College Basketball 2009-10

[Andy]

Big East improves to 37-0 as bottom-feeder DePaul tops perennial tourney team Northern Iowa and Nova drops Dayton.

 

The streak will almost certainly end tonight when Syracuse plays UNC at the Garden, but it's cool to see.

[ZMovieman]

I'm not sure Crean ever had a great big man at Marquette. But I could be wrong.

 

He didn't. The closest he had was Robert Jackson, a transfer from Mississippi State. (Unless you count Steve Novak as a "big man.") This is disconcerting and it must change. I'm concerned it won't really.

 

Crean left Marquette the same year I graduated there, so hopefully I can shed some light on his recruiting and coaching, etc. IU got a great marketer and PR guy in Crean. That's always been his bread and butter. Indiana will remain prominent even when struggling because he will make people pay attention to them. However, two things during his tenure at Marquette always seemed to be an issue (though not insurmountable):

 

1. Big recruiting. Especially after Wade, Crean never had a problem bringing in talented, athletic guards to play in his system. Wade, Diener, McNeal, James, and Matthews (who's doing ok for the Jazz now) all fit the bill nicely. However, Jackson excluded, he couldn't connect on a big. He often took the JUCO or project big man, though I always attributed that to pure numbers than anything else. There's just only so many quality bigs out there. Hopefully that changes at IU for you guys. Also, he tended to have turnover in his assistant coaches over time, which can disrupt recruiting at times. As a result, he'd often lock in on two to four recruits and hope for the home run. Sometimes he'd get it (Tyshawn Taylor before Crean left for IU) and other times he'd miss (Schumpert at Georgia Tech). He'd then have to scramble to fill in the gaps.

 

2. Game management/planning. I'm going to assume that Crean's game management and coaching hasn't changed much since Marquette. He was always a big fan of fast, strip steal oriented defense. As such, Crean's teams always did well in steals which helped compensate for size at times (MU vs Stanford's Lopez twins). However, offensively, Crean tends to run through two primary offensive options. When he left MU, those were Dominic James and Jerel McNeal. Wes Matthews would be the third option, but the offense didn't flow through him nearly enough. These sets would someimes become problematic against zone defenses if the jump shot wasn't falling. Syracuse always gave Crean fits for this reason. His offense is different to MU's current variation in offensive creativity vs set plays.

 

Honestly, despite my still lingering distate for how he left (the team found out on Sportscenter instead of in person and the AD was en route to Colorado for the Women's NIT so everyone was blindsided), Crean is a good hire for IU. They will become again a perennial tournament team with an exciting brand of basketball. But his two flaws were his ability to recruit the big and in game management. Hopefully he can overcome that, though it would appear the IU faithful already are noting some of these in action.

[SouthSideRyan]

IU's fan base needs to avoid the ND football, Kentucky basketball, Bama football line of thinking. Yes, IU is a historical program, and yes they were elite at one point, but the fact is that the program was in shambles and cannot be put back together quickly. Keep the sense of entitlement away, because the more pressure you put on Crean to get you back quickly, the quicker he will be gone. Give him time and you will be fine.

 

What is the status of the new practice facility? I know that Sampson was complaining about the lack of one while he was at IU.

 

guys, this isn't a 3 million brick house we're putting together one brick at a time. It's not like you have to build a minor leauge system to build the program. You need 9 or so good players to compete. Two good recruiting classes gets you back into the mix of things, and Crean has already acquired one good class. Why doesn't he have interest from a talented post player all the way through the 2011 class? I wasn't expecting the man to have IU back in the top 25 this year or next year......but I do expect them to be close by the 2011-2012 season.

 

You use Kentucky and Bama as examples. Are you trying to tell me that Calipari won't have UK back into the top 10 by 2010-2011 if it doesn't happen this year? Are you trying to tell me that Coach friggin Nick Saban didn't bring Alabama back to where they were accustomed in 2 years?

 

Neither situation is exactly analogous. When Calipari took the job, Kentucky returned a five-star and a four-star power forward, a four-star point guard, a four-star small forward, and a few three-star guys, plus already had at least a four-star shooting guard and a five-star center lined up (I'm a little fuzzy if any other recruits were holdovers from Gillispie). Indiana returned a walk-on and had a three-star shooting guard and power forward lined up.

 

That and hiring a known cheater is what put Indiana in their current situation. You want to see how low a program can get?

[SouthSideRyan]

The bottom of the Big 10 might cost Wisconsin an at-large due to RPI.

