid which makes this an easier, you know, reason to come

back. So all that said, like I hope this for him as a kid going to school if he's having the experience and he wants and as a feel like he's kind of boxed into this. That's it for the team, you know, I was already getting excited for the team before the Jackson Davis announcement because as many other people have mentioned other a lot of other areas, you know, when you look at what other teams, the Big Ten Are losing and what?

They're not bringing in. And we have, you know, one of the better rate of recruiting class. I know I don't get I don't talk about freshman. I don't expect much time that said we have a lot of good ones coming in and, you know, to five stars. Somebody's got a pan out of that, like, that's just law of averages. We have a lot coming in, a lot of other teams outside of Michigan have lost stuff. So I was already excited for us to kind of be a nice Dark Horse

quiet. Candidate this only helps but I actually am more concerned now. And I will take a breath after this and dig back into all the research, I put into this. But, you know, our biggest problem last year was shooting in three-point shooting specifically in a weird way. This makes the team get better and raises the expectations, but doesn't solve our biggest problem from last year, which is

three point shooting. So in a weird way, I'm actually a little more concerned because I think if Trace wasn't on the end again, I'm happy. This is the way I'd want it to be, but if there was no, if Tracy, just said, I'm going to the NBA. A, it's like, all right, we can, we can middle around with you, figuring out three-point shooting again, as kind of a off the radar team, hoping to get in

the top four. Now, if we come in, you know, ranked top 15, top 20 in the country and the competing for a Big Ten title. You're in an era, in an air, I should say of teams where you can't just suck at three point shooter. You got to get that figured out. So the expectations were raised but it didn't solve what I think, is one of our underlying problems of this year. So that that does make me concerned with that.

I'll be circling back to that. But I'll take a breath and, and Gail and I will ask you the same question. What are your thoughts? Well, that's an interesting perspective. I mean, I look ultimately not every piece can do what you would like the team to do

overall. And yes, I don't think that adding Trace Jackson, Davis back to the roster, is going to result in tremendously better, three-point shooting, because of that piece, however, two things I do think that the sheer volume of scoring that Trace Jackson, Davis brings to the table, the amount of minutes that he's able to eat up the, his overall effective field goal percentage, which last year was top hundred

in the country. I mean, you at the end of the day, the key is not outside shooting as much as its efficient shooting. The reason three-point shooting is considered to be at a premium, is that it is a more efficient shot. Because when you hit one, It counts for more points than hitting a 2, but a missed three is worse than a made to in almost every circumstance.

And in this case to be able to bring a player back who you know scored almost 1 Point 2 points per possession last year, shot 59% from the field from to I mean that that is always something that you want back as a team and as a coach. And so I think you know, it was interesting when I was looking at the communication. And around the Jordan Geronimo decision. A lot of people were concerned that Jordan Geronimo was going to transfer.

And it was like, well, you know, Trace Jackson Davis should just leave because Jordan Geronimo is emerging, and it's like you're missing the point. You've already got a highly efficient volume scorer, who can score almost anywhere within a 10-foot radius of the basket and Trace Jackson Davis. You want to get rid of that so that you can bring a guy back, who shows potential, but hasn't actually done any of that. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

The fact that both of them are coming back. I think is a real real benefit. And, you know, look, ultimately Tres Jackson Davis is coming back because the professional Scouts and talent evaluators looked at his game and said, we really like certain aspects of what you do, but you are deficient in the areas that need to have Proficiency in order to Be an Effective professional. And that's the case. Whether you're talking about the NBA, the end be developed NBA

developmental League overseas. He just hasn't expanded his game for whatever reason. He's got a real opportunity to do that. And I think with the level of talent Indiana's got back. It should hopefully unlock Trace Jackson. Davis has ability to go try other things. On the floor on offensive, possessions rather than having to be routed to the post. Like he has been essentially the last three seasons. No, I agree. And by the way, I'm I'm getting a bit of as a gear. I completely happy.

He's like, I would rather have him back. Then not I think the other thing that it does Shore up that we saw this year a little bit is like with Tamar Bates progression. This year is we saw him as a freshman, like he was a, he was a freshman who was inconsistent at times. Showed signs of greatness showed signs of being a Freshman, but they were times where it's like, we needed 12 15 minutes out of him and he just wasn't able to

produce. I think this also Yours up, you know, when you look at I hate doing, the hoos are starting five next year, but you have to assume that, you know, Xavier Johnson, Trace Jackson Davis, and race Thompson are going to be some version of our starting five next year. You would assume Miller cop as a starter going to get into that now, but me, he started most of the games last year with the way Woodson puts a premium on expertise.

I would assume that that lets but then you also have a spot for like Geronimo Galloway, Bates, you know, but so when you look at, you know, the Freshman like Renault and Hood Shafi, no banks and gun, you know. This also, this has a nice spillover effect to the second Unit were.

Now they can play more of that traditional freshman role where we're not asking them to come in and it's like, all right, you know, which tree know like I need you to not to run the offense and you know, shoot, I don't know, 38% from three and give us 22 points a game and, you know, just play 28 minutes and not a big ask, you know, now it's more of a, hey, we just need you to, you know, run the second unit and you're going to play against s either Big Ten teams, and if you do well, like,

you know, Galloway will put you in with the first unit, like you can have more Of that progression and get more room for those guys get their feet wet. Not to mention playing against a trace Jackson Davis every day in practice. So, you know this this should also Shore up the second unit, which was also an issue. We had you know this year. We spent a lot of time talking about why are we you put some of the starters of the second unit? Like that was always. The problem is like when the

second unit came in this year. It was like we need to stagger, you know, who's coming in and out. This should help some of that as well. So it has a nice spillover effect as well. Yeah. I mean a lot of what we're looking at with this roster. Stir. And we've got some questions on this, which I'll just dive into since we're already talking about it is, how do all these pieces fit? What does it mean in the big

scheme of things? So to jump into a couple of those right now, we had a question from, let's see from Lisa. Can we realistically win the Big Ten tournament and go deep in the NCAA tournament without three-point shooting and free throws or do you see players who

can help in those areas? Well, I mean, first of all, I do think that No question last year's team was better at those things than previous year's vintage has that we've been looking at. If you look at the numbers, you know, Indiana managed to increase most of their key shooting metrics by at least some.

And I think it's kind of got lost in the shuffle with some of the frustrations that people had during the Big Ten season about offensive shortcomings, but realistically, the numbers look like this Indiana's. Free throw shooting, went from 66.5% in. The 2021 season to seventy percent last year. That's a three and a half Point jump, and 70% is right around kind of the median of what you normally get in college basketball. If they can maintain that or go slightly better, you know,

that's an area. You no longer really have to worry about as much three-point shooting, indeed, increase it only increased by a percentage point. It went from thirty two point four to thirty three point three, but still that is an increase to point field goal, percentage shooting increased from 48.5 to 50.9 a two and a half percent increase and overall effective field goal. Percentage also went up essentially two percentage points from 48 and a half to 50.6.

So, you know the despite the feeling that offense wasn't getting better. It did get better last year and a lot of that was traced Jackson Davis.

I mean if you go back and look at race tracks and Davis's sophomore year stats, you can see a real dip in his overall productivity and what he was able to do on the floor from What he did his freshman year and then you look at his junior year and it's like, wow, that looks like just your classic sophomore, trough as opposed to being an indicator of the future. So if you think about it, and going back to Lisa's question, You have to have shooting but

it's not. The only thing, I mean of the 68 teams that made the tournament last year, 17 of the made the tournament with an effective field goal percentage under 50%. So you can still survive and actually be a pretty good team. Even if you're not shooting the ball as well as some of these other teams are but it would say it makes things a lot easier particularly. If you're playing the type of defense that we saw this, I you team play. As far as who might help on that front.

It is kind of interesting because I think a lot of People have been pointing to Jalen Hood. Safiye know as a guy who can come in and give outside shooting. I don't think that's his game right now. Like, you know, stats are hard to find at the high school level even harder, sometimes with prep, but he was not a particularly good three-point shooter at least not in any of the numbers that I've seen But I

tell you who were good. 3-point shooters were CJ gun, and Kayla banks, at least, you know, I haven't seen a lot of numbers on banks, but you look at his stroke. It looks very, very nice. And you know, it doesn't seem To have a lot of fear and pulling up and taking that, what are

those guys able to do? Another areas is going to be the big question, but the key and all of this is that you've got players coming back this year, who have shown the ability to shoot the ball, at least decently from outside. And if you get some incremental improvements from them, you're going to be in better shape race Thompson, you know, he shot 20 percent from three in 2021. He shot. 27 percent from three last year. Can you get another six or seven

percent increase out of him? Casey Miller cop tailed off. At the end of the year. He still shot. 36 percent from 3 on the season tomorrow Bates shot about 30%. Could you get four or five percent better from him? Xavier Johnson, coming back with as a 38%. Three-point shooter. That's something I look at it. I'm like, okay, you know, particularly if you've got another distributor playing at the to, where Johnson doesn't have to be the distributor all the time.

Maybe that increases, his ability to get better shot. It's off there and increase that percentage a little bit. So I do think that the influx of talent. The fact you've got Trace Jackson Davis back, who's going to naturally? Pull some guys off of the perimeter. I you as a better chance this

year. I think of taking advantage of that it will require players on the team, getting better from what they did last year, but I don't think it's an insurmountable jump, you know, when you see some of the improvements that guys made from the previous year to this past year. I think that could happen again with another cycle of coaching and just In used to the system that they're playing it. So I'm going to dig into this question a little bit from Lisa. It's a great question.

I'm a little more on her side and this is again, you know, to me I look at this three-point shooting thing and it's all about expectations. And this is again to go back and maybe clarify what I originally said, I'm happy. Trish Jackson. Davis is back. I want him back. I think that makes us a better team. My concern is it raises our expectation and you know, how you view a season is a mix of

expectation. And so you look at this is not the best analogy, but like the Milwaukee Bucks and The Grizzlies, and the NBA both finish their season in the same level of the playoffs, but the Bucks. Probably look at it more like a disappointing season because they came into it, thinking they can win a title. The Grizzlies were like, just, I know, we're a young team. It's like, hey, we just took a Warrior's 26 and second round, you know, all the shooting things.

I, you know, you mentioned last year. The shooting was an issue, but it wasn't. We look back. We're not going to think of that season is like a Lost season. It was like how we kind of we Clear the Hotbar. What we need to do because we weren't expected to win the Big Ten last year. This brings expectations for next year.

And I don't want to start being pumped, the brakes guy, but I mean, I do think we're, you know, a top two or three team in the Big Ten will be ranked in the top 20 nationally. When you're at those levels, you know, you can't have the same kind of shooting we had last year. Look at this a little differently.

If you look in our in our world, the Big Ten, you know a team that won the Big Ten last year in Illinois, plumber shot, 40% But I'm 240 attempts, Gratis ins shot, 41 percent, 134th attempts Purdue had Savannah vich 38% on 2228 attempts. I will say Wisconsin is an aberration here and just because it's always fun to read Davidson will do it here. Brad, Davis and shot 34 percent on 225 attempts. So a volume shooter and a bad one at that you are, right.

