UW-Indiana thoughts

The first half tonight left me appalled -- terrible defense. Allowing the worst Indiana team ever to shoot 54.5% in any half is inexcusable. We were very lucky to be ahead.

The second half was a thing of beauty. That team had no business being on the court with us tonight, and we showed why in the final 20 minutes.

Krabby had another stellar game, as did Pop. Krabby was always in the right spot, and how pleasantly surprising is his scoring? The back cuts, jumpers, bank shots. Big Ten Player of the Week repeat?

Pop penetrated at will, like a knife through butter. He also shot well.

It's funny, because nobody else stands out in my mind -- Landry was virtually invisible for most of the game, J-Bo struggled with his shot, Leuer only took a few shots -- yet we won by 17.

Why didn't Rob Wilson get any minutes in this one? I guess it'll have to be next year for him. (After I wrote this he got in and dunked.) Jarmusz did play well, knocked down some shots.

That was a long 1.2 seconds at the end of the first half, wasn’t it? That homer clock operator didn’t start the clock until after the initial shot hit off the rim. Embarrassing, Tan Cream, get rid of that guy.

Indiana had a lot of turnovers that will likely be attributed to their youth, but I think it’s because they just aren’t good players, period. At one point a Hoosier caught the ball standing out of bounds. You learn pretty early on that this is not legal.

One rant for the night:

Few things bother me as much as missing the beginning minutes of my team’s game because the previous game is slumbering through an excruciating finish. Case in point was this Duke-St. John’s game tonight, a good Duke team playing down to the level of one of the Big East’s many bad teams in front of an indifferent crowd. Because Duke couldn’t put them away, they kept fouling, and Duke kept fouling, and the friggin’ game just would not end. Yet at no point was the outcome in doubt. So we're subjected to another 15 minutes of Bobby Knight talking about what it was like to know Coach K as a teenager. Someone needs to have the balls to pull the plug and move on.

So we've got Michigan State, Michigan, Minnesota, and Indiana left. We hold court at home, split and we're 10-8 in the Big Ten. In fifth place for the time being, which means no Thursday game at the Big Ten Tournament, which is good. All these things are considerably better than I would have imagined when I left for Germany 2-1/2 weeks ago.