[CubbieBum]

So Syracuse is destroying UNC. Not too surprised considering UNC's youth (will take awhile to get up to speed). Syracuse is a solid top 20 team but with this win and the first one they will likely jump into the top 10. I don't think they will end up being that good but have been very impressive so far.

 

On another note neither ESPN nor cbssports are doing a box score for the Purdue game and BTN isn't showing it. I realize its in the Virgin Islands but they could still do a box score for a top 10 team.

[SouthSideRyan]

Yahoo has a box score.

 

And Purdue is strugggggggggggling.

[Smack]

Purdue can't pull away from South Dakota State? Seriously?

[Smack]

Wow, JaJuan Johnson is 2 for 11. How is Purdue playing in a crappy tournament like this anyway?

[CubbieBum]

Purdue can't pull away from South Dakota State? Seriously?

 

It's bad but I'm not overly surprised. We did lose to Wofford at home a few years ago. Takes us awhile to get going.

 

As for the tourny isn't not as good as the preseason-NIT but Saint Joseph's, Tennessee and Boston College are in it so it won't hurt our RPI.

[fiver]

IU lost tonight. They were outrebounded 46-31 by Boston Univeristy, and their 'big men' were dominated by Boston U's Jake O'brien judging from the boxscore.

 

Change the names and numbers above, but that is going to be true for just about every game that IU plays until at least the end of the 2011-2012 season.

[hawkeyecub]

Iowa gets in the win column with a 22 point win over Bowling Green. Unfortunately Bowling Green was really bad. Still, even in the losses the offense is getting better shots than last year. Tonight they finally went down. Shot 12-25 from 3.

[Andy]

Providence's loss to Bama ends the Big East's run at 41 wins. Too bad.

[CubbieBum]

Providence's loss to Bama ends the Big East's run at 41 wins. Too bad.

 

For someone who talks about how little things matter in college basketball this early you sure like to brag about meaningless Big East things.

[NCCubFan]

Providence's loss to Bama ends the Big East's run at 41 wins. Too bad.

You were right about the streak ending, wrong about which game would end it.

[Andy]

Providence's loss to Bama ends the Big East's run at 41 wins. Too bad.

 

For someone who talks about how little things matter in college basketball this early you sure like to brag about meaningless Big East things.

There are 20 posters in this thread who will spend the entire season fellating the Big Ten, so I guess I just have to pick up the slack, don't I? I just thought it was a cool little run to have at the start of the year. I'm not stupid enough to draw blanket conclusions about the Big East based on mostly meaningless games, but it's good to see Cuse beating up on UNC, great to see DePaul beating a good mid-major team. Since I really don't think Notre Dame's going to be making headlines apart from Harangody, I'm planning on enjoying the entire conference, hence my interest.

[XZero771679666304]

Providence's loss to Bama ends the Big East's run at 41 wins. Too bad.

 

For someone who talks about how little things matter in college basketball this early you sure like to brag about meaningless Big East things.

There are 20 posters in this thread who will spend the entire season fellating the Big Ten, so I guess I just have to pick up the slack, don't I? I just thought it was a cool little run to have at the start of the year. I'm not stupid enough to draw blanket conclusions about the Big East based on mostly meaningless games, but it's good to see Cuse beating up on UNC, great to see DePaul beating a good mid-major team. Since I really don't think Notre Dame's going to be making headlines apart from Harangody, I'm planning on enjoying the entire conference, hence my interest.

 

While there are some B10 homers here, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that you will talk about people fellating the B10 a great deal more than it will actually happen, which is saying something.

[illiniguy]

Providence's loss to Bama ends the Big East's run at 41 wins. Too bad.

 

For someone who talks about how little things matter in college basketball this early you sure like to brag about meaningless Big East things.

There are 20 posters in this thread who will spend the entire season fellating the Big Ten, so I guess I just have to pick up the slack, don't I? I just thought it was a cool little run to have at the start of the year. I'm not stupid enough to draw blanket conclusions about the Big East based on mostly meaningless games, but it's good to see Cuse beating up on UNC, great to see DePaul beating a good mid-major team. Since I really don't think Notre Dame's going to be making headlines apart from Harangody, I'm planning on enjoying the entire conference, hence my interest.

 

While there are some B10 homers here, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that you will talk about people fellating the B10 a great deal more than it will actually happen, which is saying something.

The Big Ten is deep, but it isn't super great at the top. Besides MSU of course.

[Andy]

Providence's loss to Bama ends the Big East's run at 41 wins. Too bad.

