iuswingman

10 minutes ago, OGIUAndy said:

Seems like the initial post wasn't really that all those guys were better, more like they were "replaced" by? 

I get that.  Was only saying that Mgbako was already on the team and his deciding to return likely had nothing to do with Liam not coming.

Rest of my post was just my opinion on the replacements.

11 minutes ago, Hoosierdave said:

Funny how things work out

Fland-> Rice

Queen-> Ballo

McNeeley-> MgBako & Tucker 

Obviously fingers crossed more on the way! 

Not sure I would include Mgbako in that comparison.  He would have had his scholarship regardless of McNeeley.  

Rice is probably better than Fland in the short term but hard to say long term.

Ballo is better than Queen but only have him for a year.

Tucker is supposedly not as good shooting from outside but probably a better defender.

We did pretty good after losing out on all the recruits we thought could get.

It would be funny if everyone started venmoing a recruit $1 bills lol 

Of course, they might not see the humor other than enjoying getting the cash.

28 minutes ago, KDB said:

He isn't visiting Arkansas. He's ours. We should see that officially very soon.

So the $10 worked....

Bidding war?

2 minutes ago, Hoosier987 said:

Ballo will visit Arkansas 

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

24 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

I don't blame him at all but for IU if we wait another 10 or so days then we could lose our on all the big men

woohoo lol

It was probably impossible to keep 5 QBs happy and Broc seemed the obvious choice based on ranking among those already on campus.

Reports of Cherry's arm strength not being very good is concerning as far as him living up to the hype but he has obviously gotten himself to 3rd on the depth chart.

Then we are going after the top rated QB in the next 2 classes.   Long shots still but can't say Cigs isn't swinging for the fences.

12 minutes ago, HoosierDPU95 said:

This probably should go in a different thread but I'm not sure which one. The term "shooter" has come up a lot in this thread though so I'll post here. What are folks thinking with statements like "he's not a shooter" or "we need shooters"?

Are folks wanting/expecting someone like Hulls where the player has one job and that is to knock down 3's at a +40% with defense, rebounding, driving the ball, etc. being optional?

or

Are folks wanting/expecting someone like Mark Sears that shoots +50% from the field +40% from 3, +80% from the line and can also kill you off the dribble, play D and rebound?

or

Are folks wanting/expecting something in between?

I'm not making a case one way or the other for what "shooter" should mean here, I'm just trying to understand what other's are wanting/expecting.

I think probably wanting the 3 and d player.  Someone that can be deadly from outside and play defense at the minimum.

Of course, being awesome in other areas would be a bonus.

2 minutes ago, btownqb said:

For sure. Now-- give yourself actual opportunities to play 3 guards for long stretches/medium stretches, as well as, have MM at the 4, at times. 
 

When your roster is--- hurt XJ/stupid XJ, Cupps, Gunn, hurt Newton, open scholly, Leal--- then factor in other injuries, poor play, foul trouble... It just doesn't leave you the ability to play 3 guards all that much. Frustrating. 

hence the many complaints about not going after more guards and leaving a scholarship open.

And even after running a smaller lineup with mediocre guards worked better, Woodson doubled down on pretending his buddy ball in the post system was the way to go moving forward.

45 minutes ago, Tom White said:

Kinda glad coaches don't always listen to fan suggestions on what to do.

Most of the those suggestions seem pretty good.  When Woodson actually had smaller lineups at times, they actually performed better during those stretches.

1 hour ago, btownqb said:

Who the deuce are they paying a million bucks to? 

Who knew his name image and likeness was worth that much

If we get him, thank the donor rather than Woodson 

https://n.rivals.com/content/athletes/travares-daniels-297602?view=pv

https://x.com/HowlandTrenten/status/1778846383216185463

4 minutes ago, btownqb said:

I'm not sure what TJD, Kopp, and JHS have to do with this though. 

Kopp was used correctly, I hate to break it to everyone.  He was inefficient as shit at NW when given the opportunity to have offense ran through him. 

We played two PGs who don't shoot 3s last year... we are (probably) adding two PGs who shoot considerably more 3s than what we played last year. Seems simple. 

We should be better from outside and may shoot a few more per game but I don't think you can just add how many players shot on other teams and assume they will get the same number of looks in our system.

1 minute ago, btownqb said:

@kyhoosier29 last season--- XJ Cupps TG Malik Ware MM and Leal combined to shoot 14.4 3s per game.... specifically XJ+Cupps combined to shoot 2.7 3s per game. 

Rice+Carlyle shot 8 3s per game just by themselves. So... taking out Cupps+XJ and inserting Rice+KC would move that grouping to 19.7 3s per game.... 

Now.. we will lose Ware's 1.3 3 attempts per game... I think adding a Hickman, improvements from Malik+MM could make that "3 point number" more like 21-22 attempts a game. That moves us to the middle of the road in 3pt attempts per game. 🙏

Of course, that assumes the new players can maintain their shots per game in our system of post first.  

6 minutes ago, btownqb said:

Payne's visit starts today. I like him too. 

Wonder if we would try pull in both Payne and Ballo or if it is 1 or the other.