We're bringing back to Johnson and mellor cop at 38, 36 percent, but they didn't shoot a lot last year. Yo Johnson was shot 94 times from three, cop 108. This could be a chicken or egg thing where it's like if you're not shooting great. Do you want guys volume shooting at bad numbers? I'm not going to dig into it, but you go look at like in Zagat Kansas the teams of the top Echelon of NCAA basketball last year. They all have guys who are shooting over 200 times from

three and shooting at about 40%. So, you know, the question is, can we get somebody who can do that? And I think that's just an open-ended question. We don't need to dig into it. Now. We'll see as the season goes on. You know, it's funny. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Anna I gotta I gotta counter you on this. Okay. So let me let me give you an example of. So let's take an example from 10 years ago and IU basketball

history. OK? The 2011 IU men's basketball team as a team shot 34.6% from three shots, seventy two point, six percent from the free-throw line. The next year 2012. They increase their three-point shooting from thirty four point six to forty. Three point one, and I'm just going to stick on the three-point numbers. They didn't do it by having one guy, come in and be the volume shooter. Yes. Jordan holes took a lot of Threes hit a lot of Threes.

He was 49 percent that year. But most of the Improvement on that team was just everybody getting better in one form or another Jordan, Halls goes from essentially, a 41% three-point shooter, his sophomore year to a 49 percent shooter his junior year. Christian Watford goes from being a 38%, three-point shooter, his sophomore year to a 44 percent. A shooter his junior year and they shot. Not not too far apart from each

other. In terms of numbers holes, put up, 146, 3s, Watford put up 119 threes even someone like will she who only shot about 53's that year went from 30% his first year to 38% his second year. And I guess that's my point is that that was a situation where you had a team that had talent that added more talent in this case, Cody Zeller coming into the roster, but had a year to

meld. Gather and figure out how they were going to do things and everybody got more comfortable in their positions and you had significant leaps by the players that were on the roster. It really does. Come back to this idea from my perspective in are these guys just old bad shooters or have they been in situations where they haven't been either able to execute because of the way the offense flows or there's just a lack of confidence.

I think it's a little bit of mix of both, but I think that going into this year. The the array of talent. You've got particularly guys that can shoot from inside. If you combine that, with a better understanding of how the offense is going to move. I think that leads to a situation where it opens up and allows some players to increase. Two, three, four, five percent, maybe slightly more and that's where the, the increase is come from. Maybe not necessarily the freshmen coming in.

No, I think that's funny. I look to the 2013. I've some 2013 number. So you kind of you. You made my point. You didn't make my point but you use the numbers against me in a very good way that I like. No, I think that's a very valid Counterpoint and I hope that's the case and I will say like listening to Tony and Rania on the assembly called the other day.

He was mentioning how you know, when Miller cop was shooting, better at northwestern's because the sets they were running was he was more kind of a catch and shoot guy. Whereas last year we had to create his own shot. And so the idea here is hopefully with a better overall offensive, you know system. He's in a position. We can be a little bit of a better shooter. I was looking at the 2013 13 numbers because I kind of joke

in my notes. Like, all roads, always seem to go back to Oladipo. It's like you, you look at him and his progression of adding a three-point shot, his junior year. I even think of my mind's like, oh, that was the greatest progression. So he went from 20%, three-point shooter with 48 attempts. His sophomore year to a 44% three-point shooter, but only 68 attempts. So it's like he didn't really attempt that he did become a volume shooter.

Well, yeah, I started looking at the numbers of that, that 2013 team and Right, like it's just it's nuts. How many good three-point Shooters? They had, you know, Watford 48 percent from 124 attempts

U-Hauls 44% in 180 attempts. But to your point, I was shocked like, Remy Abell who to nobody goes back and thinks like, oh, great, three-point Shooters of. I use paths, like, got a devil's got to be in the top five are able to be the top five, forty eight percent on only 33 attempts, but you're right

there. If you know, if you can get a hood rafinha to come in and just you know, shoot 63s, but Shoot it in a 38% clip and you get cop to you know, 39 40 percent, but get him over 100. I think that's I think you are right, but I do think you need to have somebody getting over, you know, 100 to 100 to 150 attempts and getting up there. But I think you're right. If we can get a bunch of guys shooting 34 38 percent in that, you know, 3250 a temporary. I think that's going to help, I guess.

Yeah, I guess to close the book on this particular argument, you know, I think the problem is if you have a Sasha stefanovic or if you have someone who can shoot, Well, at that volume. Absolutely have them do it. I don't think any of that Indiana has anybody like that right now.

So what you have to do is make sure that you have players that can shoot well enough and put them in open positions, and get them ready to catch and shoot, get them ready to get the ball on Kick outs, or, you know, have them stationed in the corner and being ready to go. I mean, I think part of the reason why Parker Stewart and Miller, cop struggled down the stretch last year, was that they were really slow with their release. A lot of people. Blamed the offense for not getting them.

The ball in time. I've had this argument and I know people disagree at times, but I looked back at film. And what I see is a lot of situations where the guy's just either weren't ready to shoot when they caught the ball or when they started to shoot their most in took so long, you know, that pop rate that you see the Kyle Korver sort of thing where you're able to get the ball off so quickly.

That wasn't there a whole offseason of working on that sort of thing and getting into the right positions makes a big difference in terms of what the team is able to deal. You and so I don't think you're going to see anybody shoot, you know, a ridiculous amount of 3s on this team because I don't think anybody's quite good enough to just live from outside. Nobody on. I use team outside of cop and Stewart shot over. 100 threes

last year's. David Johnson was was close, but I think that's the mix that you're going to need. I mean, you go back to previous like what can't, you can't use 21 because of just covid and that shortened season, but if You go back to the year before that Devonte, green tried to be that guy put up a hundred and sixty five threes. And the only shot 36% and he was like the most reliable person from outside. That's a scenario that leads to

disaster. But I think this team is going to be strong enough and be efficient enough scoring inside. The three-point shooting. Will hopefully take care of itself. We'll see. And I think those of you who are skeptical or like you're being too optimistic, you know, what, you're you may be right at this point and Maybe a situation where I'm putting too much faith in a full offseason of development and and trying to get guys to understand what they need to do in that mode.

But at this point, I think you give Woodson and his staff the benefit of the doubt because even in a year where most people were frustrated as hell at the offense, there were demonstrably. Better numbers across the board and shooting and that you have to, at least say, I think at this point gives them the benefit of the doubt to further fix it as we go into this. Upcoming year, let's take. Yeah, good thing with probably would hopefully lead us to a

different question. But I think it's a concern, but I want to be positive now like on a very positive end. I don't think that we need to do that much more of an increase on our offense for this simple reason. Last year, the thing that impressed me most about Trace Jackson Davis, which I think is going to be as good or better this year his post defense and his ability to recover on defense was Unreal and and Race together was amazing in the

post. This post defense, ability to block shots, his ability to recover and get back on the post. In defense was maybe some of the best I've ever seen it. I you that normally defense, just continues to kind of grow on itself. As you learn more of those things in his ability to do that. My point is we could with him coming back, we could be looking at a top ten nationally ranked,

you know, adjusted defense. And when you look at the teams that were up there this year, you have your Houston Auburn Gonzaga. You know, you're in very elite Cara Tori and so you can be in a position where we're probably going to have the best defense in the Big Ten, a top-10, defense nationally. And so you do only need incremental gains in your offense.

Like that is the other thing with those Creed era teams, the 2013 2012 teams like they were shooting at a ridiculous clip has also because their defense was not a top 10 top 20 defense, you know, they had to have that kind of offensive efficiency. So I think this is where You don't need, I'm going against myself, but you don't need a ton of offensive gains because the defense I would be shocked if we're not a top 10 or top 15

defense nationally next year. And so you a couple, you know, a little bit around the edges on offense can make a huge difference because your defense can pick up most of that Gap. I think on the macro level, you do need some gains on offense because I you at the 95th ranked offense and defensive efficiency last year, which is just not quite good enough. Now, you know, you You can make the tournament with that.

I mean, there were teams that were better than them on defense that were worse than them on offense. Creighton. Probably the best example that team really struggled on offense, but they were really good defensive team. But most of the teams that were able to make noise throughout the course of the season and then also make noise in the tournament. We're you know, they had an offense that was at least in the top 50 and that's really what I think Indiana has to do now.

Where does that come from? You are buddy, Tony, add Rania. Also a member of the back. Home. Network tweeted about this yesterday where he looked at the final four teams since 2013. They averaged 36.8% from 3iu was thirty-three point three. So if you're looking at that, you know, they essentially three and a half percent increase. I you would need to make essentially half a three more per game over the course of the season.

That's not a whole lot more if you really, if you put it in those terms, you're talking about essentially you No, 16 to 18 more made threes over the course of an entire season.

Raises your percentage up to a point where it's commensurate with what's going on elsewhere in college basketball at that level to me. You know, when I think of this Indiana team on a macro level, the biggest changes are the biggest things they need to get better at offensively in order to improve their overall efficiency are free throws, which Lisa mentioned while you know, there were 70 percent last year, which was better, but that was still bottom third in

college basketball. All you know, if you increase that by another three percentage points this year. Well now you're giving away a lot fewer points on offense of possessions that all adds to that offensive efficiency

number. I'd like to see them be a little bit more focused on improving their offensive rebounding numbers just slightly, that isn't really what they were focused on last year to some degree and I'm curious if that's a feature of the Woodson offense that he's trying to run or if it was just a something That was an afterthought, you know, but ultimately you increase your three-point percentage that's going to naturally increase your overall offensive offensive

efficiency. And that's ultimately I think what's going to make the difference on the micro level. A lot of us just guys need to be in position to take advantage of opportunities and then take advantage of the opportunities because I think there were several opportunities that get left on the table last year, an individual games. That's that can't be how it is. If Indiana.

Really Harbors aspirations of being a team that can get to the second weekend or Beyond. So feeding into that, another question that we fielded from Patrick best guess on rotation depth for basketball. So, this is interesting. I was looking at this. First of all, I guess, you know, there was another question, may be able to handle this one and then go back to the other one. But the Hoosier author asks, who would your starting men's basketball lineup?

Be not who you think will Art, but who you personally would start. So I thought about this. I mean, I think right now my starting lineup going into this year and is obviously there's things going on. We don't know about just Josh Smith, still availability is not eligibility, is still part of the IU family, but he does not have eligibility, but I think right now the starting lineup, I'd be the most interested in would be Xavier Johnson at the

point. Jalen Hood Fino at the to guard, Jordan Geronimo at the three race Thompson at the And Trace Jackson Davis at the 5, that's an Uber athletic lineup that you've got. At least a couple of guys.

Three guys, really who are not afraid to shoot from outside on that because Xavier Johnson, as we've seen percentage-wise has demonstrated an ability to shoot from outside, you know, Georgia Geronimo, even though he only made nine threes last year, it felt like he was able to hit those key shots. When they were needed down the stretch and then race Thompson. As we've seen, has been willing to shoot as well. But you've got three guys there who can play inside.

