IUPUI proved too much to sweep this time as Milwaukee split the series in Indianapolis this weekend.
It may well be that IUPUI is a program on the rise and is tracking toward or maybe even already on the cusp of greatness.
KenPom.com suggests otherwise:
While a split is better than getting swept, it sure seems like for every step forward we take, we seem to regress time after time after time. So instead of discussing the games this weekend, I'd like to step back and be candid about where this program seems to be headed long-term.
We can't beat teams we are expected to have a 50/50 shot against. We barely win against teams we are favored against. We can't seem to get a winning streak started and we are running out of time (it'll take 3 or 4 games in a row to win the HLT).
I'll take another step and just verbalize what everyone else is thinking, and what makes a 7-6 team seem more unstable than it really is.
In the worst days of the Jeter era (11 seasons), no player or staff member- at least not purposely identifying themselves as such- ever felt the necessity to get on the Panther Hoops Discussion Board to try to explain to fans that bad blood and bad things were happening behind the scenes (this has been a repeated warning from a user by the handle, "tonyt"* since before the season began and one that certainly seems to ring true if you follow the team closely).
I hope it is made clear that no player should be sowing this doubt (if it is untrue) or be the 1st (and often only) source of news for the fan base on many issues that would have been routinely announced or reported on in previous coaching regimes.
This ain't cool (feeling like we are following a mystery train).
Let's hope we get back to being a normal basketball program at some point.
go panthers
beat nku.
*since "tonyt" is the first person to inform the Panther fanbase of virtually all Milwaukee Basketball developments including COVID cancellations and roster questions that fans expect the coaching staff or SID or Journal-Sentinel to address- I'm inclined to believe he is closely connected to the team in some way; definitely the most interesting (and distressing) thing I've ever seen following the Panthers in my 19 years of being a fan.
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