HoosierDom

You're now allowed to lean in the land and wave your arms when a guy is shooting free throws? Does him slipping make it legal?

And fouled him earlier, but did not foul him on the shot.

He needs to give that ball up. No need for him to be leading a 4 on 2 break.

No. His shot does not look solid. He always misses. Always. He has been playing really well in every other way, but he needs to get it out of his head that he is a shooter. He should be done shooting until at least 2024.

I don't need to bother writing. This is the sum up. Nothing more to say until we beat Louisville tomorrow.

I think we're going to get enough points to win against a good team, but are we going to contest enough 3's to stay close? I don't see any reason to think that we will. The best we can hope for is that we stop some of the egregious over helps (like when MM was guarding the next man over and gave a weak double that put no pressure on the ball handler, or when someone, MM again?, doubled Ware's man in the post rather than let a 7 foot shot blocker take care of a 6'6" guy by himself). But the over helping as a whole is by design. It seems clear that Woody is willing to trade an open 3 for stopping the ball inside. The best we can hope for is a solid close out, and hat seems optimistic - at least for now.

I have a really hard time seeing any argument that includes more time for CJ. If Gunn can't start hitting shots, and he's shown no reason to make us think he can, at some point in the near future Leal needs to start taking his minutes. I say that accepting that Woodson doesn't think Leal is a power 5 player.

We're going to lose 3 starters from this year's team - no expectations next year either? Things like that don't hold anymore. We brought in 2 1st round picks (I guess?) and 2 guys with a lot of college games under their belt (really 3 guys if you consider that we didn't have X for the important part of last year), we should have expectations. Not to say there isn't a learning curve, so it's okay to struggle early.

Do you think Woodson is even aware of the things Dakich says? I would guess I spend more time reading about IU basketball than coach does, and I only know about these things because of this board. Even then, I only know when people properly imbed the tweets, which is 50/50 at best.

If he's missing this one, it looks like he will have plenty of chances to see them play underwhelming basketball.

Isiah in particular doesn't strike me as a guy who would pull any punches. I don't know how often he does interviews, but if he was asked about Dakich, I would strongly suspect he would rip into him. Maybe the Hysterics can find a way to ask him about it.

I don't know. He isn't tall enough to play a stretch 4. He isn't athletic enough to be a 3. If he's going to make the NBA, he needs to be really good at basketball on both ends of the floor. I actually thought his on ball defense was good that first game, so maybe he will be really good, but he has a long way to go. He doesn't have the high ceiling that will get him drafted if he's only pretty good at basketball.

Seems like that would be him taking a pay cut. Especially if he averages 12 and 8, seems like he would get a raise if he stays. Regardless, if I'm Queen, I don't think I care one way lor the other what Reneau does. I do care what Ware does. In theory, Sparks could impact things, but the little bit we've seen thus far doesn't suggest he is going to beat out a 5 star for minutes.

Really that's just saying Ware. I can't imagine Reneau or Sparks going pro. Seems like Queen would play well beside Reneau and I would assume Queen thinks he can beat Sparks for minutes (and he's probably right).

You don't think existing players and available playing time are part of the though process? Seems like you have identified a great reason why he hasn't already signed with MD. Would stand to reason then that he would be looking for a better fit. We may or may not be that.

Seems plausible that he wouldn't want to play alongside Ware, so he wants to see if Ware looks NBA bound. Also might like some reassurance that Woodson can develop bigs who can't jump through the roof.

TJD is getting some extended time right now. Looks pretty good. Got abused by Jokic in the post, but has been mostly solid.

Just got the chance to sit down and finish watching the game. The only thing I have to add is that it really looked like our defensive lapses didn't come from over helping like they did in the exhibitions, it's just that our bigs, outside of Ware, didn't know how/when to switch. We were almost in a match-up zone, but guys just didn't know what they were doing. Walker was probably the worst, but Reneau had his moments, as did MM. I thought they all, Reneau in particular, played D quite well when they were where they were supposed to be. Reneau had one dumb foul when he tried to pressure his guy on the perimeter and got whistled on a bad call when he did a great job forcing his guy into a backcourt violation. I don't see MM getting his points around the rim. He just doesn't have the athleticism to finish those drives when the D is there. He's a jump shooter.

