Blogzeffer

Mosaics from Grandma Bleizeffer's funeral

2010-02-19T11:41:00.001-05:00

I think Joann created these. Click the images to go to Flickr and view all the individual pictures.

R.I.P. Sheila Bleizeffer

2009-06-29T20:42:00.004-04:00

If memory serves, it was in early spring in 1996 that Karen was volunteering at the SPCA, and she asked me to come in and meet one of the dogs. We already had Indigo at this point, who was a handful, to say the least, so after the requisite browbeating I agreed to go in and meet this dog. I insisted that I was only going to meet the dog, but we were not bringing the dog home that day... which just goes to show my level of naivete at that point in our marriage.

We came home with Sheila that day. Her given name was "Shula" (maybe her original owners were Miami Dolphin fans), and given that she was an Australian Cattledog (mostly) and she was female, we decided to change her name slightly to Sheila. Get it? Australian female? Sheila? Yeah, we're clever.

Sheila died in my arms around 3:45 today, June 29th, 2009, after the cancer in her jaw and throat made it difficult for her to breathe. She stopped eating yesterday, and she couldn't sleep because it took too much effort to breathe to relax enough to sleep. It was her time.

Sheila was the antithesis of Indigo. Indigo was too smart for her own good (it's never good to have a dog that is smarter than its owners). She was willful and mischievous... and we loved her. She seemed to take a perverse enjoyment out of pushing our buttons.

Sheila was eager to please. If she ever misbehaved, it was obviously a mistake because she would be devastated to think that she had done something wrong. Indigo thought anyone who came to the door was Jason Vorhees incarnate. Sheila thought everyone was a potential friend.

Our cats would rub up against Sheila's legs and spoon with her when she was sleeping. And she wouldn't complain.

And she purred when she was happy.

Tyler used to gleefully grab Sheila's fur and hold on tight until he got bored or Sheila's fur detached. Sheila never complained.

Carson has a friend named Rebecca. She invited Rebecca over for a playdate, but Rebecca and her mom were concerned because Rebecca was deathly afraid of dogs. We told them "You've got to meet Sheila." They met. Rebecca is no longer afraid of dogs... in fact, she now wants to get a dog of her own.

Old age was not particularly kind to Sheila. She developed arthritis and had bouts of severe joint pain over her last couple of years. At one point a couple years ago it got so bad that I built her a ramp to get up the two steps from the sidewalk to our front porch, and I was convinced that she didn't have much longer. Then, amazingly, she recovered. She still had trouble and couldn't make it up the stair to the second floor, but her mobility increased enough that worries about her quality of life went away.

Then, a little over a month ago, she started snoring while awake. A quick Google search suggested it was probably allergies, so we switched her food, but it didn't help. So I took her to the vet and they found severe cancer in her jaw and neck that was obstructing her nasal passages and throat. There was nothing to be done at that point but try to make her comfortable. The pain medication helped a little, but when she stopped eating we knew it was time.

Of course, the thing I'll miss most about Sheila is that she loved me far more than I deserve. We all need as much of that in our lives as we can get.

Goodbye, Sheila, I love you too.

Carson's 9th Birthday party

2009-05-18T10:54:00.002-04:00

Here's a link to the whole slideshow -> http://picasaweb.google.com/TBleizeffer/2009May18Carson9thBDay#

From 2009-May-18-Carson-9th-BDay

Tuesday morning

2009-01-20T10:30:00.002-05:00

From 2009-Jan-20

That's Sorcha on the left and Sebastian on the right in the photo above.

From 2009-Jan-20

Perfect team?

2009-01-19T19:14:00.003-05:00

What does a perfect basketball team look like, in your opinion? Obviously we could say "A player at every position that is great at everything" but that's boring. I'm thinking more about the key characteristics, thinking about prior Indiana players who might resemble that player, and players on the current team or recruits that might become that player.

Here's my take:

First, I don't think a great team needs more than 8 players. In fact, part of me thinks having more than 8 players in the rotation can be a distraction. And because I think it's very important for players to understand their roles, I'm going to assume a stable starting lineup with a stable set of reserves (though in reality I think a stable starting lineup is almost always overrated). I'm only going to discuss the starting five, but the bench players would be (as you'd expect) a ballhandler, a wing, and a guy who can play in the post.

Point Guard: The three main traits I like to see in a point guard are
1. Mental toughness
2. Defensive stopper
3. Decision making
The best point guards are the guys who are always in control, who disrupt the opponent's offense everytime down the floor, who are absolutely convinced that they're smarter than you, and who play their best when the game is on the line. These are rare individuals. Right after these top 3 are things like ballhandling and court vision. And then farther down is scoring ability. Obviously we want every player on the court to be a scoring threat, and I enjoy watching point guards who can score, but I'm willing to give up a whole lot of scoring ability if I can get ridiculous mental toughness in return.

Keith Smart, who wasn't even a pure point guard, is pretty close to my archetype here. Obviously Smart was a great defensive player, and like the rest of the 1987 team he displayed amazing mental toughness. He also knew his role well and didn't often make bad decisions. I think if I could trade a little of Smart's scoring ability for a little more court vision, that would be the point guard I'd want.

In terms of current or future Indiana players, it's tough to say because mental toughness is hard to predict. I really Jones, but his defense in particular has a long way to go before he even approaches my archetype (though I do think his defensive ceiling is high). I don't know enough about Rivers or Hulls to comment. As I said, in my opinion great PGs are very rare.

Shooting Guard: Main traits:
1. Pure shooter
2. Defensive stopper
3. Mental toughness
For some reason, it seems unusual to see #1 and #2 in the same player. When I think back at the really great pure shooters in Indiana history (like Steve Alford, Jay Edwards, A.J. Guyton) it seems that most of them lack greatness on the defensive end. Everybody loves the pure shooter, but honestly I'm not a "trade baskets" kind of guy, so defensive stopper is a close second here. Mental toughness is also critical. Jay Edwards, who as far as I could see had no mental toughness off the basketball court, knew that he would sink the big shot. You want your shooting guard to be dangerous everytime down the floor, but you want to opposing team to terrified of him taking the last-second-shot-to-win-the-game. Other things I like to see in a shooting guard is the ability to slash to the basket and score (off the dribble or not), plus some amount of the ballhandling and court vision that we want in a PG. Not a "combo guard" necessarily, but someone who can contribute offensively even when they are not shooting from the perimeter.

Dane Fife is one of the best defensive players I've ever seen, and his shooting ability was phenomenal during his senior year, but he wasn't a guy a wanted shooting the last second shot and he certainly had some notable, um, mental lapses diuring games. Greg Graham as a senior is probably the closest to the archetype I can think of in one player. He could score from anywhere on the court and he was the best defensive player in the B10. All I would add to Greg Graham is a little bit of Dane Fife's mean streak and a little bit of Jay Edwards' arrogance and he'd be my archetypal point guard.

I don't see any current players or recruits who resemble my archetype. I like Dumes' lack of fear and he has the potential to be a lockdown defender, but he's not a pure shooter and his decision-making needs a lot of work. Plus he only has one more year to put it all together. Maybe Maurice Creek is closer, but as usual I don't know much about our recruits.

Small Forward: Main traits:
1. Triple threat
2. Defensive stopper
3. Rebounding
This is probably my favorite position in basektball. Really good small forwards are a delight to watch because thay are so versatile. I listed my top 3 traits but those traits miss the point - great small forwards are jacks-of-all-trades who do everything well. They can shoot from the perimeter, drive to the basket, pass the ball, rebound, defend smaller guys or bigger guys, and handle the ball reasonably well.

Of course, the easiest way to explain my archetypal small forward is simply to type, "Calbert Cheaney". I'm trying to think of what I would change about Cheaney and it's tough to think of anything. Maybe add a little more vocal leadership. Maybe a bit of a mean streak. But mostly Cheaney is my archetype.

I have high hopes for Christian Watford and Derek Elston, but I don't know how Cheaney-like their games are.

Power Forward: Main traits:
1. Quickness
2. Length
3. Rebounding
I think the "power forward" vs "center" designation is even more useless than most of the other standard player positions, particularly at the college level. This made it tough to think of my archetype because it's really the pair of interior players as a package that creates my archetype. Anyway, when I think of my favorite "power forward" type players I think of guys like Jared Jeffries, Alan Henderson, and Jeff Newton. Not strong, bulky guys or guys who play with their back to the basket (though Jeffries played with his back to the basket a lot). Rather, guys who were sneaky good because of their quickness and length... which contributes to scoring, rebounding, and defense. All three of those guys were excellent defenders and a danger to block shots. And all three could hit mid-range shots, which I think is critical. Newton had some issues with consistent effort, but when he was at his best he was very, very good.

No one on this year's squad is like that, though maybe Watford next year will be.

Center: Main traits:
1. Rebounding
2. Defensive stopper
3. Mean Streak
This is the one position where thinking of an Indiana player who resembles my archetype is tough. I don't remember pre-1986 Indiana basketball, and in the last 23 years there hasn't exactly been a parade of great centers going through the Indiana program. And I have a particular archetype in mind... big and mean. I like the "power forward" (see rant on positions above) to have finesse, but I want this guy to spit on the very idea of finesse... and then punch the idea in the mouth and kick it in the ribs while it's down. I want someone who thinks every shot within ten feet of the basket looks like a dunk, and I want the opposing team to be terrified of trying to take a charge. When this guy sets a screen it should be a felony in some states and Puerto Rico. You get the idea.

So what Indiana center resembles my archetype? Um... let me think... hell, I don't know. Maybe Jarrod Odle? A taller, bigger, meaner version of Jarrod Odle, I guess. With this one I should probably go outside Indiana and point out someone like Reggie Evans at Iowa.

Current players or recruits? Uh, let's not go there.

Indiana picked the wrong year to be bad in the B10

2009-01-18T11:30:00.000-05:00

Let me make an obvious point - Indiana's ability to win a game is based on two factors - #1. How good Indiana is, and #2. How good the opponent is. Clearly, we know the answer to #1 -- Indiana is the worst B10 team in recent memory. But let's look at #2.

Fortunately, Indiana fans usually don't have to concern ourselves with how good the bad teams in the B10 are. Whether they are kinda bad, pretty bad, or super bad, it usually just means a "W" for Indiana. This year it matters a lot. So how bad are the bad teams? Let's use Pomeroy's ratings of the bottom 4 teams in the B10 for the past six seasons (including this one):

2008-09
63. Michigan
68. Iowa
77. Penn State
244. Indiana

2007-08
108. Penn State
112. Michigan
116. Iowa
158. Northwestern

2006-07
64. Iowa
112. Northwestern
119. Penn State
140. Minnesota

2005-06
79. Minnesota
117. Penn State
123. Northwestern
159. Purdue

2004-05
98. Purdue
107. Northwestern
109. Michigan
180. Penn State

2003-04
94. Northwestern
109. Minnesota
117. Ohio State
210. Penn State

Two things jump out - first, sadly, Indiana is really, really bad. We know this, but the ratings knock that point out of the park. This isn't just a bad year by Indiana standards, this is a bad year by any standard. No team in 6 B10 seasons (as far back as Pomeroy goes) has been as bad as Indiana this season, and most seasons no team even comes close.

The other thing that jumps out is that the bad teams in the B10 (Indiana notwithstanding) are clearly better this season than any season in the last 6. Heck, Michigan is on the list of the 4 worst B10 teams and they are ranked in the Top 25!

Bottom line: Unlike most years, for Indiana to avoid going winless we're going to have to beat a pretty good team.

Scruples

2009-01-06T14:33:00.000-05:00

Scruples
a.k.a. “Italian Doughnuts”
(pronounced screw-PELLA)

4 to 5 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 packages Active Dry Yeast
¼ cup softened margarine
2 cups very hot tap water
2 tablespoons Amaretto
1 egg (at room temperature)
Peanut Oil
Cinnamon-Sugar mix

In a large bowl thoroughly mix 1 ¼ cups flour, sugar, salt and undissolved dry yeast. Add softened margarine. Gradually add very hot tap water to dry ingredients and beat 2 minutes at medium speed of electric mixer, scraping bowl occasionally. Add egg and enough flour to make a thick batter. Beat at high speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Stir in enough additional flour to make a soft dough. Cover, let rise in a warm place, free from draft, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Punch down and let rise again. After the two risings, grab meatball amounts of dough out of the bowl, cut off with a knife or scissors and drop into hot oil (375˚) and fry until golden brown. Put cinnamon-sugar mix into paper bag and shake the warm doughnuts in the bag. Do not store in airtight container or ziplock bag! Store in paper bag and eat them quickly.

(Adapted from Great-Gram Santillo's recipe)

Holiday pictures

2009-01-01T15:56:00.002-05:00

2008 holidays">
I just emptied my camera. A few pictures are priceless. Some are very funny. They cover Thanksgiving, Dominick's holiday concert and Christmas Eve at Chris and Dave's.

Merry Christmas to me!

2008-12-04T09:54:00.002-05:00

Pictures from Barcelona

2008-11-18T12:42:00.002-05:00

From 2008-November-Barcelona

Swimming and diving videos

2008-11-18T12:19:00.002-05:00

Here is a video of Carson learning to dive for the first time:

Here is a video of Tyler in the swimming finals when he shaved ~40 seconds off his time.

Swimming

2008-11-18T12:07:00.003-05:00

Better late than never!

From 2008-Nov-18-Family

Halloween

2008-11-18T11:58:00.001-05:00

From 2008-Nov-18-Family

Flower Cookies

2008-09-16T18:54:00.002-04:00

There used to be more, and some of the icing has already been scraped off, but here they are:

From Miscellaneous

Still trying

2008-06-17T16:16:00.001-04:00

California trip plus

2008-06-17T16:06:00.001-04:00

I'm still having trouble doing this

Interesting week... lots of news

2008-06-09T08:01:00.004-04:00

Tyler is now officially going to Voyager Academy next year. We got the call last week. Yeehaw! We're very, very happy about this. Voyager is grades 4-8, so we now know where the kids will be going up through high school. Of course, we know our current high school district as well, but a lot can change in 5 years. Carson will be going to Voyager as well, and we know she'll get in because of their "sibling preference" policy. Next year is going to be a challenge because Tyler will be on traditional calendar while Carson is on year round calendar AND of course they'll be going to different schools, which means lots of coordination on drop-offs and pick-ups.

Speaking of school calendars, last Friday was the last day of school. The kids are now on summer vacation. In Tyler's case, he has ELEVEN weeks of summer vacation. He's very happy.

Carson got her hair cut into a bob. She's adorable.

The kids had their first swim meet on Saturday. Carson won her heat and got a ribbon. Tyler now has to swim 50 yards (across the pool and back), which he did without a problem, at his usual speed. Tyler likes swimming, but he's not very concerned about what place he comes in (which is a double-edged sword -- it's good that he doesn't get upset at himself, but it's hard to motivate him to improve). Carson is a natural swimmer. She's amazing. She'd probably be one of the fastest free style swimmers in the city (after 2 weeks of practice) if she knew how to dive. We're going to setup a private diving lesson for her. She's mad at us about it, because she's scared of diving. This is the same story for Carson... over and over... she's always scared of trying anything knew and gets really upset when we force her to do it and then she ends up loving it. Like swim team. And bike riding. And water parks. And cartwheels. And skydiving.

We got Guitar Hero 3 for Carson and we're having a blast with it. Karen is the best, but she has the unfair advantage of knowing how to play guitar. Tyler's busy playing Lego Indiana Jones so he hasn't been too interested in Guitar Hero yet, but it's all Carson wants to do. Maybe she'll enjoy it so much that she'll want to take real guitar lessons like cousin Nick. I'm really bad at the game but it's still fun.

And La-La got poisoned and almost died. We still don't know what poison she swallowed, but last Thursday night she walked into the kitchen while we were eating dinner and she was panting and drooling and making strange sounds and her pupils wouldn't dilate so Karen rushed her to the vet office where she started vomiting blood and lost control of her bowels. They had two vets working on her for an hour and a half while I scoured the house and yard trying to find some toxin that she might have gotten into, unsuccessfully. They stabilized her and then Karen took her to a nearby animal hospital that could monitor her overnight. Her liver and kidneys were having problems, so the vet basically said that if the toxin destroyed her liver or kidneys then she wasn't going to make it. Her kidneys did not get back to normal until Saturday morning. We picked her up Saturday morning and she's now back at home and feels fine. The whole thing was very scary. Karen and I agree that La-La is the best cat either of us have ever had (which is saying something), so we're extremely relieved.

I had my first MRI this morning

2008-06-06T08:39:00.002-04:00

After hearing so many horror stories about getting MRIs, I had my first MRI this morning. I've got a pinched nerve in my lower back that is causing my left thigh to go numb. They're trying to find what exactly is causing the pinched nerve... er, the "nerve impingement" is what they call it. First I had to get an X-Ray because my insurance won't let me get an MRI until I've had an X-ray first, even though everyone agreed that the X-ray wouldn't find anything. It didn't.

Anyway, the MRI was boooooooring. I didn't feel claustrophobic at all. It was just boring to have to lay there for 20 minutes with nothing to do.

So I've decided the rest of y'all are big wusses.

Explaining UX to 3rd graders

2008-05-30T13:47:00.002-04:00

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This morning I went into Tyler's class to explain what I do for a living. Here's the presentation I created to give to the class. It went well. They really liked talking about video games.

Stuff that Grand Theft Auto IV messed up

2008-05-28T17:54:00.001-04:00

So Grand Theft Auto IV made $500,000,000 in its first week of release, and $60 of that was from me. People are falling all over themselves in praise of the game, and no superlative has gone unmentioned... and I can't disagree. I've been a gamer since before "gamer" meant "computer gamer", and GTA IV is definitely on my list of "Top 10 Favorite Games Ever". I'm thinking it'll end up around #5, but I really need to go take a fresh look at my Top 10 list. A future post, perhaps. Regardless, the point is that getting onto my Top 10 list is a big deal, because I'm not some 13 year old kid who just started playing games a couple years ago.

So it would be really easy for me to write a post about all the things I love about GTA IV. From the ridiculously great job they did developing the Niko Bellic character, to the way they made Liberty City different than the previous GTA games yet still familiar, to the super skinny model on the "Anna Rex" billboard, to chases through subway tunnels, to... well, you get the idea. I could go on and on.

Boooooring.

So instead I'm going to list some of the things Rockstar messed up... or at least some missed opportunities.

1. Graphics: Rockstar was obviously not going for photorealism in this game, because there's a certain style associated with GTA games that's not exactly cartoonish and not exactly photorealistic but something in between. I love that style, but I still think the graphics were merely good and not great. Anyone who has played Oblivion or Heavenly Sword knows what I am talking about. I was expecting to be blown away by the graphics on GTA IV, particularly considering it was only available on the next-gen XBOX 360 and PS3 consoles, but instead I thought they were just okay.

