Kdug

Did UCLA add some impact guys from the portal? They were terrible last year, surprised to see them so high.

Idk, Cupps needs to improve a lot to be a good rotation player imo. Last year he was a non-factor on offense, and I thought he struggled defensively, often because of his size. Between Rice, Carlyle, and Galloway, I don’t think there will be many PG minutes left for Cupps. I hope he makes a huge jump this offseason and proves me wrong.

I feel like the amateur part of amateur sports has been a farce for quite some time, at least for college basketball and football. When schools and coaches are making millions of dollars, they’re going to be incentivized to pay players in order to attract talent whether it’s against the rules or not. That being said the current model doesn’t feel sustainable. I think eventually this will end up with players being employees which would hopefully allow multi-year employment contracts and some year to year stability. IMO it’s more the transfer portal that makes all this feel so different rather than the NIL aspect

I think what Illinois did is a good target. The only thing with tourney results is that it’s tough to make sweet 16s, let alone elite 8s even as a high seed. If we have a good season but get upset in the second round by a good team, I don’t think that nullifies everything else. Absolutely can’t get blown out in the tourney again though.

I’d say since 2016. Yogi, JBJ (until he got hurt), Troy, Bryant, and a bunch of shooters. Heck, you had OG as the 8th or 9th guy in the rotation and Juwan Morgan as a bench warmer.

That’s not new is it? I thought I saw he wasn’t returning to MSU a week ago. Or is it just now official?

I don’t really think it’s been blown out of proportion. There’s been post on this board about eating crow about those critical of Woodson. None of this matters if the team doesn’t gel and win on the court. That being said, so far this offseason has been an A+, especially if/when we get Goode. I really hope the improvement in guard talent leads to a different style of play than the last 3 years, though I’m at the see it to believe it phase there. But even if we don’t change the style of play, I think the improvement in talent alone gives us a higher floor than last year. The one thing that makes me cautious is that last year we were 49th in kenpom team to start the year, but dropped 42 spots to 91 to end the year. So the on paper talent doesn’t necessarily equate to on court success.

I think pairing him at the 4 with Ballo would actually be a pretty effective lineup. The weaknesses would be rebounding and post defense, which are already weaknesses with Reneau at the 4 anyway. It’d also provide more space for Ballo down low and Rice, Carlyle, and Galloway to attack the rim.

You mean the senior pg that missed almost the entire year? We basically only had Tamar that year, who had an up and down year, to sub in as a wing. There were plenty of minutes available to both of them if they played well. Let’s not act like we had elite guard play that year.

The chance they were given was getting a scholarship to IU, they didn’t need to be given anything else. Their play on the court made it clear they hadn’t earned the right to any minutes.

Chances aren’t given they’re earned. Gunn and Banks hadn’t done anything to have earned a rotation spot going into last year.

Really like these videos. Shows the good and bad. Seems like Carlyle’s strengths were catch and shoot, spot up, and dribble handoffs. Off the dribble and ball screens weren’t great. Seems to indicate he’ll be better as an off ball guard, which works well with rice. One thing that was pretty shocking was his transition numbers were 0.48 point per possession. That’s crazy low, and I’m assuming comes from trying to force stuff that wasn’t there. If that’s right, that sort of thing should get better with experience.

I think this is a good way of putting it, and articulated my thinking better. He has significant upside, but not sure if it’s realistic to expect that upside to be fully realized next year. Even just comparing Carlyle to Galloway, I’m not sure it’s guaranteed for him to be better than Galloway next year. I’d expect Carlyle to take a bigger jump going into his sophomore year than Galloway going into his 5th year. But I would take Galloway’s year over Carlyle’s year last season. I feel like I fell into the trap last offseason of expecting everyone to hit their ceiling (like Gunn becoming a reliable shooter). I’m just trying to be more realistic this offseason.

Got it, in that sense I agree. I was talking more overall offensive picture, not just shooting.