 

For someone who talks about how little things matter in college basketball this early you sure like to brag about meaningless Big East things.

There are 20 posters in this thread who will spend the entire season fellating the Big Ten, so I guess I just have to pick up the slack, don't I? I just thought it was a cool little run to have at the start of the year. I'm not stupid enough to draw blanket conclusions about the Big East based on mostly meaningless games, but it's good to see Cuse beating up on UNC, great to see DePaul beating a good mid-major team. Since I really don't think Notre Dame's going to be making headlines apart from Harangody, I'm planning on enjoying the entire conference, hence my interest.

 

While there are some B10 homers here, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that you will talk about people fellating the B10 a great deal more than it will actually happen, which is saying something.

I was exaggerating about the B11, but I'm the only major Big East fan here - the only other people I know of who even have a team in the league are the DePaul alums - so that might mean I talk about the league in my posts once in a while. Like I said, I'm not drawing any conclusions like "OMGZ THE BIG EAST IS THE BEST" based on 41 games, about 35 of which were pillow fights with nothing teams. I just thought it was a cool streak.

[CubbieBum]

Providence's loss to Bama ends the Big East's run at 41 wins. Too bad.

 

For someone who talks about how little things matter in college basketball this early you sure like to brag about meaningless Big East things.

There are 20 posters in this thread who will spend the entire season fellating the Big Ten, so I guess I just have to pick up the slack, don't I? I just thought it was a cool little run to have at the start of the year. I'm not stupid enough to draw blanket conclusions about the Big East based on mostly meaningless games, but it's good to see Cuse beating up on UNC, great to see DePaul beating a good mid-major team. Since I really don't think Notre Dame's going to be making headlines apart from Harangody, I'm planning on enjoying the entire conference, hence my interest.

 

While there are some B10 homers here, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that you will talk about people fellating the B10 a great deal more than it will actually happen, which is saying something.

The Big Ten is deep, but it isn't super great at the top. Besides MSU of course.

 

What do you consider super great? Only top 5 teams? If so then you can make that statement every year. Otherwise the Big Ten has more than MSU.

[Sosa21MVP]

IU lost tonight. They were outrebounded 46-31 by Boston Univeristy, and their 'big men' were dominated by Boston U's Jake O'brien judging from the boxscore.

 

Change the names and numbers above, but that is going to be true for just about every game that IU plays until at least the end of the 2011-2012 season.

 

http://scouthoops.scout.com/a.z?s=75&p=8&c=1&nid=3631948

 

You can't say Crean is not trying to get a big. We have offered Cody. I don't know where we are on his list exactly but all I'm saying is I know he has been going after Cody and I'm pretty sure he has been attempting to pursue other bigs. Just because we don't have one favoring Indiana yet doesn't mean Crean is not working on it.

 

And yeah Cody is not a 7 footer but he is a PF and he might grow a bit more by 2011.

[illiniguy]

The Big Ten is deep, but it isn't super great at the top. Besides MSU of course.

 

What do you consider super great? Only top 5 teams? If so then you can make that statement every year. Otherwise the Big Ten has more than MSU.

I think anyone that you know has a deep run in them come tourny time. You know MSU does. A few other teams could, but it will depend on their draw. And last year the Big East had three or four teams you could count on sticking around for a couple of rounds. I'm just not that high on the other teams. They all could be good, but right now have some warts.

[Guest]

Providence's loss to Bama ends the Big East's run at 41 wins. Too bad.

Syracuse had a loss.

[illiniguy]

Providence's loss to Bama ends the Big East's run at 41 wins. Too bad.

Syracuse had a loss.

Wasn't that an exhibition game though?

[CubbieBum]

The Big Ten is deep, but it isn't super great at the top. Besides MSU of course.

 

What do you consider super great? Only top 5 teams? If so then you can make that statement every year. Otherwise the Big Ten has more than MSU.

I think anyone that you know has a deep run in them come tourny time. You know MSU does. A few other teams could, but it will depend on their draw. And last year the Big East had three or four teams you could count on sticking around for a couple of rounds. I'm just not that high on the other teams. They all could be good, but right now have some warts.

 

Purdue, OSU and Michigan have no more "warts" than every other team. Almost every team has "warts." Kentucky is relying heavily on a freshman, Texas wasn't that great and didn't even make Sweet Sixteen last year, UNC is young ... etc.

[CubbieBum]

Providence's loss to Bama ends the Big East's run at 41 wins. Too bad.

Syracuse had a loss.

Wasn't that an exhibition game though?

 

Yes it was which is the best part of Andy's streak.