I should probably mention that I don't think graphics are really that important when it comes to making a great game. There are plenty of game on my "Favorites" list that are still wonderful in spite of being as much as 20 years old. I prefer a game that focused more on gameplay than graphics.

2. Niko Customization: It's 2008, man, people expect more ability to customize their main character than some crappy suits. Obviously Niko's appearance plays a part in the main storyline, so I can't imagine GTA IV allowing a "Tiger Woods PGA Tour"-style face customization tool... Niko can't have long, curly blond hair. He just can't. But even the ability to choose between several prefab faces would give the user a little control. Or some choices of hairstyles, or more than ONE style of sunglasses, for pete's sake! This gets back to the graphics problem a bit, but one of my problems with the small amount of customization that was allowed (buying new clothes) is that all the clothes looked terrible on Niko. Everything was form fitting to Niko's pot belly (and why does an ex-soldier hired gun need to have a pot belly anyway?). It's simple - I just want the ability to make Niko look like I want him to look... which is significantly cooler than anything that was allowed in the game.

3. Music: There's a TON of radio stations to choose from in GTA IV, and the radio stations play a part in providing the emotional feel for the game - the faux interviews and satirical commercials are hilarious, there are often updates on the radio that are relevant to the storyline (though no missions rely on listening to the radio), and when Niko steals a car the choice of radio station in the stolen car adds to the game. The radio stations are extremely well done, and Rockstar is rightly proud of them.

But GTA IV is a looooooong game. It took me about 80 hours of gameplay to complete the main storyline and I'm still in the 80s in term of percent complete. And I'm going to start my second trip through the main storyline soon. About 3/4 through my last game, I finally got so tired of the radio that I turned the music volume all the way down.

Why not have a "Listener Request" radio station and allow me to download my own music onto my XBox 360 and play that music when I tune to that station? It seems like a simple technical feat and then I could rock out to Everclear while tooling around Liberty City.

4. Bridge Driving AI: Hopefully this is something that will be fixed in the first game update, but the tendency for cars on bridges to swerve all over the place, randomly, and then get stuck in traffic jams at the end of the bridge is really annoying. I assume this is just a bug, because it doesn't add anything to the gameplay. Navigating through traffic is part of the game (in fact, it's a really fun part of the game), but what happens on the bridges is something different. It's not fun. it just gets in the way.

5. Mini Cooper: You can drive everything from a forklift to a fire engine to a Ferrari to a limo in GTA IV, so it might seem strange to complain about a missing car, but they really need a Mini Cooper clone in the game - a high performance SMALL car is exactly what you want in Liberty City, where driving in between lanes on and sidewalks is business as usual. I tend to drive motorcycles a lot for exactly this reason, but a really small car with really good performance would be a great addition to the game.

Plus, I just love Mini Coopers.

Other cars (or clones) that would be nice additions: VW Beetle, Dune Buggy, SmartCar, Dodge Charger.

6. Mini-Map: Where are you looking when you're driving? At the top of the screen. Where is the mini-map? At the bottom of the screen. Why? I'm happy to say that I play the game on a huge, widescreen HDTV, but this means that it's a significant distance to look from where I'm going down to the mini-map and then back up. Yes, if the mini-map were at the top it would sometimes get in the way (and if they had put it there I might be complaining right now about what an idiotic decision it was to put the mini-map right where you're trying to look when driving), but I really think it would be better at the top.

Hell, give users the choice. Maybe some people will want it on top and some on the bottom.

7. Body Armor on Retry: Goodness gracious, they really screwed the pooch on this one. It's great that they give that handy "Retry?" option after I fail a mission. But obviously the missions that I most often fail are the ones where someone kills me with a bunch of bullets... but when I choose to retry, it takes away my body armor!

I understand the reasoning behind this. I die, I go to the hospital, they nurse my wounds, and I emerge with "full" health... minus the body armor. Makes sense. But it's no FUN. I rarely answer "Yes" to the retry option because I always have to go find a gun shop and buy some more body armor before continuing. If I had body armor when I started a mission and I fail and I choose to retry, give me my damn body armor back. Charge me $500 for it, no problem. But don't make me waste 10 minutes buying new armor before retrying the mission.

8. Pigeons: This is LIBERTY CITY. I can run over pedestrians with only the lightest of police interest. I can blow up S.W.A.T. vans and they won't remember who I am a few minutes later. I can run red lights or run other cars off the road without any cop caring. This is a dangerous city.

But if a shoot a pigeon the cops will come after me. What the heck?

I like shooting pigeons instead of finding hidden packages. It's a nice addition to the game. Except it's annoying when cops chase me for shooting a pigeon... that's not fun.

That's my list so far. I'll add more as I think of them.

First Communion

2008-05-17T19:21:00.001-04:00

Dominick's First Communion

I'm trying another picture and album

2008-05-14T09:45:00.003-04:00

This one was easier, but I forgot to choose "medium". I deleted the http business that was in the link line before I pasted. 1. Got another error message and deleted the highlighted part.

I think I did it!

2008-05-14T09:34:00.001-04:00

'>http://
But why did I get two pictures? And why is it so complicated? I keep getting errors when I try to publish. I delete the part that is highlighted and try to publish again each time.

Miscellaneous pictures

2008-05-13T09:51:00.002-04:00

Carson's birthday party:

Tyler as Tony Hawk at the 3rd grade "Wax Museum":

Tyler in his school music program (yes, a terrible picture, I know):

If you go to the web album, there's also a couple videos from the program on there. Tyler had a speaking line... if you look at the video, there's a pause before Tyler says his line because the kid who was supposed to talk right before him wasn't there.

Salt Lake City from the airport on my way to Las Vegas:

pictures from Easter

2008-05-10T08:46:00.004-04:00

Here are some pictures from our Easter slash Josephine's birthday party.

[Edited by Terry:

To link to a Picasa photo, go to the photo (not the album) that you want to link to, then look in the right-hand column for the "Link to this Photo" section. Select the size you want (I usually pick Medium) then copy the text in the "HTML to embed in website" field:

They actually make it pretty easy... assuming you can remember how to find your web album. I'd do it for you, but only the submitter sees that section. ]

pictures?

2008-05-10T08:23:00.001-04:00

Did you take pictures last night at Carson's birthday party? If so, please send them along to the doting grandparents. Love, Grandma

Is it too early for dispassionate analysis?

2008-04-03T14:57:00.000-04:00

Are we still in the giddy honeymoon phase or can I put my geek hat on and start looking at Crean's career and what he brings to the table? I guess we'll find out.

IU fans have disagreed a bunch about the relative importance of these various coaching dimensions, but I think there's broad agreement that these are indeed the dimensions we care about (in no particular order):

1. Integrity (running a clean program, academics, etc.)
2. Recruiting
3. "Fit" (Indiana ties, Midwest ties, etc.)
4. Age
5. Name recognition
6. Coaching Experience
7. Coaching Ability (Xs and Os)
8. Style of Play

He's my analysis for each one, for what its worth

1. Integrity
Grade: A
Thoughts: Indiana needed a slam dunk on this dimension and they got it. We all remember the uproar when Sampson was hired, and it centered on two things: the NCAA infractions and his graduation rate. Sampson said all the right things and successfully snowed most of us over, but obviously we learned that it's a lot easier to learn about someone's integrity based on their actions, not their words. Crean has proven over a 9 year period that he runs a clean program and graduates players - there are no negatives for us to rationalize away. If things go south in this regard under Crean, at least we'll be able to say, "No one saw that coming!"

2. Recruiting
Grade: B+
Thoughts: I do everything in my power to ignore recruiting. I know it's important, I just hate the drama around it. If I had my way, I wouldn't know who the new players on the team were until they were introduced at Midnight Madness. So I'm not the best person to evaluate Crean here. But based on what little I'd know, recruiting is considered one of Crean's strengths, and he has a track record of bring in good classes at Marquette and will hopefully be able to improve on that at Indiana. He's known as a passionate, hard-working recruiter, and that counts for a lot. I didn't give him an A simply because there are a handful of guys in the country that are at another level when it comes to recruiting, and there's no evidence that Crean is on par with them (Roy Williams, Bill Self, Billy Donovan, etc.). Maybe he'll get there at Indiana, but he's not there yet.

3. Fit
Grade: B+
Thoughts: This is clearly one of the best things about this hire, from my perspective. I didn't give him an A because he hasn't had any formal association with IU or the state of Indiana, but it's obvious that Coach Crean "gets it". He's a lifelong Midwest guy, he's recruited the state of Indiana for years, he's got Big Ten experience from MSU, and he's been a fan of Indiana since he was a kid. And you can tell that he loves the prospect of coaching basketball at Indiana University. Again, other than not being a former player or coach, it's hard to think of anyone who is a better fit.

4. Age
Grade: A
Thoughts: There was a lot of disagreement about how important it was to bring in a young guy who could coach at Indiana for 20 years, but all else being equal everyone seemed to agree that younger was better. At 42, Crean can be at Indiana for decades. Personally, this was an important factor for me. I would have been willing to trade some additional age to make sure we brought in someone who was a proven commodity, but in Crean we got both - ample major conference track record plus youth.

5. Name Recognition
Grade: B
Thoughts: Another contentious dimension, in terms of importance. Crean doesn't have the immediate name recognition that someone like Rick Pitino, Tom Izzo, or John Calipari has, but he's also a bigger name than Brad Brownell, Tony Bennett, or Anthony Grant. He's been to a Final Four, he's coached multiple NBA players (including Dwayne Wade, one of the biggest names in basketball), and he's coached at a major conference school in the Midwest for nearly a decade. He's a big name, and hopefully he'll be on the same level as those first guys with a few years at IU under his belt.

6. Coaching Experience
Grade: B+
Thoughts: Another strength for Crean - he's got more major conference experience than many of the rumored coaching candidates. Obviously there are guys like Pitino, Kruger, or Montgomery that have a lot more experience than Crean (and the advanced ages to prove it), so I couldn't give him an A here, but 9 years at Marquette is clearly a strength, not a weakness.

7. Coaching Ability
Grade: B+
Thoughts: This is the toughest one to analyze, obviously, so I decided to look at some data. Let's look at his career at Marquette.

I'm using Pomeroy ranks here because Pomeroy goes back 9 years and has game-by-game data available on the website.

Looking at the above, it's a solid record. He was in rebuilding mode his first couple years at Marquette and posted solid seasons in the context of what he took over. Then he had a couple excellent seasons capped by the Final Four run in 2003. After losing Wade, Marquette struggled a bit the next two seasons, going to the NIT both times, but nothing awful. Then the last 3 seasons were in the super-sized Big East, where Marquette fared very well. Even though the overall records are similar, the 2006 team was much better than the 2005 team. It's easy to look at those Big East records and think that Marquette was little more than mediocre, but it would be a mistake. The Big East is a meat grinder. Here's a list of the records for the top Big East teams since the expansion:

That's the top 9 teams in the 16 team league. As you can see, there's a little bit of separation for Georgetown, but Marquette is right there with UConn, Louisville, Pitt, 'Nova, ND, and West Virginia in terms of league performance. No one breezes through the Big East. For those 9 teams over 3 seasons (meaning 27 records), there have only been FOUR cases of teams making it through the league with 2 or 3 losses. That should put Marquette's 31-19 record in perspective. Tom Crean took Marquette from Conference USA to the Big East and has been one of the top teams in the league.

I'm not a big fan of scoring offense or scoring defense as a measure of coaching ability, but some might find it interesting. From going through the games one-by-one, my takeaway is that Coach Crean likes to run and score in transition, but will grind it out if necessary. Marquette seemed to be just as successful in low scoring games as high-scoring games, which is a good sign, IMO.

Here's some interesting numbers. Again, these are based on Pomeroy rankings because that's what was available to me. Note that Coach Crean has never lost to a team ranked below 200 (which is actually kind of impressive, given that he had four teams ranked close to 100). Also noteworthy is that his record against 101-200 teams is 53-17, but 8 of those losses happened in his first two rebuilding years. In his last 7 seasons, he's 45-9.

His records against Top 10, Top 25, and Top 100 teams map pretty well to the strength of his individual teams (as you'd expect). Notice the increase in games against Top 25 teams from 2004 to 2008. Eleven games against Top 25 teams in 2007! That's brutal. I'll also say that considering that he has only had a Top 25 team three times out of the 9 seasons, his 24-32 overall record against Top 25 opponents is awfully impressive. I also noted that as I was going through the games - Marquette seemed to do well against the best competition, even when they didn't win.

More numbers that reflect well on Coach Crean. I threw the 10+ point defeats and wins in there, but I don't think they're very interesting. But I like the stats for games decided by 3 points or less (essentially meaning one possession games) and games decided by 6 points or less (two possession games). Being over 50% in both of those is really nice to see. It speaks to good end-game management, and he's been consistently good at that throughout his career.

Data isn't everything, but I'm very happy with what I found. Yes, he's had some average seasons, but that was at Marquette. He re-built the program there when there was absolutely no guarantee that it could be done, he successfully transitioned Marquette into the Big East when there was no guarantee that it would be smooth, he competed with the top teams in the country year in and year out and held his own, and he did it in a way that created a stable environment from season to season.

Obviously the blemish which can't be swept under the rug is NCAA tournament performance. He had the great run to the Final Four, but he also got upset twice in the first round by a 10 seed and a 12 seed (though that "12 seed" was ranked #33 by Pomeroy). Personally, I think the sample size is too small to know what kind of tournament coach he's going to be, but it's worth bringing up.

Do I need to justify why I didn't give him an A? If so, I'll simply say that he may very well be an A a few years from now, but to me an A means "one of the elite minds in college basketball" and other than the fact that he's now MY coach, there doesn't seem to be much justification for putting him in that company.

8. Style of Play
Grade: C+
Thoughts: This one is completely subjective, because there's no one right way to play basketball, a lot of it just comes down to personal preference. For example, I have gobs of respect for Tom Izzo and I think he's a really excellent coach, but I have never particularly liked his style of play. Even in the national title year, I didn't enjoy watching them shoot brick after brick and score off offensive rebounds. It's not ineffective, it's just not aesthetically pleasing, and that matters to me. Crean doesn't play exactly the same style, but it looks more similar than different to my untrained eye.

I'm sure I'll learn to enjoy this style more as I learn more about it, and begin to understand what the players are doing and why. But when I found out it was Crean, this was really my only concern - would I enjoy watching the team play?

Overall

I think this is a great hire, and the one thing that strikes me is the complete lack of negatives for Coach Crean. Sure, he didn't get an A across the board, but there's no coach who would. The exciting thing is that he didn't get any low marks anywhere, which is why I'm cautiously hopeful that Coach Crean will still be at Indiana 20 years from now.

Tom Crean by the numbers

2008-04-02T12:18:00.003-04:00

Interesting plane ride - take it for what its worth

2008-03-27T09:51:00.000-04:00

(reposted from Peegs)

This relays some private conversations I had in confidence, so please do not pass the information along. I really want it to remain private, which is why I'm only posting it on Peegs' Premium IU Hoops Forum, which I know only a handful of people read.

I travel frequently to Bloomington on business, and yesterday I booked a ride on a private plane for a day trip. I knew I wasn’t going to be the only one flying, but imagine my surprise when I boarded the plane and saw Tony Bennett sitting there. I wasn’t sure what to say so I just sat down and tried to mind my own business. Tony looked a little uncomfortable, like he had just been caught eating the last Oreo, which might’ve been because of the IU hat, IU shirt, IU jacket, and IU headband I was wearing. I played it cool though.

Then I looked up and saw Bruce Pearl getting onto the plane. He looked around and said, “TONY! How the hell are you doing!!” Bruce walked over and enveloped Coach Bennett in a massive bear hug.

Once he was able to get some air, Tony gasped, “Uh, nice to meet you, Mr. Pearl.”

“Back at you!!!”, Bruce replied, slapping Tony on the back, knocking him back into his seat. “So tell me, how are you going to beat those bastard Tarheels?!”

Tony brightened right up and smiled. “Well, I’ve been analyzing all their games with a neural network supercomputer that I built in my garage last summer that uses natural learning techniques to discover hidden tendencies, and we’ve devised a defensive game plan based on faux man-oriented techniques that should…. Uh, Mr. Pearl?” While Tony was talking, Bruce had taken the air sickness bag out and was reading the instructions.

“Sorry, dude, I drifted off there.” Coach Pearl yawned loudly.

“Well, have you figured out how to beat Louisville, Mr. Pearl?” Tony asked politely.

“Yup, got it all figured out. Went to the pound yesterday and got the cutest kitten in the place. Before the game I’m going to show the kitten to my team and tell them that if they don’t win, I’ll feed the kitten to my pet boa constrictor, Harold. Works everytime.”

Coach Bennett looked a little pale. Just then we all looked up as Brad Brownell entered the cabin. He looked around the private plane like a kid in a candy store. He saw Coach Bennett and they nodded at each other, just as Bruce bellowed “BRAD!!” and ran up to Coach Brownell to chest bump him. Once Brad regained his feet, he asked where he’s supposed to sit. I told him that on private planes you can just sit anywhere you’d like.

“Cool!” he said. He sat as far away from Bruce as he could. He reclined the back of his seat and said, “Neato!” Then he started playing with the stereo headphones.

At this point, I couldn’t help myself any longer, and I asked, “So, I guess you guys are heading to Bloomington about the Indiana coaching position?”

“My sole focus right now is on my team and beating North Carolina, and I’m completely happy at Washington State and expect to coach there for the rest of my career,” replied Coach Bennett.

“My sole focus right now is on my team and beating Louisville, and I love Tennessee and if Indiana contacts me like I expect them to, I will tell them I have no interest in the position,” replied Coach Pearl.

“Yeah, Indiana rocks, man!” replied Coach Brownell.

Just then we were all temporarily blinded by a bright light from the entrance to the cabin. Once our eyes adjusted to the light, we realized that it was the morning sun reflecting off a white Armani suit, worn by none other than Rick Pitino. Coach Pitino strolled into the cabin, removed his ermine shawl and handed it elegantly to the flight attendant, who curtsied almost against her will.

“Oh, crap,” said Tony.

“I need another kitten,” Bruce muttered.

Coach Brownell knelt before Coach Pitino and kissed his ring finger. “Rise, my child,” said Rick graciously.

“Don’t tell me you’re interested in the Indiana job, Coach Pitino!” Brad said. “You’ve got a great thing going at Louisville, why would you leave there to go to Indiana?”

