IU baseball.

Unlike at many southern and western schools, baseball has never taken off as a quasi-major sport at IU. Frankly, there are very few quality baseball programs in the northeastern quadrant of the country. Of the 25 teams ranked in the current USA Today coaches' poll, Wichita State is the only school that wouldn't be considered southern or western. Of the 26 teams "also receiving votes," only Missouri, Nebraska, Minnesota (?!), Southern Illinois, and Kansas State fit the bill. Kentucky is ranked #18 despite a climate similar to that of southern Indiana's, but UK has the advantage of gong south for all of its conference road games. On the other hand, the Big Ten school with the least hospitable climate is the only Big Ten program in the top 50 right now, so go figure.

One of IU's disadvantages is antiquated Sembower Field, a Pony League-caliber field across the street from Briscoe and McNutt quads. If IU's facilities enhancement plan comes to full fruition, IU will be building new baseball and softball facilities that would be worthy of being called "stadium" rather than "field." Until that happens, it seems unlikely that IU will do anything to put a dent in the southern/western dominance of college baseball. On the other hand, with the least severe climate in the Big Ten, IU would seem to be in a decent position to produce a quality baseball program if the resources are provided. A couple of years ago, IU replaced the long-tenured Bob Morgan, who won only one Big Ten title in a generation of coaching, with Tracy Smith, a former IU pitching coach who executed a nice turnaround at Miami of Ohio.

IU begins the Big Ten season this afternoon against Michigan State. The Hoosiers currently stand at 10-8, with all of the wins coming against teams from non-power conferences. IU doesn't have any offensive standouts to date. Amazingly, IU has only one home run this season in 18 games. I don't follow college baseball closely enough to know how unusual that is, but note that the IU pitching staff has allowed eight. Freshman pitcher Matt Bashore, from Tipp City, Ohio, seems to be showing some promise. In 27.1 innings pitched in five appearances (four starts), Bashore has a 1.63 ERA with 22 Ks and only 11 walks. His 1.14 WHIP would be very good by MLB standards, but again, I don't follow college baseball closely enough to know how good that is.

I'll keep an eye on the baseball Hoosiers as the season progresses.

Oden, Conley, and Mike Davis.

Birmingham News columnist Kevin Scarbinsky wrote a column today that has Hoosier fans a bit exercised. It would be easier for us to move on if the media would stop writing IU/Davis retrospectives. Scarbinsky seems to have interviewed Davis about his recruitment of Greg Oden and Mike Conley. Let's jet back to summer 2005 for a moment. From 1971 through 2003, IU never had a losing season--never came close, in fact. In 2004, IU posted its first losing season in 24 seasons and missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1985. IU finished eighth in a down year for the Big Ten (only the top three conference teams were invited to the NCAA Tournament). It was the first time IU had missed both postseason tournaments since 1977. While Davis certainly faced some criticism, he was only two years removed from the Final Four, and so he essentially was given a mulligan by most, but certainly not all, of the fans. In 2005, IU failed to rebound. Faced with a slim chance of playing into the tournament, IU was humiliated by Minnesota in the 4/5 game of the Big Ten Tournament. That game was followed by Davis's bizarre "we were the four seed. We were the four seed. We were the four seed. We were the four seed..." press conference. The season ended with a whimper, in the form of a beatdown by Vanderbilt in front of the smallest crowd in the history of Assembly Hall. The ridiculousness was just more of the same from Davis, whose career never seemed to recover from his running onto the court slapping his head at the end of the Kentucky game in December 2002. He made too many broken promises about mystery recruits to count. His real gem from the 2005 season was the claim that IU's blowout loss at Northwestern was inevitable because IU had prepared for NU's best player, TJ Parker, but when Parker missed the game because of injury, IU simply couldn't adjust to NU's walk-on point guard, Michael Jenkins. Seriously.

Jenkins posted a line any post player would love - 8 points and a team-high 7
rebounds, including 4 offensive boards. He had no assists in his first career
start but hit a pair of 3-pointers on Northwestern's backbreaking 18-8 run
midway through the second half.
"It affected us with Parker not playing,"
Davis said. "We had prepared for T.J. You could see our guys not focused and not
ready to come out and compete and battle."
Davis was then asked about
Jenkins.
"Who's that?" he asked.

