BobSaccamanno

This is just to stir it up. Jake LaRavia went to Indiana State and just killed it. He averaged about 10 and 6 boards, and can also shoot (37-38% from 3) at 6'8. He is a very good player. If he wants to try a bigger conference and stage, I would be very interested. He would have three years. He kind of blew up last spring. If he stays at ISU, he will probably crush it in the MoVal.

Regarding Yogi, I have always considered Fred Van Fleet to be a peer. They were in the same class, or close to it. Very comparable talents, IMO. Van Fleet plays critical minutes for a top team. So much of professional sports is simple opportunity and being in the right place at the right time.

I think this summer will be interesting. If some of the 2021 guys are too finicky, I could see Archie pulling the trigger on some of his other options. I doubt he would want to be left in the lurch like with what happened with Ketchup boy. I bet we will have a really good idea of our class by Labor Day, with maybe one open spot for the Fall. Knight was pretty decisive. If he thought you were wishy washy he was liable to move on unless you were extremely worth the wait. I won’t be surprised to see Archie take a page out of that book after getting burned before.

My favorite part of that article was hearing the reference to a relentless motor. If Brian Snow’s theory that Furst and Kaufman don’t want to play together in college is true—and there is still plenty of time for that to change (if it’s even true)—then it’s wise for Archie to try to pair Duncomb with one of them. It looks like Archie is working pretty hard on Duncomb. We are all free to interpret that as we wish. Archie looks like he wants a big, tough, hard nosed team that will be tough on the boards, play tough D, and run when they can off the D. It seems to aspire to be reminiscent of how Izzo’s teams were set up when he was in his prime.

He may be top 75 right now but he’s got two full seasons before it’s decided. I have seen wild swings in baseball player rankings due to the nature of the game. Regardless, I’m excited for this talented young man as he has a bright future and am excited about what coach mercer is doing on the recruiting front.

I think most high schoolers commit to a school even if they are going high in the draft. You commit and then figure out whether you will ever go to college or entertain the pros. So, the typical star player will have both be drafted and have a college commitment and they have a choice to make. If you are a first round pick, you can be looking at multiple millions guaranteed. I think top ten picks get upwards of $4-5 million. With that much money on the table, some of the high schoolers go start their baseball career in the minors because it’s a bird in the hand. Some guys just tell the scouts “look I’m going to college.” Inevitably they will fall in the draft if they make it known they aren’t leaving college. Schools like Vandy, Stanford, etc sometimes can get the really hot high schoolers to stay in school. Even still, the draft is so long, like 40 rounds, guys get drafted anyway, just insanely late. Probably the number one prospect in baseball right now is a kid named Gavin Lux, on the Dodgers. He came out of Kenosha, Wisconsin as a shortstop four years ago. He had committed to Arizona State. But, the Dodgers took him in the first round and he bid adieu to Arizona State. He’s already a major leaguer. But, if he told scouts, I’m sticking with ASU no matter what, he probably wouldn’t have gone in the first. Another technique is to leverage college by telling the scouts, I want to be picked in the top ten, or I will want $4 million. If I don’t get that amount of money, I’m sticking with college. A team could call his bluff and take him and offer him $3 million and see if he’s serious. It’s tricky because there are complex rules on how much money teams can spend on their draft class. There’s a calculation based on the number of draft picks and how high the picks are. But star high schoolers often have a number they want, or else, college it is. But teams only have so much money to pay their whole draft class so it prevents them from just opening up the checkbook on a bunch of players. If you go over, the league would yank your number one pick the next year, which I don’t think has ever happened. Teams know their budget to the penny. Many high schoolers only think of college as a backup plan. They will go to the minors even if they are picked in the 14th round and the money is tiny. They just want to play in the minors and get going. It depends on the kid. But’s even there they would have a college commitment in case of a major problem like an injury that hurts their draft status. The baseball draft is really complicated with a whole series of factors beyond just taking the best player.

I wonder where he’s pegged to go in the MLB draft out of high school? If he’s a first rounder, he might be tough to get to campus unless he is determined to go to school. Normally if a kid puts the word out he’s going to college, period, the mlb teams simply won’t take him high. If he slips, the way the money works in baseball you can’t really get away with paying a later pick exorbitantly high money. So, if he’s, say, a top round talent, is he willing to forego college for what would be millions in a signing bonus? This could be interesting.

Interesting. Did his dad play sports?

I see pictures of a Knight like that, and it’s like seeing a relative. Maybe an older uncle who lives far away and you haven’t seen him in forever but once knew him day to day.

I'd compare shooting with accuracy in a quarterback. It's tough to take an inaccurate college quarterback and turn him into Joe Montana. If I am looking at a QB, the first trait that's essential to me is accuracy. It's generally the trait that excludes some guys from greatness unless they have some overwhelming other attribute, which is rare. Similarly, if a young guy is a bricklayer--clang, clang--it's hard for them to become consistent shooters. Not that it never happens, but it's atypical. There tends to be a variance.

https://people.com/tv/the-masked-singer-victor-oladipo-hopes-take-nicole-scherzinger-on-a-date-near-future/

Excellent post, Billingsley. I know you are dialed-in to the process really well. I was tuned into the program pretty solidly at one point but have no information now. But, between my prior connections and, having followed recruiting to the 1980's--pre-internet, I have a good understanding of the process and how it really works. My take is that we see lots of pronouncements and they do not ring true from how things really work. I don't know that there is a subject where people bat so poorly as it is with recruiting pronouncements at any point in the process, let alone 12-18 months from a decision. The bottom line is that, until a decision is not made, it's not made yet. It's that simple. Promises and guarantees from some "player's classmate's, auntie's plumber who went to the same Church in the fifth grade with a guy who once talked to a player's dad at Kroger" isn't going to cut it. That's how "conventional wisdom" builds and everyone is so off. In reality, the kid doesn't know yet because a decision hasn't been made. The other tell is when there is a guy who thinks he is well connected on every subject. That's not real. There are issues where you have varying degrees of knowledge, but nobody knows everything about everything. That's not how it works. Call B.S. on anybody who plays that card.