“My sole focus right now is on my team and beating Tennessee and I’m completely happy…” Rick paused. “Ah, hell, who am I kidding? I’m not worried about Tennessee at all and I’m bored to death at Louisville. The program is in great shape. We’ve got a great athletic director, new facilities, plenty of money, good players, good recruits…. What’s the point? Hell, Bruce Weber could take over for me right now and even he probably couldn’t screw it up.” He paused. “Well, maybe he could. Anyway, it’s boring with a capital B. But Indiana?” Rick sighed and got a little misty eyed. “They’re a complete mess. A historic program that seems to be doing everything it can to self-destruct. They NEED me. I can SAVE them. Think about it. I would win a title there, you can bet on it. If I win titles at both Indiana and Kentucky… hell, they’ll still be talking about me a hundred years from now.”

At this point Bruce stood up suddenly and took off his shirt, displaying a huge, red “INDIANA” tattoo across his abdomen. “You son of a bitch, I’m going to be the next coach at Indiana, not you!!”

“You wish!” Tony yelled. “Everyone agrees I’m the best fit!!”

“Yeah, everyone loves to win 45-40,” Brad said sarcastically.

“What did you say?!” Tony grabbed the front of Brad’s shirt as Bruce climbed over the row of seats towards Rick, who rose and began to remove his leather gloves.

I thought things were going to get ugly when someone else entered the cabin. Suddenly everything got silent. The world seemed to freeze for a few seconds, then each of the coaches sat quietly back in their seats.

“Oh, crap,” said Coach Pitino.

“What up, coach?” said Brad to the newcomer… everyone groaned and ducked out of the way.

-----

That’s it. Like I said, please don’t pass this insider information along.

Peegs' coaching hot board

2008-03-24T09:33:00.002-04:00

Here's the Coaching Hot List from Peegs'.

Here's my ranking of them based on how much I want them:

1. Tony Bennett
2. Jamie Dixon
3. Anthony Grant
4. Brad Brownell
5. Sean Miller

6. Mike Montgomery
7. Rick Pitino
8. Thad Matta
9. Tom Crean
10. Jay Wright
11. Mike Brey

12. Randy Wittman
13. Bruce Pearl
14. Rick Barnes
15. Scott Skiles

16. Dan Dakich
17. Kevin Stallings
18. Scott Drew
19. John Calipari

The gaps indicate big drops between one coach and the next in terms of my interest.

Carson's room

2008-03-23T17:33:00.001-04:00

As always, click on the picture to see the larger view.

And you can view the whole album HERE.

That last one isn't actually Carson's room.

Fourteen years

2008-03-22T19:55:00.003-04:00

Memories... light the corners of my mind... misty water-colored memories... of the way we were...

Without further ado, I present the last 14 years of Indiana's great basketball program. Summary chart is at the end.


1994-95
   Coach: Bob Knight
   19-12 Overall
   11-7  Big Ten
   FG%:     .484
   Opp FG%: .410
   Starters: Alan Henderson
             Brian Evans
             Andrae Patterson
             Neil Reed
             Michael Hermon
   NCAA - 9 seed
   Final Game - Lost in 1st round 65-60 to 8 seed Missouri

1995-96
   Coach: Bob Knight
   19-12 Overall
   12-6  Big Ten
   FG%:     .472
   Opp FG%: .409
   Starters: Brian Evans
             Andrae Patterson
             Neil Reed
             Charlie Miller
             Sherron Wilkerson
   NCAA - 6 seed
   Final Game - Lost in 1st round 64-52 to 11 seed Boston College

1996-97
   Coach: Bob Knight
   22-11 Overall
   9-9   Big Ten
   FG%:     .438
   Opp FG%: .422
   Starters: AJ Guyton
             Neil Reed
             Andrae Patterson
             Jason Collier
             Charlie Miller
   NCAA - 8 seed
   Final Game - Lost in 1st round 80-62 to 9 seed Colorado

1997-98
   Coach: Bob Knight
   20-12 Overall
   9-7   Big Ten
   FG%:     .491
   Opp FG%: .446
   Starters: AJ Guyton
             Luke Recker
             Andrae Patterson
             William Gladness
             Michael Lewis
   NCAA - 7 seed
   Final Game - Lost in 2nd round 78-61 to 2 seed UConn

1998-99
   Coach: Bob Knight
   23-11 Overall
   9-7   Big Ten
   FG%:     .469
   Opp FG%: .419
   Starters: AJ Guyton
             Luke Recker
             William Gladness
             Larry Richardson
             Lynn Washington
   NCAA - 6 seed
   Final Game - Lost in 2nd round 86-61 to 3 seed St. John's

1999-2000
   Coach: Bob Knight
   20-9 Overall
   10-6 Big Ten
   FG%:     .478
   Opp FG%: .388
   Starters: AJ Guyton
             Kirk Haston
             Dane Fife
             Lynn Washington
             Michael Lewis
   NCAA - 6 seed
   Final Game - Lost in 1st round 77-57 to 11 seed Pepperdine

2000-01
   Coach: Mike Davis
   21-13 Overall
   10-6  Big Ten
   FG%:     .453
   Opp FG%: .394
   Starters: Jared Jeffries
             Dane Fife
             Tom Coverdale
             Kirk Haston
             Jeff Newton
   NCAA - 4 seed
   Final Game - Lost in 1st round 77-73 to 13 seed Kent State

2001-02
   Coach: Mike Davis
   25-12 Overall
   11-5  Big Ten
   FG%:     .460
   Opp FG%: .408
   Starters: Jared Jeffries
             Dane Fife
             Kyle Hornsby
             Tom Coverdale
             Jared Odle
   NCAA - 5 seed
   Final Game - Lost title game 64-52 to 1 seed Maryland

2002-03
   Coach: Mike Davis
   21-13 Overall
   8-8   Big Ten
   FG%:     .426
   Opp FG%: .416
   Starters: Tom Coverdale
             Jeff Newton
             Bracey Wright
             George Leach
             Kyle Hornsby
   NCAA - 7 seed
   Final Game - Lost in 2nd round 74-52 to 2 seed Pittsburgh

2003-04
   Coach: Mike Davis
   14-15 Overall
   7-9   Big Ten
   FG%:     .397
   Opp FG%: .425
   Starters: Bracey Wright
             Marshall Strickland
             AJ Moye
             George Leach
             Donald Perry
   NCAA - None
   Final Game - Lost 71-59 to Illinois in BTT

2004-05
   Coach: Mike Davis
   15-14 Overall
   10-6  Big Ten
   FG%:     .425
   Opp FG%: .420
   Starters: DJ White
             Robert Vaden
             Marshall Strickland
             Bracey Wright
             AJ Ratliff
   NCAA - None (NIT)
   Final Game - Lost 67-60 to Vanderbilt in 1st round NIT game

2005-06
   Coach: Mike Davis
   19-12 Overall
   9-7   Big Ten
   FG%:     .461
   Opp FG%: .436
   Starters: Robert Vaden
             Marco Killingsworth
             Marshall Strickland
             Lewis Monroe
             Earl Calloway
   NCAA - 6 seed
   Final Game - Lost in 2nd round 90-80 to 3 seed Gonzaga

2006-07
   Coach: Kelvin Sampson
   21-11 Overall
   10-6  Big Ten
   FG%:     .446
   Opp FG%: .416
   Starters: DJ White
             Roderick Wilmont
             Earl Calloway
             Armon Bassett
             Lance Stemler
   NCAA - 7 seed
   Final Game - Lost in 2nd round 54-49 to 2 seed UCLA

2007-08
   Coach: Kelvin Sampson & Dan Dakich
   25-8 Overall
   14-4 Big Ten
   FG%:     .463
   Opp FG%: .412
   Starters: DJ White
             Eric Gordon
             Jamarcus Ellis
             Armon Bassett
             Lance Stemler
   NCAA - 8 Seed
   Final Game - Lost in 1st round 86-72 to 9 seed Arkansas

                B10  B10        Opp  NCAA  NCAA
     Win  Loss  Win  Loss  FG%  FG%  Seed  Games
94-95  19   12    11   7     484  410  9     1
95-96  19   12    12   6     472  409  6     1
96-97  22   11    9    9     438  422  8     1
97-98  20   12    9    7     491  446  7     2
98-99  23   11    9    7     469  419  6     2
99-00  20   9     10   6     478  388  6     1
00-01  21   13    10   6     453  394  4     1
01-02  25   12    11   5     460  408  5     6
02-03  21   13    8    8     426  416  7     2
03-04  14   15    7    9     397  425  -     0
04-05  15   14    10   6     425  420  -     0
05-06  19   12    9    7     461  436  6     2
06-07  21   11    10   6     446  416  7     2
07-08  25   8     14   4     463  412  8     1
Avg    20.3 11.8  9.9  6.6   455  416  6.6   1.6

Number of wins over higher-seeded teams: 2 (both in '02)
Number of losses to lower-seeded teams:  5
Number of losses to higher-seeded teams: 7
Number of wins over lower-seeded teams:  8
Overall NCAA tournament record:          10-12

What might have been

2008-03-11T20:05:00.002-04:00

In 1948 UCLA was looking for a new basketball coach...the two finalists were Joe Schmo from L.A. and John Wooden from Indiana. The fan base and alumni were screaming for a "UCLA Guy" or a "west coast guy". Joe Schmo was hired. John Wooden, somewhat depressed, accepted a job at Pfizer Chemical in Terre Haute, Indiana...he retired after 40 years of service in the maintenance department.
In 1961, North Carolina's basketball coach, Frank McGuire, was forced to resign due to a recruiting scandal. The fan base and alumni blamed the University for hiring a New York native and former coach at St. Johns. They screamed for a "Carolina Blue Guy". The two finalists were Jim Schmo (brother to Joe) who had a degree from Carolina and Dean Smith, who was McGuire's assistant coach for 3 years. Smith was not chosen because people felt he was tainted by the scandal and was a midwesterner from Kansas. Smith eventually accepted a position at IBM and flipped houses in his spare time.
In 1971, Indiana was seeking a new basketball coach and hired Billy Jo Bob, an IU grad and high school phenom. They had considered Bob Knight but the fan base and alumni didn't want an Ohio native and one who played collegiately at Ohio State. Bob was the coach at Army but later founded an outdoor publication called Walleye Insider...he was never seen again after his lightweight Cessna disappeared from Winnipeg's radar screen in 1976.
In 1975, Duke University was looking for a new basketball coach. Despite grumblings from the fan base and alumni, they gambled on a Chicago kid nicknamed coach K, who was a graduate assistant for Billy Jo Bob at IU.

My conflict over Rick Pitino

2008-03-10T10:07:00.001-04:00

First off, just to be clear, I'll give our new coach a chance no matter who it is. If Greenspan hires Charles Manson to be the new coach, you'll see me on the board saying things like "Sure, what he did was wrong, but that was before he was coaching at Indiana, and I'm sure he knows that stuff won't fly here," and "Technically, I don't think brainwashing people to commit murders is an NCAA violation." I'm not going to take my ball and go home if Greenspan doesn't pick "my" candidate (and so far I don't have a particular guy that I'm pulling for... and I'm trying hard to stay that way).

That said, it obviously doesn't mean that I have no feelings about the search at all. Basically, there are a number of coaches that I've seen mentioned for the job that I don't want to see hired. They fall into two main camps:

1. Coaches who I think just aren't very good and are only mentioned because of some IU tie (like Dakich, Alford, Stallings, etc.)
2. Big-name coaches who I don't think are clean enough (like Calipari, Pearl, etc.)

And then there's Rick Pitino. Pitino represents a real conundrum for me.

1. As far as I can tell, Pitino runs a clean program, and has run clean programs for years.
2. As much as he's considered an "East coast guy", he's spent most of the last 20 years coaching within a couple hour drive of Bloomington, Indiana. He knows the midwest.
3. I think he's a good coach.
4. From a distance, I like his relationship with his players. He doesn't try to be their friend, but they seem to like playing for him anyway.
5. I think Pitino would be really successful at Indiana. Really successful. Like Final Fours and National Titles.

And yet, I have a big problem with Pitino. I hate his style of play. That's it in a nutshell. I don't think his style is bad or it makes him a bad coach, I just think it's ugly to watch.

When Pitino went to Kentucky, Kentucky was not in good shape. They had a little talent, but nothing like what would come later. When a team doesn't have much talent and needs to beat more talented teams, conventional wisdom says that you want to slow the game down and decrease the number of possessions. The fewer the possessions, the less chance the more talented team has to pull away.

Pitino turned that on its ear. He decided that what he wanted to do was minimize the number of halfcourt possessions, both offensively and defensively. So he focused on reducing the opponent's halfcourt offensive possessions by playing full court, pressure, trapping defenses that generated turnovers and made the opponent score in transition (which seems like a bad thing, except it was outside their comfort zone). And he focused his team on scoring in transition, even when the numbers weren't in his favor, and particularly on shooting 3s in transition (which wasn't commonplace back then). And of course he played his whole bench in order to wear the other team down. He increased the importance of athleticism at the expense of "basketball smarts". This was a brilliant coaching move, and it also was a style that the players loved, so recruiting followed.

And I hated watching it.

As Kentucky's talent increased, the effectiveness of this technique increased even more... or did it? I would submit that it didn't. Kentucky had so much talent that they didn't need to rely on high-risk/high-return techniques to win. Early on, the techniques turned probable losses into wins, but at some point it stopped doing that. I think it starting turning probable wins into blowouts... and then UK would run into a team with great guards who could consistently break UK's fullcourt press and POW the core of UK's gameplan was useless. In other words, they reached a point where Kentucky's style was most effective when it was least needed, and least effective when it was most needed.

And I hated watching it.

Giving credit where credit is due, Pitino's reliance on fullcourt defense and 3 point shooting seems to have gone down over time and he's adjusted to today's game. The man's a good coach. If he was hired by Indiana, I'm sure I'd feel some excitement over the success I think he'd bring to the program. But I'd also feel some real disappointment at the prospect of watching Indiana play that style of ball. There's nothing evil about it. There's nothing stupid about it. I just don't enjoy it.

I'd be very conflicted.

The Big Ten race is heating up!

2008-02-10T18:05:00.000-05:00

Indiana (9-1) now has road wins over Ohio State, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota... against one loss at Wisconsin. Concerns about our soft schedule are now moot, in my opinion - we're a legitimate contender for the B10 crown with the wins to prove it.

The other contenders are Purdue (10-1), Wisconsin (9-2), and Michigan State (8-2).

Working backwards, I don't think Michigan State has much of a chance. Their remaining schedule is brutal. The still play on the road at Indiana, Purdue, Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Illinois. The fact that they've already lost road games at Iowa and Penn State suggests that they won't win enough of those games to win the B10 title. Pomeroy predicts them to finish 10-6.

Wisconsin still has road games against Indiana, Ohio State, Illinois, and Northwestern, plus the MSU game at home. Finishing with one more loss would require a remarkable run of basketball... two losses is probably more likely. Pomeroy predicts them to finish 14-4. They've got an outside shot at the title, and if they beat Indiana on the road then they become a frontrunner.

Purdue has road games against Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan, and Northwestern, plus a home game against MSU. Given that they just won at Wisconsin, all those games are winnable, but like Wisconsin I think 1 more loss would be extremely impressive and 2 losses is probable. But that still leaves them at 15-3 in the B10 (which is also what Pomeroy predicts).

Indiana only has 3 road games left against Michigan State, Northwestern, and Penn State, by far the easiest road schedule of the contenders. It's the home games that are brutal for Indiana - Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Purdue all in a row next up, then two more home games against Ohio State and Minnesota. If Indiana holds home court it's hard to picture them not at least sharing the B10 title, but that's a big if. In addition to the MSU road game, I think there's another loss lurking in there somewhere. 15-3 is the most likely finish.

So, best guess at this point is tying with Purdue for the B10 title at 15-3 with Wisconsin one game behind at 14-4.

Who is the best bet to win the title? I have to say Purdue. They have the best win in the conference (at Wisconsin) and their only loss was by 3 at Michigan State. But their edge over Indiana at this point is very slight.

I don't hate Kentucky

2008-02-08T08:22:00.000-05:00

There was a time, a long time ago, when my intense dislike for Rick Pitino certainly bled over to the Kentucky program in general, but even then I always kinda liked the UK fans. They know their basketball and a fair number of them can manage to enjoy the rivalry with Indiana without letting it destroy their perspective.

I don't hate Purdue. Never have. I always liked Gene Keady. Not only was he a good coach, but he always struck me as being a good guy who was surprisingly funny in the right circumstances. I've made friends with a handful of Purdue fans over the years, though not in the same number as UK fans... Purdue fans tend to be pretty myopic about the rest of college basketball.

I used to hate Michigan. They were the one team in the B10 that I would root against in the NCAA tournament. I can't hate them anymore. They were just so pathetic during Tommy Amaker's tenure that they didn't inspire strong feelings, and I really enjoy John Beilein's style of play. I haven't met a Michigan basketball fan that I've liked yet, but that's probably just because there are so few of them. It's like trying to meet a scuba diver that you like in Wyoming.

I hate Illinois. I am absolutely amazed at the amount of whining Bruce Weber has publicly done about Eric Gordon... and about everything else. I have rarely seen a game where the refs helped a team as much as they helped Illinois last night, and Weber whined about not getting any breaks after the game. All coaches work the refs during the game and express mock outrage at calls and non-calls, but in Weber's case he seems to not be acting. Even before I knew who Gordon was, I had a hard time stomaching the Illinois games because watching Weber on the sidelines made me nauseous. I do think he's a good game coach, though, begrudgingly giving credit where credit is due.

I hate the Illinois players. This is a new thing - I actually really liked Illinois's team the year they made it to the championship game. They were unselfish, played hard, and were fun to watch... and seemed like classy kids. There's nothing classy about this year's squad. They embarrassed their program last night. Everyone knew there were going to play with a lot of emotion last night. Everyone knew that this was going to be a tough, physical game. That's college basketball. It's part of what makes it fun -- I don't think you ever see that kind of emotion in the NBA. But last night went beyond playing hard. I honestly believe that if Eric Gordon had gotten injured during the game from one of the many elbows thrown his way, the Illinois players would have been happy.

And I really hate the Illinois fans. I don't think IU fans are universally wonderful, smart, gracious people who shrug off disappointment and don't hold grudges. If the Eric Gordon situation had been reversed, I am sure I would have been embarrassed by the behavior of a few Indiana fans. But I am morally certain that we would not have degraded ourselves as a group like Illinois has. We'd have decided that if Gordon wanted to go to Illinois more than Indiana then it was his loss (arrogant self-justification, admittedly, but that's what would have happened). When Gordon came to Bloomington, he would have caught grief, but more in the "Hey, this is a great excuse to party" kind of way. The Illinois fanbase needs to look in the mirror... they are hurting their program.

