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Can Justin lead the team in scoring this year?


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1 minute ago, bluegrassIU said:

Well, anybody that can put up 24 points for 5 games in a row against quality opponents is likely a lottery pick. Maybe a tad too much to expect of any player?

He played well. And he brings a TON to the team defensively, even against quality opponents. 

Justin has had his ups and downs. BUt it sure seems a lot of IU fans assume or expect the worst from him.

I also think he is paying for the signs of his father, literally.

It used to be Devonte, then Justin. Just makes me wonder who we pick next as the "expect the worst" player.

(Jeff, I am not speaking directly to you beyond the 1st statement. Just quoted you as a jumping off point. 😀)

No problemo. I expected to get some flack from those that are on the Smith bandwagon. That's what makes this forum so great. 

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Playing a wing position he will have smaller guys on him a lot. If he can use his size and strength and play under control he will continue to do well. That said on athleticism and size alone against these smaller schools he is a huge mismatch. The thing is he is a great defender when motivated...perhaps our best with Rob. He can guard 1-4. I worry about his lack of shooting in the long run but hopefully this confidence early on carries into our tougher opponents.

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12 hours ago, 3Ballin said:

If Smith is our leading scorer, we will be in a whole lota trouble.  I think he will have some holy $h1t nights where he goes off like MSU last year, but overall I think he will be better as garlic bread rather than the lasagna.  But we need him to be REALLY GOOD garlic bread!!!  Lol

Why would we be in big trouble because I feel if Justin is better than we expected that would be good for the team.

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Didn't get to see the game, but I will be VERY surprised if Devonte isn't the leading scorer when he returns from injury.

I am not on the Smith bandwagon yet either. It's easy to look good against the cupcakes. He won't have many more games like this, but if he can hold his own consistently in the conference games, then I may have to change my mind. By hold his own I mean around 10 pts., 5 rebs., help keep the offense spaced and moving, and one of the anchors on defense. If Justin can do this in the B1G, then I am a believer.

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2 minutes ago, IUaic said:

Didn't get to see the game, but I will be VERY surprised if Devonte isn't the leading scorer when he returns from injury.

I am not on the Smith bandwagon yet either. It's easy to look good against the cupcakes. He won't have many more games like this, but if he can hold his own consistently in the conference games, then I may have to change my mind. By hold his own I mean around 10 pts., 5 rebs., help keep the offense spaced and moving, and one of the anchors on defense. If Justin can do this in the B1G, then I am a believer.

He averaged 8.2 pts and 4.5 rebounds last year.

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20 minutes ago, dgambill said:

Playing a wing position he will have smaller guys on him a lot. If he can use his size and strength and play under control he will continue to do well. That said on athleticism and size alone against these smaller schools he is a huge mismatch. The thing is he is a great defender when motivated...perhaps our best with Rob. He can guard 1-4. I worry about his lack of shooting in the long run but hopefully this confidence early on carries into our tougher opponents.

Not to go down this rabbit hole again, but in my opinion Smith's best moments last night, and there were a lot of them, were when IU went small and he was in his more natural forward spot. The offense seemed bogged down, not saying it was because of Smith, when the team went big. 

With all of that said, Smith has been fantastic so far. He's been active, he's playing hard, and he's doing the garbage type of things. He's also really strong in transition and it's helping his game that IU is running more. If we get this Just Smith for the entire season (not saying 24 ppg, but the activity, energy, etc.) then it's going to be a good season!

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3 minutes ago, Billingsley99 said:

My meaningless prediction for scoring 

 

DG 17

JS 13

TJD 10

RP 9

AD 8

JH 13

that is 70 if I can add and no Brunk Davis etc..

Maybe by the end of the season.  No way in hell that Hunter is going to average 13 before January.  I think he gets there eventually, but last night showed that he's got a year's worth of rust to shake off. 

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20 minutes ago, Zlinedavid said:

Maybe by the end of the season.  No way in hell that Hunter is going to average 13 before January.  I think he gets there eventually, but last night showed that he's got a year's worth of rust to shake off. 

You are correct. There will be.nights during the conference schedule that he will lead us in scoring.  That is my prediction heading into the tournament 

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1 minute ago, IU Scott said:

Why would we be in big trouble because I feel if Justin is better than we expected that would be good for the team.

I 100% agree that if he is better than expected thats good for the team.  But, if he is our leading scorer i think that means some of our other players are underperforming that will be more of a focus in our offense.  I think Green (16ish), Al/Smith (15ish) and Rob/TJD (8-12ish) with sprinkles of Hunter/Brunk/Davis/Anderson is about how i would expect things to go.  Thats close to 80 points a game, which i dont expect long term but for the sake of discussion.

Now, if Smith averages 15.5 to whoevers 15.3 ppg, not exactly a concern for me.  But if he is averaging 15 and the next person is averaging 10, i think we will have a rough season because person 2 isnt hitting shots.

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After the game, Justin had this to say-  “It was a goal of mine to really be able to play more aggressive and more consistent on the perimeter, so that’s really what I worked on this offseason and I’m lucky that it’s coming to fruition.”  :coffee:

I agree with BGleas that our best lineup had him at the "4" but that was basically for one run. We'll see how it plays out.

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50 minutes ago, BGleas said:

Not to go down this rabbit hole again, but in my opinion Smith's best moments last night, and there were a lot of them, were when IU went small and he was in his more natural forward spot. The offense seemed bogged down, not saying it was because of Smith, when the team went big. 

With all of that said, Smith has been fantastic so far. He's been active, he's playing hard, and he's doing the garbage type of things. He's also really strong in transition and it's helping his game that IU is running more. If we get this Just Smith for the entire season (not saying 24 ppg, but the activity, energy, etc.) then it's going to be a good season!

