BGleas

I think it probably actually helps IU to be mentioned in the same breath as Duke/Zion.

Agree, not sure why it's such a big deal. But in HTD's defense, if the other Big Ten schools don't wait then it's a little odd that IU does.

I think it's more of a recruiting thing than a development thing. You can't develop Hammons, Haas or Swanigan into being as athletic as Zeller and Bryant. They're just different players. Swanigan did shoot much better from the perimeter his second season, he hit almost 40 three's at a 44.7% clip. But, he can't defend the perimeter and is a bigger, less athletic body so doesn't really protect the rim or run the floor well either. But, I ultimately agree with you, Painter is more concerned with recruiting and developing to his system to win games at Purdue than he is developing guys for the NBA, especially compared to someone like Crean. I think that's the right approach for Painter anyways, he's not typically going to get that high-end NBA-ready talent at Purdue anyways.

The purpose is probably out of respect to the conferences broadcast partner, which pays the school millions of dollars. Curious though, is IU the only Big Ten School that waits for the conference announcement?

This. It's crazy to say that Painter doesn't develop bigs. We've all seen Hammons, Swanigan, Haas, etc. develop into fantastic players in their time at Purdue. But as you alluded to Billingsly, no matter how much those guys developed, they're not the type of bigs the NBA has use for right now. Whereas guys like Cody Zeller and Thomas Bryant are. Zeller, Bryant, Vonleh, to varying degrees, are guys that have the athleticism to defend the perimeter, run the court, and in Bryant's case he can even knock down open 3's. That's the NBA big in today's climate. No matter how good Purdue's guys were in college, none of them fit the NBA mold. Doesn't mean Painter didn't help them improve in college and help turn them into really good college players.

Yup, top two units in the league, with KC probably close behind with Kelce. How they ultimately rank this season probably comes down to health (both the TE's and their QB's for both teams) and for the Eagles Goedart progressing in his second year.

I was going off this tweet in Dan Wetzel's report. Probably a combination of paying to get them to show up to EYBL, and then ultimately paying to get them to Nike schools.

I could be wrong on this as I haven't read the article, just the tweets, but I don't believe the suggestion is that Nike offered money to get Langford to a Nike school. The accusation is that money was offered to get him to play in the EYBL (Nike AAU circuit). Now, you can certainly extrapolate that to assume that's basically to get him into the Nike 'family' and eventually to a Nike school, but from what I read this report is more about getting players to show up for the EYBL.

Could be, you never know. I remember when Kenny Johnson left and some thought the sky was falling, it came out that while being a good recruiter (though he now know how he did that) he was pretty weak on the X's and O's and game-planning side.

I think you've brought up a great point and one people don't seem to talk about much, but these coaches aren't just recruiters, they need to be able to scout future opponents, create gameplans, implement those plans, develop players, etc. The assistants split up the schedule and each one is responsible for the main scouting and game plan prep of a portion of the schedule, and you need to know what they're doing there. I'd rather have an assistant that's great at that part.

Yeah, I think that's a model that can/will provide long term success, especially in Archie's system, similar to Bennett. Again, my only small concern so far is not getting enough of the guys in the 20-40/80 range of that criteria. Archie's gotten more of the 80-150 range guys. I don't want to get too hung up on ratings, because they're quite often wrong, but it just helps frame the convo. I'm a huge Phinisee fan, but right now there isn't a guard on the roster or in the pipeline as a commit that's in that 20-80 range, which I think you need a couple. Similar to UVA having Guy and Jerome, both top 50 guys, or Villanova with Brunson and Booth. By the way, Villanova's in-coming class has #15, #16, #55, and #69. That's a heck of a class, especially if those two high-end guys end up being 2-3 year players. Kind of reminds me of a typical MSU class or and OSU class under Matta when they were rolling.

To bring it back a bit to the recruiting side of this discussion, I think for Archie to build a consistent winner IU needs to have a consistent pipeline of players, probably 3-4 per year on the roster, of guys ranked in that 20-40/50 range. Think guys like TJD, Thomas Bryant, Maurice Creek, Yogi, Jerome Hunter, etc., and then fill in with the Phinisee's, Leals, Galloway's, Franklin's, etc. IMO, that's the UVA, Villanova, and even for a while there the UNC model. Consistent steady pipeline of these guys that are borderline McDonald's All-American's, but likely to stay 2-3 years, and then fill the roster out with the guys Archie has been signing for the most part. The of course go after a Langford, Gordon type if they're local (Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, etc.). I do have a small concern that we haven't gotten enough guys in that 20-50 range.

Saw that too, potentially pretty big news. I know Pitino still denies being involved, mainly through his mouthpiece Dick Vitale, but if it really a booster backing all of this, then I highly doubt Pitino didn't have some knowledge. He might not have known any of the details, in a 'the less coach knows the better' type of thing, but he would have had to know there was stuff going on.

Exactly, and IU does not win the Big Ten Title or go to a Sweet Sixteen, beating UK along the way, without him.

I like the strategy of targeting and signing more 3-4 year guys, and I’m super happy about the Galloway and Leal commitments, really glad they’re coming to IU. I would like to see IU now land a few more guys in that TJD/Hunter range, in terms of rankings. With that said, anytime this discussion comes up about one and dones or guys who leave early, the part that bugs me is the insinuation that guys like Yogi, Morgan, Hartman, etc. somehow care about IU more than guys like Langford, Zeller or Bryant. While they were here, the latter gave just as much and still rep IU in a big way, and while the former are also great the only reason they were at IU 4 years is because they weren’t good enough to leave.