Side and be very difficult to play against. You've also got Jalen Hurd Shafi know who's, you know, very athletic fits that particular role and can get inside and really work inside the three-point line. Yes. You don't have a lot from a three-point shooting percentage, but I don't know that. That's necessarily something that you're going to get out of your starting lineup this year. Unless somebody else steps up and as just a person you can't keep off the floor because of

their three-point shooting. That's also a lineup. That's very, Experienced heavy, you know, you've Jordan Geronimo in his third year, race Thompson and is what is his second decade as an IU. Basketball player. Trace Jackson Davis back for his fourth year, Xavier Johnson as a super senior. Essentially, there's a lot of experience but then you've also got the the athleticism in the Vigor that comes in with Jalen Hood pheno.

So I would have that as the starting lineup and then I actually think that there could be an 11-man rotation to start the season. Because I look at the, there's like, two separate rotations. There's a guard rotation and there's a front Court, rotation tray, Galloway Tamar Bates, and CJ gun. I think all have a real opportunity to rotate in early on, in the season and play regularly and then we can kind of see how things suss out.

CJ guns, fascinating. He said, I think an Indiana High School record for most three-pointers made in a game during his senior year. Tamar Bates showed a lot of Promise look like he was starting to come into his own a little bit at the end of the year. And then, of course, tray Galloway. You go just adds so much from a defensive perspective. I could also see him starting in place of Jalen, who chafee know, I just feel like at least one of these freshmen is likely to

start. And he seems like the most likely one given the spread of players that are out there. Frontcourt rotation. I think, is some combination of banks, cop and Renault. And I think, perhaps Miller cop is better suited for this role where you can come in and give 15 to 20 minutes off the bench, rather than a having to be a member of the starting lineup overall. That's The big question mark to me is whether he gets put into the starting lineup, but I got a sneaking Sensation that Jordan

Geronimo coming back. Probably means he's getting more playing time than he got this last year. All things considered Scott. What are your thoughts, by the way? Love the question because I love the, the flip of, what would my my ideal starting five be not what I think is going to be. So great chance to the question.

It's also it's a funnier because we're basically now figuring out two spots because like everyone has to start with Tres Jackson Davis. Right Thompson and zebra Johnson, like that's just that's pretty much a given unless you want to really spend the next half hour trying to convince me. Why? Something other those three is the starting lineup. So those three are locked in there, but I'm going to agree with you on Jordan Geronimo for a lot of reasons. You said, here's what I'm going

to say. I'm gonna go off the radar for Scott and I'm going to assume that a freshman's going to come in and do what he says he can do and does what he does. In high school. I'm going to put CJ, gonna my starting lineup because now what you have is you have a guy who can just go spot up, be a spot up three points. Shooter and look very, this will be very much like an MVA type

offense. You have Xavier Johnson, Trace Jackson, Davis running the pick-and-roll, and then CJ gun out in the corners for a spot up, you know, Corner three, you can run the pick-and-roll with race Thompson. You have Jordan Geronimo doing athletic things and kind of just being the, you know, 3 and D guy just you know, running all over the place to me. That's a very balanced line up and a very interesting lineup. It also leads for a fun kind of

small almost. I don't want to say like lineup of death, but almost a small Backup second unit where your second unit would be Hood. Fino Renault Galloway Bates, and cop as the Azure five as kind of a that would be a position with basketball with no prototypical. Five people like my dad like older fans or be like what do you do with a getting the post? Like what's going on? Like you can have three different guys, bring the ball up there like that.

That could be a really interesting second unit. But yeah, that would be in my world. I think that CJ got if he can come in and I shoot at a 37 to 39 percent clip from three, but that that line up there. He's got whoever's in that spot, is going to get a ton of wide open. Looks because I think Jordan Geronimo is pretty safe to be in the starting lineup. But you know, that, that second spot you have Xavier Jordan

race, tjd that spot right there. Whoever it is, if it's Miller cop, if it's TJ gun if it's Hood, should be no, like they're going to get a lot of open, looks well. I think the post. Yeah, the players are going to play it. The put the big wild card to me in terms. Development is Tamar Bates because if you look at Tamar Bates is numbers, you know, the reason I don't have them as an automatic starter.

Despite, you know, physically I think being probably the best fit for that to position right now is his offensive numbers really, worried me during this last year and look at a lot going on. It was a weird season, weird weird time to be a freshman in general, but to only shoot 37 percent from two to shoot, you know, barely 30 percent. You have to round up to get him to 30%. From three to have turned the ball over on 16 percent of your

possessions. And to have had so many possessions where he just looked lost or struggling to figure out what he was supposed to be doing on the floor. It's hard to then mentally project, that, that player is going to just jump right in and be a starter that said his athleticism. His ability on defense. I could see a scenario where Mike Woodson looks at him and says, this is a guy that I need on the floor for a higher percentage of minutes and So that is also just real quick.

He's also a guy who not just could Woodson say that like he has all the pieces there to make that freshman to sophomore jump, where you just like. Oh my God, where'd this come from? And like he has all the pieces there were he could make that jump. Where's not Woodson saying I need is like you have to play him like he becomes that guy where it's like dude word of this. This he put it all together.

Well this end of he has that ability to do it and keep in mind like this is a guy who in high school shot 58 percent from the field and 44 percent from three. So, you know, you look at it. A guy like Jalen Hurd, Shafi know who didn't shoot well from outside from all accounts as a player at the high school level. That's not Tamar bates's background. And so you could look at last year and say maybe that's a hiccup. And what we are really going to get is a different player.

That's a lot more in things and understanding what he's supposed to do, and able to execute and that would be great. And so maybe that ends up solving it. This is where having really good players across the board on the roster, really talented players is going to help. By you because the tomorrow Bates goes into this offseason and says, I'd like to start. I'd like to play a lot of

minutes. I got a really up my game because you know, there's a freshman maybe two freshmen that might be in that spot ahead of me. I will say this, going back to the question about who do I think the starting five would be? I think it's going to be different on January first than it is on November 10th or whatever. You know, I think that what you're going to see really didn't change it this year. No, but I think that was because

Woodson Look, I'll say this. I'll say this 10 years from now. I think Woodson was dealing with a very mismatched group in terms of what they could do on the floor and their ability to execute. And so like, 'hey, I think Woodson would have loved to have just been able to count on tomorrow baits for 20-25 minutes of game and he couldn't and there's nothing wrong with that. And as we've talked about many

times. It's not an automatic that freshmen are going to come in and be able to perform, you know, but but I do think It's one of those things where now he doesn't have to worry about that with Tamar Bates. And I think ultimately that will be something that across the board. Will see Woodson, be a little more flexible with what is lineups are. I think a lot of it last year was a real problem or a real

perceptional issue with. Am I going to get something out of this player when I put them on the floor? Because, you know, we rob fennessy played less than Tamar Bates. And yes, he had injuries throughout but when Rob Finn is he was He's out there. He really struggled to contribute offensively. And this was just kind of the mo of Rob fantasy and you're like, well, he'll snap out of it. He'll develop that offensive part of his game at some point in his career.

He didn't pray Galloway, you know, he also was out with injury for decent amount of last season, but he also didn't perform particularly well offensively. So I think a lot of what Woodson was doing was saying, well, I'd rather have these guys that are contributing even in a mediocre level consistently because the guys that I could bring in their place, just haven't shown the Bility to contribute consistently. That's what I hope.

And what I think Woodson is hoping is changing this year because a lot of those players either can get better this offseason or they cannot play. And a couple of the players that struggled with those aspects are no longer going to be here in this upcoming season. So look, I think this team still going to base its identity on defense and the big question is does Tamar Bates give you more on defense than a Jalen Hurd?

Cheffy no wood. Or a Siege a gun would like that will probably end up deciding that position on the floor, you know, because let's be honest. Like Parker Stewart really struggled defensively a lot last year that ended up being something that kept. I you perhaps from getting into that top 20 in terms of overall defensive efficiency. It's no guarantee that that's not going to be the same this year. But at least you've got a different deck that you're dealing out at this point.

Yeah. No, I agree. No, I well. I thought you had a point you wanted to hit before we never mind. Sorry. I was looking at something else. So I do have a traceback before we finish. All you bath. One Last Thing Before We transition out of, all right, we're not quite there yet. But any way to go back to Patrick's question, I think to start with there's an 11-man rotation because I and I look, I mean, and I'm not excluding dump command.

Lille. There's certainly possibilities that they could also get better and contribute. You know, I think with wheel the big question is, you know, is he going to be able to Provide shooting at a higher level, can he come in and, you know, serve that that role effectively to the point where you got to get them out on the floor? And, you know, for Duncan we just haven't seen enough of him to know. I'm a I'm a little surprised these back. I'm not disappointed that he's

back. It's nice to have a big body that can come in occasionally and do things. I just don't know what you're going to get out of him at this point. So with what we know and the players that you've got coming in. I think it starts with a relatively broad rotation. Oh, and you've got essentially, like you said, two, separate units and you can either treat the front Court in the backcourt differently or, you know, you this team can go pretty big.

I mean, the lineup that I proposed Geronimo Thompson Davis, that's a pretty imposing front, you know, three overall, but you could go significantly smaller if you wanted to. Like, it's not out of hand that you could have a race Thompson or even a Jordan Geronimo operating as, you know, the tallest player on the floor, if you needed to. And so, I do think there's some Tripp exploitation

opportunities. If people are contributing consistently this year, that you wouldn't have had the last four or five seasons know, for the first time in a while. I mean, I know we always are, you know, we go like it, start, we start the year be like, oh my God, how are we gonna find playing time for all these guys? And then by January, it's like, we have six guys on our team. It's like, we feel comfortable

with. This is the first time I'm erring on the side of like I do. See us having a kind of a glut of riches, like we do have a lot of players, but to your point, the Fun thing is, here's a lot of lineups. You can put together, that could be uniquely, the big lineup, you could have a lineup of, you know, Trace Jackson Davis race. Thompson Miller cop cop, Jordan Geronimo and Xavier Johnson. I mean, you know, and playing copy at the top of the tool. Most you can have that. Why?

Never like you said, you could have a really small lineup or geronimo's playing the five. So I think this could be a fun team that could provide a lot of matchup problems for other teams in a way that we haven't seen in a while. The other questions that we had on the basketball front, that would be, I think separately like to tackle. So we had a question from Ethan, Barksdale about Jordan Geronimo. What are your thoughts on Jordan Geronimo specifically next

season? He had huge flashes of potential this past year. How does it need to evolve this game to be more successful. So, you know, the thing about George Geronimo is he did evolve his game a bit already. He increased, this is the kind of offensive increase that you want to see out of a player, his office. Sufficiency from freshman year to sophomore, year went from 90 1.42 100.3, which just means now he's scoring at about a point per possession used, which is great.

His, you know, his turnovers are probably the biggest thing that Jordan Geronimo needs to work on his. He's turned the ball over essentially on 20% and then 21% of the possessions that is used in the two years that he's been at IU. And I think a lot of that's just, you know, he's not an actual ball handler. He still kind of learning how to maneuver and I can deal with things and catch effectively. So that's to me.