Smith was outstanding last night. 

When Green comes back the lineups will shift . And when Hunter gets his games legs and timing going the lineups will shift. And when Rob is fully healthy the lineups will shift. What I really appreciated in last night's game is how we played to our strengths on the current roster/availability/health, and J did exactly what he should do, and did it well.

He was great last night, but I do think there's a fair amount of overreaction here. That little school had no hope out of the gate, they couldn't compete athletically, on shooting, on the glass, from the wing, etc. 

He's not going to lead the team in scoring. He's going to have some big games, I think more consistently, a really good thing. Kid has come out of the gate playing very well.

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Justin and Al both look like the players we need them to be 

If Devonte can indeed be consistent Devonte all season.  These 3 guys will be a force for us. 
 

Team is well positioned for next year as well with Al and Franklin fighting for Devontes starting spot. 
 

If we can add Garcia next years team is going to be Nasty 

Phinisee/Durham/Smith/TJD/Garcia 

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We started both halves with the "big" lineup, including Smith at the 3. Played the first 4-5 minutes of each half that way. After the first substitution in each half, the remainder of the game was played with only two bigs. So Smith did play some 3 last night, but he got most of his minutes at the 4.

I thought Smith played great last night but he didn't do anything to make me believe he's now a perimeter player. He played great D and earned some breakaway dunks, hit the offensive glass, had a couple of nice post ups. He did make one wide open three which was great... he needs that to be effective as an undersized 4.

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1 hour ago, Billingsley99 said:

My meaningless prediction for scoring 

 

DG 17

JS 13

TJD 10

RP 9

AD 8

JH 13

that is 70 if I can add and no Brunk Davis etc..

I think Al D will be a double digit scorer and J Hunter will be a single digit scorer. Just my opinion.....

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You have to change how you think about leading scorer in my opinion.  Is the offense going to run through Smith?  Heck no.  He got most of his points in transition, cutting to the rim, defense to offense, etc.  Those points will be tougher to come by as the competition gets better.

These are the things that Archie said he needed to do -- play to his strengths, and so far he is doing it.  But when the going gets tough and he is forced into a perimeter shooter -- that's when we will really know what kind of path he is on.

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By the way, IMO, just because Justin endured criticism last season at times and is playing better now does not mean the commentary last year wasn’t fair.  He may just be in the process of carrying out significant improvement, as everyone would anticipate.

I think personal attacks on players is off limits. However, if a player doesn’t play hard, doesn’t embody the team principles, and/or goes in selfish/dumb mode, I think respectful discussion with constructive criticism is fair.  I’m not saying Justin did all of those things but I’m making a general statement.  A lot of the IU fan base was brilliantly educated by Coach Knight on what good basketball looks like.  Coach may have been prickly, but when it came time for basketball nuts and bolts, he taught the fan base well and it resonated.  Then you had commentators like Kitchel pointing out errors, and the fan base was imparted with that knowledge   There may have been non-personal criticism but it’s respectful and with an eye toward getting good basketball.  This has just been the culture of Indiana basketball for the last half century, the pursuit of well played basketball following the Indiana mindset.  Sound, smart, tough basketball with enough explosiveness for the kill.  Lamenting the lack of any of those things is merely an extension of how we were taught as fans by one of the greatest and his protégés.

If a player is playing really hard and following the scheme, then we all realize the players are doing their best even if the results aren’t what we want.  We all support the players.  Every single one of us does.  

It’s all water under the bridge now as Justin is maturing.  Regarding the original question, it looked like Western played a loosey goosey offensive scheme, sort of tracking what Crean may want.  That led to a number of breakaways which were gimmes in the stat column.  The real test for Justin will be when we get a good half court defense that really clamps down on us.  However, at the very least, his mindset looks a lot better and he seems to be playing much more confidently, assertively, and decisively.  With his athleticism, those things bode well for Justin against all comers.  

This may deserve its own thread, but the ball movement looks like an order of magnitude better than last year, and that’s beauty to my eyes.  I did not like the stagnation on offense last year.  Kudos to Coach for adapting the scheme rather than stubbornly and blindly sticking to something that didn’t work.  I’m not a fan of using seemingly aimless dribbling to try to catch an advantage.  I’d much prefer less dribbling and more ball movement and screening to get good looks and more foul shots as the defense scrambles to keep up with the ball movement.  

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To be honest, I see a total change in Justin. Not just on the court, but in the post game presser.

He's letting the game come to him, rather than forcing anything, and he's seeing the results. Nothing more rewarding than seeing your hard work pay off.

In the presser, he was asked about if he had worked on the skillset it takes to play the 3. His answer was something to the effect of he would do whatever CAM wanted him to on the floor, call it 1-5. He's bought in all the way in my eyes.

Sometimes who we think we are and who we really are has to be pointed out by someone else. I give CAM a lot of credit there.

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3 hours ago, IUaic said:

Didn't get to see the game, but I will be VERY surprised if Devonte isn't the leading scorer when he returns from injury.

I am not on the Smith bandwagon yet either. It's easy to look good against the cupcakes. He won't have many more games like this, but if he can hold his own consistently in the conference games, then I may have to change my mind. By hold his own I mean around 10 pts., 5 rebs., help keep the offense spaced and moving, and one of the anchors on defense. If Justin can do this in the B1G, then I am a believer.

i am driving the smith bandwagon. did everyone notice that on a breakaway he takes his final dribble at half court and finishes with an effortless flying dunk with his head at the rim? that's some surreal athleticism

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19 minutes ago, coachv said:

i am driving the smith bandwagon. did everyone notice that on a breakaway he takes his final dribble at half court and finishes with an effortless flying dunk with his head at the rim? that's some surreal athleticism

Hanner Parea could do that too :coffee:

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