IU878176

OK, against my better judgement I’ll bite. Yogi was a 5 star, 2nd ranked PG in the nation, recruit in high school that now plays in the NBA. If Smith was my kid I would be very proud of his 20 per game but a ton of kids across the country do that every year. I think your Yogi vs Smith comparison is, to say the least, a bit of a stretch.

I’ve read that he wears 53 because his grandmother passed away at 53. EDIT: from Rivals “At Texas, Bates is planning to wear No. 53 to honor his grandmother Felicia Hurst who was only 53 when she passed away”.

I’d be on the season ticket train if I lived anywhere remotely close to driving distance to Bloomington. I really, really, really hope attendance picks up this year and significantly more people stay for the entire game. The Iowa and Cincinnati games will be challenging and set the tone for the whole year. Looking forward to the season.

It was the Duke game. Jay Williams made the 3 and then, thankfully, choked the free throw.

Last year he had 5.7 assists to 3.3 to’s Shot 32% from the three, 50% from the two and 79% from FT. Averaged 14.2 a game in a season in which most games were ACC (few cupcakes). Good to see that he proved himself in the ACC vs hoping a transfer can successfully move up from a poor conference to the BT.

So even if he had gone to IU, T-wat never would have hooked up with Woody.

He is from Newark NJ. Mom wants him closer to home. Surprised Rutgers hasn’t reached out as the RAC is only 30 minutes from Newark.

Franklin seems to be a great kid and he really improved between his freshman and sophomore year due to all the off season work he put in. I really hope he stays.

The portal barn door is wide open and it’s also looking as though the Supreme Court is going to rule in favor of the players in regards to them owning their images, compensation etc. The college basketball landscape has changed a lot in the last 20 years but it’s going to change to an even greater degree in the next 3-5 years. Regardless of wether it’s a good or bad thing it is happening. PS: In the spirit of saving you the time it takes to type a reply, IU Scott, I will add that you are against the changes :).

Peanuts? According to this link his contract would have made him the 18th highest coach in the country this year and the 4th highest in the Big Ten. At 3.667 a year he is close to Bill Self, Bennett and Huggins money without having coached a single college game. https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/mens-basketball/coach/

400k for Matta No buyout had to be paid to get Woodson Woodson is probably 3mm or so less a year than BS. In two years IU won’t have to pay Woodsons health care. Sounds like a good value play.

I don’t know what might have happened in the past but Jay Williams likes taking shots at IU. Even when Crean had good teams Williams had a way of making some jabs. I hope I’m correct in my assumption that WWW doesn’t get within 20 area codes of Bloomington. Would be a really bad look.

In my own mind I am young...very young, Others might disagree that I’m young as I was a freshman in Bloomington during the undefeated 75-76 season and in Bloomington for grad school for the ‘81 championship (ie. very lucky/spoiled). I even saw Woodson in person when he had hair...LOL.

I agree. 99% of the talented recruits (I might be 1% low, LOL) want to be in the NBA. I agree with the sentiments that his age, and lack of college experience, are not ideal but I also question why a Midwest recruit would be more excited sitting across their kitchen table from Muss/Oats versus NBA guy Woodson. If you are a recruit being told you need to develop x,y,z to get to the next level would it mean more from Woody or Muss (not to mention that I think Mussleman would view each win as being one step closer to his NBA coaching dream)? Before the announcement I preferred Oats, and maybe Mussleman, over Woodson but have flipped that today. Might be wishful thinking on my part but regardless I hope this works out as the program can’t continue to sink for another 4-5 years.

The former UNC and Duke players happen to be hanging around a lot of current players that are primarily 4 and 5 star players (ie are the former players “inspiring” the current players or do those programs tend to have good teams because they have really good players ? I think it’s the later). I’ve stated before that while I think it’s “nice” if former players feel welcomed, and are around the program, I’ve questioned if it translates on the court. The RMK return to the Hall was billed as the third most important event in the history of mankind and the players performed as if they would have rather taken naps than play PU that day. I also don’t think players mindsets change because a guy that played in the glory days, possibly older than their dad, hung around and watched them practice for a hour. On the other hand......after listening to Woody I’m being sold on the possibility that the IU ties, being all-in on IU, making it clear this is one of the best places to be etc etc might resonate when it is coming directly from the head coach (as opposed to past players that float in and out to say hello). We will see but the possibility of this working is really growing on me.

From a chemistry perspective I’m very glad to hear that Matta was Woodsons idea. Many considered Matta a candidate and it could have caused some potential issues if Matta had been “imposed” on Woody. Also says a lot about Woodsons confidence in that he is not threatened by Matta, input from others etc.

They are good and are natives of Spokane. Be interesting to see if the Zags have interest/room for them.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the dominos fall. Will MSU signing a PG lead to Watts going into the portal as an example?

Out of state kids would flock to games if we had decent teams. I’m related to kids that went to Duke, Alabama, Michigan, etc and NONE of them were from those states and they loved going to those schools basketball or football games. When I was at IU, in the “golden era” Stone Age, I knew a lot of out of state students (including New Yorkers) that LOVED going to the games and some of them admitted they partially went to IU because of the basketball program. Out of state and in-state kids will still support the program but we need to win more. IU has not been one of the premier programs in the country during the lifetime of current freshman born in 2002 and we royally stunk the entire time those kids were in high school (how fired up would you be as a kid if the Archie era was during your entire time in high school?) If we are competitive it will be a thing to go to games again for both in-state and out of state students but coming in 9th and 10th the last few years just doesn’t cut it. I can’t blame them for not sharing your excitement.

But at least we got a lot better when Smith left, or were we getting better after Green left, on second thought maybe it was after Davis left that we were going to dramatically improve.....

I agree. Based on how good Michigan looked against us (in retrospect that doesn’t mean much) I thought they would take care of the Illini without Ayo.

I hope so too as we will obviously be in good shape for the tourney if we win the next two. I think MSU’s only decent win was against Rutgers. I’m not sure if injured players, Covid,etc were a factor/reason but MSU beat Rutgers by 23 and then lost to them by 30 a few weeks later. Kind of crazy.

Congrats to Gunn and IU for landing him. I don’t know Gunn’s game but I really enjoyed watching Graham. The comparison (I realize you are saying same type of player, not necessarily as good of a player) is high praise for Gunn as Graham was a burger boy coming out of high school.

I figured 75/25 Fry would be gone. Great news. If Whop also comes back our “brand/mojo” will continue to improve as we should have a nationally discussed receiver corp. We have another fun year on the way!!

Kudos to Gard. A lot of people thought they would go down the tubes when the Grinch left.