Maedhros

My wife and I do a bracket each March. Whoever wins gets to hang their school's banner for the year. She doesn't follow sports much, and her bracket still beats mine about half the time. 😬

Sports rivalries are and should always be for entertainment purposes only. When I graduated high school and enrolled at IU, just as many of my friends enrolled at Purdue. They didn't stop being my friends, and I still drove to West Lafayette for weekend parties and poker nights. When I met the woman who would become my wife at a concert in Indianapolis, I didn't stop dating her because she graduated from Purdue. That would be silly. Because as soon as you allow a sports rivalry to spill over into any serious aspect of your life, you're doing it wrong. I don't know why you're so hostile to fans of other schools. But their acceptance here speaks to the strength of this board, not its weakness. The hostility you've displayed is excessive, and frankly more than a little bizarre. You realize it's just basketball, right?

Verbal Commits has 1750 names on their transfer list for 2022 alone. A vanishingly small percent of those names are players I've ever heard of. Many names are transferring to or from a school I wouldn't know existed if not for the occasional buy game. Some players don't have a new school listed at all; I presume they are being counted among the 46% not playing basketball next season. The national discourse around the transfer portal focuses on power conference teams, and especially Top 25 teams using up-transfers from smaller schools to reload. But that's only the tip of the transfer iceberg. There are 358 teams in Div I alone, and most transfer activity goes unnoticed.

This post speaks to my concern. Our percentage is obviously pedestrian, but worse than that is our volume. We ranked 321 out of 358 teams in attempts per game, and 319 in percentage of our FG attempts that were from 3. Some of that makes sense when you have an All American down low, but you'd also think the attention on Trayce would create open shots for others. The three point shot wasn't a weapon in our arsenal last season. That's a potential path to victory available to our opponents that we just didn't have. It put us at a disadvantage in most every game, requiring us to be more efficient everywhere else on the court. You can win like that, and we did, but the margin for error becomes so much smaller when your opponent can take and make threes and you can't.

Does anyone know how this works? If I put in an application, do I have the chance to decline when I learn what seats are available to me? Or do they charge me when they find out, and I'm stuck with what I get? I'm interested in going, but don't want to be stuck in the rafters.

That's certainly true of Rivals and 247, but both services only go back to 2003. RSCI started in 1998, with Dane Fife ranked 14. Fife started in just 11 of Indiana's 33 games as a freshman.

Khristian Lander and Tamar Bates were both ranked 25-35 by the various services, not quite as high as JHS in the 17-24 range, but comparable. Before that, to find a top 25-30 RSCI recruit who didn't start as a freshman you'd have to go all the way back to... Dane Fife in '99.

I agree and I don't. It's hard for me to look at the roster - largely identical to the one that finished 9th in the conference and needed a deep BTT run just to earn a play-in bid to the Tournament - and think we're somehow now Big Ten favorites. We have a lot of great pieces, but we also know they don't fit together all that well. For whatever his other faults, Parker Stewart was also our best three point shooter, in both rate and volume. We have a veteran PG, but our experience is otherwise concentrated in the frontcourt. To dramatically improve this team needs someone unproven to step up, freshman or otherwise, and it's an open question as to who that will be. So my expectations for this team are somewhat less than those thinking Big Ten Championship. I'd be thrilled with a top three conference finish and a Sweet Sixteen berth. That would still be arguably be one of the five best seasons of the past 25 years. I do agree last season was uneven, far more middling than the memory created by those last few games (St Marys aside). It's fair to allow a transition season, but last year's results need to be the absolute floor for the Woodson administration going forward, and would be wholly disappointing if repeated. We need to show clear improvement and progress in year two. I think where I disagree is with the idea that we need to set the bar high. I was as vocal a critic of Archie as anyone, pretty much from the jump. But some of the rhetoric used in his defense was not without merit. Woodson in year two is still working around guys he inherited. Talented as those pieces may be, some skills are clearly lacking, or overlap. His own recruits are only just now entering the program; his second class is not yet complete, let alone stacked on the first. Woodson is also working to change a culture, which even fans watching from their living rooms could tell had stagnated over the four years of the previous administration. The problem with the Archie era wasn't that these defenses were false, it's that we never saw any progress toward overcoming these challenges after four years of waiting. Yet some were still willing to give a fifth year, I guess to see what might happen. It feels weird, then, to see calls for results now from Woodson. In no way would a repeat of last season be acceptable. But I don't need a '11-'12 type breakout season either. We have the ceiling for it, sure. It'll be enough for me, though, if I see us improve on the issues and outcomes from last season, establish some consistency, and keep a strong recruiting pipeline flowing into the program. That will be enough to keep my optimism alive, even if we fall short of a Sweet Sixteen.

Sources are saying this move was USC's idea. I think Stanford is far and away the next logical target. Gets into that bay area market, and the Cardinal has more overall NCAA championships than any other university; only USC and UCLA are even close.

UCLA and USC looking to join the Big Ten as recently as 2024. Comes from Jon Wilner on Twitter, and the media folks are saying he's as plugged in as it gets.

Yes, originally from Lincoln High in Ypsilanti, until his dad founded Ypsi Prep for Emoni's senior season.

I thought the name sounded familiar. Drew Adams is the son of Mark Adams, the guy behind A-Hope and the reason Hanner Mosquera-Perea and Peter Jurkin were suspended to start their Indiana careers. Drew was also director of operations briefly at the start of the Crean era, before being hired for the same position at Alford's New Mexico. FWIW.