Probably the biggest thing because if he can remove the the situation where he's giving possessions away, he becomes a much more efficient player. Defensively speaking. I think, you know, the, my big thing with Jordan Geronimo ultimately is he needs to embrace his athleticism more and be more willing to pressure, opposed. Players. I saw a lot of that starting to develop towards the tail end of this upcoming year.

But you know, that guy is a nightmare from a physical perspective to go up against, you know, he's six foot, six inches tall, He's listed at 225 pounds. He's very versatile. He's clearly got if lettuces and he's clearly got a motor, A lot of it is I think applying it and being Smarter with it on the defensive end and then offensively just taking care of the ball, better taking good shots. And continuing to improve his

rebounding ability. That was the other thing that really went up this past year was he he was able to perform a lot better on both the offensive and defensive glass. So to me I look at this guy. It's like there's a possibility of a breakout. I don't know if he's ever going to be a great or even like very good offensive player because there's other players that do almost everything that he would

do better. But if he can sit outside, if he can hit 35 to 40% of his threes, if he can finish at the basket effectively. Anything could not turn the ball over, that's a hard guy to take off the floor because of what he brings elsewhere. So, you know, the nice thing about him is he knows how to play the for, you know, he can, you know, he can play it a kind of a modified three, if he can hit some shots, and he's going to be a nightmare to play defensively. So it to me, it's more

incremental than anything else. But of all the players on the team right now, he's probably got the best chance of taking a dramatic leap from last year to this year. Alongside Tamar Bates. Like those two, I think In particular have the biggest potential jump in them. And that's what I'm really kind of the most fascinating to see is how much of a jump do both of those guys end up taking.

Yeah, with with Geronimo with Bates, I would like to see more of kind of the set up outside shooting with Geronimo. I know we saw some of it to end the year.

So I'd like to see that grown. But to me, I think we're he could really Excel. Like you mentioned is just exploiting that lettuces and I look at two guys who were unbelievably athletic in our history, and Oladipo 10g and an OB. But, you know, Geronimo has a spot with this year's team where people are gonna be focused from on Xavier Johnson. Teams are going to be focused on Trace Jack. Davison race in the post which is going to allow him George Runway.

He doesn't need to set up and shoot threes. Like in a sense. He needs to do kind of what early Oladipo didn't would ogn, an OB did because OG had Yogi and Thomas Brian on the team with it. You were originally other teams were looking at those guys. And then of course, the old Depot teams, it wasn't until his

junior year ago. Really teens were focused on Halls Watford and Zeller in kind of that triangle there, you know exploit that athleticism like crash the boards like he did in the Wyoming Game, you know, just be a Constant cutter. Just always hitting, you know, cutting the lane using your athleticism be all over the court.

And I think, just by crashing the boards and cutting, he could cope with game and have some highlight plays and it's going to be if he's moving around and putting the defense in tough spots. He's gonna be the one not based on skill and I think just that teams are probably going to be. All right, we can't, we can't, you know, lead tjd on D. You can't leave him really can't leave race.

You can't leave Xavier. So it's like he's going to be the Who if we're going to double Jackson in the post? It's going to be geronimo's guy who's going to leave. And so Jen Geronimo can be the guy cutting to the post. Like he's going to be in that great spot where he's probably more qualified to be the guy than you know, the when it's like, you know, no offense. But like when you Anthony Leo's on the court cigar, he's Defender and kind of just I can leave and I could be the double guy.

It's like but if teams are going to double it's probably going to come from that spot and he's overqualified to be a guy who can now cut and get all those spots. But to me, it's like leading the athleticism. ISM and just be running for the vault crashing, the boards driving, you know, cutting the lane. And you're, like I said, he'll probably get 10 points a game, just off of that. Yeah. It's going to be a really interesting thing.

I'm really excited. I mean, I think there's a lot of fascinating stories on this team. There's a lot of good potential development stories and I think far more so than going into last year. We're going into last summer. I'm really excited to watch the pieces mesh together. There and watch them

individually grow. And, you know, increasingly I think, especially when you look at schedule related items, this seems like, last year was almost a training wheels, sorts of season, where it's like, alright, can we re-establish identity as a defensive team and then figure out what the other things are from there now, it's like, all right, that's in place. We know what that system is.

How does that carry through? As we look at trying to get better offensively as guys, try to get better individually and And I just think there's a lot of really cool things that we can look forward to with this team. Yeah, go ahead. Well, you mentioned the schedule, that's something you. And I have not talked about on the pods since it's been released like that.

I'm so happy to see Woodson getting into this, and embracing it. It's almost I'm happy with where we're at. But as you start looking at, it's like you, we know we're playing at Kansas. That's awesome. We know. We now have the non-conference game that or the neutral game site against Arizona in Vegas, you know, based on the Big Ten ACC challenge. It looks like we might get North, Carolina or Virginia. Home.

And then with the, you know, the a, that the Gavotte game, something we have one more of those. Not sure who were get, we almost swung it too far, not too bad way, but it's like looking at. It's like if we have North Carolina, Arizona, and Kansas on our schedule, like, we're playing three of the top 10 teams, almost like a. All right, like we're turning into like Michigan State here. We're gonna play, you know, Duke on a battleship or something. Like, are we doing one of those games where?

But I mean, this is great. And this also shows, you know, in basketball, like it's it's a decision when you're the coach of, Indiana. If you don't play a schedule like this because you can't say that Woodson had a ton of wind in his sails, you know, he had an OKC's is not like they won the final four last year, you know, then okay season. But look what he was able to get. You know, he got a Kansas home and home. You got a game against Arizona like just within like that.

It's like, oh, you have a pulse great, you're playing a, you know, top ten schedule in the country in some pretty high-profile games. I think getting rid of the crossroads helps in a weird way with the crossroads be off, we could actually theoretically was reading this play Butler.

In the gavitt games, which could be interesting as well, but it's, it's funny because I went from, you know, you and I try and go to the best non-conference game of the year, and it's like, for a couple of years there. It's like, all right. Well, I guess we'll go to st. John's. Yeah, or like, maybe we'll go SMU like it. Like, now, we're looking at it. It's like, I'm already committed. Like, I knew I was going to Kansas just because I want to

see. I want to see that the the field house there, but now it's like, all right. Well the weekend before I got to go to Vegas because I want to go see, Arizona. Like I've gone from basically having one night in that time that I go with Calum to kind of a mid-range game. Should now it's like I might get divorced because I want to be gone for three months out of, you know, two to three or three weeks in the fall, but no, it's fantastic. It's going to be great to. Now. This is a fun time.

Like you said, we have a fun T. We have guys that we've known guys, that we've kind of grow with the last couple of years and now it's like we get to go out and take our toys and play with them. Like let's go play with her toys in Vegas. Let's go play in Kansas. Like the the schedule aspect is Awesome, and it's nice to see, you know, I'll end with this. We get so concerned about, you know, recruiting and how is this do? And, you know, Hoosier hysteria as not a guy who's not into

recruiting. I know. Take a shot for those of you out there, but I do believe that the fact that Indiana has been basically, you know, in absentee of all these big preseason tournaments and preseason games. I think this is hurt. I think now us having these big Prime Time games against Kansas against Arizona, you're playing these games. This is what helped. This is, what helps in that November, December timeframe, where you have the NFL back, you have the NBA starting.

You have the end of the baseball playoffs, like what breaks through the all the holidays? What breaks through that noise? Oh, it's Kansas and Kentucky plan. Like I'll watch that. Like Indiana has been absent from all of that for like 10 years. And so it's nice to see us getting back. And I think this is going to pay dividends in the next three to four years in recruit. I think you're right. I mean, you've got to get out and play on big stages.

And you've got to be able to have a good product when you do that. And you know, I just I know there were criticisms last year the schedule of Woodson and particular and it's like with a with a team that was that uncertain and that could have done what you did last year. Like that's a schedule should have been. Yeah, it's already had. Yeah, you know, but but now okay you progress this forward and this is really where the standard should be and look this.

This has been an issue for a while and it precedes, you know, Archie Miller. I mean, this was a Tom crean issues. Well, yes cream did. Have I you play in some pretty good non-conference games here and there, but they also played a bunch of really bad teams. And it's, it's fascinating how much of a sea change that is from what Indiana used to do, which was overload themselves

all the time. And there were occasional years where they weren't very good, comparatively speaking, but they were still in those games that the brand was still out there. Go back and listen to the podcast Galen did with like the basketball HD guys, or whoever that was. G. Yes, 90. Yeah, the 92-93 IU basketball team because college basketball stories. Yes. That's right. That one. Yeah, it's just go. Yeah, college basketball stories. Look for the iu1.

Listen to Gayle. And he's as always, he's fantastic. But as if you go through that that preseason like, oh, well, they played Xavier that stable ranked fifth in the country. They played Kentucky ranked sixth in the country. It's like there was no brakes. Yeah. It's like the worst name was like, they played a stretch. They played like top 25 teams for, like, six games in a row. Yeah.

It's well and look, you have to build back up to That, you know, I think ultimately that's that's the big question mark and throwing your team out to slaughter is bad. But you also have to have a team that you're comfortable with and it just never felt like it never felt like Tom crean was fully comfortable with putting his team out like that. And it really never felt like Archie Miller got there either.

And look some of the contractual stuff with gaved games with Crossroads has certainly been a roadblock as well. So it is nice and we've been talking about that for years. Getting that off the books letting I use Judge ruled the way that they should be and we'll see what happens as a result of it. Last question on IU basketball and then we're going to move on and talk some football.

But I you artifacts asks, what is the realistic end of your expectation with this team in terms of the tournament giving the returning players and the incoming freshman class. So I'm going to let you start with this. Let's let's expand it slightly. If you're looking and I know it's way early, it's May but what would you consider to be realistic and Of your expectation for what Indiana's Conference record is and what they potentially could do in the

NCAA tournament. Yeah, and, you know, I will say, on the assembly call Ryan Phillips, talk about this and he put it into good good context. That, you know, we need to be in a spot where a few, you know, the March is a crapshoot and but it's all about is putting ourselves in a good position. It's like you just need more shots of the sweet 16.

If you get a bunch of sweet 16s, you're going to get a final four unless you're pretty and you know, but then and then if you get a bunch of final fours, you're going to win a title. I mean, look at Kansas like it is funny. Kansas doesn't that they've been good every single year. They haven't, you know, they want to title this year. But before the 2008 like they were on like a 15 year drought, which by the way, it's like I'll take it.