I don't mean to drag Hoosier fans down a nightmarish memory lane here. I'm just pointing out how ridiculously absurd it was that after all of that, Mike Davis inexplicably was allowed to continue his stewardship of one of college basketball's historically elite programs, and to provide the context, lest anyone has forgotten, of the condition of the program when Conley and Oden were being recruited. At that point, Davis's IU career was beyond salvaging. The idea that someone like Mike Conley, a bright kid with involved and sophisticated parents, was going to entrust his career to that charlatan, was laughable. Yet the IU administration allowed Davis to come back, even though, by his own account, he no longer wanted to be at Indiana. IU's administration blew the last, best chance of signing Conley and Oden by giving Davis another years after had had proven his unfitness beyond a reasonable doubt.

Davis was self-absorbed to the end, as his interview with Scarbinsky makes clear. Even if he landed the commitments, he wouldn't sign them?! what a bunch of bunk. I know that it's politically correct to say that we wish Davis well, that we hope his is happy at UAB, and so forth. I don't. I hope he falls on his face, and I hope he does it soon. The sooner he flames out, the fewer careers and seasons he will be allowed to ruin. Good riddance, Mike.

Eli Holman.

Mark Montieth's article in today's Indy Star on IU freshman-to-be Eli Holman is a must-read, and I highly recommend the audio interview that is available on the sidebar. Holman sounds mature beyond his years, and anyone who has elected to form his opinion on Holman based upon the unfortunate altercation with the referee or the drive by shoting of which Holman was a victim ought to take a look.

John Thompson III.

Really, I'm going to talk about the baseball team any day now. But I had a thought as I watched the waning minutes of Georgetown's overtime win over North Carolina in the East Regional final. JTIII became the first son of a Final Four coach to reach the Final Four as a head coach. This has some tenuous IU connection because of Pat Knight's position on the IU staff during his father's last few years at IU. As you may know, Pat has a contract with Texas Tech that provides that he will succeed his father as Tech's head coach. It seems to me that it was always going to end badly for Knight at IU, even if he had retired of his own volition, because he would have tried to install Pat as the successor and many IU fans would have resisted. For Texas Tech, which has never been as prominent as in the last few years, it's probably a small price to pay.

This arrangement seems to have become more popular in recent years. Sean Sutton succeeded Eddie Sutton at Oklahoma State. Keno Davis will take over for his father, Tom Davis, at Drake next season. Tony Bennett had an outstanding season in his first season after taking over for his father, Dick Bennett, at Washington State. Murry Bartow unsuccessfully followed his father at UAB and Joey Meyer did the same at DePaul.

What seems to separate JTIII from those above is that unlike most of the current batch of successor, JTIII didn't develop under his father's wing. He attended college and coached at Princeton, both as an assistant and as a head coach. Certainly, being named "John Thompson" probably has opened some doors for the current Georgetown coach, and certainly a confidante like the elder John Thompson would be a nice resource for any young coach. And it may all be a coincidence. Perhaps Tony Benett, Sean Sutton, and Pat Knight will all become elite coaches. Still, I think it is interesting that the first second generation Final Four coach did not follow the typical "favorite son" path.

Adam Herbert's legacy at IU.

There's no guarantee that firing Mike Davis in 2005 would have resulted in Greg Oden and Mike Conley enrolling at IU, but failing to fire Mike Davis after IU's two worst seasons of the last 35 years guaranteed that the best high school twosome in Indiana history would go elsewhere. Recruits and their parents figured out Mike Davis long before the administration did. Oh well. They made the right decision, unfortunately. Let's just make sure we never again allow IU to be a non-factor in recruitment of players like this.

Hoosiers lose in WNIT.

It's now the offseason for all IU basketball teams. The women's team lost 60-53 at South Dakota State. It turns out that SDSU improved to 25-4 with the win over IU and is a respectable 49th in the RPI ratings. IU finished at 19-13, a respectable record for a program that has seen more than its share of upheaval in recent years and has had different coaches in each of the last three seasons.

Tubby Smith to Minnesota.

The Big Ten coaching fraternity has changed (and for the better) in the last 24 hours. Just a day after the Alford-to-NM rumors were confirmed, as the whole universe knows, Tubby Smith resigned on of the most prestigious jobs in college athletics to become the head basketball coach at Minnesota, a solid but unspectacular program with few non-NCAA-redacted great moments. Minnesota seems to be a nice place, with what from TV looks to be on par with the Phog, Hinkle, Cameron, and the Palestra as a great old basketball barn. Minnesota's Williams Arena is "the Barn," semi-officially. Still, it's not Kentucky. I have a few thoughts on this move:

1. It's probably easier for a guy like Tubby, who has won a championship, to make a move like this. Even if it was with Rick Pitino's players, he's in the club. Moving from Kentucky to Minnesota makes it much less likely that he will ever again cut down the nets with "One Shining Moment" blaring in the background. If Bill Self, for instance, were in a similar situation a few years down the road, it might be a tougher decision sans title.

