we needed that win last night. Our next big game is at Louisville on the 30th and that will be even tougher
Needed that one
- Thread starter boilerpete1
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I get what you are saying but disagree with the context of "needing" the win. The season has just started so it is a bit early to put such meaning on a game.
Again I get what you are saying, but there is a lot of basketball left and the season is likely to be rather fluid.
Do not disagree, yet, there are only a couple of genuine big opportunities to make a statement or improve a team's NCAA resume, and last night was one of them that did both of those things for Villanova and neither for Purdue...never mind the bigger picture with respect to recruiting, national perception, etc.
I think the team knows they had a good chance to win that game and what they did wrong , not gonna win them all , its good to play the better teams and see what you need to work on. I think the team will be better for games like yesterday
When we did the preseason win prediction thread a few weeks ago, I don't recall hardly anyone predicting a win over Nova. The majority of fans here thought that would be a hard fought loss to a really, really good team. That's exactly what happened. Sure we are all disappointed we lost but we went toe to toe. They were up 11 at one point and I thought that the game was getting away from us and we fought back. That shows a toughness about this team that will go a long way in Jan-Mar.
I agree with needed that one. IU won the Big last year and earned a 5 seed because of no real games you could hang your hat on and weak scheduling. So a win against UL will go a long way. Selection committee does look back at game one to the end.
Part of what helped IU for the Big and part of what hurt IU for the tourney was teh unbalanced schedule. I long for the passed days of home and home...
TJ,
I think that was part of it, but to expand on h48's point, IIRC....save for Michigan State, what also hurt the conference in general last year was the lack of higher quality wins in the non-conference (especially on the road/neutral). Purdue had Pitt....that was about it.
A win last night would really come in handy.....now a loss is not a killer.....and it certainly helps with other metrics like SOS/RPI/BPI, etc. I don't recall the numbers recently with the schedules, but I think what possibly could/might hurt Indiana with respect to schedule (and some of us have discussed this a few times with respect to Purdue) is even with having some top games.....teams really get punished for scheduling the really low-ranked schools.....150+ and below. You can pad the win totals, but come tournament time, that metric goes right toward seeding.....and with more parity......it could otherwise cost one or two seed lines.
However, if you have enough other positives, maybe that gets offset.....we'll see.
Those recruits who were in attendance heard the noise and felt the energy. They also saw Painter handle different situations with both big men and guards. The bigs that were there saw how they would be used. Winning may have swung the needle a bit, but they experienced something special and it was a very positive influence.
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