To make a long story short, last night's double overtime victory over Illinois and the officiating crew was as satisfying a victory as I've experienced from watching Indiana for years. They pulled out a win on the road in extremely difficult circumstances against a team that is far better than its record suggests. Frankly, I'm amazed Indiana won.

And happy. Very, very happy.

A sad, classless scene from Champaign

Illini fans angry at Hoosier's Gordon cross line

Illini seethe hatred at Eric Gordon (and family), but IU wins anyway

Bob Knight "Interview" with Jay Bilas

2008-02-06T09:40:00.000-05:00

Jay obviously didn't need to do much prompting.

And, as usual, Coach Knight was unable to bring himself to say the word "Indiana". At one point, he had no choice, but said "in the midwest" instead.

Some Bob Knight articles

2008-02-06T06:34:00.000-05:00

A Coach Who Frequently Lost It Seemingly Had Nothing Left by John Feinstein (great article, terrible title)

General's Last Stand by Dan Wetzel

Ex-IU Players React to News by Michael Marot

Bob Knight's Gifts as Abundant as his Faults by Eric Crawford

My take? Simple, really. I think Knight's astonishing coaching talent and integrity in running his programs doesn't excuse the fact that he was a pluperfect jerk. And I think the fact that he was a pluperfect jerk doesn't invalidate his astonishing coaching talent and integrity in running his program. Both facts are equally true and valid, neither eclipses the other, and the two can't be separated. The same character traits that made him a great coach also made him a jerk. If someone could have waved a magic wand and softened Knight's edges 35 years ago, I'm convinced he would have been a lesser coach because of it.

I'm glad Bob Knight was Indiana's coach during my formative years, and I have never enjoyed IU basketball more or followed it with more passion than when he was the coach of my team... but in retrospect it was almost a relief when he left. The sideshow that enveloped him had become a distraction from following the team.

I just wish his successor had not brought his own sideshow with him as well.

Good luck, Coach Knight. Enjoy your fishing, you've earned it.

Pictures from our trip to NYC

2008-01-28T09:12:00.000-05:00

Here's the whole web album - Click here

Here's a few pictures to whet the appetite.

View from hotel room:

Central Park:

Me on big rock in Central Park:

Ice skaters in Central Park:

FAO Schwartz:

One of the Grace buildings:

Grand Central:

Rockefeller Center:

Bad picture inside St. Patrick's Cathedral:

Intersection of Chinatown and Little Italy:

Chocolate custard crepe layer cake

2008-01-28T09:10:00.000-05:00

It tastes better than it looks, and it'll look better next time (when I have a crepe pan the right size):

Christmas and Lala on the Kitten Condo

2008-01-28T09:08:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture of Christmas and Lala relaxing on top of the kitten condo:

According to Sagarin's computer...

2008-01-27T08:17:00.000-05:00

... Indiana has played 2 games against teams ranked in the top 40, and 17 games against teams ranked below 40. Indiana has won all those games against lower-than-40 teams.

Against the Top 40 teams, Indiana has lost by 15 to #14 Xavier on a neutral court and lost by 5 at home to #28 UConn.

Doesn't bode well for our road game against #9 Wisconsin.

Some thoughts on seventeen-and-one

2008-01-24T08:05:00.000-05:00

I'm used to Indiana being ranked higher in the computer rankings than they are in the AP... or even higher than seems reasonable... because we've played such a difficult schedule that our SOS is in the single digits and yet we have several losses. In other words, we've played really good teams - and lost to them. This season is a complete role reversal. I can't remember the last time Indiana had a schedule this poor at this point in the season.

Side comment - I'm not complaining about the schedule. We didn't have control over many of the teams we played and we don't have any control over how good our opponents are in a given season. Who would have thought that we'd play in the ACC-B10 Challenge plus play Kentucky and neither of those games would be against a high quality opponent? We've almost always had games against Western Carolina or Coppin State type teams... it's just that this season we had nothing to balance that out. And obviously we've started the B10 with a very favorable schedule too.

Anyway, the point is that this is new territory for Indiana fans. I'm used to arguing why Indiana is the best 8-loss team in the country. I'm used to arguing why Indiana deserves an NCAA bid in spite of our 18-11 record because those other bubble teams didn't play anyone good.

And now I'm looking at our 17-1 schedule and thinking, "The only upset we've been involved in is the game where WE were upset by Xavier. The other seventeen games are a combination of expected victories and closer-games-than-we-thought victories." It's hard to pull off an upset when you're as good as Indiana is, because those opportunities will be rare, but that's the problem - we're trying to judge ourselves against the other top teams in the country, but we haven't played any of them. According to Pomeroy, the best team we've played is #13 Xavier and we lost by 15. The next best team is #36 Minnesota - a five point win on the road. Minnesota is also our best win according to Sagarin, who has them at #46. Think about that for a second. Our best win this season is against Minnesota... an NCAA bubble team that's really happy about being a bubble team.

It's very easy to picture this team being exactly as good as it is today and performing exactly as well as it has this season and being 13-5 against a really tough schedule. We might've already played at Wisconsin and MSU. Kentucky could have been a Top 5 team. We could've been paired against UNC instead of Georgia Tech in the Challenge. And this same team probably wouldn't be ranked in the Top 25.

17-1 isn't completely meaningless. It tells me that this team is good enough to win even when they have an off night, and that is important. We've got multiple weapons and don't need to be firing on all cylinders to beat someone. Remember thinking in years past that Indiana could beat anyone in the country IF everything went just right? We don't need everything to go just right this season. And that's good, because as everyone expected with this team of newcomers, our performance has been variable throughout the season... but with a clear upward trend. I am so happy with DJ and for DJ right now. He's always seemed like a great kid to me, but it's no secret that I have been less enamored with his play than many other IU fans. Well, I'm officially no longer in that camp - he's completely exceeded my expectations this season. This team is still developing and that will continue until the last game, but so far they've won the games they're supposed to win, and that's gotta count for something.

But all that is over now. Forget the gaudy 17-1 record. In spite of their struggles, UConn is the second best team we've played this season. We'll be a clear underdog at Wisconsin. And then after a home game with Northwestern, it's at Illinois, at Ohio State, and home against Wisconsin, MSU, and Purdue. Dang. Now things get fun. We're not going to win all those games. But it's going to be exciting. I can't wait.

My first chance to DVR the Hoosiers

2007-11-27T21:13:00.000-05:00

I love watching games from the comfort of my home on my DVR. I get to fast forward through commercials and halftime, I am allowed to turn off the announcers, and I get to watch the interesting possessions three or four times before continuing... and all in High Definition! Mmmmm....

So, now that I've seen the Hoosiers against a real opponent, DVR-style, here are some thoughts.

1. This team is loaded with potential... and to date it is largely unrealized potential. This is not too surprising. While I think it's guaranteed that this team will get significantly better over the course of the season, it's still far from certain that they'll realize their potential.

2. Mike White got elbowed in the face and they called a foul on him.

3. Speaking of potential, I think IU started the season with a ranking that matched their potential -- about #8 in the country. That's what I think this team can be. It clearly is not what this team is today.

4. DJ White jumped up to catch a pass and was undercut by a GT player as he was coming down, causing him to bobble the pass out of bounds, and they gave the ball to GT.

5. This is why playing cupcakes at the beginning of the season is a waste of time. Indiana needed to start the season against a couple decent teams to find out what they needed to work on. Beating Longwood gave the Hoosiers no good information about their strengths and weaknesses. Schedule Longwood right before the conference games start, if at all.

6. Gordon is really good, and dang, he's just going to get better.

7. There's been a couple years when I thought the B10 was better than the ACC even though they lost the B10-ACC Challenge... this isn't one of those years.

8. People who complain about officiating annoy the crap out of me.

9. This was a good win, but it wasn't the kind of game that causes visions of Final Fours to dance in your head.

10. Go Wisconsin!

How I spent my Friday night

2007-11-17T10:49:00.000-05:00

First, I'm now so old that I've been looking forward to Friday night so that I could sleep. I've been incredibly busy with work, and I needed a good night's sleep, so that was my big Friday night plan - take a sleeping pill and then sleep all the way through till morning. Yup, I'm quite the party animal.

Unfortunately, Tyler was having one of his bad going-to-sleep nights where not only did he not want to go to sleep, but he was constantly messing around and keeping us awake as well. Given Tyler's normal eagerness to please, this is a strange aspect of his personality -- sometimes he would rather have us so angry at him that we don't trust ourselves to speak than to just relax and go to sleep. Or just relax and stay awake quietly. I don't get it. Last night he was probably revved up because Morgan was at our house having a sleepover with Carson, and he was having a hard time switching his engine back to idle.

So anyway, now it's 12:30 A.M. I'm still awake, Tyler's still awake, Karen's still awake, we're all exhausted... and then Carson strolls into our room, crawls up onto our bed, pauses for a moment on all fours in between Karen and I, and then vomits all over the sheets, pillows, and blanket. So Karen jumps up and cleans up Carson and I jump up and clean up the bed, we remake the bed, get a bucket, Carson continues to throw up periodically, and eventually I go downstairs to sleep on the couch with the animals.

Hooray. It's the weekend.

Decisions, decisions

2007-10-31T10:18:00.000-04:00

We've had Time-Warner cable for years. We're happy with it. We use it for Roadrunner as well. They recently ran a new, bigger line from the street to our house (the size they use for apartment buildings) because we use so much bandwidth. No charge.

Time-Warner doesn't have the Big Ten Network.

Indiana has 17 games on the Big Ten Network this basketball season. In HD. I can't watch any of them. We have two games on CBS regional that I usually can't watch. I can't watch the ESPNU games.

That leaves 9 games that I know I can get (ESPN, ESPN2, and CBS National).

Nine.

This appears to be the best IU team in years. A Top 10 team. And I might miss nearly 3 out of 4 games. That's not okay.

DirectTV has the Big Ten Network.

Decisions, decisions...

Italy 2

2007-10-07T14:31:00.001-04:00

I'm trying to post several pictures plus a message. I somehow lost the first message and can only post four pictures. Give me a call. Uncle Roger is sick and I want to give you a report. Ove, Mommu

Italy

2007-10-07T10:00:00.000-04:00

London

2007-10-01T11:36:00.000-04:00

I went to London for a couple days at the end of last week for a customer visit. My first time in London, but unfortunately the quick turnaround didn't leave much time for sightseeing. Here's a couple of my favorites pictures that I snapped:

On High School Musical 2

2007-08-20T13:58:00.000-04:00

So here's my question about High School Musical 2.

Should I be really happy that the kids (especially Carson) are really into a wholesome movie about nice, polite teenagers who like sports and singing and dancing and earning money for college -- and the big villain of the movie is a self-absorbed teenage diva who hasn't yet learned the value of friendship?

Or should I be really annoyed that the movie was on 37 times times over the weekend and now all the songs are now stuck in my head, maybe forever?

It's a dilemma.

Washington DC Trip photo album

2007-07-20T11:45:00.000-04:00

Here's the whole album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/TBleizeffer/2007JulyWashingtonDC

Here's a few of my favorites.

Note the plane landing in the background.

On Michael Conley

2007-06-23T16:48:00.000-04:00

We were discussing Mike Conley's decision to turn pro and your surprise at this decision recently.

Well, check out this article from Sport Illustrated on the Top Guards in the NBA Draft.

Who do they have first? Mike Conley.

Still surprised?

Happy Memorial Day

2007-05-28T06:46:00.000-04:00

Not much going on here. I've basically done two things on my long weekend -- "spring" cleaning the garage and going to our new pool. The pool is the more pleasant of the two activities... though I admit a deep feeling of satisfaction at having a clean, well-organized garage, even if it will only remain that way for a few days.

We got a membership at a nearby "swim and racquet" club. This might seem silly, since our neighborhood has a pool (which is why we've avoided getting a membership for years), but now we're kicking ourselves for not doing it sooner. This place is sooooo much nicer than our pool. First, the pool is a lot bigger, and it has a lifeguards, diving board, a high dive, a water slide, and a big 3 feet section for little kids. And they have activities like swim team. Tyler made the swim team last Wednesday after a couple weeks of practicing by showing that he could swim all the way across the pool in his lane without touching the bottom. He did it, and he was very, very excited. And Lord knows Tyler needs to find activities that involve actual exercise. They also have tennis courts and tennis teams (Carson is going to do tennis, it starts in a couple weeks), plus a half-basketball court (where I can shoot hoops while the kids are in the pool), and a volleyball court. They also have a snack shack that sells drinks and, um, snacks.

Plus Karen knows 3/4 of the parents and kids who go there.

We went there on Saturday and Sunday and I bet we're going back today.

So that's it for Memorial Day... but it's enough.

Bob Kriner

2007-05-27T09:33:00.000-04:00

We've been praying for Bob Kriner at Mass lately. I heard third hand that he is very ill with cancer. Have you heard anything from Soupy?

Are the Bleizeffers from Romania?

2007-05-23T10:52:00.001-04:00

I found an interesting link about "Bleizeffer" courtesy of Google:
http://genforum.genealogy.com/cgi-bin/pageload.cgi?bleizeffer::romania::271.html

"I'm looking for any information on the family name "Bleizeffer". I believe they once came from the area around Banat and maybe a town called "Tschestereg or Tschestelek". Any information of the towns or the surname would be appreciated."

Didn't someone do a geneology for our family awhile back?

American Girl Chicago trip - photo gallery

2007-05-14T10:10:00.000-04:00

http://picasaweb.google.com/TBleizeffer/AmericanGirlChicagoTrip

Click above for the full 164 picture gallery.

Here's a few of my favorites:

Big news out of Haiti via The Onion

2007-05-09T06:18:00.001-04:00

Ariel photos of tornado damage in Greensburg, Kansas

2007-05-09T06:09:00.000-04:00

http://www.kansas.com/static/slides/050507tornadoaerials/

Just unbelievable.

In anticipation of the new "Die Hard" movie...

2007-05-07T14:45:00.000-04:00

... coming out in a few weeks.

(Thanks to Kung Fu Monkey for posting the link. Yippee Kay Yaaaaaayyyy!)

Carson's elongated birthday celebration

2007-04-30T16:10:00.000-04:00

Someone we've managed to extend Carson's birthday into a series of events spanning about 3 weeks. First, she gets to open presents as they arrive in the mail (which I think is crime).

Then she goes to see the "High School Musical" musical with her friends and then have cupcakes afterwards.

Tyler was there for cupcakes (we stayed home and played "Scooby Doo - Mystery Mayhem" instead of going to the musical).

And then her actual birthday is next Tuesday and then I'm taking her to Chicago the following Friday.

That girl is totally lucking out this year.

Some pictures from Montpellier

2007-04-15T08:11:00.000-04:00

As always, click on the picture to see the full-size image.

This is a picture of my hotel (to prevent anyone from getting overly jealous).

Who says Europe is different than the U.S.? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and hamburgers!

Here's a statue and water fountain combo - and some kids in the background who had just gotten drenched playing in the fountain (sound familar?).

On the other side of the fountain above, there's a loooooong avenue to walk down. Pretty.

Here's a big square full of restaurants. This is where the TMNT picture above was taken.

This is the building where the conference is happening. It looks substantially nicer than the hotel.

Another long esplanade... this time with flowers.

Big arches never go out of style.

A statute with a big monument in the background. Speaking of big monuments...

...here it is close-up. Not sure the photo does it justice. It's big. Really big.

Here's a couple pictures of an ancient roman aquaduct. I need to explain to Tyler how impressive it is that the Romans could build multi-level structures using arches to move water around and have them still standing more than two thousand years later.

And for Carson, here's a picture of some crazy pigeons who were noisily taking a bath in some water near the aquaduct. They were having a ball.

I'm taking Carson to American Girl in Chicago

2007-04-12T08:07:00.000-04:00

For her 7th birthday.

We're going to have lunch at the AG Cafe and see the American Girl Revue show.

We'll also check out a couple Chicago area museums while we're there.

I'm also learning how to braid her hair.

It's a good thing that I'm comfortable with my masculinity!

18 year old recruits and national titles

2007-04-11T08:50:00.000-04:00

Most recruits enter college when they are 18 years old. So, in their lifetime, what teams (and conferences) have won national titles? Here you go:

2007 - Florida
2006 - Florida
2005 - UNC
2004 - UConn
2003 - Syracuse
2002 - Maryland
2001 - Duke
2000 - MSU
1999 - UConn
1998 - Kentucky
1997 - Arizona
1996 - Kentucky
1995 - UCLA
1994 - Arkansas
1993 - UNC
1992 - Duke
1991 - Duke
1990 - UNLV

ACC - 6
SEC - 5
Big East - 3
Pac 10 - 2
B10 - 1
Other - 1

So the B10 has ONE national title in the last 18 years. The ACC and SEC account for 11 of the 18 titles. What about the 18 years prior to that?

1989 - Michigan
1988 - Kansas
1987 - Indiana
1986 - Louisville
1985 - Villanova
1984 - Georgetown
1983 - NC State
1982 - UNC
1981 - Indiana
1980 - Louisville
1979 - MSU
1978 - Kentucky
1977 - Marquette
1976 - Indiana
1975 - UCLA
1974 - NC State
1973 - UCLA
1972 - UCLA

B10 - 5
Big East - 5
Pac 10 - 3
ACC - 3
Big 12 - 1
SEC - 1

(I'm using current conference affiliation above for Marquette and Louisville)

Conclusion?

The B10 needs to get better. Now.

Therapy with Dr. Bob (Trout-style)

2007-04-05T19:12:00.000-04:00

Dr. Bob: Ah, welcome back, Terry. Has it been a year already? Time flies, eh?

Me: Hmmpf.

Dr. Bob: Yes, well, court ordered therapy is no treat for anyone. Have a seat. How is your wife?

Me: Fine.

Dr. Bob: And how are your kids?

Me: Fine.

Dr. Bob: And how is your job going?

Me: Fine.

Dr. Bob: I see. And what about your obsession with Indiana basketba...

Me: This is actually a really interesting part of the year because the season just ended so we're all talking about next season and the new recruits and other recruits we might get and how much the other players will improve and who might transfer and...

Dr. Bob: Remember our breathing rule? Actually, I'm a bit relieved that you seem so upbeat. I watched the first half of the UCLA game and...

Me: (covering ears) Verboten!!

Dr. Bob: I beg your pardon?

Me: We've all decided to block that game from our memories. You know, like childhood trauma.

Dr. Bob: You're comparing a basketball game to childhood trauma? I'm not sure that's healthy.