2. Where's the outrage? I'm not saying there should be any genuine outrage. Kentucky is entitled to its expectations. Nine years without a Final Four bid is a long time for a program of Kentucky's stature. As an IU fan, I resent the hell out of media scolds who tell us we should just accept our lot as a middle-of-the-pack program, so I'm not going to dress down Kentucky fans for that (dress them down for their historical acquiescence in $100 handshakes, racism, and point shaving, yes, but not for having high expectations). The trend at UK, particularly since the blowout loss to Marquette in the 2003 regional final, when Kentucky was ranked #1, has been downward. Kentucky has lost 25 games in the last two seasons. Yet, it seems to me that Kentucky is getting easier treatment than did IU for forcing out the incompetent buffoon who isn't half the coach that Tubby Smith is. Waah, it's not fair.

3. Where does UK go from here? Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart has a tougher job than did Rick Greenspan at this time last year. Both schools ultimately expect to compete for NCAA championships, so they have that in common. But Mike Davis was so deficient in so many ways that Greenspan could hardly have ended up with a worse coach if he tried. Kentucky, on the other hand, can improve, but could also do much worse than Tubby. Tubby won nearly 80 percent of his games, won a title in his first year, advanced to the Elite 8 four other times, and had some really excellent teams that just couldn't quite finish the job in March. Unless Kentucky hires a coach with a NCAA title on his resume (Billy Donovan or Tom Izzo, perhaps, although both seem like longshots), they will be doing exactly what the did a decade ago: they will hire a coach who has a very good but not championship-level record at lesser programs and hope that such success will translate into the highest level of success at Kentucky. I'm not saying they shouldn't be glad to have that opportunity--by all reports, the relationship between Tubby and the fans/administration was getting a bit chippy--but the opportunity is not without risk. It's going to be an interesting few weeks, withthe Kentucky, Michigan, and Iowa jobs open.

Spring practice, day 2.

The IU website does not contain a release this morning, and yesterday's practice was closed to the public. Information on the football Hoosiers may be sparse this spring, but here's a nice summary of day 1 from the Doug Wilson of the Hoosier Scoop, the Bloomington Herald-Times's blog.

Steve Alford takes New Mexico job.

Three Big Ten programs are now without coaches. Steve Alford will be the new coach at New Mexico, "unless there is an unexpected impasse." New Mexico unsuccessfully courted Bob Knight after the 1987-88 season. Alford did a nice job in recent years, but really managed to get sideways with the most amiable group of fans in the Big Ten. Iowa's decision to force Tom Davis out after the 1999 season has culminated in failure.

I have been pretty critical of Steve Alford. His handling of the Pierre Pierce scandal was disgraceful. Part of my attitude toward Steve was pushback against the IU fans who wanted Stevie to be given the IU job despite a complete lack of evidence that he is anything more than an average coach. Still, he is an IU legend and now that he is out of the Big Ten, it will be easier to root for him.

The design of the arena, UNM's famous Pit, should have tipped us off. Frankly, it's a wonder that IU ever managed to convince him to play at Assembly Hall.

New Castle Fieldhouse



Carver Hawkeye Arena



"The Pit," New Mexico

Spring football, day 1.

Assistant head coach Bill Lynch, who essentially is the acting head coach for the spring, as he was for last season's SIU and Connecticut games, held a press conference before today's practice. Lynch discussed, vaguely, the team's reaction to the latest news about Hep. The most interesting tidbit: Blake Powers, who started two games for IU last season and every game in 2005 (and set a school single-season record with 22 touchdown passes) is now a tight end, as had been long rumored.

Michigan coaching search.

Tommy Amaker, beloved by all Big Ten basketball fans (except Michigan fans, of course), finally received a well-earned pink slip over the weekend. Mgoblog and Maize n Brew are covering the story and breaking down the candidates in impressive detail. I'm not sure if Michigan really qualifies as a sleeping giant--the facilities problems and general indifference of many Michigan fans to basketball create challenges--but U-M probably has the best basketball tradition of any Big Ten school other than IU. Both Wolverine bloggers seem to be high on Chris Lowery of Southern Illinois, whose immediate predecessors, Matt Painter and Bruce Weber, coach in the Big Ten.

Minnesota, of course, has an job opening as well, and rumors continue to swirl about Steve Alford's future in Iowa and his possible interest in the New Mexico job, as discussed and dismissed in this column.

IU women prevail over Iona.

The IU women managed a 74-71 win over Iona in the WNIT. The reward? A trip to South Dakota State for the round of 16. SDSU is located in Brookings, SD, a town I didn't know existed until a few minutes ago.

