IndyResident16

Kenya Hunter and Brian Walsh.

Put me on ignore then Scott and don't respond to me like you said you would 4 different times now. Don't talk about it, be about it.

I held season tickets from 1988 to 2016. I'll do whatever the hell I please.

lol

Oh I'm far past that point. Turning off games at half time have become the norm the last 10 or so years.

I don't know how you have effectively watched Indiana basketball for the last two plus decades and how you can't do anything but overreact at this point? I don't know about you, but there was a time in my life when Indiana was at the pinnacle of college basketball. IU routinely had some of the best backcourts not just in the Big Ten but in the entire country. I get a general level of apathy has set in for some of the fan base and have a strong feeling I'm discoursing with several posters who have no clue what its like to see Indiana as an elite basketball program, but I will never lower my standards and accept the mediocrity that has plagued this one proud program.

I’m saying our overall guard/wing play has been bad the last several years, which isn’t inaccurate at all. Yes IU has had some good individual guard play over the years, but the overall quality of guard play has been severely lacking. Not sure how you can watch a team like UConn, Kansas, Miami, Etc and be like, “yeah our guards matchup with theirs”. Two out of the three assistant’s were initially brought to Indiana by Archie. Totally relevant. JHS plays much better with the ball in his hand than without and greatly benefitted from Xavier’s injury. He’s a first round pick because of it. The staff either catastrophically failed to develop Tamar or just severely misidentified his talent level. Either way, Tamar was a disaster here and vastly overrated. Staff has done nothing to address the glaring problem in the backcourt and won’t have a NPOY candidate in the front court to bail them out.

We've had an All-conference big in 6 straight seasons (Juwan Morgan x2 and TJD x4). What else would you blame it on? Al Durham averaging 10 points on 9 shot attempts at the tune of 38% and Devonte Green 11 points on 10 shot attempts is in fact flat terrible. Actually, it's arguably worse than terrible. It certainly isn't impressive.

Good lord I said the 2 and 3 spots; Galloway (2) + Kopp (3) total equals 14 pts. JHS played point guard during the conference season. You may be able to add but you certainly can't read. The rest of your post is just nonsense. Arguing in a time frame where IU missed the tournament in 4 out of 5 times to try and justify a productive backcourt is just flat nonsense. Romeo be damned, the rest of IU's guards during the Archie Miller era were flat terrible.

You thought our overall guard play was good last year? It was a massive weakness. We got 14 points combined out of the 2-3 spots and Bates was literally non-existent the last 15 or so games.

Lol. Thanks for letting me know that you're the most fragile poster on the board. I'll miss you not reading my future posts....

Glad you can differentiate between individual and collective play. JHS was terrific individually for us in spurts last year and yet we still lost by 20 points in the second round. Yogi, Romeo, JBJ, JHS have all had some terrific individual play for us in the last several seasons, but overall our guard play has stunk. Missed tourney's in 5/7 seasons back that up.

I've not given up on them but they're underclassmen with minimal experience and not who you should have in place if your goal is to compete for a conference title. Asking Banks and Gunn to go from end of bench rotation minutes to 25-30mpg solid rotation pieces is a massive ask and something they may not be ready for. I mean clearly the coaching staff was planning on adding additional help considering all the wing players they targeted in the portal. It very well could happen that one of those guys makes a major leap and plays consistently the entire year. But at the same time it's also a very real possibility that none of them make significant jumps and can't be counted on night in and night out and the teams success suffers from it. Is that really the gamble you want to take here? IU simply cannot afford another .500 type year in Woody's first year with his players. Too much a stake with the 24 and 25 recruiting classes to lay an egg next season.

If you've watched IU for the better part of this decade you would understand the need for quality guards. Our overall guard play has been terrible the last 5-6 years. The staff has done nothing to address that in the portal this offseason. We've literally been carried (and not very far) by a generational talent the last two years who is no longer on the roster. I cannot be the only person on this board who sees that right?

I've been talking about the need of adding perimeter scoring ever since Ledlum committed to Tennessee. Ware and Sparks don't factor into that equation. I can't help you there.

Scott—you’re literally not reading my posts. I’m not talking about Sparks and Ware. I’m talking about the most glaring weakness on our roster; perimeter scoring. We’ve whiffed on literally every guard/wing that we’ve offered. We have 3 open scholarships and nearly 60 minutes a game to offer. We haven’t landed one guy. Not sure how you don’t see that is concerning?

There is a zero percent chance Ware is a better center than Hunter Dickinson. Higher upside? Maybe, but he’s nowhere close to the collegiate player that Dickinson is. His portal ranking is purely based on potential. And there’s nothing wrong with adding Ware. He’s a position of need. But we still have 3 open scholarships, no reliable or proven wing scoring options, and have whiffed on every single target we’ve offered. Forgive me for reading the tea leaves on this one.

I'm clearly addressing the need for a wing scorer, the most obvious glaring weakness on the roster heading into next year. But you knew that already.

Clearly the staff has identified (several) of those types from all levels of play. The problem is that staff has whiffed on every single one of them. The staff seems to be selective in who they contact and while that is refreshing based on some of the previous regimes, it doesn't matter in the end if they go elsewhere. I know everyone keeps saying May 11th, but that level of player is dwindling by the day. There's going to be more and more competition for that level of player as the portal window nears closing. Based on the staffs track record to date, the competition hasn't been friendly.

Well I would hope not. There's a massive gap between the Priller's and April's of the world and competent D1 basketball players. Not sure competent at this point really moves the needle. We needed a stud (or two) wing scorer from the portal. I'm not holding my breath at this stage.

I'm actually closer to a 3.5. While this stuff used to really bother me when I was younger and more invested, apathy is real and it has come to be the norm here at Indiana. We've been far too mediocre and far too irrelevant for too long to expect anything different until something actually happens. Preseason rankings, preseason hype these days...well that's all it is.

Not infatuated with ratings/rankings at all. Just dudes who can come in and contribute at a high level right away. That level of player is dwindling by the day.

Lol. I fully expect a few transfers to pop here in the next couple weeks. We won't go into the season with 10 scholarship players, that I'm sure. My worry, and it definitely isn't without a merit, is that we're at the point where we're going to be adding tier 3 and tier 4 guys just to fill the roster. That isn't a recipe for success. We've whiffed on too many primary targets to feel comfortable heading down the stretch.

Well it just sounds like you can't handle the truth. If the roster isn't adequate enough to compete for a B10 title that falls solely on the staff, no? I mean who else is responsible for constructing the roster? You? Me? I'm not blaming anyone else here.

Of course you don't land every single player you offer, who has suggested that? We haven't landed a single wing scorer in either the 23 class or the portal. We need two for next year, hence "striking out". What is wrong with pointing that out? Unless you've been living under a rock for the last decade, guards win games in the tournament. Our current best off-ball guard option right now is Trey Galloway who averages a whopping 2 made FG's a game for his career. You may not think that's a problem but you also aren't living in any kind of reality either.