Our theme for this year has been to take each loss with a grain of salt and try to find the positives for the future.
Well, I have to admit that tonight's game had me pissed off. I'm calming down now, but this game had me pretty damn frustrated by the end. Maybe it's because I would love to see this team win one more lousy game and I thought tonight was the best remaining chance. Or maybe it was because I actually thought this team played like shit tonight and blew a chance to win a game.
Regardless, it actually just comes down to the talent level. I think the quote in the picture says it all "When your best just isn't good enough".
That's the bottom line. There just isn't enough talent for them to put together 40 minutes and win. Unfortunately, they were only able to put together 5 minutes of decent basketball tonight.
Common themes led to tonight's failure -- it was 3-point shooting, FT shooting, and turnovers. I think the shooting categories really tell the talent story as well. The main object of basketball is to put the biscuit in the basket. Well, tonight, IU was 3-21 from downtown and 2-7 from the line that included Matt Roth of all people missing a front-end. You have to have guys that can shoot the basketball. Period.
Tonight's game started out great with a 6-0 IU lead and a 15-7 lead 5 minutes into the game. The Hoosiers looked sharp by getting 6 early layups and a 3-pointer from Nick Williams to open up that 15-7 lead. But then NW went to a 1-3-1 zone and it got ugly from there. For the rest of the game, IU went just 2-20 from the arc and scored only 38 points in the final 35 minutes of the game. It was hard to watch.
IU had 17 turnovers on the game. Of course, we have seen several games with more. However, Dan Dakich was in the studio at halftime and I thought he made a great point. I'll summarize his point and take it one step further. His point was that IU's passing was terrible even when they weren't turning it over. He said passes that are off the mark don't allow a shooter to catch and shoot before the defender arrives. This was very true throughout the game.
And taking it a step further, you really need to have 2 or 3 or even 4 really good passes against a zone to ultimately get a good shot. Or you need 2 or 3 really good drive and kicks before getting a good shot. With each good pass or drive, you get that zone a little more off-balance until you finally get a good look at the basket. The problem with this team is that they simply are not capable of consistently stringing together a few good passes or dribble-drives.
During some of the games, I will keep a pen and paper close by and occasionally touch on things that I either want to note in the blog or just to capture a moment that I think could possibly be a turning point. The one I captured tonight was definitely the beginning of the end.
Now, before I get too far into this, I want to be clear that I am not trying to make the point that if this one single play would have gone IU's way, they would have won the game. That would actually be a ridiculous take if you saw how bad IU played the last 15 minutes of the game.
Nonetheless, here was the situation -- IU had just cut the lead to 2 points and had the ball back with a chance to tie or take the lead. This was 5 minutes into the 2nd half and the crowd was on their feet for the first time since the opening minutes. Pritchard sets a solid screen and gets called for the offensive foul. A bad call and I thought to myself that this is just another example of a play where they just can't seem to get over the hump. It has happened throughout the year -- often times it has just been a case of IU not able to make the play and a few times it has been a bad call from the officials. So, since I was thinking that, I decided to jot it down to track what happened after that play over the next couple of minutes.
Well, here's what happened -- NW comes down and scores, IU then turns it over, and then NW comes down and hits a 3. And just like that, it is back to a 7-point lead less than 1 minute later. Crean takes a time-out, but the Hoosiers never respond and play like dog-crap the rest of the way. In fact, from the point of that call on Pritchard to the rest of the game, the score was 34 to 14. I hate it when I am right about stuff like that.
A couple other noteworthy stats of futility:
* Dumes was 0-6 from the arc (with his last 3 attempts missing badly)
* Jones had 7 turnovers (although he did at least have 6 assists)
* IU missed their last 10 attempts from 3-point range
The only positive from this one was that Taber has set career-highs in scoring in his last 2 games with 10 points at Purdue and led IU in scoring with 12 points tonight. Taber also led IU with 6 rebounds and 2 blocks tonight.
