[Thanks Boiler fans]

2 hours ago, emmitt01 said:

I’m curious what your thoughts are on something.  
 

For a state that is as basketball crazy as Indiana is, why aren’t the Hoosiers (or Boilermakers) perennial Top 5-10 powers?  Is it lack of high school talent (I doubt that) or is it an issue with keeping those kids in state?  

There are a few issues at play.  First and foremost is probably that the strength of Indiana high school basketball is not at the top, it's in the middle.  I don't think our top five programs are notably better than the top five programs in other similarly sized states.  However, whatever our 100th best program is, I'll put that up against any other state's 100th best program any time.  Similarly, Indiana puts more high school players per capita onto D-1 scholarship than any other state, but any given year our top five recruits don't stand out much against the rest of the country.  Drake has five kids from Indiana, and while that's an exception it is not at all unusual to see 1-2 Indiana players on mid-major and low-major rosters all over the Midwest.  We probably have slightly more than our share of 4-5 star recruits, but we have way more than our share of 2-3 star recruits.

Second, we do have a problem closing the border.  Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Kentucky, and Louisville probably combine to take 3-4 good Indiana players each year.  Virginia won the latest NCAA championship with Kyle Guy from Indianapolis (who never won more than 2 games in any high school tournament).  This may have been the biggest reason the Indiana University fanbase turned on Tom Crean so quickly.  Nobody likes down years, but they really didn't like losing to other Big Ten teams with Indiana players on them.  

Third, even if we closed the border, we have an issue with dilution.  Indiana has four major conference teams with Indiana, Purdue, Notre Dame, and Butler.  Texas has five major conference teams, but with 4x the population from which to draw.  

Just my $.02, I'm sure other Hoosier, Boilermaker, Irish, and Bulldog fans would disagree.  

[Thanks Boiler fans]

22 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

Best fan base I have encountered in a long time.  Will be a Purdue fan moving forward. As I mentioned in another post, my company does business in Indy and I have had the pleasure of going up there a couple of times in recent years. Nice people and a pretty cool town. For those of you up there and looking for something to do today head over to Speedway and check out the Indy 500 Museum. 

If you (or other basketball fans) get to Indy, I highly recommend going about 30 minutes east to New Castle, to see the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame and Museum.  It's mainly high school themed, but Indiana basketball has a lot of similarities with Texas high school football.  We have a lot of 800 person towns that built 3,000 seat gyms.  And of course, we have our 6000+ capacity gyms as well.  The fact I love to share with out-of-state fans is that when Steve Alford was a senior at New Castle High School, New Castle drew more fans per home game than did the Indiana Pacers.  For a hard core basketball and basketball history buff, there just aren't a whole lot of places in the country like it.

[Thanks Boiler fans]

This Boiler fan will adopt UNT as long as you can keep dancing.  I hope there is still room on the bandwagon.

Your team is extremely well coached.  I don't know how many times last night I thought Purdue was going to get a stop after playing solid defense for 20-25 seconds, only to find that the fourth ball screen got you the switch and the matchup you wanted, one cut, one reversal, and yet another open look.  That's not something that can be taken for granted; many veteran teams don't have that kind of poise.  

I also thought that you guys rebounded extremely well for the first 35 minutes, despite giving up a lot of size and length.  Again, that's attention to detail and execution of the little things.  Had Purdue exploited this for even half of the game instead of just the last five minutes, the outcome could have been different. 

After watching your CUSA game with WKU, I think everyone knew you were going to collapse the paint and dare us to beat you from the arc.  I'm never confident in Purdue's shooting, but I did expect to track down more second chances, particularly if you guys were not going to extend the perimeter defense.  

I'd still take Purdue in a best-of-seven series, but single elimination is what makes this tourney both cruel and great.  Single games favor poise, experience, and discipline, and those features were wearing green last night.

Go beat Nova!