PhinithreeMagic

Illinois this year reminds me of some of Crean's teams. Bunch of talent but slow the game down and force them to play defense for 20+ seconds every time down and you'll wear them down. If we had Brunk to throw at Cockburn, I would feel really good about our chances with them this year.

Interested to see how FSU plays against another solid team in Florida. They are unranked but #18 for KenPom. Gators have jumped out to an early 11-3 lead. Edit: A player has collapsed on the floor during a timeout break for Florida. Waiting for more info.

Give Tom Allen a blank check right now.

Does it though?

WOW. Tip-in for the win for Marquette. This Wisconsin team has a long way to go. Will be interesting to see how they fare against Louisville next week.

I don't know how this Wisconsin team is ranked #4. Entirely unimpressive.

Sounds like us vs Texas except it's... Valpo. 🤷‍♂️

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I'm not sure I would have believed that UNLV was ever up 13-0 in this game. Woof.

We obviously need a big and PG in this class, but Gunn is high on my list as well. This team still desperately needs shooters and he should be able to come in and fill that role Day 1.

We're all watching the same game.

It honestly feels kind of like a happy medium at the moment. I like the approach. We went from all or nothing with MD. Then with Crean it seemed like half the top 100 had offers every year. As a recruit, I could see where it would have been difficult to know if I was a priority or not. Here, it's obvious who the priorities are but if you're going to hem and haw or pull the rug out at the last second, we'll have contingency plans in place.

I've got this in a Google sheet doc now so I'm happy to maintain it or share with a mod that wants to. I tried to embed with html so it wouldn't require a new post each time, but the output code from Google wasn't working (not my area of expertise).

Updated for DA's exit

Updated version with Lander/Duncomb past their freshman years.

I think another offseason of development and strength training for Race will allow him to step into a starting role down low next year. Justin also has the strength and athleticism to compete in the paint for stretches. My biggest concern is getting consistent wing play from someone more versatile than JS next year. We need Hunter to take a jump or one of the freshmen to surprise. If we roll into next year with the same horrible floor spacing because 3 of JS, Race, Brunk, TJD are on the court at the same time, we're going to struggle.

All 3 of the guys coming in seem to have very strong desire to improve, compete, and win. That mentality alone will help change the culture of the program even if they don't up being All-B10 players.