Random thoughts, IUBB '10-11

[Eeetmi]

After watching the first three official games, here are some thoughts of mine:

VJIII finally looks like a college player.  Dude put on some serious muscle in the off season, which can only help him around the bucket.

Watford beefed up some, but not enough...should be a monster inside AND outside next year.  He seems to have improved his rebounding greatly.

Hulls still has the ugliest shot I've seen in a LONG time.

Victor and Sheehy have both surprised me in their ability, especially Will.  Watching his HS tapes, I wasn't sure he could have an impact this year...I was wrong.  Victor is everything that he was advertised to be.

Capo should either tone up or put on his undershirt again.

Rivers is doing what he should do...defend, create and pass.

Elston has a quicker release than last year (if that's possible...he lets it go so fast).  Now he has to shake the Wilmont disorder that dictates he puts it up every time he touches it.  I dig his half-sleeve tat too...now he needs to dial down his knack for silly fouls.

Creek isn't back yet, but considering his injury he's coming along nicely.  I say he'll be himself by January.

[IUFLA]

I've watched all 4 games, and to be honest, I'm really optimistic about IU's future. Not necessarily for this season, but I think starting next year, we'll be in the hunt for a Big 10 title or 2.
VJIII has bulked up, and is a pretty good scorer, but he continues to try to dribble through double teams, and he turns it over at an alarming rate (22 in 4 games). Still, he's probably our best penetrator and one of 3 kids I think we'll rely on for the bevy of our scoring. Watford and Creek being the other 2. I don't know if you watched the second half of the Evansville game, but Creek looked great. I don't think his knee is quite 100% yet, but if Sunday was any indication, he doesn't have far to go.
Hulls is the one who has suprised me. Last year, I thought he was overmatched pretty much every time he took the court. This year, he's a LOT better on the offensive end. He still can't cover tall, athletic guards, but he hustles all of the time and has made a difference.
I agree that the freshmen are impressive. Both need to be more consistent, but they show flashes of what they can be, and it's very encouraging.

But, I think this year will be the deepest Big 10 we've seen in a long time...Ohio State, Purdue, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan State are all very tough (and I've seen them all play), and Northwestern has there best team in a long, long time. If we could finish the conference around .500, beat Iowa, PSU, and Michigan, and show some grit playing the top teams, I think it'd be a hugely successful year considering where we came from.

I'm really impressed with the recruiting job Coach Crean has done as well. Two more nice catches today, and Yogi Ferrell is set to announce on Wednesday (with all indications that IU has him wrapped up). Things are looking up!

[mojo]

I hope for the SN reporter's sake that IU does indeed have Ferrell wrapped up. That guy will look like a real idiot if not. Not sure if it's true but I saw it reported that Ferrell was pretty upset that the article was released yesterday.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20101123/SPORTS0601/11230410/Park-Tudor-s-Yogi-Ferrell-will-commit-to-IU-sources-say?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Sports|s

[IUFLA]

Coach Crean is really on a roll...Ferrell did commit to IU.

After watching the game last night, one of the stark difference between last years team and this years team occured to me. This team grinds it out. If they make a mistake, they don't hang their heads and let it snowball into a run for the other team. That was all too common last year.

And we do have a lot of kids who can play. Laz made a good point last night, saying that players get better when the competition in practice is better. Like I said, I'd be satisfied with a .500 conference record, but maybe these kids can do better than that...

[mojo]

That's awesome. The kid is ranked #2 at his position and class in the whole country.

[GO BIG RED]

The moment Cody committed to IU it was truly a given that Yogi would follow suit.   

Crean is knocking it out of the park left and right recently and we might still have one more home run in the tank (Gary Harris).

Regarding the current team I do like that they have been able to overcome some slow starts and tough starts and just dominate the 2nd half of every game.  These kids are starting to come around and get it.  Now if only the jackass NCAA would get GMM cleared so we can have a tall piece of lumber in the paint.   

Our first big test is just one week away, at Boston College.  Granted BC did lose at home to Yale in unimpressive fashion but regardless it will be our first road game of the season and I expect we'll have to earn that win.  But we at least have a good shot at it imo.

[IUFLA]

I read on Peegs the other day that Dan Dakich said he wasn't optimistic about GMM ever being cleared to play.

[GO BIG RED]

I read on Peegs the other day that Dan Dakich said he wasn't optimistic about GMM ever being cleared to play.

And unfortunately Dan was on target there.  GMM ruled ineligible.  The details of why, well quite frankly the NCAA rules confuse the shit out of me so I'll just say "whatever" and roll with it.  Chances are GMM wasn't going to be a difference maker for us in many games but at the same time having a guy his size available for depth purposes would have been nice.

So it amounts to a swing and a miss for Crean but hey he has hit plenty of homers to make up for it.  In this case I think our opportunity cost for bringing in GMM was pretty much zero, I don't believe we passed on any other hot JUCO prospects here and our scholarship situation going forward is not negatively affected. 

[mojo]

Here are some pictures of Ferrell committing. The boy could easily pass for 14 yrs of age but he sure can play some ball.
http://photos.indystar.com/galleries/11276-yogi-ferrell-commits-to-iu

[GO BIG RED]

This team has been sucking shit through a straw since the Las Vegas trip.  I do think they played a lot better against tOSU even if it didn't show up in the final score.  I'd really like to win more than 4 Big Ten games this season.  Hopefully the boys can tighten up their game a bit. 

[GO BIG RED]

Well with the exception of a 3 game stretch against Illinois, Michigan State and Minnesota this Big Ten season has turned into another unbearably bad campaign.  Another 20 loss season is pretty much clinched unless we can upset Wisconsin or sweep the Fighting Illness and neither scenario is likely.  12-20 would certainly fall short of expectations for me.  The main things that bother me about this team:

1)  Team defense:  Mostly non-existent.  Do we even teach team defense?  Our help defense is bad, our rotations are bad...every now and then the team seems to get a burr up it's collective ass and plays a little better on D but those moments are few and far between.

2)  Crean's random ass sub patterns:  I don't know what he is doing or thinking half the time.

3)  Verdell running our offense:  Just ugly at times.  The kid needs to play a wing position and not be running the point as the primary ballhandler.  He is our best player at creating his own shot but he may be one of our worst players at creating for others and to me that is what a primary ballhander must do.

Obviously some other things have worked against us too such as Creek not returning as strong as we hoped and then getting hurt again, and also the GMM fiasco.  I'm not ready to start bashing on Crean but I'm really hoping what I have watched this season is not a preview of how I will feel about his coaching in the future.  I'm just not impressed overall.  We need to show a little more progress next season.