Somebody was like pushing 40 years, like that, sign me up all day long. So it's hard to say, like I think we'll finish, you know, in the sweet 16 or this and that. But I, I think I will, I can't go to numbers right now until we see the schedule, and I like to see the team play in The Freshman, play a little bit, but I think again, I'll kind of take it step by step. I think based on What we have returning, what the other teams, the Big Ten are losing and not

returning. I think it's fair to say. This is a top three team in the Big Ten and this team should be competing for top three seed, you know double by the Big Ten Tournament, which I know you don't get you. Don't get a banner for that lets you coaching or Tom crean. But you know, I think it's I don't want to say they should win the Big Ten, but I think they should be in that mix and control the things they can control. I think this should have team that should you know, do very

well at home. Home in the Big Ten, you know, shouldn't be losing, you know, multi would say hopefully losing under two games in the Big 10 at home. And I think it's a realistic expectation that if things coalesce together and again, kind of caveat like no suspensions. No injuries, like, you know, those things are things that we can't foresee. But you know competing for that top Echelon of the Big Ten and a

things break correctly. When a Big Ten title, if those things happen, you know, it would be nice to see us play on a Saturday in the Big Ten Tournament again back-to-back years that The first time ever for an Indiana team, maybe we do put a banner up for that. You know, if we can have a stupid Indiana's, number 1 1976 team. We could have a back-to-back Saturday Big Ten Tournament

team. But if you do those things, if your top two or three in the Big Ten, if you have a good showing in the Big Ten Tournament, you're probably a protected seed in the NCAA tournament. You're probably not a one or two, but you're a, three, four or five and then you know, the expectation is as long as you're not upset, you're going to this. Sweet 16. And so I do think, I don't want

to say Big Ten title. Sweet 16 or bust, but I do think that those are all realistic expectations based on competing. You know, you, you have a season similar to Iowa.

You're going to be a three, four, five seed, and then it's like, well, the bracket is set up for you to get to the Sweet 16. And then from there, it does kind of become matchups and who's playing well, and how two things look, and then it becomes a little harder to prognosticate, but I think that, you know, those to me would be the The very high level expectations is competing for a Big Ten title top, three, Big Ten and give yourself a realistic path to a sweet 16. Yeah.

I'm in the same boat on both. The thing is this as far as the big Ten's concerned? A lot of it depends on the schedule breakdown and who gets to play who and where? And we just won't know that for a while and that matters it who's wrapping around. Who's, exactly. Yeah, but I mean, you look at you look at last year and And, you know, the two teams that tied for the conference title in the regular season, Illinois and Wisconsin. Wisconsin had the 10th easiest schedule in the conference.

Illinois was a little bit tougher but you know, Wisconsin benefited I think from a lot of favorable matchups at the right times that you just don't know how that's going to break and you know Purdue by all accounts should have been the team that won the Big Ten last year and it didn't work out for Them. And it was largely because, you know, they had to go on the road at the very end of the season and play Michigan State, and

Wisconsin on back-to-back days. Like that's hard to do in March when everybody is really getting geared up. And so look, I do think the idea of Indiana being a top three top 40 min conference with the number of people that have left in the conference. You would look at IU and say, well, you've got all these people back. The one question that you have about IU is, do they know how to manage themselves down the stretch in a Big Ten. Title Chase, they've never done it.

This group is never done it before. I you hasn't been in a Big Ten title Chase of note in now six years or seven years. So there's that's not really in the DNA of the program and it it's a hard conference to win. If you haven't been a contender in Prior Seasons, you know, I mean, Illinois, shares the Big Ten this past year, they, you know, they didn't Technically when it in 2021, but they were

right. Up there in the mix of things and you know in 2020 you had a three-way tie and Wisconsin was in that group and there were players from that team that were on this this last year's team. So I just wonder with IU. Are they going to be able to deal with all of the intangible items that you have to deal with going through a conference season? That's a grind.

It's a 20-game schedule to be able to hold it together all the way through and get those contributions from across the board that you need to win a title. Idol. I think the talents there and I think if you look at what Indiana's got coming back, they have to be considered one of the favorites and I think that they will be, I would probably still feel more comfortable, looking at, you know, a Michigan or somebody like that and saying

well, they've been there before. They're more likely to be able to close the deal. But I think a top-three finish for Indiana and the Big Ten after years of not getting anywhere close to, that would be quite an accomplishment. And as far as the tournaments concerned, the one big question, I have, I think, If you're a top three team in a power conference, your expectations should be that you get to the Sweet 16 and I think that's what Indiana's expectations would be.

Can they get beyond that? I guess I have concerns because, you know, they've been reliably in the 80's 90's 100's as far as offensive efficiency over the course of the last several years. They were 90 something last year 95th. You look at the teams that made the final four and the ones that did generally We're really good offensive teams. They were better offensive teams and they were defensive teams. They were pretty Elite in both, but they were slightly better offensively.

I don't see a scenario where Indiana suddenly becomes a top 15, top 20 offensive team from an efficiency perspective. If they did that I think you could legitimately say this is a team that could contend for the final four barring that. I think sweet 16 is probably the cap on this particular roster. I'd love to be proven wrong, but without a team, It's really going to make it happen offensively even to some degree to the detriment of their defense.

I just don't know that that's going to carry you with the way that college basketball sets up right now that said, you know, Iowa State progressed pretty far in the tournament last year and that was not a very good offensive team. There were a couple of other teams like that, you know, so ultimately much like the schedule in the Big Ten. Your tournament luck is going to be down to what your matchups

are. Who you end up drawing and how they deal with what you do. And, you know, It is a little bit of a concern because this IU team just doesn't have a lot of tournament experience. They do have some now from what happened last year, but they don't have the kind of tournament experience that you can lean on. If you're in a tough game in the second round of the sweet 16 to help get you to that next level. So, we'll see ya. Anyway, did you have one last thing to talk about?

Yeah, absolutely. So, I went into this looking to debunk something and actually kind of, you know, the stats change my mind a little bit. And so one thing I've heard in a couple different. Was you know, this cements Trace Jackson's Legacy at Indiana, you know, and people have been saying he's a top ten. He's going to be a top ten Hoosier of all time, having done this. And my thing, whenever I hear that you, especially in the NBA it's ago. He's a top five guy.

It's like, I will who you bump it, like, who's getting bumped out then, because if he's Indiana, does have a good Legacy. You have five national championship teams, you know, he's gonna be top ten who you bumping. So I went into that thinking this thinking that and just kind of be like, all right, there's no way. But I just want to play with you real quick on this. So I was trying to put together a real quick list of like the top Hoosiers.

Here's the guy, I have two different camps and then I'll give you my thought process on what what is afoot for Trace Jackson Davis here, this upcoming season, guys, in the top six and then let me get through it and then you kind of keep notes and tell me who I'm forgetting some sure. I'm forgetting somebody talking to the Oracle value, basketball here in note. No particular order, not ordering these things, but the six that I have Steve Alford Calbert cheaney Kent Benson Quinn.

Buckner Scott met Isaiah Thomas. They're in kind of a realm of their own. They're on there either in amazing players like Cheney or guys who are leaders on teams that won championships. So those six are in one category. We just we just ignoring anybody that was alive before 1970 or what. I mean I can add so I can add slick Leonard to that. I was back in love to get more like Don. Chuan tour, Walt Bellum. Anyway. Sorry, go ahead. Please. Keep going. Why have those guys?

So the next category? Yeah, fortunately it is like there is just a age and time kills kills legacies it does. But it does the next group of guys are Our Fate, our historically important in their own, right, but I have a list of key smart Damon Bailey. AJ Moyer Jeffries. Cody, Zeller Oladipo Watford, question, mark, but having their slick. Leonard J Edwards land in Turner Yogi, Ferrell Don chalant. There you go.

DJ white, the Van Arsdale twins. Great G Kirk, Hasting, Alan Henderson. The list gets longer when you add those guys in, but listening to assembly, call that dr. Rick Boza John, one of their emergency pods, and I was searching for it. Here, couldn't find it. But bows us would saying that, you know, if you take Trace Jackson Davis has kind of average historical points, and Tack it on to what he's done. And he could finish third in overall. I, you scoring could and I think

I heard this right? Could like become number one or two at all time. Rebounding. Like past Salim Henderson, and I'm sorry to fit. So I As I look at this more, it's like, all right, if those are the top six, you add slick letter to it from the 53 T. Maybe it's the top seven, you know, the thing that he's missing is having, you know, either iconic moments, like an aged a moie or obviously a key smart or a Watford or just lots

of tournament success. Like Landon Turner Yogi, Ferrell Jared Jeffries and there is something here. There's more to it than I originally thought I went into this thinking like that's crazy, like no way. Now they have a season where they, they don't make the tournament or, you know, something like that. Like, it's going to be harder to put them there. But if he gets to top three scoring all the time, if he's close to 1 or 2 and all-time rebounds at IU.

And again, I'm not saying it has to happen. I'm just saying, let's say they make a run. Let's say they make a run to a final four or an ally date, and have a great game there. I will reconsider and say, I don't think it's illogical that he could become a top 10 player. And I also think this is It's unfair to trace Jackson Davis. But if this ushers in us back to being what we want, as a program, we're kind of like we're now.

The new Norm is this. I think we will look back and be like, it was traced like, it was traced and Woodson, but he would be part of that mix of guys. That kind of was like, all right. Now we're on the threshold of being back to like, what we want to be at. So I do think there's a lot of historical significance at traces feet this year. And I mean obviously went to title, he's going to be Immortalized.

He'll be there but I think if he had a couple of iconic it he put together a 38-point game and a sweet 16 or something. Like, I think him being a top 10 player at IU is really on the table. Some things have to happen, but it's there. And I was not thinking that going into this exercise, man. I don't know. I mean, here's the thing and I was not prepared for this question is so I didn't do any prep, but I look at Trace Jackson Davis. I say Bring him carrying the

team to a national championship. I don't think there's a way that you look at him in terms of his overall contributions, as being in the top 10 of IU players. I mean, there's just like off the top of my head, like, there's no way even if he wins a national title. I think that he exceeds Cheney offered Mike Woodson, Kent Benson Scott. May, you know, there's that's five and that's just off the top

of my head. And there are several others that I could throw in. If I think a little A bit more about statistical contributions, how effective they were as players and Isaiah Thomas. I love you. Well, yeah, no and Isiah Thomas did that in two years, you know,

so I think this is the problem. It's and this is always the tricky thing whether it's college or Pro when you try to balance, longevity versus accomplishment, and all of those players that we just talked about and several others that you mentioned in that longer listed quibble with like A.J. Moyet, but like, you know, there's a lot of that moment like, but for him, The moment, but II. See I put a lot. I put all your players in

buckets. And right now, Trace Jackson Davis to me is in the same bucket as Yogi. Ferrell and AJ Gaiden guys who played for four years who made a lot of statistical contributions who did a lot of really good things. I mean, Yogi Ferrell 12, Big Ten titles. AJ gaytan was an All-American his senior year, but when you think about the full expanse, and what we think about as far as like, who were the best I,

you play. Layers being great at IU, really does, require you to do something above and beyond just put up statistics for four years to some degree. It's why Walt Bellamy, I think, isn't rated more highly because even though he might be a better basketball player age and era, you know adjusted, then almost anybody else on the list because he played at a time when Indiana didn't have a huge amount of

on-court success. All Things Considered he ends up falling down the rankings in people's head. You know, that can also inflate people, you know, beyond where we should be thinking about them. But the point being right now, Trace Jackson Davis, he's had a clearly impressive statistical profile over the course of the three years that he's been here. One of those years was the covid

year. So, you know, we lost some statistics that he might have racked up there that might have even put them higher up the list. But to me to get into that top 10 echelon. You'd have to really contribute either with Big Ten title or a really deep NCAA tournament run above all expectations, where your play is a primary reason why the team is doing what

they're doing. And and so that's where it's going to be. That's there's a, you know, I think it's a different era now in college basketball, like the idea that anybody would even get into the top five in scoring. I think we thought those days were completely gone because you know, the last, you know, He staying for four years and scoring as many points, as he did, was kind of a unicorn moment because 10 years later. He's probably not in school for

all four years. So, that's where I think Tres Jackson Davis is Legacy. As a top 10 player is going to largely. Hinge on what this team is able to accomplish. Can they bring home a trophy, you know, can they can they get they make a Deep Run in the NCAA tournament even with all those statistical accomplishments. I just don't think that he's going to be considered that great of a player in the echelon of IU basketball until that happens. Or unless that happens.

