HoosierDom

In my 35 or so years of being a college basketball fan, I've never seen a player coming out of school that was more of a sure-fire all-star than Carmelo was. Darko's ceiling was Melo's floor. Darko's floor was what we saw. Unbelievable that Joe D. made that pick.

While fixing our shooting was my number 1 hope from last year, I think we can fix our offense even without shooting. X was the only guy on the team that could make something happen with the ball in his hands. No one else could move downhill and make defenses scramble. That's why having Galloway out hurt us so much - not so much because he was great at it, but no one else could do it at all. Now with X stepping up the last 12ish games, Galloway hopefully being healthy and JHS looking to start, and maybe even Bates, I think that's a strength of the team. Seems to me that if you can't shoot, you need to aggressively attack, and we couldn't do either. Hopefully, now we can at least do one.

Only if we lose.

If I ever heard my 7 year old acting like this, I would be deeply disappointed in him and the job I have done raising him. I'm assuming you're older than 7.

I don't get this talk of future expansion. USC and UCLA bring LA and thus grow the pie by more than they themselves eat. I don't think that can be said about very many remaining teams that aren't in the BIG or SEC. So why grow beyond that? The only potential answer I can see is if they plan to team up with the SEC and squeeze everyone else out of the playoff. If they do that, then there is a certain logic to 20 (though I don't know that it's necessary), but if they are just going to dominate the playoff and not squeeze out the others by rule, why do we want to be bigger? I don't see it.

I haven't read through all of the other thread, but I think people are underestimating our value to a football super-conference. We have the 2nd biggest alumni network in the country, and we provide a predictable win for the big name teams. Michigan doesn't want 12 hard games every year, even Ohio St. doesn't want that. It's easy to look at the results on the field and say we're not a top 50 program, but that doesn't show our value to a super-conference. We could certainly improve on things, but it seems very unlikely that we end up on the outside of any football driven changes.

This board can be overrun by tangents - most of which are thoroughly uninteresting to me - so I have a hard time complaining about people talking about basketball. I know of 3 outside fans that come here often and they're never childish about it, so this fan of IU and fan of basketball welcomes them.

If he didn't learn his lesson from being out NIL'ed he could have.

You could be right. But, it's clear he lost out on the kid he actually wanted (and probably thought he had wrapped up), so now he might be desperate. He wasn't left with many options after that kid picked Miami.

Never heard of the kid before this thread, but strikes me as odd that his points per minute were so high, yet they still didn't put him on the court for even 20 minutes a game - and that's on a bad team. I would assume that means he can't play defense.

I can't say I follow them closely enough to have a strong opinion, but until proven otherwise, I think Underwood is a garbage coach. I always think of our Romeo/Morgan year. The BIG had figured us out: pack the lane and watch us lose. The fact that it took coaches so long to piece that together speaks to how bad college coaches are at strategy and in-game coaching, but that's a topic for another day. Despite that clear game plan for beating us, Underwood pressured us all day and we picked them apart. I guess if I was an Illinois fan I would say that their season was lost, so they might as well practice playing the way they want to play, but to not make adjustments to get your struggling team a win, strikes me as the move of a bad coach. Obviously, their tournament results have only strengthened my take.

Didn't his comments a year ago pretty strongly suggest last year was it for him? I think any comments he has made are made in the hope that he will improve his draft status. If he doesn't he is left deciding between being a hero making half a million at IU and being a no name player on a no name team making 40k in the G-League. If that's what he faces, I don't see how he leaves.

If he had an NBA contract, then going to G-League wouldn't be a pay cut. My position is he won't leave for a pay cut. He didn't this year and he won't next year. So, unless his draft stock improves, he stays.

I don't buy it. No one would leave a year of eligibility on the table and go to the G-League for a pay cut. If he's told the same thing next year, I don't see why his criteria for leaving would be any different next year than it was this year.

Generally I agree with you, but we all know what X did, or at least the rough outline of what he did, so I heard TJD's statements as supportive. Specifics about Chicago would be a bit more out of line, but this was already out there. His statements were probably more off the cuff than this, but another interpretation would be, "I'm pissed at X and I have no problem calling him out a bit in public."

I disagree, but that's not my actual point. My real point is that refs wouldn't let kids be that physical 30 years ago. It's a lot harder to hit a 12 footer when you're bumped hard on your way to your spot.

I love a good mid-range jumper, but if you're looking at points scored in the past and comparing that to now, you have to account for the changed officiating. The kind of physical defense kids play today wasn't allowed back then. I would also argue overall defense is just better now, but I concede that is up for interpretation.

I guess I don't know how it works now. How much money are they sharing with them?

Where is this talk of the power conferences breaking from the NCAA coming from? My understanding of the issue was that there was talk of this a few years ago because they wanted to be able to pay players and be free from the murky area created by NCAA rules and lack of enforcement that made it very hard not to cheat. Now that is less of a concern, so seems the the impetus to break away is gone. Why is this coming up now?

I believe you're correct, but I think the point was no one on our team is in it, so there's no room for Dennis and not much time to make room.

What if those top 50 players all went to the MAC (I think that still exists, right?)? Don't think the fans would care if their Blue Devils consistently get stomped by Buffalo?

Right, that's why I put "cut" in quotes. To emphasize it needs to be in proportion to the amount being raised overall. In the old system, it was not. Again, you seem to be ignoring what I said. I made reference to "rotation players" being valuable. But, more importantly, no one is saying everyone has to be paid: merely that anyone can be paid if someone else thinks he is worthwhile to pay. Schools don't have to pay, neither do boosters or businesses, but all three groups have long wanted to be able to. Players want to be paid. The old rules said that two parties cannot do what they both want even though one party, and plenty of outside parties, are making boat-loads of money. That's just wrong. If you make a lot of money off someone else, you pay them.

Winning is what brings in the big money.

That's not a "cut" - basketball and football bring in millions of dollars, benefits worth 30k do not count as a cut. I'm not sure which kids you are talking about when you say they "weren't the reason" for schools making money. If you mean volleyball players, then of course you're right. If you mean any other rotation player in basketball and football, then they contribute to the team winning and that's where the money comes from. You seem to be pointing to the idea that, under the old system, kids chose to come play anyway. But, you are ignoring the fact that, under the new system, people (whoever they may be) choose to pay. A system that pays the people who do the work with money that was always there seems way better than one that says they can't receive money even though people want to pay them.

You're answering your own question. That's how they were supposed to stop it. That said, I don't see any reason not to like the way things are. We will see what happens in the future, but I've got no problem with the fact that the guys who go out and win games get a chunk of the money.