How could I forget?

As the Hoosier Scoop blog of the Bloomington Herald Times reminded me, lost in all of the talk about Coach Hoeppner is that spring practice begins tomorrow. According to the linked blog entry, media access to practice will be limited this season, so it does appear that the official IU site will be the go-to place for information on spring ball.

The week to come.

Now that the inaugural season of the Kelvin Sampson era is complete, look for some sort of basketball post mortem this week. I also plan to provide an update and some discussion of the baseball team. Meanwhile, believe it or not, there is an Indiana University team still playing basketball: the IU women play Iona in the WNIT tonight at Assembly Hall.

Damn.

IU has announced that Terry Hoeppner will not participate in spring practice. Bill Lynch will run the team in the interim. Everyone who lives in Indiana has heard various rumors about Hep's health, and I'm not going to traffic in those rumors. Let's hope this isn't as serious as it sounds. Certainly, while our focus should be on the coach and his family, this news is a blow for an IU football program that hasn't caught a break in 15 years.

UCLA 54, Indiana 49.

I suppose it's fitting that it was two of college basketball's most tradition-rich programs that set college basketball back to the peach basket era last night. UCLA was very impressive defensively, but even that defense can't quite account for 5-28 and 13 points for IU in the first half. Here's the ugly box score. The most disappointing statistic is the 10-21 freethrow shooting. As poorly as IU played offensively in the first half, the unforced errors are the most troubling. In a 59 possession game, even with IU's late run IU managed only .83 points per possession, although UCLA had only .91. Many will point to the impressive rebounding numbers, but of course those numbers are skewed by the sheer number of missed shots.

Still, for all of the ugliness on the court on in the statistics, IU rallied from a significant deficit playing in front of a hostile crowd against a #2 seed that played in the NCAA title game last season. Suffice it to say that if we are in this position after the first weekend next year, there will be much gnashing of teeth. For this season, the Sampson era is off to a promising start.

The UCLA game.

UCLA Bruins
Overall record: 27-5
Pac-10 record: 15-3 (plus 0-1 in conference tournament)
RPI: 2
Sagarin: 6
Series record: IU leads 6-5

IU and UCLA have a combined 16 NCAA titles. In the history of the NCAA Tournament, the only game that involved more combined championships was Kentucky's win over UCLA in the 1998 Sweet 16. Those two teams had 17 combined NCAA titles, although Kentucky would win its seventh a few days later. IU and UCLA last played in the West Regional final in Alberquerque in 1992, a game that IU won 106-79. IU and UCLA met in the first game of that season, in the Tipoff Classic in Springfield, Mass., and UCLA won 87-72. In that game, Bob Knight famously ended Chris Reynolds's red shirt season in the middle of the game. Reynolds began the game in streetclothes and ended it in uniform.

Of the 11 games between IU and UCLA, three have been in the NCAA Tournament (including the aforementioned 1992 game). UCLA defeated IU in the 1973 Final Four national semifinals, when UCLA was in the midst of its record 88-game winning streak and its long NCAA championship streak. IU returned the favor in the 1976 national semifinals as IU proceeded to its own undefeated national championship. Also, UCLA, led by future Pacer legend Reggie Miller, defeated IU in the 1985 NIT championship game.

Other than Ohio State, UCLA is IU's most formidable opponent of the season. Here is Ken Pomeroy's UCLA scouting report, and here's how UCLA's numbers compare to those of IU:

Efficiency
Pace: Indiana 64 possessions per game (267/215); UCLA 64.3 (257/274)
Offensive efficiency: Indiana 1.105 points per possession (37/9); UCLA 1.116 (27/19)
Defensive efficiency: Indiana .967 points per possession (59/42) ;UCLA .928 (14/9)

Offense
Effective field goal percentage (extra credit for made three pointers): Indiana 52.4 (78); UCLA 54.2 (27)
Turnover percentage: Indiana 19.0 (61); UCLA 18.3 (34)
Offensive rebound percentage: Indiana 35.6 (91); UCLA 34.7 (130)


Defense
Effective field goal percentage: Indiana 46.7 (45); UCLA 47.8 (82)
Turnover percentage: Indiana 22.2 (101); UCLA 23.3 (51)
Offensive rebounding percentage: Indiana 32.5 (126); UCLA 29.9 (39)

What does this tell us? UCLA is statistically superior to IU in nearly every category and played a quality schedule. IU s better than Gonzaga by the numbers, but UCLA's status as the comfortable favorite is supported by these numbers. UCLA's top three scorers, Aaron Affalo, Josh Shipp, and Darren Collison are all threats from three point range. Affalo shoots 6.5 threes a game and makes about 38 percent.