Me: Yes, yes. Healthy. Very important. Anyway, the point is that we don't talk about such things.

Dr. Bob: And by "we" you mean the internet forum thingies that you read with your, um, "friends"?

Me: They're less my friends and more like my family. My brothers and sisters. Aunts and uncles. Cousins twice removed.

Dr. Bob: I get the idea. So, in spite of the UCLA... er, the end of the season, it sounds like you and your friends enjoyed the season?

Me: Enjoyed?

Dr. Bob: Yes. Enjoyed. You're a fan, right? You follow Indiana basketball because you enjoy it, I assume?

Me: Hmmmm... yes, maybe there's something to what you say. Enjoyment. I remember enjoying Indiana basketball... long ago... in the days of my youth... Calbert .......

Dr. Bob: (snapping) Terry! Stay with me here. I admit I'm a little surprised. After all our conversations about Mike Davis... long, painful conversations... I thought that now that Kelvin Sampson was the coach things would be back to, um, normal.

Me: I thought so too. And I tried to get back. I watched all the games I could for the first time in years. And I liked the team. But whenever they'd start to struggle, started missing shots... losing rebounds... stuff that every team does... I'd start having flashbacks to the Davis era. My brain knew that it was different, by my heart would hold me back.

Dr. Bob: Ah, yes, battered fan syndrome. Very common. Did you continue to have obsessive thoughts about the team?

Me: Well, doc, obsession is really in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? I mean what might seem obsessive to one person might be perfectly normal for someone else.

Dr. Bob: I mean classic obsessive fan behavior. Staying awake till 3 in the morning because you're so excited after a win. Daydreaming about the team winning a national title. Paying any attention to recruiting. Blogging about basketball during the off-season...

Me: Oh, no... I'm fine. Really.

Dr. Bob: Uh huh. So how do you follow the team nowadays? Any changes?

Me: No, pretty much the same. I go to Peegs for new, the forums for discussion, I visit Big Ten Wonk.... Omigosh!!

Dr. Bob: What? What is it?

Me: (curling into fetal position) Beeeetraaaaaayed.... beeeetraaaaayed...

Dr. Bob: I can't understand you with your thumb in your mouth.

Me: Oh, sorry. It's just that Big Ten Wonk has decided to stop blogging exclusively about Big Ten basketball and is branching out to all of college basketball.

Dr. Bob: So? What's the big deal?

Me: (eyes glazing over) What's the big deal? Egads! This conversation is becoming Edvard Munch-level horrific. Ye Gods, will this session never end? If we don't stop this soon, I'm going to need to George Bailey myself into a frozen river.

Dr. Bob: Terry? Is that you?

Me: (shaking head) Hmmm... what? Sorry, what were you saying?

Dr. Bob: Uh, let's change topics. Having you been taking your medication? Is it helping with your manic-depressive episodes?

Me: Not really. Everytime we lose I am convinced that every player on the bench is the second coming of Michael Jordan and every player on the floor is the second coming of Pat Knight. And everytime we win I am convinced that Sampson is a coaching genius who could lead a team full of Pat Knights to a title. There's a voice in my head who tries to tell me that the truth is always somewhere in between, but it's hard to listen. Carl.

Dr. Bob: Carl? Who?

Me: The voice in my head. His name is Carl.

Dr. Bob: I see. Um... still, based on our conversations last year, surely the absence of Marco Killingsworth has made you enjoy the season more.

Me: Who?

Dr. Bob: Marco Killingsworth. Played for Indiana last season? We had several discussions about his defense?

Me: Not ringing a bell, doc.

Dr. Bob: Is this one of those "verboten" things?

Me: ...

Dr. Bob: Uh huh. Fair enough. Anyway, I'm guessing that next season should be pretty enjoyable. I hear Indiana is bringing in a pretty good player next season. What's his name... EJ something? Eli Jordan?

Me: Do you mean Eric Gordon? Or Eli Holman? Or Jordan Crawford?

Dr. Bob: Whomever.

Me: Whomever? Whomever?! Aren't you from Bloomington? How can you not know who Eric Gordon is?!

Dr. Bob: I am from Bloomington. Bloomington, Illinois.

Me: (long pause) Illinois.

Dr. Bob: Yes. Um, Illinois. Why are you looking at me like that? Perhaps we should end things a little early today, okay? Nurse! NURSE!!

(Background: Trout is the handle for a longtime poster on Peegs' Forums who resurfaces every year or two to make a post about his fictional conversations about IU basketball with his therapist. I blatantly stole his idea for this post... I mean, this is an homage to Trout. Trout, wherever you are, get back in the game!)

Gleefully overrating our recruits!! (next season - part 3 of many)

2007-04-05T06:55:00.000-04:00

Here's a good summary article about IU's recruits from the Indianapolis Star -> Recruits make IU a Big Ten contender

We all know about all-everything Eric Gordon, so I'm going to ignore him (for perhaps the first and last time). As I mentioned in a previous post, our returning players + Gordon look like quite a good starting lineup. But we've got some compelling recruits on the way that aren't named "Eric."

9. Jamarcus Ellis - Ellis is an intriguing prospect. He's a JUCO player who has put some really amazing numbers against good competition - 15.6 points, 8.8 rebounds and 6.4 assists per game. One question is, can he play point guard? In the end, I think the answer will be that no one will play point guard next season, but we'll have 3 "combo" guards on the court at the same time quite a lot (Ellis, Gordon, and Bassett). There's a lot to be said for having 3 guys on the court who can all pass, shoot, drive, and finish. Ask Illinois 2005 about that. (This is not to say that Ratliff won't see gobs of minutes... I'm sure he will... he just doesn't fit my "combo guard" theme here). Ellis will play a lot.

10. Eli Holman - I've already discussed Eli in a previous post. Suffice to say, he has all the earmarks of a sleeper recruit.

11. Brandon McGee - I think one of the reasons Allen struggled last season is that when he and White were on the floor, neither could guard the PF position. For some reason, we still think of "PFs" at the college level as big bruising types, but for more often they are lithe 6-7 to 6-9 guys who aren't post-up players, and this is what I like about McGee. He sounds like a great fit, especially long-term when partnering with guys like Holman in the post.

12. Jordan Crawford - Spent the last season trying to transition to point guard at prep school, and his assist numbers (8.5 assists per game) suggest that this was time well spent. Given the current talent in the backcourt at Indiana, I suspect that unless Crawford is a huge surprise he'll just get spot minutes as a freshman. But Ratliff will be gone after this season, Gordon might be gone, and both Gordon and Ellis will certainly be gone after two seasons, so the playing time is there to be had for Crawford as his career continues.

And it looks like these won't be our only recruits, but I'll wait until all that falls into place before commenting.

More one-sided optimism (next season - part 2 of many)

2007-04-04T15:27:00.000-04:00

5. Eli Holman is the quintessential "surprise impact" player. Although he isn't incredibly highly-ranked (he's ranked #79 by Rivals), his ranking is clearly hurt because of his suspension, plus he's arguably the perfect fit for Indiana next season - a long, athletic shotblocker to partner with DJ White inside on a team that doesn't need him to be a great scorer, so he'll have the luxury of developing his offensive game on a team with plenty of other offensive options. In other words, the things he does well are just what the team needs, and the things he doesn't do well are things the team doesn't really needs. Perfect fit.

6. Kelvin Sampson has had these guys for a full season and now he gets them for a full off-season. After the Mike Davis era, it's easy to forget that basketball players tend to improve from year to year, and that at Oklahoma this was considered a strength of Sampson's -- player development. Now that the players understand what Sampson wants and Sampson understands what the players' strengths and weaknesses are, I'm really looking forward to seeing the improvement from guys like AJ Ratliff, Armon Bassett, and Lance Stemler. IMO it's clear that those 3 guys are capable at playing at a different level than they played at last season. Having a real coach should pay dividends -- here's one area where I expect it.

7. Gordon is as close to a sure thing as we see in college basketball, so I'm going to include him as a "known quantity". Thinking ONLY about returning players + Gordon, our starting lineup looks like this: Armon Bassett, Eric Gordon, AJ Ratliff, Lance Stemler, DJ White. Based on how all those guys were playing at the end of last season and assuming even MILD improvement, that looks like a very good team... without even factoring in the new guys. By "very good team" I mean "no brainer NCAA tournament team" and "threat to make the Sweet Sixteen". It's a nice feeling to head into a season knowing that Indiana is playing for NCAA seeding, not for an NCAA invite.

8. The B10 looks as strong next season as it has in a long time, due in no small part to coaching changes. Michigan State and Ohio State both look like Top 10 teams, and the bottom of the B10 looks less bad with everyone returning at Minnesota and Northwestern (plus Tubby), so it looks like a strong conference from top to bottom. On the other hand, assuming Oden goes pro, there are no "scary good" teams in the B10. Last season was obviously OSU and Wisconsin then everyone else. I think next season OSU and MSU will not head into games against Indiana (home or away) assuming a win. Or, to make a long story short, Indiana does not need to improve by leaps and bounds to win the B10.

The glass is half-full! (next season - part 1 of many)

2007-04-04T11:00:00.000-04:00

First I'm going to avoid listening to my annoying, internal "voice of reason" (SHUT UP!), and look at next season with cream and crimson-tinted glasses.

1. Eric Gordon is a consensus Top 5 recruit (actually he's a consensus Top 3 recruit). Last season, the consensus Top 5 recruits were Greg Oden, Kevin Durant, Brandon Wright, Tywon Lawson, and Chase Budinger. There's no reason to think that Gordon won't have a similar impact as those guys. He's a pure scorer, and unselfish player, and IMO his game translates really well to the college level (in other words he doesn't look like a guy who was great in HS but can't get his shot off in college).

2. Indiana's offense was effective last season because we had multiple guys who could hit 3 point shots (especially Wilmont, Ratliff, and Bassett). However, we didn't have many guys who could really create off the dribble due to ballhandling issues (especially with Wilmont, Ratliff, and Bassett). As far as we know, the addition of Gordon and Ellis completely changes that dynamic. These guys attack the basket, can finish, and can get to the foul line. This should not only make our offense more consistent (harder to shut down completely, but should also open things up inside for DJ, who will be able to score in more ways than just posting up.

3. It's incomprehensible that Stemler's shooting slump could be as bad as it was last season - he's proven over multiple seasons at the college level that he can shoot at a high percentage.

4. DJ White was a lot better at the end of last season than at the beginning. If he starts next season where he left off and continues to improve, he's going to be a force to be reckoned with by the end of the season (if he isn't already).

More later....

Xavier Keeling is transferring

2007-04-04T09:33:00.000-04:00

It's official - Xavier is leaving the team.

Good luck to Xavier - I enjoyed his effort on the floor and I hope he does well wherever he ends up.

Scuttlebutt is that Joey Shaw is also likely to transfer to get closer to home in Arizona. I like Joey as well, so I hope he sticks it out, but it doesn't look good.

Numbered thoughts (Brutal Honesty edition)

2007-03-21T08:59:00.000-04:00

1. I have really enjoyed watching Kelvin Sampson coach the team this season. He has displayed leadership, humor, maturity, class, and skill. Although I think he has been appropriately criticized for his previous NCAA violations, he strikes me as a guy with a lot of integrity who also doesn't take himself or his position too seriously. I'm really happy that he's the head coach at Indiana. Remember that statement while reading the rest of this post.

2. I'm not sure whether to be snide, amused, or confused by all the discussion about whether or not DJ White will go pro. Folks, DJ is not going pro. He is not choosing whether to stay or not... he does not have the option to play in the NBA next season, and there's no reason to believe that he's a guy who would turn pro in spite of having no draft prospects. He might very well participate in the some pre-draft camps just to get the exposure, but there's basically no chance that he'd get drafted in either round. DJ is a very good, slightly under-sized college center, who makes up for his lack of height by being bouncy and by having a nice mid-range jumper. The interesting question is whether DJ will ever make an NBA roster... I personally think it's a long shot. This is not a criticism of DJ, because I think he's a very good player and seems like a really good kid. I just don't think he's attractive to NBA teams and I think it's possible (maybe even probable) that he won't be a first round pick two years from now either.

3. My goal for Indiana next season is simple - a 3 seed in the NCAA tournament. Winning the B10 depends on how good the rest of the B10 will be. I suspect that MSU will be very, very good next season, and Indiana could be a Top 10 team and still not win the B10. Obviously OSU could be #1 next season, depending on who goes pro. But what I want is for Indiana to head into the tournament as a team with a legitimate shot to make the Final Four. Not favored to make the Final Four, but a contender. Here's how I look at it -- 4 seeds are barely expected to make the Sweet Sixteen. I don't know what the percentages are, but I bet that less than 50% of 4 seeds make the Sweet Sixteen... some get upset in the first round and then they face a 5 seed in the second round in what is essentially a pick'em game. Then they usually have to face a 1 seed in the Sweet Sixteen (if they make it that far). IMO, there's a world of difference between a 3 seed and a 4 seed. A 3 seed can make the Elite Eight without being an underdog in any of the first three games. Note that my goal is not to make the Final Four or the Elite Eight, because the NCAA tournament is just crazy. Good teams with good coaches can get beat by worse teams with worse coaches... in fact it happens all the time. I'm not going to stake the entire season's success on that single elimination format. But I do want Indiana to be a feared team heading into the tournament... not the popular pick for getting upset in the first round. A 3 seed.

4. That said, I think a 3 seed is definitely a stretch goal for this team. Losing Calloway is huge. Losing Wilmont would normally be huge, except we're bringing in that Gordon kid, who apparently is pretty good. But we have two big question marks heading into next season. The first is decision-making. The difference between Indiana having a GREAT group of guards next season or a very good group of guards will come down to decision-making. Ratliff has big issues in this space, Bassett is learning but still struggling to find a balance between attacking and not making mistakes (in other words Bassett can go a long period of time without making a bad decision... but it usually corresponds with him not being aggressive). Gordon will be a freshman. IMO this is on Sampson. We all wanted a real coach for exactly this reason - we need Sampson to mold these guys into good decision-makers. I think he can do it, but it'll take the whole season. The other big question mark, not unlike the last 5 years, is...

5. Interior depth is still a problem. I think it's difficult to overstate just how much Stemler, Mike White, Allen, and Keeling struggled this season. Stemler came in known as a 3 point shooter. And he certainly shot them (did you know that Stemler shot more 3s than Bassett this season?). I'm actually perversely confident that Stemler will get his shooting touch back and be very good next season, but I'm not sure I have any justification for it (other than loving the idea of having 4 guys on the court that all shoot over 40% from 3 point range... mmmmm). While I think Holman will contribute, I suspect it'll be more as a backup for DJ than having them on the court at the same time (because I think they play the same position). I think we'll see McGee backing up Stemler. Last season, Sampson had DJ for 35 mins a game. He had Stemler, MWhite, Allen, and Keeling to give him the other 45 mins he needed in the post. I think he got about 20% of what he needed out of them. What will the percentage be next season? If it's closer to 80%, I think we'll get that 3 seed.

6. Scoring 13 points in the first half against UCLA in the second round of the NCAA tournament was embarrassing. It is Sampson's job to get the team mentally prepared for games. It was one half, and as I said above, crazy things happen in the NCAA tournament, so as far as I'm concerned, I call the whole thing a "do over!". But if Indiana completely lays an egg again in a big game in the next season or two, it's going to make me very worried. There's no shame in losing to UCLA and I'm happy with the way we battled back... but it'll be awhile before I can completely forget looking at that nauseating one-three on the halftime scoreboard next to "Indiana". I have no interest anymore in trying to rationalize why the bad play on the court is not actually the fault of IU's coach.

7. I would LOVE to see Tubby Smith leave Kentucky and go to Michigan. I like Tubby Smith and I hate Michigan, but I don't enjoy hating B10 teams... I really want to root for every B10 team. If Tubby Smith went to Michigan, I would immediately start rooting for them. That would be fun. Then if Minnesota could somehow luck into finding a good coach, the B10 could start looking pretty scary.

8. Has Ed DeChellis been fired yet? I've been out of the loop the last week and a half.

9. I think Alford should leave Iowa, even though I think he's done an excellent job the last two seasons. It's good timing on both sides.

10. I'm rooting for Ohio State to win it all. I know a lot of folks dislike OSU, but I'm a B10 guy at heart. After that, of the teams that have a real shot of winning it all (Florida, Oregon, Kansas, Pittsburgh, UCLA, UNC, Georgetown, Texas A&M, Memphis), it's hard to know who to pull for. I dislike Florida and Memphis a lot. I respect UNC, UCLA, Kansas, and Georgetown, but I don't want to see them have more success. I'm ambivalent about Oregon and Pittsburgh. So I guess I wouldn't mind seeing A&M win it all... and Acie Law deserves it. The dude has icewater in his veins.

But I'd take Butler over any of 'em.

Indiana freshmen double-figure scorers - the last 25 years

2007-03-01T09:11:00.001-05:00

2006-07:
none

2005-06:
none

2004-05:
DJ White (13.3)
Robert Vaden (10.2)

2003-04:
none

2002-03:
Bracey Wright (16.2)

2001-02:
none

2000-01:
Jared Jeffries (13.8)

1999-00:
none

1998-99:
none (Haston at 9.9)

1997-98:
Luke Recker (12.8)

1996-97:
AJ Guyton (13.6)

1995-96:
none

1994-95:
none

1993-94:
none

1992-93:
none

1991-92:
Alan Henderson (11.6)

1990-91:
Damon Bailey (11.4)

1989-90:
Calbert Cheaney (17.1)

1988-89:
Eric Anderson (11.9)

1987-88:
Jay Edwards (15.6)

1986-87:
none

1985-86:
Ricky Calloway (13.9)

1984-85:
none

1983-84:
Steve Alford (15.5)

1982-83:
none

In 25 years, we've had four freshmen score more than 15 points a game - Steve Alford, Jay Edwards, Calbert Cheaney, and Bracey Wright. Calbert leads the group with 17.1.

