Category: IU basketball

Late in season five of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after Dawn had been taken by Glory for the purpose of bleeding her to open the gateway between all dimensions, so that she, Glory, could return to her own dimension and return to her full-godly state, Buffy slipped into a catatonic state. Willow had to use her powers are a Wicca to penetrate Buffy’s dream-state and coax her back to reality so they could go fight, Glory, save Dawn and finish the season already.

I’m sorry if this spoils parts of season five for you, or if don’t watch Buffy, but I’m coming to my point, never you fret.

Willow follows Buffy around through a number of memories, a series of repeating memories. Its clear that these memories hold some meaning and they were the key to unlocking this catatonic state. The memory that seemed to stand out from the rest as being plainly ordinary was one of Buffy returning a book to a shelf in the Magic Box.

Willows says, “Right here, it happened. I know it’s something small, but it’s something. . . What happened here?”
Buffy says, “This is when I quit, Will. Just for a second. . . I put a book back for Giles. . .and then it hit me. . . I can’t beat Glory. Glory is going to win. . .And in that second of knowing it, Will, I wanted it to happen. . . I wanted it over. This is, all of this, is too much for me. I just wanted it over. . . I would grieve. People would feel sorry for me, but it would be over and I imagined what a relief it would be.”

Somewhere in the middle of the second half against Minnesota the other night, I knew exactly what Buffy was talking about. While watching the second half of that game, I gave up. Just for a second. But I thought, I just want this to be over. All the pain of this season. It’s just too much for me to deal with. Let’s get to the end of this season so we can start looking forward to better times ahead and not be stuck where we are right now. What a relief that would be.

By the end of that game I was so ashamed of myself for that brief second of defeatism, because here I sit, in my living room watching IU play, giving up. And those kids on the court never did. Not for one second. They fought all the way to the end of the game. Long past the point where I knew they weren’t going to be able to overcome their obstacles. They fought.

This team continues to fight, regardless of the odds of success or the repeated proof that no matter how hard they fight, it’s just not going to be enough. They fight.

So, shame on me. Shame on me for that one brief second of giving in to the despair of this season.

If these kids can continue to fight, then I can suck it up and continue to cheer for them.

I can’t. We can’t allow ourselves to start looking forward when there is still now to focus on. This season isn’t over. The chances to learn, improve, and yes, even win, are not gone.

After such self-indulgence, there’s no easy way out.

I was reading Bob Kravitz’s column in the Indianapolis Star this morning about Devan Dumes and his special off the court situation. It seems that Devan has an 8-month old baby that was sick this last week and this was weighing on him. He decided to take out his frustrations with his elbows on cheeks, backs and groins.

Kravitz wasn’t making an excuse for him and neither am I, but I will say this. He’s not alone. What I learned from my semester as an Abnormal Psych major at California University and wikipedia is that there’s this thing called transference. It’s basically taking out your feelings for one person on another.

There have been many examples of this throughout recorded history.

This is perhaps the worst case scenario. Brig. General Jack D. Ripper, who after feeling a sense of exhaustion and emptiness following the physical act of love, came to a startling realization. His precious bodily fluids were being depleted through the most insidious of all communist plots, the fluoridation of our water supply. Not only did begin to deny women his essence, but he also began an elaborate plan to send nuclear war codes and attack orders to all of the fighters near the Soviet Union. Fortunately all of the fighters were called back. Unfortunately, one of them wasn’t. And then there was the issue of the secret Soviet Doomsday machine.

The similarities between these stories and Dumas’s do not end there. Prior to the game this past weekend, Tom Crean had to call up Tom Izzo and tell him about everything that was about to happened. This is a transcript of Coach Crean’s side of that call. Tom Izzo had apparently been drinking at the time this call was made.