Very sad news. I know that's a young man who had to overcome a lot of obstacles in his life, and still managed to put some good out into the world and make an impact. Far, far too young.

Recognizing that I lurk more than I post here, but I like the presence of thoughtful and respectful fans from other schools. It's always good to hear an outside perspective. If the poster is meeting those qualifications to stay here it means I can get that perspective without having to sift through all the crazy on one of their own boards. I've never felt there's anything categorically different to being an Indiana fan than of any other school. It's where I went for undergrad. If I'd been raised in Michigan instead of Indiana (a decision that was not mine to make), I'd probably be a Wolverine. I think you can take pride in your program, without any provincial need to be exclusionary or feel superior to others. Even those who take pride in theirs. Sports are better when discussed. It's why we're all here. I don't see any value in shrinking the tent to exclude discussion. Much better to welcome all who participate in good faith. Of course, I'm also married to a Purdue grad, born and raised in Lafayette, so I have practice being on good behavior when hanging with the inlaws. I don't see why this place couldn't be as welcoming of outsiders as they've been with me.

Rivals is updating their top 150 for 2023 this week. The top ten was revealed today. Xavier Booker is all the way up to 2nd overall, behind only GG Jackson. KJ Evans drops out, had been ranked 5th.

I mean, that's the problem with the charge rule in the first place: too reliant on the fallible judgment of an official. Flopping gets rewarded more often than not, and there's no real penalty for the attempt so of course it's become more and more a thing. My preference would be to just ban the charge because officials can't be trusted. Mark Titus had been on this for years. Stop rewarding players who make no attempt at a defensive play. If that's not going to happen, then penalize flopping. Sure, it's still in the hands of an official to make the call, but at least now they have a tool to punish unsuccessful attempts. There's finally some risk to consider, not just reward. It's not a perfect solution, but I think a flopping rule will have a positive effect .

I went to the Indy 500, and bought some Race Day Lager from Daredevil Brewing Speedway specifically for the occasion. Lagers aren't usually my thing unless they're roasted like a Dunkel or have some bite like a Vienna, but this was a good one for the style. My buddy who was drinking Miller Lite ended up taking one of mine and enjoyed it. I packed some Rip Cord as well to be safe, and man that's one of my very favorites. An easy drinking DIPA that's full of flavor.

I agree. Kentucky could duck us because we needed to play them a lot more then they needed to play us. Recognizing that reality, I don't much care where this gets played, just put it back on our schedule. It's what the fans want and elevates our program just by happening, no matter the result.

I have a dream where I'm back living in a dorm, which for me was a double all to myself in Read, in the hub with a personal full bathroom attached. Sweet setup. Only in my dream I know I've graduated. I'm not going to class, even though I've enrolled in classes. And I'm adding debt by way tuition & room and board. Wonder what that dream means...

The stipend was meant to help kids have some money in school. NIL wasn't in the NCAA's plans at all. NIL is the result of state governments telling the NCAA they can no longer prevent athletes from participating in the market. But enforcing that restriction is a large reason why the NCAA exists at all. They needed to respond to affirm their relevance. They did so by relying on the old language of the past. "Booster" isn't a term that has any legal definition outside of what the NCAA conjured up when building its model of amateurism. Why would any legislature consider such a label sufficient to prevent someone contracting with an athlete? These players have value, and it exists well before they step on campus. Think of the crowds following the Ball family around at AAU events, or even Gabe Cupps' massive social media following because he's tight with Lebron. Cupps has nearly 400K followers on Instagram, there's a real market benefit to his representation. That doesn't go away just because someone at the other end of the deal bought a couple bumper stickers back before Gabe was even born. The NCAA needs to wholly reimagine what the college athletics model should be. But it's made them so much money for so long that they'd rather do everything they can to maintain the status quo. NIL has been coming since at least September 2019, when California passed the first state law. Almost three years later, the NCAA is still trying to hold on to all they know.

New article from 247 today, with Travis Branham calling him "arguably the hottest name to start the spring sessions". His AAU team TSF will be at the EYBL even in Westfield this weekend, for those who want to see him in action. Arrinten Page in the midst of a breakout spring

Daisy Cutter is one of my favorites, though I like a good west coast style hoppy bite. Haven't tried the double yet, mainly because it's described as having a grapefruit flavor and that's just personally not a profile I enjoy. I'm with you on Double Two Hearted. The original is so well crafted, but the balance is all off in the double. Here in town there's Daredevil brewing and their flagship Liftoff IPA. It's good, but I like the Rip Cord DIPA even better.

I'm very tired of hearing about the Syracuse game, and there's no reason to use a loss from ten years ago as a guide for building our team going forward. The problem with the Syracuse game is that we've only once had a team that promising since, not that we lost to a top ten KenPom team in the Sweet Sixteen. We should shrug our shoulders and move on. The reason we as a fan base haven't is because there haven't been any other teams on which to pin our hopes for a Final Four. Nijel Pack would be a tremendous addition. He's exactly the scoring punch we could have used last season, and a freshman JHS isn't going to solve that need on his own.

I would guess wanting to play with Trayce was also part of his decision, as well as a desire to be in the same class as his friends Leal and Galloway. But yes, I agree, getting someone as physically unready as Lander to reclass was the short-term act of a coach who felt he needed wins now. The irony is, we probably have the same season without Lander in '21 ... but the promise of a shiny new five-star PG in the incoming class might have been just enough for Archie to keep his job for another year.