Rice had a 104.8 Ortg for a tourney team, Mgbako was 104.9, Carlyle was 91.7. I wouldn’t say those are similar. Thanks, this is helpful. Like I said, I assumed there’s something considering the general consensus of him being a top transfer. Rice and Ballo’s stats were good and seemed to align more with how they were perceived, so those two are easier for me to see the fit.

If that’s the only explanation, that’d make me nervous. Freshman get better. But his Ortg was 91.7, which would’ve been better than CJ Gunn but worse than XJ last year. I’d have to think there’s a better explanation than that.

Can someone explain Carlyle’s numbers from last year? Looking at them, they look pretty subpar. 32% from 3, 54% at the rim, 40% from mid range. More TOs per game than assists. Was he just asked to do too much, not put in the best position, injury, all of the above? He seems to be pretty universally considered a top transfer, so I’m guessing there’s some explanation. Just trying to understand what his game will look like with the starting 5 we have next year.

Can Power actually play the 3? I haven’t seen him play, but everything I’ve seen has him listed as a PF. Feel like him, Reneau, and Ballo at the same time wouldn’t be a lineup that would work very well, especially defensively.

Number of attempts matters. I don’t think anyone would argue that IU had two sharpshooters last year because Ware and Leal made 40%+ of their threes at low volume. Teams weren’t particularly concerned with Ware shooting threes, despite the high percentage, because he didn’t do it very often. IMO, a 35% shooter that shot 150 threes is better than a 45% shooter who shot 40. I also think Purdue in particular has a little bit of an inflated 3% all around due to how much attention Edey drew. Plug those guys into most other teams, and they don’t get nearly as many clean looks.

The pros can do that because they acknowledge players as employees and pay them salaries. All of this NIL stuff is caused from the universities refusing to acknowledge players as employees.

Not saying we’ll be worse than last year shooting wise. That’d be pretty tough to do. With Rice he very well could’ve hit a freshman wall, or maybe he just regressed to what his true shooting ability is. I don’t know, but if we only get 33% by ignoring some of his bad games, that tells me he has some improvements to make with his shot. I think it was Tony Adragna mentioned some of his synergy stats on other shot types weren’t particularly good either. His FT% was good, so hopefully that’s a sign he has a good touch. But as it currently stands, it seems like his strength offensively is attacking the rim and creating for others. Hopefully the shooting develops, but it makes me a little nervous to rely on that. I really like the rest of his game though. I do think relying on Rice and Carlyle to improve their shooting to the 34%+ range from 3 is doable and an easier ask than what we needed last year. I was just pointing out that we don’t have anyone on the roster, even including Carlyle if he commits, who was able to maintain a 33% clip from 3 on reasonably high volume for a full year last year.

Yeah, that is incredibly illegal and goes against every free market principle that our economy is based on. Schools are willing to pay a lot of money to coaches because college basketball and football bring in an insane amount of money. IU is well within their right to set a cap at $100K for a basketball coach. They don’t do that because that’s no what the market dictates for a competent coach, and having good athletic programs is beneficial to the school.

To play devils advocate, the only guy currently on the roster who was in the 33%+ range from 3 last year was Malik at 33.3% on very low volume or Leal on even lower volume. I think it’s safe to count on Mack being there based on how he finished the year, but anyone else would require some improvement over the offseason. Good programs develop players, but it’s felt like shooting in particular isn’t something that IU as a program has developed well since Crean.

I don’t really see how Ballo + Rice + Tucker can be considered underwhelming. Do we still need more guards and shooting? Yes. But Rice will be the best guard we’ve had since Romeo, Ballo is one of the few portal guys who can actually match Ware’s production, and Tucker seems like he should be able to slot into the rotation. We still need more, but that’s a solid start imo.

Of the guys ranked in the 16-25 range (Tucker is ranked 20th) from last years 247 composite, only 1 played more than 60% of his teams minutes. You can think whatever you want, but outside the top 10 or so guys, it’s very common for freshman to come off the bench as 20ish minutes per game type of players. He’ll get minutes, but I sure hope we’re not relying on him to start unless he has a college ready game - which most freshman don’t.