Tom Crean: [to Izzo] Hello?… Uh… Hello T- uh hello Tom? Listen uh uh I can’t hear too well. Do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little?… Oh-ho, that’s much better… yeah… huh… yes… Fine, I can hear you now, Tom… Clear and plain and coming through fine… I’m coming through fine, too, eh?… Good, then… well, then, as you say, we’re both coming through fine… Good… Well, it’s good that you’re fine and… and I’m fine… I agree with you, it’s great to be fine… a-ha-ha-ha-ha… Now then, Tom, you know how we’ve always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the elbow… The Elbow, Tom… The thrown elbow … Well now, what happened is… ahm… one of our players, he had a sort of… well, he went a little funny in the head… you know… just a little… funny. And, ah… he went and did a silly thing… Well, I’ll tell you what he did. He ordered his elbows… to attack your players… Ah… Well, let me finish, Tom… Let me finish, Tom… Well listen, how do you think I feel about it?… Can you imagine how I feel about it, Tom?… Why do you think I’m calling you? Just to say hello?… Of course I like to speak to you!… Of course I like to say hello!… Not now, but anytime, Tom. I’m just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened… It’s a friendly call. Of course it’s a friendly call… Listen, if it wasn’t friendly… you probably wouldn’t have even got it… They are not likely to reach their targets.. I am… I am positive, Tom… Listen, I’ve been all over this with your Athletic Director. It is not a trick… Well, I’ll tell you. We’d like to give you a complete run-down on the targets, the body parts targeted, and the pointiness of the elbows… Yes! I mean i-i-i-if we’re unable to recall the elbows, then… I’d say that, ah… well, ah… we’re just gonna have to help you destroy them, Tom… I know he’s our boy… All right, well listen now. Who should we call?… Who should we call, Tom? The… wha-whe, the People… you, sorry, you faded away there… The People’s Central Groin Defense Headquarters… Where is that, Tom?… In Lansing?… Right… Yes… Oh, you’ll call them first, will you?… Uh-huh… Listen, do you happen to have the phone number on you, Tom?… Whe-ah, what? I see, just ask for Lansing information… Ah-ah-eh-uhm-hm… I’m sorry, too, Tom… I’m very sorry… All right, you’re sorrier than I am, but I am sorry as well… I am as sorry as you are, Tom! Don’t say that you’re more sorry than I am, because I’m capable of being just as sorry as you are… So we’re both sorry, all right?… All right.

Sadly, not all of the elbows were able to recalled, but none of them reached their exact target. And Goran Suton’s groin didn’t have a Doomsday device attached to it, so tragedy averted.

So, Devan clearly has some work to do on himself so he doesn’t go around blaming Spartan body parts for his own misfortunes.

Let’s all hope he is able to get it while he’s not playing tonight against Minnesota.

No theme song for today, just the video clip of the greatest one sided phone call this side of Bob Newhart. (This whole thing is going to make me skew much older)

I thought I would take a break today from yelling at you or telling you how to live your life to talk about basketball. Enjoy the break. I’m sure I’ll return to being profoundly disappointed in something you are doing soon enough.

What follows is the direct result of two conversations I had in November. The first, with my cousin, Brian. The second, with my brother. I started this post then, but sat it aside, as I wasn’t sure how to finish it.

The first conversation took place over the Thanksgiving holiday, and is more than a little fuzzy, so I hope that Brian will jump into the comment thread and help me in any place where I have strayed too far. The part that stuck in my head was a comment he made about having a Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for basketball. He, I’m sure, can provide you with more context as to his thought process.

The second conversation took place via iChat during the TCU game. My brother was saying that we had not developed at the rate he had hoped for this year, and was citing our inability or lack of effort to get the ball inside, but rather to settle for swinging the ball from side to side.

I began to defend our progress to this point in the season and during my defense the idea of Maslow came back to me. For those not familiar with Maslow, please look here. In short, his claim to fame is a pyramidal structure that identifies what motivates human behavior, called Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. They explain it better than I could, so please go check it out if you need to know more.

I have taken two of his ideas and made something that relates to basketball. 1.) Arranging things in a pyramid shape. And 2.) In his Hierarchy of Needs, people either do not, or are not capable of trying fulfill higher level needs until they have satisfied lower level needs, e.g. It’s hard to worry about your self-esteem issues if you haven’t eaten in a week. You must be fed and clothed before you can seek safety, before you can seek social interactions, before you can worry about how you feel about yourself, etc.

My hierarchy doesn’t hold to that exactly, but the basic idea remains.

As we sit here in the midst of a nine game losing streak, I find my reserve tank of optimism is running low. It’s desperately important for this team to get a win soon, if just to have their work in practice rewarded.