But who has to pick first?

Not that anyone should care, but here are my thoughts. I certainly wasn't watching him the whole game, but Reneau's D seemed lacking. He got burned on the perimeter, was out of position on the post and had 2 specific possessions I remember where he got those stupid De'Ron David type fouls where he just had his arms in a dumb place for no reason and got a ticky-tack whistle. He was his old, patient self on offense, though - hopefully that carries over against better competition. Ware looked like the guy in the MSU/UConn highlights from last year. When he gets the ball in the right spot, there's not much that can be done to stop him. I didn't think MM looked like an athletic slasher/finisher, but he looked smooth with his jumper. For a brief second, I thought Sparks looked like Zion as he went out on the break. Then he basically tripped over himself and got hurt. I'm not sure I will have that thought again. But, man, that spin move in the first half was fast. Not much you can do when a truck spins on you like that. I was hoping against hope that the off-season rumors were legit and Galloway could be a guy that could create offense with the ball in his hand. That did not seem to be the case. I didn't see much from anyone that makes me think we have guys that can just beat their man off the dribble. I'm still hopeful MM can do that.

I can't say I know the ins and outs of how an AD budget is organized, but I do know every time there is a buy-out or a huge contract offered to get a new guy, there are countless articles about booster money. I don't have the time to Google for a source, but they're not hard to find. I would assume that there is a more or less set budget that ADs can't deviate from easily, so if they need money to make a change (as they often do), they need to get it from boosters. The first result I found show that in 2017, before NIL, the average BIG school had over 25 million in athletic department donations. That, presumably, isn't even including special fundraising to move to a new big name guy. https://dbknews.com/2018/07/07/maryland-athletic-department-revenue-big-ten-tv-contract-payout-ticket-sales-donations/ That's the money that will go to kids. Individual schools need obviously have to figure out how that get's divided up between the school and the kids, but I would guess a school that wants to be successful would send as much as possible to the players. That money has been there for years and I can't imagine it drying up. I would guess it will grow now that there is a more direct result on the court (ie. a player comes rather than merely a coach who often doesn't get the job done). If you don't think a school can direct donors to give that money to some collective rather than the athletic department itself, I don't know what to tell you.

Why do people always question the sustainability of NIL, but not coach salaries? If I recall, we had something like 70 million lined up for Stevens to be our coach. Why would the people who were going to provide those funds not cough up money for players? Even if NIL doesn't grow the pool of money (I think it probably does grow it, but that's just a guess), there will still be enough to pay a kid 2 million a year.

Man, that really seems like the perfect definition of a glorified pep rally. Do you honestly think it's a big day for Woody? He's excited for the half-assed scrimmage? The 10,000th dunk contest he's seen? The Gucci Mane concert? Even if he's a fan, a grown man is excited for a 10 minute show? The players are probably excited, they're still new to hype like that, but I promise you it's not a big day for Woody. Maybe Boogie is a fan, maybe Boogie is excited for a glorified pep rally - he's probably never been to one before - so maybe he wants to commit and go. I definitely think that could be the case. But, if Boogie decided on Kentucky last week, he never once tried to time his announcement around our pep rally. It he didn't pick us, our event is no where on his radar. I'm sure Kentucky has a similar event, and Alabama, too, does he have to time his announcement so as not to interfere with those?

I'm not buying that logic. It's a glorified pep-rally, it's not some IU holy day. If he's picking Kentucky, he probably forgot it's even happening.

Help me understand what this guy does. He makes fancy graphics when a guy commits? Does someone pay him for that? Do the players pay for those? If I'm Boogie, assuming I don't want to pay him, why would I tell him in advance where I'm going?