Maedhros

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.

If he scores more points, shoots better from 2, 3 and on FTs, grabs more rebounds, creates more assists, records more steals, and has better defensive metrics across the board, then he's probably doing more to help us win.

By just about any measure, Khristian has been better than Rob. His turnover percentage is higher, yes, but then his assist percentage and every shooting percentage is also higher. Lander is a better rebounder, has a better steal percentage. Lander's defensive rating, defensive plus/minus, even his defensive win shares, are all higher as well. There's really just nothing to recommend Rob over Lander as the better player right now; Except that Woodson continues to play Rob as the first backup, of course. Perhaps seniority matters some, and physical maturity. But count me among those who want to see Lander's minutes rise as the season goes on. I'm much more interested in seeing what Lander can become than what we already know Rob to be.

Spot on. I'm 40. I don't remember the '87 team, and because I didn't grow up an Indiana fan I only barely remember the Cheaney teams. I know Bob Knight the bully, not the iconic basketball coach. Mike Davis was the coach when I arrived on campus. All my favorite memories of Indiana basketball, the reasons I'm a fan, are from after the Knight era. I understand why having Knight in the building is a big deal for the Hysterics guys, and for other fans of a certain age. I doubt his presence moves the needle much at all for fans another generation even younger than myself. Whatever excitement I feel for the Mike Woodson era is based on what he is doing right now, and what he might accomplish in the coming seasons. It has nothing to do with Woodson's time as a player. Indiana Basketball needs to be about more than just Bob Knight.

"Deep" doesn't get you very far in college basketball. If you have a bunch of players on your bench you can use without much dropoff in production, it means you don't have many studs in the starting lineup. I'd much rather have four or five guys we knew for sure would be starting. Instead, it's Trayce and four question marks. My hope is that some of these guys are question marks only because they're new to the program. That they'll prove to be studs in their new setting. If it doesn't happen this year, then it needs to happen in the coming years with more guys like Bates, Hood-Schifino and Newton. We need to upgrade the talent in this program. As we transition from the Archie era to the Woodson era, I want to read discussions about our potential multiple All-Americans, not whether we might be ten or twelve deep.

Maybe in the past. I like what Woodson's done so far but Oats was my top choice to replace Archie. I love his style, and with those football resources all they're lacking is the will to win at basketball. Can't blame Clowney at all for his decision. Now I just need to see how Woodson responds, to fill that need on the roster.

Joc Pederson comes up clutch against the Astros. Eddie Rosario is NLCS MVP. Jorge Soler is World Series MVP. And gave up almost nothing for those guys. What a trade deadline achievement.

6 IP, 0 R, 0 BB, all after getting his ankle stepped on in the first. What a performance. He's an ace.

Max Fried was incredible. Tyler Matzek was incredible, as he had been all postseason. And my Braves are World Series Champions for the first time since 1995, when I was just 13. I'm now nearly 40. What a ride.

Speaking of piling on, it's amazing we're still blaming players for Archie's failures. Al Durham was never coached by Tom Crean. Archie Miller was his coach for four years. Maybe the claim is that low IQ is endemic, and Archie did the best he could with a player he would never have recruited? If so, it's remarkably poor timing to be making that claim after Al had a great performance in his first appearance under a different coach. Even granting your premise, Al played the second most minutes on the team last season, behind only Trayce. As a junior, he saw more minutes than any other guard, and was behind behind only Trayce and Justin Smith. So either Archie couldn't see that Al Durham was low IQ, or he was never able to add a better guard to the roster to replace this leftover Crean recruit. Either way, yeah, it was Archie's fault.