But while we wait for that, it’s helpful to have something concrete to look at so as to gauge our actual improvement. It is with that in mind that I present this basketball hierarchy.

The lowest level of the pyramid is the stuff that is easiest to come by.

Taylor’s Hierarchy of Basketball Needs

Effort and Toughness are things a player can learn and bring to practice almost from the start. Sometimes toughness takes a while to develop, but it is certainly possible to have effort and toughness before you have any of the other levels of the pyramid, and without effort you are never going to develop any of the others. This includes a willingness to work hard in practice, take charges and get on the ground after loose balls. It also includes communication. Everyone can talk, except mutes. Sorry Nell.

Defensive Fundamentals. Anyone who has ever been around kids playing basketball can attest to the fact that it’s hard for kids to learn how to play offense. Most 3rd and 4th grade games are played safely in the single digits. It’s much easier to teach them to play defense. This is still true at upper levels of play. You may not always shoot the ball well, but you can always play hard defense. But this stuff is harder to learn and do well than just trying. This includes footwork, positioning, on-ball defense, playing the help line and boxing out.

Offensive Fundamentals. The offense has to be worked on at the same time as the defense, but a lot of this stuff takes longer to get right. I know peole who play terrific defense but should never, under any circumstances be allowed to dribble or shoot. “Strap, in for Everett. Don’t shoot the ball unless you’re under the basket all by yourself!” This includes shooting, passing, and setting screens.

Situational Awareness. If you can pass, shoot, set screens, guard the ball, move your feet and play help side defense you have the ability to play basketball, but without the knowledge of how the game works and what needs to happen on a possession by possession basis, you will not find much success. This area includes knowing what needs to be done by us and what is likely to be done by them.

Recognition. Once you can perform the basics, and understand the game you need to be able to put that into use, which is where recognition comes in. It goes beyond awareness. And once you are recognizing and executing you are finally a good basketball team. This includes shot selection, proper lines, how to get open, and how to find an open teammate.

So the question we should all be asking ourselves on a daily basis is how are we doing in these areas. This is a good way to see if we are improving or not. If we are making most of our mistakes in the first three levels of the pyramid that should be cause for concern, but if we’re playing pretty consistently in those areas and showing improvement, while still struggling with awareness and recognition, that is something else entirely.

So, what do you think? Are our problems still lower tier problems, or are our problems with situational awareness and recognition causing our problems?

Last week I met a current IU freshman who lives in my old dorm, Read. It was great to talk to someone who was living where I once lived and getting to experience IU as I once did, lo these many years ago.

It made me instantly nostalgic for Bloomington, for the days before I knew what “lactose intolerant” meant, when all I knew was Mad Mushroom Cheese Sticks, for the days of $.99 beer of the month at Mother Bear’s (I’d like to know what they are up to now. If someone knows, please put it in the comment thread), for afternoon naps in the fireplace lounge (none of which were planned, as you all well know), for the Irish Lion, mutton pie, puff balls, half yards of Guiness, but most of all for trips to Assembly Hall for IU basketball games.

I snapped out of my mid-day wool gathering just in time to ask him, before he walked off, if he had season tickets to the IU games.

You know what he said to me?

“No, we suck this year. Our whole team is made up of freshmen.”

I grabbed his arm at the elbow as he was turning to walk away (the same action that got Bob Knight fired, btw) and said, “Hey, that’s not important. Your team needs you in the stands. Go get tickets. Hell, have your parents pay for them.”

He gave me some nonsense about the expense of out-of-state tuition and fiscal responsibility, blah, blah, blah.

Then I hear that they are dropping the prices for balcony tickets to $5.

*spit take*

This is, I think, what bothers me most about what’s going on this year. I knew going in we were not going to have a great team, I knew we were going to have to improve a lot to win many games, what I didn’t expect was that we had so many fair weather fans.

Here comes the “in my day” rant.