I agree with that. I guess the point I was looking at is like I hadn't fully thought of the statistics being there. Like if let's just say Indiana beats. Maryland in 02 like Jeffries is now bolted in that list because he has a title but he's kind of at the he's the last guy in the club because he doesn't have really the statistics is the only there for two years. It was kind of like, oh, that came out of nowhere, but well, I, you know, and I honestly I honestly I can't.

I think Geoffrey's almost gets a little overrated, not because he wasn't a good player, but I think people have a people have a misconception about how good of an offensive player. It was go back and look at the stats. Like he barely scored over a point per possession that second year. Not to, I'm not trying to denigrate Jared Jeffries, but the kind of proves my point, which is that we remember Jared Jeffries. So finally because that team had an unexpected deep tournament

run. And also want to share of a Big Ten title in the same year and he was the best. Player on that team. I think that's ultimately and I understand where your point. I'm just saying that is such a huge part of the perceptional element of what we consider a top 10 player. And again, I'm just I'm walking

on ice here. So don't want to get expectations up. I'm not saying we're going to win a title or we sure like, I, but all I'm saying is like if this team does win a title and again not saying they should have not even staying at the expectations. But if they get to a final four, they win a title with the statistics and the longevity. It's like Jackson Davis. Now, The case, like he's now in that club and now he's looking at some of those guys and like I got I got more points than a lot

of you. I got money. It's it's like, if Cheney had won a title in an odd way and so I just I look at it and it's like he, but I agree. And that was the point is, like that's what his at is at his feet this year. But you've got to do something. You can't have the kind of season Purdue hat. If predict, if we, if we don't want a Big Ten title. We don't want the Big Ten tournament.

We pop out in the sweet 16 that could still be a great season, but now it's like he doesn't get To the top 10, it's just 48 historical program. Like I you to be coming into this year and saying, hey as a player you have a chance to be one of the top 10 top eight, seven six players at your feet. You got to do a lot of things. Like, I mean, winning a Big Ten title, making a follow for possibly winning a title. That's, that's a, that's a tough laundry list.

But if you do it, you are now in that Echelon, where we could now be talking about. You know, who's the Mount Rushmore, not going to get into that now, but it's like, You now are at least in that discussion, which is pretty amazing to say that. That's at your feet.

I'm not saying it would be, we're not going to get into that discussion, but it's like, if you're the third leading scorer, the all-time leading rebounder and you have a Big Ten title and a national championship, you're in, pretty effing Elite category. So it's again, it's just I'm not saying those the expectations. Yeah. It's like there's something available here for him and saying that you can't say he's a top 10 player now, it has to be

done. But if he As a run and does some things that again even if they go to a final four. But like, they take down to number one seeds and he has a dunk at the end to win it or something or a three-pointer, you know, my highlight, you know, then it's like that also helps as well. So anyway just it was a thought when I went into it that kind of changed my mind and will end their kind of work. That's interesting. Yeah. No, absolutely.

So we'll see. I mean, I do think that for that to happen, Trace Jackson, Davis is going to have to have almost a Nova Depot like transformation of his game. From last year to this year, the way that Oladipo had it from like sophomore year to junior year, which I don't know if he's got it in him just from like a physicality standpoint, but we'll see. And I think ultimately, if he comes back and does that, that's great for him and obviously

great for Indiana as well. And that's one of the fascinating subplots of the offseason to see exactly how all that plays out. Anyway, we promised some football content. We're going to give you that now as we are Passing the 80 minute, mark on the podcast here in a minute, but we're here for you folks. We haven't had a chance to talk. Patrick asks, are you excited for football? I still feel really burned, not excited. Even a little bit, a couple of other comments on the football front.

I you football. Hike man. Asks, what will Walt Bells offense, look like, who's going to step up in the wide receiver room. Well, are often have lined, take a step forward win, total 4.5, over-under thoughts on new coordinators. Will you be at the Oi game. Yes. What's a successful season? Look like is Darrin Hill, are on the hot seat. Lots of interesting questions, Scott. I'll start on this.

I think I'm not I'm I'm very concerned about football, and I hate saying that I really I hate saying it. I hate saying it because I you know me, I have a soft spot for football. I want football to do. Well, there was nobody more excited about the promise of last year than I was going into the season and Such a soul-crushing exercise from start to finish that, you know, even by itself. Even if I, you had a lot of returning Talent it stability at the coaching positions, a clear

plan about what they were doing. Moving forward. I would still be trepidatious about this season and my own emotions. The fact that IU has had just a ton of roster. Turnover has had coaching turnover has a very difficult schedule again that they're going to be facing really has a lot of the panic buttons being pressed in my brain. And I'm not exactly sure what the you know, like how to solve that at this point. I think, you know from an optimism standpoint.

You can look at last year and say that was a year where absolutely everything went wrong from start to finish the chances of everything going wrong to that degree again are low, or you can look at last year and say The previous year that got everybody excited about last year, was everything going right? And there was no chance that everything was going to go that, right?

And the team was just not in a good spot mentally emotionally to deal with adversity when it hit and that is what led to last season. I think that scenario is probably more likely than the first scenario where it's just well, it couldn't have gotten any worse, but it's hard to look at this IU football team right now. And have anything other than faith that it will get better. Because when you look at the roster, you look at the production, you look at, who's coming back?

You look at who left. There's not a lot there to hold onto. I mean, you've got an unsettled quarterback position, which is always a problem in IU, football history. There are very few seasons where I use been good, where they went into the season and you weren't like, wow. I'm glad I'm excited to watch this guy. Play quarterback. They have an unsettled offensive line. They've, you know, their defense. Clearly is not up to the task yet, in terms of overall Talent.

It's gotten a little bit better. But it's also one of those things where you look at who they're going to line up and it's hard to see that team being able to stop some of the offenses that they're going to face playing in the Big Ten. And you know, it's just it's it's kind of almost a depressing because I don't think the depression normally sets in with IU football until they actually start losing the games, but man, I see a scenario here. Here, where this team isn't a

whole lot better than last year. And you know, where as there was so much promise in terms of like the recruiting. And the way that everything was going in till that really starts to manifest itself in on-field play, this feels a lot like the seasons that we tried to talk ourselves into five or six wins being a possibility where it's just not going to be that way. I just feel it a lot earlier. Now, I guess than I did previously because of how poorly last year, ended up.

What are your A lot of people didn't notice this. When Trace Jackson Davis announced, he's coming back. He's also coming back as a tight end, so he'll be playing tight end for football. In the fall Woodson's going to be coaching football as well. So I feel like we're in good hands. No, I'm very, I'm very much like you, you know, it's funny the, you know, last year or two years ago, you know, we had one coordinator change. We have the new offensive coordinator.

It's like, all right. This is you. This is something you need to be worried. If you know, a lot of other pieces were there but like a new coordinator, you're going to have knew. There were two, two coordinators. Fix our no, no, no. No, I'm no, I'm getting to know like a couple years ago. We just had one coordinator. Like, that was something you and I focused on is like that's going to be a real disruption and that it has to be taken into

consideration. So, as your point this year, we get two new coordinators of and you know, it going off of everything that punt John punt has about our offensive line and their coordinator, like maybe the Coordinator we had his back. So I'm not sure that's that's awesome. You know, I'm looking at some of the stats. You mentioned you a quarterback and flux. We're only through nine touchdowns last year.

We lost four of them in panic. So we're bringing back, you know, five touchdowns Throne. So quarterback is at flux, but hey, good news. So is receiver because the only guy who caught multiple touchdowns last year was Hendershot. Well, he's gone fry fogle's gone. So we're only bringing back for touched out for Receiving touchdowns all of them. Single case single touchdown carriers, but hey not to be outdone. We only scored 13 rushing, touchdowns Nazi or six of. Those are Stephen car.

They're gone. We had no running back with multiple touchdowns last year. The only returning guy with the multiple touchdowns was Donovan, McCulley, who's our quarterback. Who can't throw this trip throwing that out there. He had two rushing touchdowns. Everybody else had one rushing touchdown. So you have New coordinators on both sides of the ball, a ineffective putting it nicely offensive, offensive line coordinator, who's back, you have a question mark at quarterback.

You really have no receivers of no returning. You have no running backs of note returning. You have some people on defense coming back who all got shredded last year when they played, and the defense could be great, but it's going to be really tough. When you feel like your offense is going to go three and out in 30. E8 s, and put the defense back on the field again. And that could happen. I don't know.

Four times in a row and you have a Big Ten, where you're looking at a Michigan team that maybe has things. Again. This is the reverse of basketball, where, you know, Ohio state is the Death Star Michigan. Feels like they're getting close to the mini Death Star. They have things figured out Michigan State seems to be on a rocket ship. To the moon will see what they can actually put it together,

but they look pretty good. The Big 10 East is You like a battle of Goliath's and we are just an ant with three legs in casts, just walking around in the wrong place. Well, not not, not enough, but I will say, I'm going to be at the Illinois game. So I'll answer that question. Well, and I mean, I think it's also important to do. Rutgers has gotten better as Schiano has put the done really well in recruiting, you know, Marilyn made a bold, Mike locksley. Just got signed to a contract

extension. You know, we've been seeing all of this news about what they might Might do away with divisions. It's not going to happen until 2023. I think it will happen. But you know, it's gonna be too late for this year regardless of what occurs. I mean, look you're there are some things that you could look at and think about positively

with this IU football team. And I'm not really don't want to be - I hate being negative about IU football, but I do like to be realistic about IU football and realistically, yes, you have an Italian infusion and Tom, Allen's talked about how he's excited about the talent and fusion. Got some guys that have transferred in. You've got a former Alabama player coming in as a defensive back. You've got some SEC players coming in, at wide receiver. You've, you know, you do have

different blood. We don't know if it's better blood, but, you know, perhaps, it's more athletic. Perhaps. It is a roster that will be able to compete a little bit better physically than last year's team was able to. And look, I mean, you know, I've heard behind the scenes that At. There were some players that are no longer on the roster that perhaps didn't have the right

mentality. Who knows how true or how false that is. But if, if the team is in a better place emotionally, it was clear last year that they were real problems. Even if they weren't being talked about where. And I mean, I think even Mike McFadden mentioned. It obliquely in a press conference toward the end of the season about guys, not buying in you know, that stuff happens. I mean, you get it, you get a out of the world successful season, you get that weird.