Other odds & ends:
* At one point, IU had a line-up of Moore, Finkelmeier, Roth, Lewis, and Pritchard. Breaking that down a few different ways, that's 4 white guys, 3 walk-ons, 4 freshman, 1 sophomore, only 1 outside shooter, and only 2 guys with any hope of scoring.
* This game included one of the craziest loose ball scrambles I have ever seen. It was like one of those old football follies. I played it back a few times and counted over 20 times where a hand (sometimes by the same guy a couple times in a row) touched the ball but could not control it.
* Did you see #1 get in the game at the end for IU for the first time this season? For a second, I thought it was Tome Earth. But actually, it was Santa (Michael Santa, that is) who is a student-manager on the team that Crean just activated.
* Anyone notice that Crean is generally a jerk with the postgame handshake? He shakes hands and all, but he does so while walking about 15 miles per hour past the other coach. It just seems to be at odds with his personality. He would seem to be more the type of guy that would stop and congratulate the opposing coach on a good team, good luck in the future, etc. It hasn't been every game, but it has definitely happened several times where he just goes by full speed.
* The IU staff made 1 extra phone call to Bawa Maniru in October (you can only make 2 calls a week to a player and IU made 3). IU punished itself by not making any calls for a week in December. Seems minor enough and sounds like it happens a lot and it sure as hell is not 577 extra phone calls. But it still made me cringe when Cook sent me that story earlier today. Anything other than a phone call! Actually, I should re-phrase that.....not anything other than a phone call, we need nothing. Absolutely nothing in the category of violations. Certainly nothing major, but we don't even want minor things hitting the paper. Not 1 extra phone call. Nothing.
* Odd post-game quote from Crean: "Northwestern is a good basketball team and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them in the NCAA Tournament." Ummm.....does he think that NW is going to win the Big Ten Tourney? Because that's their only shot at the NCAA tourney. Perhaps he meant to just say "the postseason" (meaning NIT)?
Next Up: @ Penn State on Saturday
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
IU 53 NW 75
Our theme for this year has been to take each loss with a grain of salt and try to find the positives for the future.
Well, I have to admit that tonight's game had me pissed off. I'm calming down now, but this game had me pretty damn frustrated by the end. Maybe it's because I would love to see this team win one more lousy game and I thought tonight was the best remaining chance. Or maybe it was because I actually thought this team played like shit tonight and blew a chance to win a game.
Regardless, it actually just comes down to the talent level. I think the quote in the picture says it all "When your best just isn't good enough".
That's the bottom line. There just isn't enough talent for them to put together 40 minutes and win. Unfortunately, they were only able to put together 5 minutes of decent basketball tonight.
Common themes led to tonight's failure -- it was 3-point shooting, FT shooting, and turnovers. I think the shooting categories really tell the talent story as well. The main object of basketball is to put the biscuit in the basket. Well, tonight, IU was 3-21 from downtown and 2-7 from the line that included Matt Roth of all people missing a front-end. You have to have guys that can shoot the basketball. Period.
Tonight's game started out great with a 6-0 IU lead and a 15-7 lead 5 minutes into the game. The Hoosiers looked sharp by getting 6 early layups and a 3-pointer from Nick Williams to open up that 15-7 lead. But then NW went to a 1-3-1 zone and it got ugly from there. For the rest of the game, IU went just 2-20 from the arc and scored only 38 points in the final 35 minutes of the game. It was hard to watch.
IU had 17 turnovers on the game. Of course, we have seen several games with more. However, Dan Dakich was in the studio at halftime and I thought he made a great point. I'll summarize his point and take it one step further. His point was that IU's passing was terrible even when they weren't turning it over. He said passes that are off the mark don't allow a shooter to catch and shoot before the defender arrives. This was very true throughout the game.
And taking it a step further, you really need to have 2 or 3 or even 4 really good passes against a zone to ultimately get a good shot. Or you need 2 or 3 really good drive and kicks before getting a good shot. With each good pass or drive, you get that zone a little more off-balance until you finally get a good look at the basket. The problem with this team is that they simply are not capable of consistently stringing together a few good passes or dribble-drives.
