IndyResident16

He's been a breath of fresh air from Archie although that isn't hard to do. I thought the team responded nicely to some early season adversity given some of the injuries but in the grand scheme of things, pretty uninspiring regular season given how bad the B10 was. Sweeping Purdue for the first time in a decade was enjoyable. That being said, IU was overmatched and outcoached in several games with a legit NPOY candidate and a first round guard. The season may be 7 months away, but the window to shore up the roster shuts in 2.5 weeks. We're back to square one after missing out on several of our top perimeter prospects. I'm not sitting on my hands waiting for a rabbit to be pulled out of a hat.

IU doesn't have a proven scorer on the roster. IU's primary need out of the portal was a proven scorer. We've yet to land one (still). He'll be UT's highest usage player and in theory should be their leading scorer. UT just jumped from 18 to #2 in Bart Torvik's preseason rankings for next year with the addition of Ledlum. He'd be IU's go to player without a doubt given his versatility. And I'm sitting here trying to figure out how I stumbled upon Rainbow and Unicorn Land in a message board about Indiana basketball. Weird.

The honeymoon with Woodson is over. This is his roster going forward and had every ample opportunity to improve it over the course of this season. There's still some time left in the portal. We're now in the fall back stage of things. I hope it works out for him.

Another person that gets it.

Alabama has always been a football school. They've never been dominant in basketball. They're very good at basketball right now because they have a coach that knows what he is doing. I'm not so sure what is so hard to understand about that? IU used to be a juggernaut in basketball because they had a coach and staff that knew what the hell they were doing. Three out of the last four coaches after Knight (Davis, Crean, Archie) didn't know what the hell they were doing and you saw the results. I'm not ready to put Woodson in the same conversation because the jury is still out, but if he continues to strike out on the recruiting front he's going to join that crew rather shortly.

Already have it bookmarked.

That's my point. Good Lord. Arkansas and Tennessee have staffs that know what the hell they're doing. IU doesn't.

Their basketball draw doesn't compare to Indiana. Hell basketball at both those school comes 3rd after baseball. Get a clue.

It's not at all.

Ledlum would have been IU's leading scorer next year. He'll likely lead Tennessee in scoring next year as well.

Oh please. Explain the draw to go play basketball in Knoxville or Fayetteville. I'll hang up and listen.

He's going to be great. He'll learn a lot playing behind Xavier this year. That wasn't a need for this years team however.

IU needed more than one piece in the portal dude. We had 5 open scholarships and 3, maybe 4 starting spots up for grabs. We landed a kid with high upside with motor issues to fill one spot. Where's the perimeter scoring? Perimeter defense? Athleticism? Shooting? Scoring? Where they at?

Kel'el Ware hasn't proved a damn thing at this level. Ton of upside but recruiting rankings mean jack at this stage of the game. There's a reason why he was in the portal in the first place. Staff didn't add a single incoming freshman who can be counted on to significantly contribute next year on the heels of losing 4 starters. It's not amusing by any means.

We've been stuck in the same gear for nearly 20 years.

Shouldn't have to do that. If you can't sell IU to basketball recruits you might need to find another job.

And that's why I'm being critical of the staff lol. It's the staff's job to make these relationships work. The staff missed on 4-5 guys last Fall/Winter on what should have been at minimum a 3 man class. The staff just turned over 61 ppg. We haven't landed a single perimeter/scoring threat in the portal after identifying several guys. You can blame the players all you want but at the end of the day it's the staffs job to land the players that they've identified as fits. I don't know any other way to put it.

I haven't said a word about Caleb Love or Jamison Battle or Dalton Knecht or Nick Timberlake or any of the other guys IU reached out too, because in reality I KNOW you aren't going to land every single recruit. But when you identify and make someone a priority like the IU staff had done with Ledlum, you need to land him. Period. If you want to keep shrugging off every single recruiting target that chooses elsewhere, more power to you, you do you, but don't act surprised when IU struggles next year because the players that the staff had identified and honed in on are playing elsewhere.

You replied directly to me. Recruiting wins are directly tied with successful seasons and recruiting misses can almost certainly be correlated with losing teams. If you're consistently identifying talent and not landing them, that's a problem.

Have you seen me turn on the coaching staff once in this thread? Fans start turning on the coaching staff when said coaching staff start to miss important recruits and their results start to suffer. You're terrible at this by the way. You haven't changed a lick from your old Rivals days.

Someone who gets it. The momentum within this program the last 12 months, especially in recruiting, has been very meh. Reneau was a nice pick up but IU whiffed on several high priority targets this last year. Two of them committed to Maryland and Coen Carr who the staff inexplicably stopped recruiting after seeming like a strong lean went to Michigan State so I don't want to hear any bull about the B10 being a barricade. Bottom line, the staff knew going into this last year it would be losing a ton of pieces. When all said and done, Indiana needs to replace 61 ppg from last year. They've added a backup piece in Sparks and a player in Ware with huge upside but one that isn't anywhere close to proven. Next years team needs proven commodities. It needed a Ledlum. It needed a Timberlake. It needed a whole bunch of juice. I have no doubt that IU will eventually fill the 3 remaining scholarships, but at what cost? Times running out to really bolster for next year and IU simply cannot afford another "rebuilding" year.

It's a message board dude.

Why do you always do this? It's the ONE recruit the staff put the most time, effort, and energy into recruiting.

I’m not acting like that at all but thanks for your input.

The NFL draft is irrelevant to Chris Ledlum. Going all-in on a player and not getting him is a miss anyway you want to slice it. Not landing Chris Ledlum hurts IU more than it helps. Not sure what’s so hard to understand about that?