The perfect non-conference schedule

2007-03-01T08:51:00.000-05:00

At work we call this a "thought experiment". At home we call this "bullsh!tting." Six of one, half dozen of the other. Anyway, I was thinking - what's the perfect non-conference schedule? Part of the problem, obviously, in building a schedule is that you don't know in advance how good teams are going to be. I'm pretty sure when this season's schedule was set that people weren't thinking that Southern Illinois would be significantly better than Connecticut. Plus you also don't know how good Indiana is going to be, and there are pre-existing contracts and unknown games in the ACC-B10 Challenge and pre-conference tournaments. So I thought, what if it were up to me to build next season's pre-conference schedule, knowing what I know now about how good Indiana will be, with the following conditions:
1. I get a clean slate - no pre-existing obligations matter
2. I assume that every team will be exactly as good as they were this year (using Pomeroy's RPI Ratings)
3. There are 13 pre-conference games
4. There are no pre-conference tournaments
5. Every team will agree to play Indiana wherever I tell them to

Here's what I came up with (order matters):

Detroit (RPI:197) - Home
Toledo (RPI:87) - Home
Bradley (RPI:46) - Road
Duke (RPI:9) - Home (ACC-B10 Challenge)
Butler (RPI:33) - Conseco
Kansas (RPI:15) - Road
Indiana State (RPI:142) - Home
Wright State (RPI:81) - Home
Kentucky (RPI:11) - Home
Southern Illinois (RPI:5) - Home
Valparaiso (RPI:155) - Conseco
Kent State (RPI:78) - Home
Western Michigan (RPI:143) - Home

Here's the reasoning I used:
1. My best guess is that Indiana will be approximately the 15th best team in the country next season.
2. The purpose of the pre-conference schedule is to a) prepare the team for the B10, b) build a resume for the NCAA tournament, c) make money for the school, and d) provide positive exposure for the program.
3. Don't schedule anyone under 200 in the RPI. Beating Western Illinois by 52 points does absolutely nothing for the team. The worst B10 team are generally ranked between 150-200, so having a few of those games still prepare you for the B10, yet they don't crater your SOS.
4. Make sure you are scheduling enough "should win" games to build a good record for the NCAAs. You could schedule road games against the top 13 teams in the country and guarantee yourself the best SOS ever, but we wouldn't even be a bubble team in that scenario because we'd head into the B10 with a 3-10 record.
5. The schedule should be tough. It should challenge the team with a variety of different opponent strengths and styles.
6. Indiana has a regional recruiting base in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan. Schedule games against teams in those states. First, it means the college kids on your team don't have to spend unnecessary time traveling. It ensures regional interest. Potential recruits will watch your games. And your own fans will have a better opportunity to travel to away games.
7. Road experience is important, but shouldn't be overdone. Schedule a couple tough road games, but have most of the games at home. Home games for Indiana generate extra income that the athletic department desparately needs and they make the fans happy. This season the only marquee home game we had was Southern Illinois - and most people didn't know it was a marquee game at the time.
8. Start the season with a couple easier games.
9. Do not, under any circumstance, schedule a fricking non-conference game during the B10 schedule.

There you go - the perfect non-conference schedule!

All B10 team award predictions

2007-02-26T16:34:00.001-05:00

These are who I think WILL get voted onto the first and second all-B10 teams, not who I personnally think should be included.

POY: Alando Tucker
COY: Thad Matta

First Team All B10:
Alanda Tucker - Wisconsin
Greg Oden - Ohio State
Drew Neitzel - Michigan State
Adam Haluska - Iowa
Carl Landry - Purdue

Second Team All B10:
DJ White - Indiana
Michael Conley Jr. - Ohio State
Kammron Taylor - Wisconsin
David Teague - Purdue
Geary Claxton - Penn State

If I were voting, the only thing I'd change from the above list would be Alford for COY.

Movie Review: "Bridge to Terabithia"

2007-02-22T18:58:00.000-05:00

Karen and I took the kids to see Bridge to Terabithia last weekend. I thought it was just wonderful -- I even cried during the movie, which is not exactly a common occurrence for me (the last time a movie made me cry was Hotel Rwanda, though obviously they're slightly different movies). First of all, any movie that stars kids is always a crapshoot, because good child actors don't exactly grow on trees. But I thought Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb were outstanding. It was a movie that required genuine emotions, not your typical kitschy kiddie movie, and they both delivered.

The plot was engaging and I thought it managed just the right amount of obviousness (is that a word?) in the symbolic links between the make-believe Terabithia and the real world. In other words, and I don't think it ruins the movie for people who haven't seen it yet to say this, the kids make up their own world to help them deal with the problems they face in the real world, and the movie shows this in a way that is obvious enough for kids to understand but not so obvious that it thumps them over the head with it.

Obviously this is not the "feel good movie of the year!", since Karen and I spent a good portion of the movie crying, but that's also what made it so good -- it's a movie that doesn't shy away from tragic events yet is accessible to kids.

Very highly recommended, even for adults to see by themselves.

Movie Review: "Flags of our Fathers"

2007-02-21T17:05:00.000-05:00

I think Clint Eastwood is a wonderful director. Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven, Mystic River, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil... the guy knows what he's doing. Of course, he has also directed Absolute Power, The Rookie, and Bronco Billy, so he's not exactly a sure thing. For all its hype, I think Flags of our Fathers is somewhere in the middle of those lists. It's a pretty good movie, but I think it's baffling to see it getting 2 Oscar nominations and there were even people saying it should get nominated for Best Picture (though once people saw Letters from Iwo Jima it seems a lot of folks forgot about Flags because they thought Letters was so superior).

The most interesting thing about Flags was the backstory of how the famous flag picture came to be taken. Of course, Eastwood knows this, so he trickles the story out in a series of flashbacks and flashforwards and maybe even some flashsideways, but I think this is one of the problems with the movie. There was so much flipping between the soldiers in battle and the soldiers back in the States that it made the movie feel disjointed. I don't mind a little artistic license when it comes to playing with time in movies (i.e. Memento) , but I thought Eastwood overdid it here.

The movie also seemed to be asking what it means to be a hero, which I didn't think was particularly novel or compelling. Not to mention that one of the characters in the movie was so obviously a hero by any standard that it kinda ruined the question.

Don't get me wrong, Flags is a good movie and certainly worth seeing. But I don't think it quite reaches greatness.

Numbered thoughts on Indiana

2007-02-19T10:49:00.000-05:00

1. I don't think we can hang the Michigan loss on Tommy Amaker - he did everything he could to help us win. I realize this is beating a dead horse, but everytime I watch Michigan I just shake my head at how horrible Amaker is. I mean, Lester Abram, Dion Harris, Brent Petway, and Courtney Sims are all SENIORS. According to RSCI, they were ranked #49, #22, #62, and #52 nationally as recruits, and all have played extensively for Amaker for four years. And they still can't take care of the ball. I mean, IU had trouble taking are of the ball earlier this season as well. Then Sampson focused on it and two weeks later our turnovers take a precipitous plunge. It's an embarrassment for the entire B10 that Michigan has continued to employ Amaker. Yeah, he's clean, and apparently that's quite an accomplishment at Michigan. But c'mon, can they really not find a coach that's both clean AND a decent coach?

2. Injuries are part of basketball and every team deals with some types of injuries every season. But that doesn't mean that don't matter, and in my opinion Indiana wins at Michigan with a healthy Calloway. Calloway is extremely important to this team, and I was actually pretty impressed with Indiana's play at Michigan considering we didn't have Calloway and DJ spent half the game on the bench. We needed the win, but I thought we battled through some tough circumstances.

3. I really, really like Armon Bassett. He's been a pleasant surprise all season, and although he needs to work on his shot selection, that's not unusual for an offense-oriented freshmen. I'm sure Sampson will work that out in time, and in the meantime I'm enjoying watching him play, and I think he's going to be a key part of this team for four years. But he is NOT a point guard, in any shape or form. Wilmont does a better job of looking for his teammates than Bassett... and that's saying something. You can tell that whenever Bassett has the ball, he's thinking, "What can I do with this that will end in me getting a shot?" That's a great attitude in a shooting guard... but not a point guard. The question of who is going to play point guard next season continues to loom large. I would also add that this is NOT a criticism of Bassett - it's an observation. Bassett is just being the player that he is.

4. Before the season, everyone in the country and on this board agreed that Ohio State and Wisconsin were obviously the class of the B10, and that no one knew who the 3rd best B10 team was going to be. Like pretty much everyone else on this board, I really hoped Indiana could be that 3rd best team (though in my case I doubted it would happen). Well, right now, ignoring the unbalanced conference records and standings and all that stuff and just using my own eyes to gauge the situation -- I think Indiana is obviously the 3rd best B10 team. I'm happy about that.

5. Different people can say the same thing and mean completely different things, and different people can read the same thing and reach completely different conclusions, and I think somewhere along the way a lot of that has been happening regarding Sampson, Mike Davis, and this year's talent versus last season. Here's what I think, articulated as clearly as I can:

5a. I think Sampson is an enormous step up from Mike Davis.

5b. I think Davis was a terrible coach, but I think his faults have become overblown in the minds of IU fans (and they were overblown while Davis was still here), particularly with regard to his game prep and game coaching. I've heard many times here that "We would've lost this game under Davis" and I just shake my head. We won a lot of big games under Davis... and we lost quite a few of them as well. We beat #1 MSU in Davis's first season, and finished well ahead of where I thought we would. We obviously made the FF in his second season. And we had several seasons where in my opinion our talent level was not very good. Other than last season, I don't think Davis was squandering highly talented teams - he was struggling to get much out of mediocre talent. Davis was bad, but he wasn't the only factor in our performance the past six seasons.

5c. I think Sampson is a wonderful coach, but I think his skills became overblown in the minds of IU fans this season. Maybe we're still suffering from Bob Knight hangover and want to get back to the point where we're able to worship the ground that our coach walks on, but that's silly. Sampson is not the best coach in every facet of the game in the entire nation... and that doesn't mean he's a failure either. It's absolutely amazing to me how badly Indiana fans seem to want to deify their coach... all it took was 14-4 start to the season and we're convinced that Sampson can walk on water and the team will never have a down game or lose intensity ever again. it's absolutely amazing to me how quick Indiana fans are to criticize our coach after a couple losses... all it's taken is a few completely predictable road losses and now Sampson doesn't know how to use time outs or coach offense or teach shot selection. Listen, Sampson is an experienced coach, an excellent leader, and knows what he's doing.... that doesn't mean we'll win every fricking game. Sampson is good, but he isn't the only factor in our performance this season.

5d. Regarding talent, I do think that this team has significantly less talent than last season. First, remember that Indiana went on an impressive 5 game winning streak during the 5 games that DJ White played in - and we were 12-10 in the rest of the regular season games, so DJ's talent did have an important influence on our record last season. Add Marshall Strickland, Robert Vaden, and Killingsworth to the mix and that was quite a talented team, IMO. This year's team isn't very close to that level, and I've mentioned that I think this is one of the least talented teams at Indiana in many years - but that doesn't make them untalented by B10 standards and certainly not by THIS season's B10 standards. Indiana is used to having quite a bit of talent, so there's a big difference between comparing our talent to previous Indiana teams versus comparing our talent to other B10 teams. The point is that I think Sampson clearly has something to work with this season, but I also don't think this Indiana team was somehow only a good coach away from greatness.

6. One final thought - I think there's an obvious explanation for Indiana fans' manic depressive attitudes. We are all really, really, really tired of watching Indiana field mediocre/decent/good teams that sometimes tantalizingly approach really-good-to-great status but can't quite get there. We don't want to hear about talent deficiencies, or coaching problems, or leadership issues, or justifications for recruiting losses, or anything else... we don't want explanations or rational analysis... we want to be able to watch a GREAT INDIANA TEAM again. Until we get there, we're going to try to argue that each Indiana team could be great until such time that it becomes obvious that they aren't great, and then we're going to get depressed and pissy about it for awhile. I think we're going to see this same cycle again next season as well (in other words, I don't think we'll be a great team next season either). I completely understand (and feel) this emotional response.

B10 fouls and foul differentials

2007-02-16T21:42:00.001-05:00

I decided to do some geeky number crunching. The following numbers are for all B10 games as of today.

My first question was "How many fouls on average do the various B10 teams get called for?" In other words, if I tell you that Indiana played Northwestern and got called for 16 fouls and Northwestern got called for 14 fouls, that doesn't really tell you anything unless you know how many fouls a team gets on average. Here it is:

The way to read this chart is to say "In B10 games Indiana gets called for an average of 21.18 fouls per game."

Obviously, Indiana leads the B10 in fouling, while OSU and Wisconsin gets called for the fewest fouls.

Next, I asked mysefl, "Alright, but different teams play different styles that tend to draw different amounts of fouls from their opponents, so how does that break down across the B10?" Here it is:

The way to read this chart is to say "In B10 games Indiana opponents gets called for an average of 18.82 fouls per game."

Note that once again Wisconsin leads the B10 in drawing fouls. But also note Northwestern on the other side. Northwestern opponents don't foul them much at all. Bizarre.

Then the question was "If we ignore home versus away and just look at foul differentials in ALL games, what teams get the biggest advantages?" Here it is:

The way to read this chart is to say, "In B10 games Indiana gets called for an average of 2.37 more fouls than their opponents." Again, this has nothing to do with homecourt.

Then I asked, "For a given team, how many more fouls do they get called for on the road versus at home?" Here it is:

The way to read this chart is to say, "In B10 games Indiana gets called for an average of 4.43 more fouls per game when they are on the road versus at home."

Note that Indiana and Purdue are far and away the worst of this group - the Hoosier state teams pile up the fouls when we leave home. Also note that Michigan actually gets called for FEWER fouls when they leave home.

Then finally I asked myself, "What is the homecourt advantage for each team -- how many fewer fouls do they get called for at home versus the number of fouls called on their opponents at home?" In other words, the chart above looks at Indiana in Assembly Hall versus Indiana on the road. The chart below looks at Indiana in Assembly Hall versus our opponents in Assembly Hall. Here it is:

The way to read this chart is to say, "In B10 games, Indiana's opponents are called for essentially the same number of fouls as Indiana."

Note again that UW and OSU see huge advantages at home, and once again Northwestern is completely bizarre.

I've got en Excel spreadsheet with the raw data if anyone wants to run other calculations.

There were a lot of question marks for this team heading into the season

2007-02-12T22:07:00.000-05:00

Now that we're 23 games into the season, I decided to take a look back at some of those question marks. It's easy to forget that our most frequent starting lineup last season was Monroe, Strickland, Wilmont, Vaden, and Killingsworth -- in other words we lost four starters. Granted, DJ White was only a non-starter due to injury, but we're still replacing a LOT of minutes and production. Wilmont is the only returning player who averaged more than 20 minutes a game last season... and he averaged 22. Five new players plus DJ's return from injury -- it's not surprise that most Hoosier fans are happy with the way this season has gone to date.

Anyway, he's my recollection of the biggest question marks heading into the season (at least MY biggest question marks).

#1. Who will be the other post presence inside to help DJ White?
So far, the answer seems to be "no one". It's kind of unfortunate that with five new faces (Bassett, Shaw, Mike White, Xavier Keeling, and Lance Stemler) and our pressing need in the post, I would characterize both of the new perimeter players as a "pleasant surprise" and all three post players as "struggling to contribute". Add to that Ben Allen's difficult transition, and I'd say our biggest question mark has gone unanswered.

#2. Will AJ Ratliff come out of his sophomore slump?
It took a long time, but I think it's fairly safe to say the answer is "yes", he's out of his slump. I still think there's another level where Ratliff can play, but he's been consistently good on offense, he's rebounding well, and his offense is coming around. I very happy with where AJ is right now.

#3. Will Earl Calloway become the point guard that he showed glimpses of late last season?
I'd say this is a resounding yes. IMO, there were some folks on here whose expectations for Calloway were out of whack with his performance last season. Sure, he obviously had potential, but lots of players have potential. After a rocky start to begin the season, I think Earl has become a big reason why IU is winning games. His decision making has really improved, and his defense is wonderful. He also seems to have a knack for driving the lane and hitting a big shot when we need one.

#4. Wilmont is a guy who can shoot the team to victory... or defeat. As a senior, will he become a consistent positive force?
I think Wilmont is still struggling a little bit when it comes to scoring within the offense. He hasn't been quite as streaky as last season when it comes to hitting his shots (and shooting almost 38% from 3 point range when you shoot as many as Rod does is very good), but it seems like some games he says "I gotta be The Man" and shoots 20 times and then the next game he says "I gotta be part of The Team" and he shoots 5 times. I still think Wilmont is having a very good senior season, but I wish we could know what we were going to get from Rod in any given game with a bit more certainty.

It's really too bad that Allen, Stemler, Mike White, or Xavier Keeling haven't been a huge surprise, because with the way the rest of the team has developed, I think we'd be a seriously dangerous team right now. Instead, I feel like we're trying really hard to compensate for our big glaring weakness... and mostly being successful at it.

testing

2007-02-11T09:45:00.000-05:00

I'm checking to see if we can operate with two display names with one Google account

Shawless

2007-02-11T09:08:00.000-05:00

I thought the IU vs Illinois game was very similar to the Wisconsin contest in that I thought the Illini were playing very well throughout and IU was "hanging on" for dear life. Of course, that is always my warped view.
Since four of our remaining six games are on the road, this was a crucial victory. Somehow, somewhere we need to steal a road win so we can finish 10-6 in the B10, which should be a lock for 3rd place. Onto the game...I am not a fan of Lance Stemlers play, either on the offensive end or the defensive end of the floor. I kept complaining about his play during the game, but understood that he could potentially be a bigger threat on offense than Mike White or Xavier Keeling...so I felt some compassion for Sampsons substitution pattern. After the game, reading the box score, I noticed that Joey Shaw played 2 minutes (I don't recall seeing him in the game) and, believe it or not, I completely forgot that he was sitting there on the bench while Lance was logging 19 minutes of action. I don't understand this?? Is he hurt? Is he in the doghouse? Whazzup?

Movie Review: "An Inconvenient Truth"

2007-01-30T22:09:00.000-05:00

An Inconvenient Truth is a bit of an odd movie to review. It's barely even a movie, even by documentary standards. 90% of the movie is Al Gore on a stage doing a presentation to an audience. The other 10% is miscellaneous scenes of Gore looking pensive in cars, on planes, on farms, etc. Surprisingly, the presentation was excellent, while the non-presentation scenes hurt the movie. I give it 3 and a half stars overall.

As everyone knows, the movie is about global warming. Since I already believe that global warming is "real", I wasn't sure that the movie would be all that interesting to me, since it is preachin' to the choir, as it were. But there's something interesting and valuable in seeing all the scientific evidence laid out in one sitting, and Gore has done an excellent job in creating an engaging way of telling the story. So engaging, in fact, that I started getting annoyed when they cut away from the presentation to do the little side pieces. It's not that the side pieces were poorly done (other than being a little melodramatic), they just weren't as compelling as the presentation itself and, in my opinion, they were also unnecessary.

I would definitiely recommend "An Inconvenient Truth", though I wouldn't call it a great movie.