Thing that happened with the Outback Bowl where I you feel slighted by the conference and they start focusing on the wrong things. You have the The Misfortune, you know, Michael penix, not being able to fully recuperate and and you know, the struggles on offense in general and a lot of those things are not going to be there this year, but I think the question about what? What's Walt Bells offense going to look like whatever his system might be.

I think the reality is there's a whole bunch of question marks on offense. In terms of, we don't know who's going to throw the ball is going to be Connor. Baza. Like the transfer from Minnesota, Minnesota from Missouri, or is it going to be Jack Tuttle? Or is it going to be done at the McCully was going to be somebody else? You know, we don't know who's going to run the ball.

Got a couple people in my life who are just, you know, random variate like a couple of friends and their wives and we're talking about you football. One of the wisest. Like who's your quarterback? Nick here? Is that good-looking kid? Yes, like that. Good-looking kid. Like the good-looking. Not the guy who's not very good, but good. Look at my God Tuttle. Yeah.

Well, hey, you know the thing. Is it it's why it's hard to predict what the offense is going to look like because an offense with Connor Basile. A condor Center going to look different than an offense with Jack Tuttle. I think as locks going to be the starter, you know, and I mean I could be wrong. I hope Jack Tuttle has a really great offseason and puts it together because he's been in the on the roster for multiple years.

He knows how things should work, but it's another wild card and it goes to what we were so excited about the you know, Last year. And what we get excited about in football is when it's, like art, we have some continuity. It's like we have, you know, quarterback who knows the system. And he has a running back who was here last year like whenever we're good or we're excited about things. It's because some of those continuity things are here. So it is tough to say.

We're going to be good where it's like if we're good. It's going to be flying in the face of got any kind of conventional wisdom and football where it's like, hey, it's a new coordinator and the new quarterback, and the new running back and the new wide receiver. Like, normally, when we're excited is because at least some of those pieces are Student. And they were there last year where it's like they can build on pieces and successes from the year before.

This would be very out of the realm of neiu, historically, good season, where it's like every single piece on offense is new and untested going into the season. Yeah, I mean and that just is not a recipe for success and it's not It's not how we're not hating. We're not, you know, we're not not believing but, you know, when you go to and 10 in a you love you, I still love you Kayla. Nice to each other.

I love. Yes, but you, when you go to and 10 in a year when you started the season ranked in the top 20, and you don't have any outstanding pieces on offense, that played the whole season returning. Yes. DJ Matthews is going to be back, which I'm excited about, you know, but you really don't have much coming back. That, that you can point to and say we're going to rely on that and you're playing in the Big 10 East. And you have to go to. Cincinnati is one of your non conference games.

It just there's, I don't know where you draw optimism from other than just hope. And as we know, Scott from watching IU football for decades.

Hope is absolutely not a plan. And so it's hard to make a whole lot of projections or predictions about IU football, other than You know, maybe reflexively I'm going to assume the worst because I don't want to get hurt again to the degree that I did, you know, you, when you look at the schedule, realistically, and when will go through all of this in August, we're not going to Deep dive it now, but when you look at the schedule, realistically, it's hard to look at that schedule

and say anything other than the absolute maximum, that this team could do would be to win seven games. That's the absolute maximum. The minimum could be like one game like, you know, like there. There's a scenario where this team is. So unconnected to itself and is struggling to transition to a new style of offense transitioning to another defensive coordinator, that they only when the Idaho game. Now, I don't think they're going to be that bad. But I also don't think they're

going to win seven games. And so you're looking at like a 22-6 wind spread and that's a tough thing to get your head wrapped around, you know, the all of the things that I you didn't do last year. Year, the idea that they're going to suddenly do them this year. I don't know where that comes from. And I don't know where you get excited about the possibilities for IU. Other than what we saw, what happened in 19 and 20, and it's going to be able to get back

there. But I guess my caution there is that 19 and 20 were preceded by the previous years, where, you know, they had to Bowl seasons under Kevin Wilson and 25 win Seasons under Tom Allen and they built a foundation of swords. And it feels like again, that Foundation is gone and they're almost starting from scratch and trying to piece together a roster that can play. Now. We've seen it happen. It happened at Michigan State.

You know, Mel Tucker was able to go out, bring a bunch of transfers in and get that team that program up and running to the point where they overachieve in 20. And then they really over achieve in 21. That's or excuse me. They just don't they underachieved in 20 then they overreach even 21. Maybe that's the route but we've yet to see that happen here and it's hard to, you know, you look at what like Michigan State

largely was able to do that. Because they happen to grab a running back, who came in and just gave them a ridiculous amount of yards. Not a guy, you would have predicted being able to do that. I don't know if that's really a reasonable expectation for this IU football program at this point. So yeah, I mean, it's a tricky one because you know, I hope they're good. I hope that they play well together.

I hope that won't bail. Then and and does all of the things as an offensive coordinator that Nick Sheridan clearly struggled to do but it's really hard to just assume that that's going to happen. I'd rather be pessimistic to start with and then be talked into it by the play on the field rather than going the other direction. So I really like that, Illinois game on the Friday before Labor Day. I have no clue what to expect.

I just know that Bret Bielema is coaching, Illinois and Bret Bielema has got a pretty good record historically against, Indiana. Anna. And that was a team that looked like it actually got a little bit better as that season went along last year, rather than what Indiana did which was, you know, continue to sink into the mire. Over the course of the latter half of the Season, you know, Illinois last year ends up. What were they? Five and seven but they won

three out of their last five. They want at Penn State. They won at Minnesota. They blew out Northwestern to finish the season. Like that looks like a team that after struggling, early really got their trajectory going in the right direction. Concerns me because I don't see that kind of energy. Like there was nothing out of the last part of Indiana schedule. Last year that made you think wow.

This team's going to, they had a struggle, but they're going to put it together and be good to start the next season. Well, and just a big picture thought here. I don't want to be negative but it's just, it is the reality. You know, I will say, I don't look at the, you know, the Outback Bowl season as the aberration because it was built on multiple bowl games going into that. It was built on progression. So, So Tom Allen was building

something. The trouble is last year was like the Mulligan of all Mulligan's like that is, hopefully that's the aberration. But again, there's so much flux with this team and so many new pieces. And so many question marks and last year went.

So horrific lie, bad, that you have to be concerned that the bigger frightening part is the way things are structured, is this has to be figured out like, I know you Right, it could be two wins, 27 wins Gap, but you're in a spot where you kind of, you got to get five or six wins, which I don't know how

you're going to get there. It's asking a lot but if they come in and do another two or three win season, don't want a Big Ten game, people are going to look up and I've joked, I've spent more time as an IU fan, the last ten years, looking at my coaches contract, buyouts than being excited for Seasons, which really bothers me, but I want to give everybody a notice that right now, Tom His contract is 100% guaranteed until November 30th 2024. So that's this coming season the

season after, and the season after that. So if he has another dud this year fans are going to be pissed and it's going to be hard to look around and be like, well, who else can you fire? Because you've changed defensive coordinators, you change offense of coordinators twice. You have all new players, but guess what? Are you fans it? Be Tom, a lit.

You're not going to change table Allen, or at least two more years because I you football, doesn't have the capital, just buy him out on those contractors. They may not even have the capital to buy him out in 2024. What is it? Still goes to a 50% by. I mean, it is a, it's a big contract, like, we're playing in the big leagues. This is where you can't mess things up and you gave the big boy big time contract.

Now, it's like the back is against the wall were like you have to produce if you come to have another two. Intense season. Don't want a Big Ten game. That's a real problem because he's going to be the coach for the next three years. Yeah, no matter what the results are. He will be the coach, but it's like there will be. No, where else to look fans are

going to be pissed. You're everything that you built was to way last season, like that is just the fact, I, you football doesn't have the foundation where people are like, oh, I remember those great teams of the Kevin Wilson. Like no, there's no Foundation. It's built on Sand, it all washed away. Now. This team's job is to build it back and like that sucks. It's a lot of work. Guess what?

Your eye, you football. One of the worst teams in college football like you you have to build this up slowly. You were doing it. You have to make last year, the aberration, you just have to. And I'd look I think to some degree. You can still give Tom Allen some of the benefit of the doubt because it was one Bad season and you know the rest of his career at IU. He's you know, he won five games. In his first two years. He won eight games a second

year. Obviously, they had the great season, you know, the covid season, where they won, six in the regular season in his fourth year and then you get the to win season in his fifth year. I guess what concerns me is you've done a complete blow up of a lot of the coaching staff except for, you know, the coach that's, you know, got the, the position that has struggled the most which is obviously offensive line, as you mentioned earlier on.

And you know, when you think about what IU is trying to do in terms of the way, they're marketing themselves and the, the coaches that they've brought in. It's like, hey, Gumby coached by people that coached in the NFL. You know, that's been that's been the mode here. Is they bring in a couple of assistants who have been at that level and yet, I don't know how good of a recruiting pitch that is because, you know, if I'm recruiting against that, I'm like, well, those guys were so good.

Why aren't they still coaching in the NFL? Like why are they coaching at the college level at this point? Point and are you going to be able to attract the high-end Talent who's got an F? Like legitimate NFL aspirations and is actually good enough to fill fill those. They're going to say I'm going to go to IU because that's where I'm going to get the development and the exposure that I need. Not at that level. I got the recruiting pitch is hard because I think that this is why it's hard.

This is why you got to earn that money because like you're right you can have all the right recruiting pitches and it's like a kid could be like, oh I got a postcard from Ohio State. Peace out. Yeah. It's like I'm going to be the third player to Ohio State. It's cut. Tough. Because, you know, the contract that Alan has is incredibly coach friendly, as you mentioned, like, it's your, it's his job. Like, I think anybody that's got this notion, that you're gonna have a coaching change.

If there's another Bad season, it's not gonna happen. So, you are essentially. If you're I, you, you're tied to Tom Allen, we call Pot committed. Yeah. No, I mean, you're all in on Tom Allen and that was the case when the contract was signed and at the time it was like, well, okay great. This means he's going to be here and if he gets, Poached I use going to have a lot of money from the buyout.

Well, I don't think anybody's poaching Tom Allen at this point, you know, but it does it creates an interesting question, which is, is Alan going to be capable of putting the pieces back together. Because as we've mentioned, when you essentially just sweep the table of your offensive and defensive coaching leadership and start from scratch and you're essentially recruiting on Fly and you've already had like, you know, a lot of the hell of a loo about I use.