I'm not sure where all the alarmist rhetoric is coming from? Because a kid (allegedly) had a Michigan poster on his wall when he was 12? Really? Unless he is playing us for clicks, Brian Snow thinks we are right in there at the top with Lander ("IU and Louisville, maybe Michigan"), Kaufman, and Wesley. He's hardly bullish on anything related to IU in general. He lives in Indiana and has a chip on his shoulder about the IU fan base. I guess familiarity breeds contempt.

Geez the Bucks exposed the Clippers tonight, who had a full complement of players. Giannis looks like he’s on track for a second straight MVP with no end in sight, although Doncic has also been spectacular albeit without the same level of team results. After the 20-3 Bucks— the class of the East and maybe the league—it’s fascinating to see the cluster of similar teams when you look at Philly, Boston, Miami and especially Toronto who’s probably the second best team in the East in the end. Nick Nurse is obviously terrific and those guys play smart, gritty ball that wins at a high frequency. You couldn’t ask for a better spot for OG other than having to live in a foreign country. Toronto is a nice city, but I’d be annoyed not living in the US. There are a lot of teams bunched there who seem interchangeable but any of them beating the Bucks in a series is hard to envision. LeBron v Giannis in June could be interesting.

Karlaftis is very impressive. He’s a physical specimen. Probably a top ten NFL draft pick. It’d be nice to get Strickland if he’s that type of talent.

Who else is in the picture?

Ostrom*

That video was excellent. I have been a sports nut since I was probably 7 years old. In that time, I love most sports, especially basketball, football and baseball. But, in over four decades of being a fan, the single biggest influence I’ve ever had in my view of sports is that guy right there. Regardless of the sport, my point of view was influenced by him, to me the greatest coach of them all. The Hoosier Hysterics guys deserve every ounce of glory and credit they get. Their work has truly been outstanding.

This makes my day!

Couldn’t IU essentially have a marketing coordinator the way football staffs have recruiting coordinators? The marketing coordinator would essentially line up sponsorship opportunities for IU players from businesses such as grocery stores, car dealerships, clothing lines. Maybe the shoe guys would be involved. For those who don’t like the new laws, we have to deal with the laws we have, not the ones we want. Louisville, Arizona, Kansas etc probably already have task forces set up on how to operate under the new regime. The rules aren’t final, but you can still start thinking about what you will do under the general premise. IU has too much fan interest and marketing expertise to not optimize its advantage.

That draft did not meet the hype. You had Wiggins first, then Jabari Parker, then Embiid. Embiid has turned out to be fantastic. But, the other two were so hyped and have not met expectations. I recall that the draft that year was especially lauded for having the franchise player level talent. Wiggins is erratic and plays inefficient, losing basketball. Parker was literally on the cover of SI in high school. His recruitment was a frenzy. To be fair, Parker may have been robbed by two knee injuries. But, if we are being fair, he doesn’t play winning basketball either. From what I’ve seen of him, he is awful on defense and he can’t shoot with range. He’s on his fourth team. Really, at Duke, he bombed there too and the defensive bugaboo reared it’s head then. What really annoyed me about Parker was a quote where he said something to the effect that he didn’t need to expend energy on defense since that’s what he and other scorers do. And that was maybe two years ago. That’s toxic. I hate to call him Michael Beasley since that’s a terrible insult and Beasley is a full on head case. The moral is you never know what you’re getting when your team tanks. That particular draft was supposed to have two saviors in it and it hasn’t materialized.

I’d put Toronto in the underrated category. Yes, they lost Leonard but Siakam can be a good alpha player for them. Philly is getting lots of love in the East. They will be a factor but I’d have to question their ability to space the floor and shoot in today’s game.

One thing about Sabonis. Good player but he's in the ideal situation for him. His style of player may not be optimized everywhere. You see it all the time, players underestimate the good situation they were in, go elsewhere, and fall off.

I agree with your stance. Overall, I am on board with the view that we should have a nucleus of 3-4 year players. This requires class balance and experience year after year. You'd have a lot of players ranked, say, 40-200. These would be four stars and high three star players. The three star types would have certain attributes that earn them the IU slot, perhaps it's their motor, makeup, leadership, defense, size, smarts, etc. Something that makes them "Indiana" players. However, there are transformative in-state talents like Romeo Langford that you have to try to get. He is an Indiana legend, and aside from just on the court talent, he's the type of kid you try to land. He transcends the on-the-court product. And he can be a valuable piece on a good team, if he has veterans who know how to play around him. Romeo was a team player all the way. He would have fit in very nicely with a veteran, smart, experienced group.

Unlike Bracey Wright and Noah Vonleh, Romeo has embraced IU and obviously is spending time in Bloomington. And he's visibly helping the program by helping with recruiting. And he's an Indiana legend who took all that in. As a player, if you look at his stats, he put up some good numbers while having tons of problems around him. This was with an injured wrist and without forcing up shots like Bracey. And he played hurt unlike Vonleh. If anything, I wished we empowered him more. I see a lot of distinctions between Romeo on one hand and Vonleh and Wright (two of my least favorite IU players).