My take on the healthiest B10 basketball programs

2007-01-28T08:49:00.000-05:00

"Health" takes into account a lot of factors, but the way I am defining it it basically boils down to "probability of success for the program over the next decade". Here's my opinion:

1. Ohio State - The Buckeyes have a lot of things going for them right now. They have a well-respected coach who is unlikely to leave over the next decade. They have a wonderful freshmen class and another solid class coming in next season. They have state-of-the-art facilities. They have "buzz". They appear to have a really good chance of making Final Fours in the near future, which should mean even more success afterwards. On the negative side is an apathetic fanbase combined with ridiculously high expectations.

2. Michigan State - The main reason I don't have MSU above OSU on this list is that I would be a little surprised if Tom Izzo is still the coach for MSU 10 years from now. He's young enough to do it, but I get the impression that he's looking around for new challenges. I also feel that MSU has struggled just a bit over the last few seasons, and it's been awhile since they headed into the NCAA tournament as a legitimate FF threat. But Izzo is one of the best coaches in the B10, MSU has been solid for a long time now, they have great facilities, and a enviable recruiting base.

3. Wisconsin - I struggled to decide whether to put Indiana or Wisconsin here. I finally settled on Wisconsin because Bo Ryan is, I think, one of the top 5 active coaches in college basketball and is apparently committed to UW for the long haul. They also have a new arena and they are finally starting to lose the Bennett stigma for playing boring basketball. On the downside, they have a veteren-led team this season so they'll need to replace a lot of players over the next couple seasons, and because it's Wisconsin, it would only take a couple mediocre seasons for them to slip back into obscurity.

4. Indiana - We're all familiar with the positives and negatives here. On the positive side is a quality coach who is expected to be at IU for the next decade, a rabid fanbase, lots of tradition which makes it easier for Indiana to get "back" into the national conversation, and fairly exciting short-term prospects for the next season or two. On the downside is lack of recent success, outdated facilities, out-of-whack expectations, and general program turmoil.

5. Illinois - I think there's a bigger gap between #4 and #5 than there is between #1 and #4. Illinois appears to have some significant issues, though they also have some strong positives. On the positive side is a lot of recent success and a recruiting base that most programs would walk over broken glass to have. They also have a solid coach who probably won't leave Illinois (by choice). On the downside is a surprising downturn in recruiting and out-of-whack fan expectations that I'm guessing will lead to a coaching change over the next 5 seasons -- which means rebuilding. They are the first program on this list that has any coaching issues (other than the vague possibility that Izzo might be getting bored). Also, they don't have the best facilities and like Indiana they are not blessed with a lucrative football program to generate income.

6. Purdue - It was a tough call putting Purdue ahead of Michigan, because Michigan is in some sense the "sleeping giant" of the B10. However, Purdue actually has a few key advantages over Michigan. First, obviously, is slightly more stability in the coaching position. While it's way too early to know whether Painter will be successful, he appears to be fairly solid and has already shown his prowess as a recruiter and they have a wonderful recruiting class coming in that should immediately help the program get back to at least "healthy" status. They also have a strong fanbase and a good recruiting base. On the downside, obviously, is they have by far the ugliest team colors in the B10, West Lafayette is enough to give people nightmares, a complete lack of recent success, sub-par facilities, and a head coach with all of 2 seasons of experience.

7. Michigan - It's embarrassing that Michigan is so low on this list, because they have so much going for them. They have a TON of money, they have a great recruiting base, they have great name recognition (in spite of recent problems), and Ann Arbor is a great college town. But all that is pretty much for naught, because of their coaching issues (either Amaker will get fired, which creates instability, or he'll keep his job, which is worse) and because of their apathetic fanbase. The best thing that can be said about the coaching situation is that the inevitable coaching opening will be fairly attractive, so they have a decent chance of landing a quality coach (history of poor choices notwithstanding).

8. Iowa - I believe Iowa is in a very difficult position. Fans are turning away from the team and attendence at home games is way down. Alford has been unable to produce quality teams at Iowa and has a long term contract, so he'll probably be there for awhile. When he eventually gets fired (I'm guessing it'll be 2-4 seasons from now), it's doubtful that Iowa will be a particularly hot coaching vacancy. The don't have great facilities or a noteworthy recruiting base, and they've historically had trouble being a top tier B10 team. It's hard to picture how they get from where they are now to a point where they are consistently a threat to win the B10.

9. Minnesota - Minnesota is obviously in trouble. They have an interim coach, an ancient arena, lack of recent success, frigid winters, a poor recruiting base, and an athletic director that does not fill one with confidence. On the bright side, um, is.... give me a second... I got it! On the bright side, they aren't Penn State.

10. Penn State - I think there's an excellent chance that DeChellis will be out of a job at the end of this season. Penn State actually headed into this season with a reasonable expectation of "taking the next step" and finishing in the upper-division of the B10 and making the NCAA tournament. Now they're 1-6 in the B10 and tied for last place. And unlike Michigan and Minnesota, Penn State is not an attractive coaching position, so there's no guarantee that changing coaches will lead to better results. Penn State is also the only B10 program where opposing fans are often louder on PSU's home court than the home fans are. That's very bad. The only positive for PSU is that they don't need basketball to generate any money for the school.

11. Northwestern - In some sense, there's no reason for NW to be last here. They have a solid coach who is a perfect fit for NW and will probably be there awhile, and that counts for a lot. But simply put - NW has never made it to the NCAA tournament, and there's no reason to believe that they are only a season or two away from doing it. Until they make it to the tournament for the FIRST TIME, I'm not going to move them out of last place on this list.

Movie Review: "The Black Dahlia"

2007-01-26T15:45:00.000-05:00

I admit that the only reason I watched "The Black Dahlia" was because I didn't realize beforehand that it was directed by Brian De Palma. De Palma is one of my least favorite directors. He and Oliver Stone are the foremost examples of "over-directors", in my mind. Their movies generally drive me crazy because they seem to have this ego-driven need to spend the entire film showcasing their directing "talents", and thereby constantly inserting themselves into the movie... and taking the moviegoer out of the movie. Yeah, you're smart. You know all about camera angles and flashbacks and mood lighting. I get it. But I just want to watch the movie.

Interestingly, both Stone and De Palma have made movies that I've really enjoyed (like JFK and The Untouchables) , so I guess their style doesn't always prevent me from liking their movies... but those seem to be the exceptions to the rule.

Side note: The quintessential example of a director who doesn't "over-direct", in my opinion, is Steven Spielberg. He directed a string of unbelievably great movies and basically never got within sniffing distance of an Oscar... until he decided to film a movie in black & white (how daring!!) and bingo, he nabs Best Director for Schindler's List.

Anyway, back to The Black Dahlia. I give it 2 out of 5 stars. If I had to use one word to describe the movie, it would be "annoying". It lacked any sort of flow, and several times I thought the movie was about to end (thankfully), only to see yet another "twist" tacked on that I needed to watch. The only reason I gave it 2 stars (as opposed to fewer) was that the cast was very strong. I can stand to watch Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank even when they are in bad movies (and both have had their share). And I'm slowly coming around to Josh Hartnett, who I thought was wonderful in Lucky Number Slevin - though I admit it will take me awhile to forgive him for Hollywood Homicide.

So I suggest passing on The Black Dahlia. On the other hand, I hear the book is pretty good.

Is simplicity a valid goal?

2007-01-25T12:50:00.000-05:00

(this is something I posted on my work blog, and thought I'd post it here as well for giggles)

There's been an interesting discussion happening within the online user experience community recently on the virtues of simplicity (or lack thereof). Legendary Don Norman kicked off the debate in an essay titled "Simplicity Is Highly Overrated". Excerpt:

Why is this? Why do we deliberately build things that confuse the people who use them?
Answer: Because the people want the features. Because simplicity is a myth whose time has past, if it ever existed.
Make it simple and people won’t buy. Given a choice, they will take the item that does more. Features win over simplicity, even when people realize that it is accompanied by more complexity. You do it too, I bet. Haven’t you ever compared two products side by side, comparing the features of each, preferring the one that did more? Why shame on you, you are behaving, well, behaving like a normal person.

Basically, Norman's argument is that people say they want simplicity, but when it comes time to make a purchase decision, they go for features.

Joel Spolsky followed up on Norman's essay with some thoughts on his own experiences, specifically that people often confuse simplicity with aesthetics. Excerpt:

Devotees of simplicity will bring up 37signals and the Apple iPod as anecdotal proof that Simple Sells. I would argue that in both these cases, success is a result of a combination of things: building an audience, evangelism, clean and spare design, emotional appeal, aesthetics, fast response time, direct and instant user feedback, program models which correspond to the user model resulting in high usability, and putting the user in control, all of which are features of one sort, in the sense that they are benefits that customers like and pay for, but none of which can really be described as “simplicity.” For example, the iPod has the feature of being beautiful, which the Creative Zen Ultra Nomad Jukebox doesn't have, so I'll take an iPod, please. In the case of the iPod, the way beauty is provided happens to be through a clean and simple design, but it doesn't have to be. The Hummer is aesthetically appealing precisely because it's ugly and complicated.

Not surprisingly, not everyone thinks simplicity is overrated. On Scott Berkun's blog, he provides a defense of simplicity. Excerpt:

It’s easy to confuse success with quality, and both articles discount our secret inability to make satisfying choices. We are attracted to things with more features, that cost less, or come in larger quantities, despite our inner suspicions that we’re likely to complain about those purchases soon after. We date people, eat food, take jobs and buy products for superficial, misguided reasons all the time. We’re easily seduced, and every marketer knows we always have been and always will be.
But we shouldn’t confuse the success of feature-laden crap as a signal for the irrelevance of simplicity any more than the success of Rocky IV and Burger King signaled the irrelevance of good film-making or fine dining. It just means there are gaps between what we need, what we want, and why we buy, and that the masses are by definition less discriminating than the niches of people with refined tastes for a particular thing.

Berkun is basically arguing that there is still a place for simplicity, even if most folks don't give enough thought into their purchases to look for it. He also concludes by saying, "Simple design doesn’t mean brain death: it means being being as simple as necessary to achieve a great experience for a group of people, but no simpler."

When it comes to enterprise software, I think this discussion is even more relevant. Those of us in user experience often here the calls to deliver "simplicity", whether we're working on a small troubleshooting utility or highly available, performance-tuned, enterprise-capable application serving capability. "Make it simple!" we're told. This has long been one of my pet peeves, and the articles above touch on my beliefs, but don't quite capture them. Ironically, in his defense of simplicity, Berkun comes closest to capturing why I think "Make it simple!" is a mistaken goal. I think that saying "...as simple as necessary... but no simpler," is another way of saying "simplicity is NOT the goal."

Let me use an extreme example to make my point. Let's say we could create an application server product tomorrow that is so simple that all it requires is an on/off switch (I believe this can be done through the use of pixie dust). We release it and everyone raves about how simple it is. Until someone tries to use it and asks, "Uh, it was really easy to turn on, but I need a way to actually deploy my application." Well, okay, so we add a button for installing an application. That's not too bad, just one more little button. Still simple... and then someone says, "Great, I have my application running. Now I have an update to the application. What do I do?" Well, we could add another button for updating an existing application, but why bother? The product would be much simpler if we just have the user create a new server and install the new version of their application on it -- then we don't need to add another button!

Obviously, that would be a terrible decision. Why? Because creating a simple product is not the goal. The goal is to create a product that allows users to achieve their goals... and sometimes those goals are complex. Especially when it comes to enterprise software. If a customer has a goal of trying to maintain the value of their legacy systems by creating external services on top of the old systems that can communicate with newer systems, an on/off switch is not what they are looking for.

Obviously, unnecessary complexity is a problem, and IBM needs to do a better job of eliminating unnecessary complexity. But not because simple = good and complex = bad. We need to reduce unnecessary complexity because it interferes with a user's ability to achieve their goals. Simplicity, in and of itself, is not particularly relevant.

Side note: Of course, the challenge for the user experience engineer is that a feature that adds unnecessary complexity for one user is absolutely critical for another, so providing the features necessary to allow users to achieve their goals while also eliminating unnecessary complexity sometimes makes me feel like a circus contortionist. But that's a topic for another day.

Indiana at Illinois

2007-01-24T08:34:00.000-05:00

1. I was one of those "glass half empty" guys who really expected us to lose this game, and so I wasn't at all surprised by the outcome. This game just had "loss" written all over it. At some point Indiana's hot shooting was going to cool off (YIKES), B10 road games are always tough, you know Illinois really wanted this game, no team (Sampson-coached teams included) can play a whole season without some off-nights, AND this team is not the kind of team that can have off-nights and still expect to win. My response to this loss is basically a shrug.

2. I think Bruce Weber is a good coach. He's not a great recruiter, obviously, but he's a good coach. However, now that Mike Davis is gone, I think he clearly now holds the league title for "more annoying sideline demeanor". He's just embarrassing out there. It's almost uncomfortable watching him... it's like watching Star Search when some awful singer is belting out a tune, and they are obviously the only one that doesn't realize how bad they are. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't important, but someone needs to sit Weber down and show him some game tape and have a frank conversation with him about representing Illinois.

3. Part of the reason it is difficult to win on the road in the B10 is that home teams get the calls. Indiana gets the calls in Bloomington. Our opponents get the calls when we're on the road. It's something that the team simply has to deal with if they want to win on the road. It's part of being a mentally tough team. In particular, I think DJ needs to get better at shrugging off the bad calls. I think after he got called for a foul on that block in the first half, the officiating got in his head a little bit. It's just college basketball. Complaining about officiating on the road is like complaining about the sun rising in the east.

4. That said, I would very much like to see the home team vs road team discrepancy when Illinois plays in Bloomington match the 20 to 9 personal foul and 20 to 6 free throw discrepancy that we saw last night.

5. We continue to struggle to find 3 "bigs" that we can count on. We have one big we can count on. We need three. I think Stemler has to be one of those 3. C'mon Lance, we need you.

6. Does anyone know when Ratliff is expected to get his cast off?

7. Indiana scored 18 points in 7 1/2 minutes. Then we scored 19 points in the next 32 minutes. Wow. We shot 8-32 FGs (25%) during that stretch.

8. I'm very happy that our next two games are at home.

WONK!

2007-01-16T15:45:00.000-05:00

Big Ten Wonk has now posted tempo-free stats for B10 conference games only. Here's the links:

offense
defense
efficiency margin
pace

Wonk makes the point that even though the stats are tempo-free, with so few games to consider they are basically meaningless. But I'm a firm believer that bad stats are better than no stats, so...

Some notable stats from an Indiana standpoint:

Indiana is FIRST in the B10 in points-per-possession and EIGHTH in opponent points-per-possession. In other words, so far we're winning B10 games because of offense, not defense.
However, our 3pt FG % defense is incredible (2nd in B10 at 23.4%). This is balanced by being 10th in the B10 in 2 pt FG% defense (52.9% -- dang!).
Likewise, our rebounding has been surprisingly mediocre - 8th in defensive rebounding percentage and 4th in offensive rebounding percentage.
After our initial struggles holding onto the ball, it's nice to see us at 2nd in the B10 with a 16.6 turnover %. Last season we were 9th in the B10 at 22%, and Ohio State was best in the B10 at 16.8%, to put 16.6% in context.
Indiana is FIRST in the B10 in efficiency margin (which is our points-per-possession minus opponent PPP) at +0.21. Last year we were 7th at -0.03 and OSU again led the B10 at +0.14.
Indiana is also FIRST in the B10 in "effective possessions".

I noticed something interesting in Pomeroy's predictions (warning: geeky)

2007-01-11T09:31:00.000-05:00

First for a slightly geeky intro to the topic:

If you have slightly weighted a coin so that it lands on heads 60% of the time and tails 40% of the time, and you have to predict how many heads you will get if you toss the coin 10 times, what will you say? Obviously, the best guess is 6. However, if I ask you to predict which side the coin will land on each toss, you'll predict heads every time. So even though heads is "favored" on each individual toss, the aggregate prediction should not be 10, it should be 6.

When it comes to basketball (and other sports), people mess up this principle all the time. They look at a schedule and think, "Hmmm... we'll be favored in 12 games and underdogs in 4 games, so I predict we'll finish 12-4." But if a team is a slight favorite in 12 games, it makes no sense to predict that they'll win all 12.

Ken Pomeroy's site has a great feature where he uses his stats to give a percentage chance of victory for each team in each game, and then also provides an overall prediction for how many games a team will win. And he does the overall prediction the smart way - not just adding up the individual predictions, but looking at the percentage chance of victory in aggregate.

I just looked at it and he predicts that Indiana will end up with a 13-3 B10 record (after the Purdue game is factored in). That seems like a pretty reasonable prediction, perhaps a little more optimistic than me, but reasonable.

But here's what interesting: I then looked at the remaining B10 games and our percentage chance of victory in our remaining games. According to Pomeroy, Indiana is favored to win ALL of our remaining B10 games. EVERY one of them. According to the predictions, our toughest remaining B10 games are at Illinois (64% chance of winning), at MSU (58% chance of winning), and home against Wisconsin (61% chance of winning).

Pretty cool.

testing

2007-01-09T15:34:00.000-05:00

We are trying to use the Blogzeffer again and have been confused. I'd like to hit whoever designed it. I wish we were signed in automatically like before. Has this always been a Google site? Didn't take us old foggies into account. Anyway, enough complaining, let's see it this posts.

Book Review: "Mac's Boys" by Jason Hiner

2006-12-30T11:03:00.000-05:00

I can't recommend this book enough for Indiana fans, especially those like me with no memory of the 1953 championship. It was incredibly well-researched, with great information about the state of the game at the time (coming off the point-shaving scandals at CCNY, LIU, and Kentucky), the opposing teams and coaches, the individual players on the team, and the play-by-play action of each of the games. The play-by-play was especially exciting for me, because I went into the book without knowing which games we'd won and lost, so I didn't know the outcomes until the final whistle sounded. It is full of quotes by the players, coaches, and the press articles of the time. Buy it and read it - you won't be disappointed.

Here's a few anecdotes to whet your appetite:

- Indiana lost 3 games that season, and each of them were lost on the last-second shots.

- Branch McCracken told his players at the beginning of each season to avoid "drinking, smoking, and gambling." This worried the players, because they knew these were three of Bobby Leonard's favorite things.

- The Minnesota coach was Ozzie Cowles, who went to Minnesota from Michigan, where he led Michigan to their first ever NCAA tournament appearance. After returning from the NCAA tournament, here's what Cowles had to say: "We'd been gone for a week, but no one seemed to notice. A couple of days after we got back, Fritz Crisler [UM AD and head football coach] stuck his head in my office and asked me where I'd been. That was when I decided that Michigan was no place to coach basketball."

- Because of the draft for the Korean War, there was an exemption that allowed freshmen to play in 1951-52, which allowed Don Schlundt to play as a freshman. He was a sophomore in 52-53, and (answering my trivia question below) he broke the all-time B10 scoring record a bit more than halfway through his sophomore season. Remarkable.