Recruiting was the McCulloch Kids coming. Well, they're not coming. Now, you know, we just had another one D commit, which is not a surprise. It's not a bad thing, it people shouldn't be critical of of them for that because they want to go play with their dad. I would do the same thing. But you know, you don't have that benefit at this point that you can rely on. You don't have a Dell in McCulloch on the coaching staff, who, you know, can draw those types of recruits and

necessarily. Are others going to be able to, that becomes the big question and it becomes a question that lasts over the course of several years. I don't at this point, see a lot of reason for optimism other than well. Tom. Allen was able to figure it out before therefore. He'll be able to figure it out again. And that's really I guess where we have to leave it at this point because we don't know who's going to start. We don't know who the the players are going to be.

That are the most reliable aspects. We don't even have a whole lot in terms of like fall Camp, too. Point two. We don't know what exactly happened in spring camp necessarily. There was no spring game. You know, we don't we don't have any information all that we have is the incoming and the outgoing, and the recent results in the recent results are not good and it's a conference that just doesn't work. You know, you're in bad shape if that's what you're looking at,

you know, real quick. Just one last thing. Yeah. I just want to make sure I get this point in the point that I was making about the contract. Is that a like fans need to realize, like, Alan is going. Going to be our coach. Yes, figure it out. But I like, I will go back. The contract, was the right one

to make at the time. And I still say that even what we're staring at, in that, the point that I was making is like, this is the wake of high-level college football is taken care of, but we talked about Michigan State and their turnaround. Mel Tucker. Just got it. What? A 95 million dollar deal out of Michigan State. I don't know.

The buyout portion of that, Alan's contract is very coach friendly, but to me, the bigger, He is like this is where I you football has starting to dip their toe into the big kid water. And just like, we were like, it was funny. You should mention we're doing the BCS talk. We got left out of the New Year's Day six and you were like, yeah, this happens all the time. It's like this is just our first, our first foray into it and 20 years. Like all these, this is a dirty game.

It's like, but this is also like a lot of schools do this. They give they lock up, coaches. We had a good coach. We needed to lock him up. They did the right thing. The contract was the right move, the the difference. Here is like now the athletic department needs to make sure like they get highly involved here. If it's not working, like, you got to put the right people in place, the right assistance and we don't know whether they did or didn't this all season. We will see.

But it's like, or you got to get the money and buy him out and get somebody else. Like this is high-level football. And this is kind of where I you football has straddle where it's like, hey we want to compete but we don't want to do all those up. Like all the things you have to do to compete much, we want to do. It's like what we gave the contract of a top-20 PowerSchool. Now what comes with that is you got to either win?

If you don't, you see schools do this for either, they find the money and they buy them out and they do somebody else's. They eat like, 30 Millions. I got well, that didn't work, but we're still going to be a big-time school, or you hire a bunch of high-level assistance and you put a infrastructure around him or you get the right, your recruits in whatever means

necessary. And like this is where my fear is like IU Athletics and IU. Football is like, they gave the contract like a big boy school, but now it's like they're not if things don't go perfect. Are not going to do all those things you have to do, where you have to have to do that. So that that's I but I want to make sure make it clear. I'm not saying the contract was the wrong move at the time and

even in retrospect. It was the right thing, Tom Al owns the right guy and that was a it was a point showing that IU football is trying to be competitive in the Big 10 East. I don't know. I think I think the contract numbers were fine in terms of total compensation. I think the guarantees were a bit.

Yeah, even for this kind of a coach because, you know, know if I play a lot of football manager and it's like, if someone comes in and offers you a hundred and twenty million euro for your Striker selim because you can always get a striker that's almost as good for less than 120 million. But at that point, you've got 220 million. And you've got, you know, someone that can do the job about as well. And look, that contract was signed pre and IL ultimately what makes football teams?

Good is good, too. Talent. You can have a Verge coaches that have really good talent, a great coach with bad Talent is still not going to be a very good coach in college football or any football team for that matter. NFL college whatever. And I think my biggest concern with all you football, and this isn't even an athletic department concern.

As much as it is, a culture concern with the program is that it's not like there's enough people that care about football in the IU orbit to the degree that people at other big 10 schools. Let alone SEC schools, ACC schools. Big, 12, schools care. You look at the money that's being pumped into these ni L collectives and all of the money that is in and around the game. I don't see Indiana being able to compete with that which, you know, maybe it's on basketball different story.

People care about IU basketball, people will give money to IU basketball from an ni o perspective football, you know, it seems sofyan in a way. It's like, well, okay, we're give this money for what. Exactly now, maybe that maybe Be that levels out after a while. Maybe you get some really interested donors who come in and say I want this to go towards football. We want to build that up.

I just don't know how you're going to compete on that front to get the talent to come in in the first place. So maybe this whole conversation ends up being moot, long-term about whether Allen was the right higher because if you don't have the infrastructure in place to get him Talent, it really ends up being for not. So anyway, that's that's more long-term and probably even more depressing. So, That's where we're at. That's where I'm at with football right now. We had one last question.

I wanted to get to before we wrapped up this one from WL Knicks offers to name a sandwich after you. What's the makeup of that sandwich? Are you gotta go first? I gotta go first. I thought about this a little bit and I was like, well my limiting myself to what's already on Nick's menu or not. I'm going to say no. Let's say.

In addition, to offering me the sandwich Rags is also saying, hey, we're going to bring some new meets in or you like some new Concepts. So if you're naming one, the doctor GC, I think my favorite and it's relatively simple as a sandwich, but my favorite one is a little on the spicy side, but it's it's a, it's a slice or a few slices. If smoked brisket on like a brioche, roll with horseradish and mayonnaise as the sauce combination. And it's, and that's essentially it.

There's not a whole lot else there. It's a very straightforward sandwich with a lot of interesting flavors and it's, you know, to me like the more stuff you put on a sandwich. Generally speaking, the more complicated it ends up tasting. I will say in the Knicks orbit. There's a sandwich at Osteria Rago. Oh, that I would love to have my name on which is essentially like a combination of turkey and pepperoni and pepperoncini. And there's there's there's like a Jardin era on there.

Like it's a really, really nice like find the actual name of that sandwich. Right now. It's the the, the Ragged Zona. It's it's Picante salami, which is hot salami. Turkey pepperoni provolone, tomato, red, onion pepper. Seany Jardin era and Mayo. That's like, that would be of the Knicks orbit. Right now. That's a match at Osteria would be my choice if I was going to put my name on an existing

sandwich. But if I'm choosing one of my own, I'm doing that brisket horseradish mayo sandwich because that's a really Dynamite combination that most people are not aware of. What do you think, Scott? I'll order it. By the way. I'm not I'm let's can we get Knicks as a sponsor just have a one-night like, you know, sandwich. I thought everyone gets a sandwich from from The home-field network from the home network. I should say that. Hope you'll Network.

I'm your hit me way off. I thought I would say this underrated bread. You got brioche, which is awesome. An underrated bread that we love is Hala like we do challah bread. And if you my wife leaves it out the night before and it makes for just Dynamite French toast like a little bit crispy and crunchy. Leave it out overnight to get a little bit hard and they make French toast out of it. But that said, I would do a challah bread and do like a grilled cheese, but you do it where you?

A little bit of like parmesan on the bread and so it kind of crisps up the outside. And so it almost becomes like a crunchy grilled cheese, but you have some good like smoked gouda inside and then you have either your option of some nice, you know, like honey drizzled bacon or some kind of like honey drizzled ham. And so you have a meat option for the grilled cheese with a little bit of and then and maybe sometimes throwing in even like a soft cheese, like a brewery in

there as kind of fun. Just heated up a little bit. I also love actually know. I'm going to redo all this Ari taste, same grilled cheese, not I'll be saying the same thing but we're doing the gouda with the bacon, and then Apple. So you throw some apple slices there. You do some Brie. You have a little gouda bacon and then you have the hollow with the, the spring, clean the outside. So it's nice and crusty on the outside. That's what I would do.

I will, I will say, I would, I would probably put a slice of provolone on the sandwich that I have suggested for myself, late too late. It's already. It's already on the menu and I don't even think about the cheese, but that's where I would put a lie that's already on the menu. Out anyway, all right, we've gone almost two hours. You're welcome folks, but what we backed by the way, you mentioned, like people who are new to Crimson Catholic. Let's do it.

We do it. Will go two months off and then we come in. And it's like, you're getting two hours of crimson cast. Let's go. You know, what I will say? He'll finish up with this. Like, the people would Grant the people that can play that podcasts are too long. I see this on message boards, all the time. People. Like, why would I want to listen to do an hour-long podcast? And but I'm always like, okay, a you have a pause button, like you don't have to listen. And it all in one setting.

Like do I listen to the podcast that I listen to all in one setting know I go out and walk the dog. It's like 20 minutes. I get 20 minutes to the podcast in when I'm done walking the dog. Do I just let it run on my lick. My God, I can't go inside until this thing's over. No, I hit the pause button and then I go about my day. And then the next day I listen to the rest of it and it all works out really. Well. You're like, where's Dad? Where's Dad? Sorry, he's finishing the potty

sitting on the porch. Just yeah, sadly, we be. So the podcast run. So, you know, and the other thing is Can't think of another industry where, oh, we're sorry. They gave us too much content, you know, it's like well gosh this this book is over 200 pages. I couldn't possibly and it's a you know, come on. Just lets we're giving you a gift here. We're giving you almost 120 Minutes. Almost 120 Minutes of podcast. Just be grateful. I know most of you are, we're just talking.

We're we are we are inventing Straw Men and then we're attacking those Straw Men, but it's people from I don't want to get generational but like you. And I grew up where it's like, we're listening to the radio and like, all their talk about IU basketball. Like, I'm about to this, like, like kids got now, sound old kids today.

It's like you have be glad that you have extra and Unlimited Supply of the Sports Talk that you want in podcast form because you and I Galen grew up in a world where I was like, I was having these thoughts. Yep, but there was nowhere to like listen to outlets on this versus like, oh my God, like there's a blur, but IU basketball and Sports Illustrated. Like I'm going to read it seven. In times and cut it out and put it on my wall. Yeah. Now, it's true.

I mean, the seven-minute radio segment or even like a renew, a whole hour and and the whole hour ends up being like 28 minutes of actual talk. And the rest of it is like traffic and weather. And hey, I got this sponsor. I got to read it. This is so much better place to be all told. So enjoy it. I don't know when we're going to be back podcasting again. Maybe June. Maybe July. We'll see, but back, it'll be long. But by all means continue to check us out.

Be sure to check out our Friends over at assembly call as they are doing weekly shows still and talking about what's going on with IU Athletics. The two of us tend to pop up on there. Occasionally. We might have a special event coming up in Bloomington in about a month. So keep your ears and eyes open for that. Will put some information out on

social. Once we get that squared away and be sure to check out home field apparel as we talked about at the beginning, our presenting sponsor on the back home network, as they continue to roll out big new Saturday, still time to get subscribed and And be a part of that. So Scott as always it was a pleasure to see you and talk with you. Yes, and thanks to yes. Sorry. Go ahead, NADA. You're good. Okay, fine. Good anyway for Scott, I'm Galen. This is Crimson Castle. Thanks for joining us.

Sorry. I just hit my microphone. There. We'll catch you folks on the flipside. Bring back the Bison. So long, everybody.