This has been a promising season, and will remain so even if IU falls short tonight. A win, on the other hand, would put IU in a great position, would increase the buzz around Sampson's IU program as we approach the summer recruiting season, and would be a great start to the new era of IU basketball.

Indiana 70, Gonzaga 57

That was a really nice win. After a competitive first half, we managed to expand our lead in the second half. Gonzaga pulled to within 3, at 38-35 at the 17:37 mark. Rod Wilmont hit a three at the 17:00 mark, and the Bulldogs never were within a possession again. Neither team shot particularly well, although IU did manage 47 percent in the second half. In the first half, IU shot only 34 percent but managed 38 percent (7-18) from behind the arc, which accounted for the lead. My quick calculations indicate a 66 possession game--nothing out of the ordinary for Gonzaga, but run-and-gun by Big Ten standards. As the Wonk notes, this was an outstanding performance for the Hoosier defense, or at least a fairly deficient performance by Gonzaga's offense. The Wonk says 67 possessions, I say 66, but in any event, something in the neighborhood of .86 points per possession for the Zags, while IU was just south of 1.0. Again, this was a quicker game than most of the games IU played during the Big Ten season, so while the 13 turnovers may look a bit high, the 19.6 turnover percentage is just a tick higher than IU's 18.9 average in Big Ten play.

The Big Ten has taken quite a bit of grief for the style of play and the number of bids and quality of seeds that the tournament committee awarded to the Big Ten. I'm not really a "conference pride guy," meaning I don't feel any particular obligation to root for Purdue or Illinois or Wisconsin in the tournament because it's "good for the Big Ten." I vaguely hope that the Big Ten does well, but it doesn't mean I will sit down on the couch and root for Purdue in the tournament. Today might be an exception. The criticism of the Big Ten has been so harsh that I would love to see a 6-0 start, even if it means rooting for the loathesome Boilers and Illini. I love that MSU managed lull a quality Big East team that averages over 67 possessions per game into a snail's pace, 58 possession game, and won comfortably. IU played at a faster pace than normal, and won comfortably. I realize that ugly, slow basketball does not always indicate good defense, but at the same time, a 49-45 score does not always indicate a poorly played game, and I'm sick of the simpletons in the media who say so.

More on Gonzaga.

IU’s defensive problems this season have been on the interior. Our 2-point field goals allowed percentage is very pedestrian, but at least for most of the season, our three point defense was the best in the Big Ten. Gonzaga, despite the aforementioned loss of Josh Heytvelt to the devil ‘shrooms, is still pretty tall, with two 6-9 guys in the starting lineup. The Zags leading scorer is Derek Raivio, who averages 18.2 points on only 12 shots per game. As the Wonk has noted, the Bulldogs don’t shoot three pointers often, but they shoot them well. Raivio is the most frequent long bomber for the ‘Zags. He shoots 6.6 threes a game and makes 41 percent. Other than the departed Heytvelt, Gonzaga has only one other double digit scorer, point guard Jeremy Pargo, who averages 12.2 points a game on 8.4 shots per game. This article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer notes the production increases of 6-6 David Pendergraft, 6-8 Micah Downs, and 6-9 Abdulli Kuso since Heytvelt’s suspension. Pendergraft and Downs have doubled their points per game since then, which makes a look at Gonzaga’s season stats a bit misleading. For programs that play in major conferences, the latter two thirds of the season tend to be a more reliable indicator of a team’s quality because of better competition and more uniform competition as compared to other major conference teams. For Gonzaga, it’s a bit different. The Bulldogs play the bulk of their high quality opponents in the non-conference season to offset the comparatively weaker WCC schedule. Accordingly, it is tough to give as much weight to those players’ increased production as it would be if they had done so with a more "conventional" major program.

I don't have any parting thoughts of any significance in this, my last post before IU begins (and possibly ends) its 2007 NCAA Tournament appearance. By the numbers, by seed, by the Vegas odds, IU is a narrow but decided favorite. The Hoosiers should win, but a Gonzaga win would not be a momentous upset. As of noon today, the ESPN Bracket Challenge entrants favored Gonazaga by about a 55/45 margin. I love picking against the trendy upset. I don't expect great things from IU in this tournament, and I will be quite surprised if I am writing a preview this time next week, but winning an NCAA Tournament game would be a nice step and a nice reward for team and coach after a promising first season. Let's go Hoosiers.

Wonk's preview.

I'll be back with more later, but for now, here is the Big Ten Wonk's preview of IU's four-team pod in Sacramento.