During some of the games, I will keep a pen and paper close by and occasionally touch on things that I either want to note in the blog or just to capture a moment that I think could possibly be a turning point. The one I captured tonight was definitely the beginning of the end.
Now, before I get too far into this, I want to be clear that I am not trying to make the point that if this one single play would have gone IU's way, they would have won the game. That would actually be a ridiculous take if you saw how bad IU played the last 15 minutes of the game.
Nonetheless, here was the situation -- IU had just cut the lead to 2 points and had the ball back with a chance to tie or take the lead. This was 5 minutes into the 2nd half and the crowd was on their feet for the first time since the opening minutes. Pritchard sets a solid screen and gets called for the offensive foul. A bad call and I thought to myself that this is just another example of a play where they just can't seem to get over the hump. It has happened throughout the year -- often times it has just been a case of IU not able to make the play and a few times it has been a bad call from the officials. So, since I was thinking that, I decided to jot it down to track what happened after that play over the next couple of minutes.
Well, here's what happened -- NW comes down and scores, IU then turns it over, and then NW comes down and hits a 3. And just like that, it is back to a 7-point lead less than 1 minute later. Crean takes a time-out, but the Hoosiers never respond and play like dog-crap the rest of the way. In fact, from the point of that call on Pritchard to the rest of the game, the score was 34 to 14. I hate it when I am right about stuff like that.
A couple other noteworthy stats of futility:
* Dumes was 0-6 from the arc (with his last 3 attempts missing badly)
* Jones had 7 turnovers (although he did at least have 6 assists)
* IU missed their last 10 attempts from 3-point range
The only positive from this one was that Taber has set career-highs in scoring in his last 2 games with 10 points at Purdue and led IU in scoring with 12 points tonight. Taber also led IU with 6 rebounds and 2 blocks tonight.
Other odds & ends:
* At one point, IU had a line-up of Moore, Finkelmeier, Roth, Lewis, and Pritchard. Breaking that down a few different ways, that's 4 white guys, 3 walk-ons, 4 freshman, 1 sophomore, only 1 outside shooter, and only 2 guys with any hope of scoring.
* This game included one of the craziest loose ball scrambles I have ever seen. It was like one of those old football follies. I played it back a few times and counted over 20 times where a hand (sometimes by the same guy a couple times in a row) touched the ball but could not control it.
* Did you see #1 get in the game at the end for IU for the first time this season? For a second, I thought it was Tome Earth. But actually, it was Santa (Michael Santa, that is) who is a student-manager on the team that Crean just activated.
* Anyone notice that Crean is generally a jerk with the postgame handshake? He shakes hands and all, but he does so while walking about 15 miles per hour past the other coach. It just seems to be at odds with his personality. He would seem to be more the type of guy that would stop and congratulate the opposing coach on a good team, good luck in the future, etc. It hasn't been every game, but it has definitely happened several times where he just goes by full speed.
* The IU staff made 1 extra phone call to Bawa Maniru in October (you can only make 2 calls a week to a player and IU made 3). IU punished itself by not making any calls for a week in December. Seems minor enough and sounds like it happens a lot and it sure as hell is not 577 extra phone calls. But it still made me cringe when Cook sent me that story earlier today. Anything other than a phone call! Actually, I should re-phrase that.....not anything other than a phone call, we need nothing. Absolutely nothing in the category of violations. Certainly nothing major, but we don't even want minor things hitting the paper. Not 1 extra phone call. Nothing.
* Odd post-game quote from Crean: "Northwestern is a good basketball team and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them in the NCAA Tournament." Ummm.....does he think that NW is going to win the Big Ten Tourney? Because that's their only shot at the NCAA tourney. Perhaps he meant to just say "the postseason" (meaning NIT)?
Next Up: @ Penn State on Saturday
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1 comment:
cook:
very tough game to watch. they made some nice plays early on, but the FT shooting and 3-pt. shooting was painful. i'm not crazy about the minutes lewis or fink got. even as well as taber is playing, we're building for the future at this point. have i mentioned that i think next year will be an amazing turn around?
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