Boo was not a great finisher his junior year. Most of the fans around me were ripping on him for shooting floaters and driving to the basket. To his credit, he just dramatically improved shooting inside the paint his senior year, which allowed him to take over games.
+/- for the Indictment of Indiana
- Thread starter PurpleWhiteBoy
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You guys are tough to please. I want guys that aren’t afraid. He wasn’t afraid and after his first two seasons started to hit clutch shots. The Nance teams were soft as Charmin. Literally pissed games away when the heat got turned up. Fans were destroying Boo for two years. Where was he supposed to go with the ball. Kopp never veered inside the 3 point lane, Robbie would hit his first 3 and disappear and Pete seemed to wait til the shot clock got to 5 and miss a mid-range. There was no one else even willing to take the shots. Fans as a collective are usually completely wrong. In the last two days we’ve seen negative stuff on Barney and Nick. Big Matt was a punching bag his first year, Ty has taken a beating most of this year. Expectations are ridiculous, so forgive me if I don’t care about what the fans around you were saying.
That is true, Boo was forced to play hero ball not by choice, but by necessity. No one wanted the ball.
And yes we now have two of the top five scorers in the big ten. Who would have ever thought?
OK… I was defending Boo so I guess I wish you were around then?
I think Pete gets way too much blame on this board for not being a go-to scorer because he was a top 100 recruit. Many on this board seem to think top 100 means guaranteed star player. That’s not how it works. Almost every team in the conference has a few top 100 recruits that never even contribute. Pete got better every year and had a very good senior year. That team played hard and lost a bunch of close games against very good teams. I don’t think Pete was the reason Boo wasn’t taking over games. Pete was happy to defer.
I agree he gets way too much blame. I was also on the Boo train early, but he too took time. For the outside, I didn’t like the vibe of that team. Could be completely wrong, but never thought the pieces fit. When you lose, typically the best player gets blamed.
That disappointing 2021-22 season we saw a lot of Nance at the 5 with Beran at the 4.
Soft, stretchy 5 with soft, stretchy 4.
Nicholson at the 5 with Nance at the 4 would have been very interesting.
But Lowery wasn't here yet, so Matt sat on his ***.
The next year we got Nicholson at the 5 with Beran at the 4...
That lasted awhile until Nicholson at the 5 and Barnhizer at the 4 made us pretty good.
Buie, of course, running the show - and improving - with McIntosh and Talor Battle showing him what they knew.
The mid-January injury to Julian Roper actually helped the team as it meant more minutes for Ty Berry and put bench-sitter Nick Martinelli into the rotation.
Soft, stretchy 5 with soft, stretchy 4.
Nicholson at the 5 with Nance at the 4 would have been very interesting.
But Lowery wasn't here yet, so Matt sat on his ***.
The next year we got Nicholson at the 5 with Beran at the 4...
That lasted awhile until Nicholson at the 5 and Barnhizer at the 4 made us pretty good.
Buie, of course, running the show - and improving - with McIntosh and Talor Battle showing him what they knew.
The mid-January injury to Julian Roper actually helped the team as it meant more minutes for Ty Berry and put bench-sitter Nick Martinelli into the rotation.
Boo was a good point guard his junior year. He became one of the best players in the conference his senior year and one of the best players in the country in his fifth year. Really remarkable development.
The Nance senior year team was rarely blown out until the season slipped away and had great chances to win 5 or 6 close conference games. They just didn’t have a closer and had some tough luck. The Wisconsin game that year at home was one of the better played games I have seen. It was one of Audige’s only good games that year but Johnny Davis was a little bit better and the usually reliable Ryan Young struggled to score in the 2nd half when we kept going to him. We lost by 6 points and Wisconsin hit a half-court shot at the end of the first half and Davis banked in a desperation 3 in the last 5 minutes.
I think this year’s team is a good team and they are 3 and 5 in the conference and have been blown out in 2 games. It’s so helpful having a guy like Boo in the last few minutes that can make great decisions, rarely turns the ball over, gets good shots and shoot almost 90 percent from the line.
Agree generally, tho the pissing was figurative.
Neither Boo nor CCC believed Boo was The Dude until late February that season. And then we got two seasons of glorious dudeliness.
I think Matt’s only limitation and one relative to Pardon is his inability to time his jump to block shots when playing 1-1 defense. He seems to have great timing in other ways, so it’s perplexing he can’t swat away more shots when directly defending a man, like Pardon was able to do so well.
After watching Derik Queen and Reese do a number on Illinois last night with a combined 52 points, you can appreciate the job Matt does on defense. He is able to body up those guys and make them miss some shots. Did the same Thursday night against Ballo of Indiana. I only wish he could provide a little more offense like he did two years ago in the NCAA game vs. UCLA.