When I was at IU ’95-’98. We didn’t win a Big Ten title. We didn’t win an NCAA game. It was a low point for IU basketball (not by today’s standards, but I had very recent memories of Alan Henderson, Calbert Chaeney, Greg Graham, Pat Graham, Damon Bailey, Lyndon Jones, Chris Reynolds, and Old-Man Anderson. My childhood was built around Isaiah Thomas, Uwe Blab, Steve Alford, Steve Eyl, Joe Hillman, Keith Smart, Dean Garrett, Ricky Calloway, Brian Sloan, Kreigh Smith. We still packed Assembly Hall. Andre Patterson and Charlie Miller, and even The Neck, deserved and got our support just as much as those other teams. And they got it.

If you live within an hour of Bloomington and you used to go the games and you’ve stopped, shame on you.

If you’re a student and you didn’t bother to get season tickets because the team wasn’t going to be any good, well, hell I don’t even want to know you. You are a Hoosier. You are not some ass backwards Kentucky fan. You don’t support your team cause there’s nothing else to do on a Wednesday night.

IU fans are better than that. At least that’s what I’ve always believed. God knows that’s what I’m going to teach my kids (calm down mom, I’m not making any announcements here).

Get your ass out there and support this team. It’s how we act when things aren’t going well that defines who we are.

Be better than this.

I’ve been struggling lately. The last three losses have been tough to take. So much so that it has taken me nearly a week to write about each game and I’m writing this as I am watching the Iowa game.

This season has lead my to question some of my beliefs about the team/fan relationship.

The fan and the team have entered into an agreement. The entire sports relationship is based on this agreement, though it has never been written down, signed, or even spoken aloud.

It is a symbiotic relationship. Without the team there are no fans, and without the fans there is no need for a team. They each provide, for the other, important services.

The team provides the fans with, at the basest level, entertainment and distraction, but much more than that, the team provides the fan with a sense of community, of belonging. They also allow the fan to experience the glory of victory without having to put in the work.

The fans provide the team with support, both financial and emotional, as well as a sense of purpose. Every team plays to win for themselves, but also for their fans.

But this is not a relationship without expectations. The fans expect the team to win. That is a given, but on a more fundamental level, the fans expect the team to represent them. If the fan sees the team as an extension of himself, and he must in order to gain any sense of pride or accomplishment from the successes of the team, then he expects the team to live up to the ideals he has for himself. No one wants to be disappointed in his own actions. The same is true for his larger self, his team.

When the team is not meeting the expectations of the fan, the fan has the right, and I would even argue, the responsibility to do his part to help the team meet those expectations.

The fan cannot go onto the court and play, or go into the locker room and coach, but there are things the fan can do, though not all of them are appropriate or effective at all times.

1.) The fan can cheer harder. If it seems that the team is suffering from a lack of confidence or motivation the fan can let the team know they have his support.
2.) The fan can boo. This is much more appropriate at the professional level. College kids, more often than not, need the support of their fans and hearing your fans boo you is not likely to help. Sometimes the pros need to know that their job performance is not acceptable. Sometimes, Santa needs to hear about it too.
3.) You can quit going to the games. This again is another approach better used against the pros. It tells the owners, in the only way they will hear it, that the fans expect a better product on the field or the court. If they can spend less, put out a crappy product, and still take your money, they will continue to do so. Sadly, the attendance in Assembly Hall this year indicates that some of us have decided this is the way to express their discontent. I don’t think this is helpful.
4.) You can criticize the play of the team in very specific terms. I am a big fan of this one. A lucid, intelligent assessment of the teams’ problems can be useful. Calling the team, or the players, names not so much. But pointing out that this guy isn’t rebounding or playing good help defense, or that the coach is continually employing a strategy that doesn’t work, is constructive. Where I struggle with this is in relation to this year’s team. I’m not sure that a group of freshmen, who mostly need to be built up, will benefit from being told repeatedly why they are failing.
5.) You can give up and wait until next year. This is the coward’s way out. If this is your plan, you are not a true fan. If the team is an extension of the fan (as I believe it is) the true fan cannot give up on the team any more than they can give up on themselves.

This team, over the last three games has not been meeting my expectations, and those are not tied up in wins and losses, but in quality of play. For now, I am going to cheer louder. They need our support. But, after getting a good chunk of Big Ten games under our belts, freshmen cease to be freshmen, and option four becomes much more appropriate.

I am still hopeful for our prospects of improvement over the course of the next two months, but I need to start seeing it. My heart can’t take much more.