- Though IU beat Kansas in the championship game, it was that Kansas team that really changed college basketball in the years that followed. Kansas had lost Clyde Lovelette the year before and weren't considered contenders. But they changed the way they played defense and adopted Iba's Oklahoma A&M pressure defense that Iba played in the final few minutes of the game when down by less than 6 points. This was a pressure defense that played passing lanes and guarded players without the ball (and new concept). That year's Kansas team decided to play that way for the entire game and almost road their defense to the title.

- Kentucky was banned from playing the entire 52-53 season because of recruiting violations and point-shaving. Kentucky chose not to penalize Rupp, though. At all.

Transferring?

2006-12-18T19:53:00.000-05:00

No sooner did you mention the posiblity that Xavier Keeling would be a likely transfer, he suddenly appears out of nowhere. Initially, I thought he was quite awkward looking out on the floor, but last night against Southern Illinois he almost appeared nimble. Sampson must think he can play some "D" or he wouldn't be out there. He might just be a better option inside than Ben Allen. What do you think? SI reminded me of Keady's Purdue teams of the past...the second tier recruits who knew they had to play ferocious defense or had no chance of winning. Those teams always finished near the top of the B10. No one looks forward to playing that type of team...you can't dribble without some guy in your face and can't pass (or can't wait to pass). SI anticipates the opponent will eventually wither and cave, but IU surprised then with an even more tenacious defense...COOL. It's like having a wisdom tooth pulled watching such a contest, but you can't fault the result.
Cookie Maker.

Wow, what a frustrating Kentucky game

2006-12-10T08:17:00.000-05:00

This was probably the first game this season where I felt emotionally attached to the outcome. I wanted to beat Duke, sure, but I didn't think Indiana really had much of a chance and losing at Duke is not a big deal. Kentucky isn't that good this year, and this was a very winnable game. Plus, it's KENTUCKY. I really wanted Indiana to win.

And what did Indiana do? They played hard. They took care of the ball (11 turnovers is pretty good against UK's defense). They played great, inspired defense (I love seeing that kind of perimeter pressure). They rebounded like demons. DJ White finally looked like an All B10 player offensively. It was a picture perfect game.

Except they couldn't buy a freaking basket. Aaaaurgh!

Stemler, Basset, Ratliff, and Calloway were 0-14 from the 3 point line. But never mind the 3 point line, other than DJ we couldn't make a layup either.

I wanted to throw things.

But it felt good to care. And one thing is for sure - if we continue to play defense and rebound like that, we're going to win a lot of games.

Duke games are kinda meaningless

2006-11-29T06:14:00.000-05:00

Just like last year's Duke game, I don't think there's a lot we can take away from last night's game in terms of getting a better read on where this team will eventually end up. This is especially true of last night's game because we also don't know how good Duke really is. They certainly didn't look like the 10th best team in the country, but this time of year it's tough to know.

The thing is, Duke plays such a weird style of basketball, particularly on defense, that it's dangerous to read much into it. How many teams will try to deny every perimeter pass where both players are 30 feet from the basket? Duke's defensive philosophy is simple and effective: you have to drive to the basket on us and make good decisions to beat us. That's harder said than done. That's why Wilmont played 10 minutes last night - he doesn't have a great handle and he doesn't make good decisions. The things Wilmont does well, like shooting 3s, are almost irrelevant against Duke. What makes Duke's defensive philosophy successful is the same thing that makes Temple and Syracuse's matchup zones effective -- it completely removes a team's ability to play their regular offense. It gets teams outside their comfort zone. Teams have to improvise offensively for basically the entire game. It works.

The other thing Duke was doing is fronting DJ White in the post - completely fronting him, not 3/4 fronting, for the most part. For 99% of the teams out there, this would be a stupid thing to do, IMO. But because Duke puts so much pressure on the perimeter, the IU guards were 30 feet from the basket so throwing over the top means a loooooooong throw, and Duke's helpside defense is very quick. Again, Duke was basically daring Indiana to drive to the basket. They effectively shut down all the other offensive options, wriggled their fingers with their thumbs on their noses and said "Betcha can't beat me to the basket!" To their credit, Basset and Suhr did a pretty good job of meeting that challenge.

So how is the offense coming along? We have no idea. What does this game say about Wilmont and Calloway's future playing time? We have no idea. What does this game say about DJ White's future NBA prospects? We have no idea.

A few more miscellaneous thoughts:

1. Indiana played terrific defense all night. Holding Duke to 21 second half points is pretty remarkable. Holding ANY team to 21 points in a half is pretty remarkable (unfortunately Duke did it to us in the first half).
2. The team seems to be starting to display some of Sampson's trademark toughness. It's fun to watch the hustle.
3. Is it just me, or is Mike White about 5'11"? I swear I saw Suhr towering over him in the huddle.
4. The officiating in the second half was much better than the first. That is setting a pretty low bar, though.
5. Mike White and Ben Allen are exactly the type of interior players that struggle against Duke's defense, IMO. Lance Stemler is the exactly the type of "interior" player that thrives against Duke's defense. We missed him.
6. Joey Shaw is a remarkable bundle of kinetic energy. I'm really looking forward to watching him develop over the next 4 years.
7. How many times last night did one of IU's inside guys dribble into a Duke double-team and lose the ball off a Duke player's stomach? I stopped counting at 87.
8. So far, this team looks nothing like the team I expected. I'm not even sure what I expected, but I know it wasn't big minutes and contributions from Basset, Suhr, and Shaw. It's kinda fun to have know idea what is going on. You'd think I'd be used to that by now.

Basketball recruiting budgets

2006-11-07T19:19:00.000-05:00

I got my Rivals.com Recruiting Yearbook in the mail yesterday, and I found something in there that absolutely SHOCKED me. They have a little blurb on page 161 about basketball recruiting budgets at public universities (for 2004-05). This does not include anything but basketball (they have a separate table with football recruiting budgets). For the B10, they have information on 9 schools (sans Northwestern and Penn State). Here's the list:

1. Illinois ($230,904)
2. Purdue ($145,395)
3. Michigan State ($132,370)
4. Ohio State ($129,923)
5. Minnesota ($124,374)
6. Michigan ($122,389)
7. Iowa ($99,219)
8. Indiana ($79,645)
9. Wisconsin ($43,309)

So first off... holy crap, Illinois spends WAY more than anyone else. They spend nearly THREE TIMES as much as Indiana, and there's a big dropoff between them and #2. Wisconsin clearly flies coach.

So that was interesting, but not shocking. Here's the shocking part. Here's the same list for the SEC:

1. Auburn ($837,005)
2. Arkansas ($504,564)
3. Tennessee ($460,491)
4. Georgia ($444,861)
5. Florida ($378,256)
6. Alabama ($342,585)
7. South Carolina ($339,328)
8. Kentucky ($297,725)
9. Ole Miss ($286, 630)
10. LSU ($266,360)
11. Mississippi State ($257,797)

$837,005!?!?! What the...? Illinois stomps the rest of the Big Ten, but they come in last in the SEC, and aren't even close to most of the conference.

Let me repeat, Auburn spends $837,005 in ONE year on basketball recruiting and Wisconsin spends $43,309... and Wisconsin is a Top 10 team.

I'm racking my brain trying to come up with an explanation for the differences between conferences on this (and... duh... no, it's not cheating... that comes out of a completely different budget). So far, I haven't been able to think of anything. Anyone?

To Hell with emotional detachment!

2006-11-04T07:51:00.000-05:00

(This is a repost of something I just posted on Peegs forum -> HERE )

Like most of the other fools on Peegs', I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to Indiana basketball. Being an IU basketball fan is part of what makes me who I am. I live in Durham, North Carolina, and I have quite a few casual acquaintances who know me as "that Indiana guy." You don't need to spend a lot of time with me before Indiana basketball somehow comes up in the conversation. ("You barely managed to stuff the turkey into the turkey fryer, huh? You know, that reminds me of a story about A.J. Moye, an Indiana basketball player, and Carlos Boozer....")

I was in a daze for several days after Indiana lost to Duke in the Final Four in 1992. It wasn't just the Valentine-induced manner in which they lost, it was that I just couldn't believe the season was over. At the time, I thought it was all about the loss, but in retrospect I now believe that even if Indiana had won the title, I still would have felt a little empty for a few days afterwards... because I loved that team so much that I simply didn't want the season to end, for good or for bad. In some sense, 1993's loss to Kansas in the Regional Finals was even worse, because that was the end for Greg Graham (my all-time favorite Hoosier) and Calbert Cheaney (who is in my Top 5).

A cynic might say, "Well, duh! So you get excited when IU is ranked #1 and you really like IU's greatest players?! Whoa, stop the presses!" Cynics are annoying like that. But it's not true, my bleeding crimson did not end in spring in 1993. Or 1995. Or 1998. And other players on my list of favorite Hoosiers includes guys like Lyndon Jones and Micheal Lewis (good player, but certainly not all-time greats). The point is that there was a day when the team's performance would affect my mood for days afterwards. Actually, there were a lot of those days.

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but I'm not like that anymore. It started before Knight got fired and it continued throughout the Davis era. Emotional detachment. I think it basically was a means of self-protection. And primarily, I think it was self-protection from 3 things - the team, the coach, and the forums.

First, much to my surprise, late in the Knight era I realized that I was starting to not enjoy how the team was playing (though ironically the 99-00 season was an exception to this rule). I thought our defensive effort was generally poor, and surprisingly I thought our teamwork was suffering as well. I thought we had good kids on the team, but that doesn't mean I liked watching them play basketball. It was hard to watch significant minutes from Larry Richardson, William Gladness, Richard Mandeville, Rob Turner, etc., and not lose a little attachment to the outcome of games. And even our marquee players like Luke Recker, Neil Reed, Charlie Miller, Jason Collier, and Andrae Patterson oftentimes made it difficult to let myself become emotionally invested in the team. When Davis took the job, I really enjoyed watching our defensive effort the first couple years, but the offense was inmmediately and consistently painful. And here was the worst part - even when the team was effective on offense, it didn't make it enjoyable. Jared Jeffries was a wonderful player, and feeding the ball into him and letting him make decisions with his back to the basket was a winning offensive strategy... and it was hopelessly boring. Again, we had good kids on the team, guys who (if she were 12 years older) I wouldn't mind dating my daughter -- like AJ Moye, Dane Fife, Kyle Hornsby, JJ, Marshall Strickland, and Tom Coverdale. Actually, maybe I wouldn't want Dane Fife dating my daughter (he's crazy), but you get the idea. The last 3 seasons, things got progressively worse, because even the defensive aggressiveness stopped being a motivation to watch. And it's not that the teams weren't very good. I've developed strong emotional attachments to mediocre teams - what generally matters is the perceived difference between how good the team is and how good I think the team ought to be - and style of play. Obviously, I get more attached to great teams (I'm human), but it's not the only factor.

Second, there's the coach. I'm going to basically leave this one alone, because I don't want that to become what this post is about, but in the interest of honesty... late in the Knight era and throughout the Davis years I grew increasingly tired of having a coach for whom I didn't have a lot of respect. I often defended both, but (for mostly completely different reasons), I had trouble coming to grips with the notion that either of them were supposed to be My Guy. That's all I have to say about that.

Then there's the forums. I love the forums. Look at my post totals. But there's a weird sort of dynamic for me on here. I get tired of reading critical posts about the team or the coaches... even when I agree with the criticisms. Actually, especially when I agree with them. If I disagree, I can leap to the team or coach's defense, and obviously defending MY team or MY coach is something I enjoy (though, in the case of the coach, I'd like to have less opportunities to leap to his defense). If agree with the criticisms, then it just seems to double how I'm feeling about the situation. On the bright side, the forum also increases my enjoyment of the good times. Basically, the forum accentuates my emotions in either direction, and when the direction is generally negative, the forum can become unpleasant for me. This is why each of the last 3 seasons I've spent at least part of each season away from the forums and I've stopped watching games. Because I simply got tired of being pissy all the time. I'm guessing I'm not alone in that regard.

But you know what? I've had enough of self-protection. I've had enough of guarding myself against my own fandom. I miss the days when I couldn't wait for the season to start and got depressed when the season ended. I want to live and die with every 3 pointer, every rebound, and every turnover. I want to rattle the house when we hit the game winner, and I want to commiserate with my forum buddies when the other team hits it. I want to passionately dislike our opponent again, and I want to believe that Indiana fights for the glory of the entire state again. I want to defend our team and our coach with reckless abandon, and not try to concede that maybe the other guy has a point. I want to be relentlessly positive, even when maybe the situation doesn't warrant it. In other words, I want to be a fan again, through and through.

People like to post long missives when they decide to leave the forum. This is the opposite. =)

Jay Bilas on Sampson's illegal phone calls

2006-10-31T19:35:00.000-05:00

Jay Bilas (IMO the best college basketball analyst in the business) had this to say in a recent Insider article on ESPN previewing the Hoosiers:

The penalties that were levied on Sampson as a result of the phone calls are still being talked about, and my sense is that they will be talked about all season. Here is the final word from me on the phone call rule, and Sampson's violation of that rule:

I have seen much written about the situation, and precious little of it accurate, in my judgment. While I respect any informed opinion on the matter, it seems like too many are too quick to repeat what they have heard or what has been reported rather than to undertake some independent investigation of the matter. Here is what I know: Sampson has been reported to have made 577 impermissible phone calls. What is not reported is that the 577 calls were for Sampson's entire staff, and they were made over a 48-month period. That adds up to 12 phone calls per month, or three phone calls per week for the whole staff. Less than half of those calls (233 over a 48-month period) were made by Sampson himself. That adds up to five extra calls per month, or just over one per week.

Remember, Sampson and his staff recruited dozens of players. Some of these calls were when there was a lack of communication between staff members, some of them were when a cell phone call was dropped and the call was resumed, some of the calls were when the recruit called Sampson and Sampson called back, and some of the calls were from a lack of attention to detail. Instead of sending a text message telling a recruit to call him (which is permissible), Sampson just called the recruit. It was a violation of the rule, and that is not to be taken lightly, but it was not the sinister plot it is made out to be. This is not to excuse the violation of the rule, but to explain it.

My point is this: These phone calls were not part of some evil effort to cheat. Those who want to cheat the phone call rule will never be caught because they use a cell phone that is not in their name, or phone cards that are not traceable. If the NCAA looked into any program, it is likely that a violation of the phone call rule would be found, perhaps just in lesser numbers. This was a minor violation that has been overblown. The way the NCAA handled this matter had less to do with the violation of the rule than with how Sampson and Oklahoma responded to the matter. Instead of dropping to their knees and giving the NCAA a tearful mea culpa, Sampson defended himself. That is a no-no in NCAA territory, and the Association hit him hard for it. This is not the last time you will hear of this rule; others have violated it, and we will see whether those cases are handled in a similar fashion.

Interesting take from a guy whose opinion I respect -- and who certainly doesn't have a history of looking the other way when he thinks something unethical is going on.

Camping with the kidlets

2006-10-29T20:13:00.000-05:00

The kids and I went camping at Jordan Lake this weekend, and I snapped a few pictures. As always, just click on the picture to view the full-sized image.

Tyler's Knight

2006-10-17T08:22:00.000-04:00

Everyone should have a life-sized knight in their room. It's like khaki... it goes with everything.

Eric Gordon will play for the Indiana Hoosiers!

2006-10-13T14:18:00.000-04:00

I have nothing more to add.

Except maybe a Yeeeeee HAW!

Wet Blanket: It's hard not to be jaded about pre-season articles

2006-10-12T19:00:00.000-04:00

I'm enjoying the pre-season articles, as usual, but with each passing year I get more and more jaded about these. It's fun because everyone's optimistic and everyone talks about how this season is different/better than last season and how great all their teammates look and whatnot. But it's the same thing every season, and it's the same thing for every team. Have you ever read a preseason article where a player said, "It's a relief because our conditioning drills are so much easier than last year." Nope. But if conditioning is always harder than the season before, isn't there a ceiling effect at some point? And of course everyone raves about the new guys (like Stemler and White) and raves about the guys who need to improve (like Ratliff)... but c'mon, I remember the glowing Cem Dinc articles a year ago as well.

It's even hard for me to get excited about the players talking about how much more disciplined Sampson is than Davis. For example:

"I think that is what last year's team lacked, discipline," said Ratliff. "Last year anybody could say something to Coach Davis and he might kick them out but they would be back the next day. I don't think anybody is going to do that to Coach Sampson."

While that's certainly nice to hear, IMO it says a lot less about Sampson than it does about Davis. In other words, it's not Sampson's behavior that's notable in that quote, it's Davis's. While it's certainly a good feeling to know that we have a real coach again, not allowing players to backtalk doesn't exactly make Sampson a strict disciplinarian. It just makes him competent.

Of course even apart from these articles, we fans are the same way. We start to think, "Well, if AJ and Ben Allen play really well... and Mike White and Lance Stemler are big contributers... and Wilmont and Calloway have great senior seasons... and DJ White is an all-american... and everyone stays healthy... man, we could be really good!!" Well, sure, that's true. And while we're at it we could also wish for a pony.

Yeah, I know, I'm a wet blanket.

Pictures from St. Kitts

2006-09-28T07:32:00.000-04:00

So St. Kitt's was even better than we hoped it would be. The resort was beautiful, it had a wonderful italian restaurant, the weather was perfect, and we spent an entire week during very little and enjoying every minute of it.

Only one problem - we left our fancy-schmancy digital camera at home and had to make do with a couple disposable cameras we bought (for a magnificant sum) at the resort. Which means the pictures are a little fuzzy and some of them didn't turn out very well but we didn't know it until we got back. I love digital cameras.

Here's a picture of Karen learning how to scuba dive in the resort pool. I ended up going scuba diving in the caribbean a couple days later. Karen got a massage instead.

Here's a picture I took from the ocean looking back at the resort. Then I dipped underwater...

... and took this picture.

Here's a poorly-lighted picture of Karen feeding a monkey at the Turtle Beach Bar & Grill. Karen gently touched one of the monkeys and it smacked her. She screamed. Everyone enjoyed it.

Here's Karen and I on top of one of the mountains near the resort. Behind us on the left is the Atlantic ocean and on the right is the Caribbean.

Here's the view from our resort suite. The hill across the bay on the right is the hill we're standing on in the previous picture.

Here's a gratuitous picture of Tyler and Carson (and Sheila) in front of the house after we returned.

And this is me, bald.

One week away from St. Kitt's!

2006-09-07T08:42:00.000-04:00

Not that I'm looking forward to lounging on a beach while people bring me drinks or anything.