I'm hoping for Rice, Carlyle, Conwell, Ballo or Payne

8 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

How about if we get Rice, Carlyle, Ballo, Hickman and another stretch for type of players.  Plus we also got Tucker this spring as well. Which off season would be better.

Rice, Carlyle, Ballo, Hickman, Tucker

MM, Ware, Cupps, Newton

 

Ranking

1) Ware

2) Rice

3) MM

4) Ballo

5) Carlyle

6) Tucker (if he stays for a while, he has a ton of potential to be higher)

7) Hickman (probably higher if factoring in need)

8 ) Cupps

9) Newton (only because we haven't seen anything)

Overall this offseason would be better simply because it addressed the positions more evenly.

2 minutes ago, IUProfessor said:

I really don't mean to be a buzzkill, so I'll leave it here. But there hasn't been a year in recent memory where the on court results matched the pre-season hype for IU. All I'm saying is that I see no reason to believe next year will be any different. Yes, there was a talent deficiency last year in the backcourt, but the higger issue is a schematic deficiency that isn't going away.

Again, happy to be proven wrong in time. But I don't think I will be.

We are as good at hyping as most fanbases.  Definitely haven't been living up to that hype.

We are stuck with Woodson so I am right there with you on not being too optimistic about this upcoming season.    

On 4/12/2024 at 10:42 AM, btownqb said:

I don't think Malik is a "low post" offense guy, I think there are multiple facets to his game, especially moving forward.. Ballo doesn't get his points in the same way that Ware did. I also only see those two playing 30mpg tops.. still ways to have multiple lineups throughout the game. 

Conwell, playing in the MVC, is more proven than Rice, the Pac 12 FR of the year? Ehhh. 

Furthermore, Carlyle's FR numbers, against significantly better competition dwarfed Conwell's FR numbers. 

If it was me, I would roughly do the following

MM at the 4, MR at the 5 for 10 minutes

MM at the 4, Ballo at the 5 for 10 minutes

MR at the 4, Ballo at the 5 for 20 minutes

MM would then get stuck out of position at the 3 for maybe 10 minutes or so and Tucker and someone else could play the remaining 30 minutes at the 3.

10 minutes ago, IUProfessor said:

I don't think Rice-Carlyle-Ballo is a better infusion of talent than Mgbako and Ware were last year, and look how that ended.

It's hard to make a good lineup with MR being a tweener between 4 and 5.  The issue wasn't with adding Mgbako and Ware though.

The biggest issue was Woodson completely whiffed on adding any starting level guards and we went into the season with wild thing XJ and Gallo as our best guards.

3 minutes ago, IUProfessor said:

I agree playmakers are important. But while I hate to rain on the parade, a starting lineup with Reneau and Ballo, and only one proven shooter in Mbgako, won't correct the offensive issues IU has had the last few years. Issues which derive from the scheme Woodson insists on playing.

And none of this even begins to address the defensive end, which, per advanced metrics, has dropped considerably each year of Woodson's tenure.

Every year people get excited about an infusion of talent this time of year, only to be deeply disappointed come January or February. Not sure Rice/Carlyle/Ballo meaningfully changes that.

I agree buddy ball limits our offense but no one here is advocating for not adding any shooters and leaving it to just Mgbako.

Mgbako got brought up when someone said we didn't have any shooters.  

We hopefully will get a least 1 quality shooter that is in the high 30s or better percentage.

2 minutes ago, DC2345 said:

per Tony Ardagna this is good info for everyone to remember. 

Shooting is fun & all, but you need creators for most knockdown shooters to even matter. Carlyle & Rice are both high-level creators.

They will greatly help overall offensive movement. Spacing could be a lot better with just a little bit of an improvement from those two and their ability to shoot the 3. 

how are Rice and Carlyle with on the ball defense?

Our defense stunk it up when Xavier wasn't playing or wasn't getting after it.   We are just as a sparse on players that can pressure the ball as we are with outside shooting.

1 minute ago, kyhoosier29 said:

I’m tired of relying on guys that haven’t proven to be consistent. We need the sure thing…. get a couple proven shooters please. I’m hesitant on MM bc if he can’t play D, or rebound at a high rate from the 3-4 he can be more of a liability. I’m not willing to sacrifice those things for his 4.9 attempts per game. And just no on Gallo. Love everything else about him, but no. JMO. 

More 3 point shooters isn't going to fix Woodson's buddy ball crap in the post that puts MM at 3 when he should be a 4.

I agree we need another outside shooter but finding the next Matt Roth or other 3 point specialist to sit the bench isn't really going to solve much.

1 minute ago, kyhoosier29 said:

Wrong for not trusting MM to be a knock down shooter like we need? 

No one was saying he would be the only 3 point shooter but he is pretty good

Rice was over 30% 3 pt shooter until a very bad stretch to end the season.   I don't know why he stunk it up from outside to end the season but I don't think he is as bad of a shooter as his season percentage would suggest.

Galloway was a good shooter the year before last.  Needs to figure out what went wrong.

We definitely need another good shooter but our team isn't completely devoid.