Kdug

5 hours ago, btownqb said:

I find the difference in those teams to be next to nothing. Iowa was in that range, they sucked. But, Wisconsin ended up Top 20 in KenPom makes me have serious reservations about whether I care about KenPom at all. Wisconsin SUCKED and gave up 53 to us in a half. We also watched UW get absolutely BULLIED by JMU. 

Wisconsin also scored 91 in that game and cruised to an easy win. They also beat Marquette and Purdue so they had elite wins. I don’t think Wisconsin sucked, they just peaked too early.

And the difference between an 80-100 ranked team and a 40-50 ranked team is the difference between a bubble team, and a team that’s on the NIT bubble. I don’t get how you can say there’s not that big of a difference there. And kenpom certainly isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty damn good since the Vegas lines almost always line up with it unless there’s injury considerations.

29 minutes ago, btownqb said:

Those are just our "worst" games. If no team is allowed to play poorly, to reach their ceiling, there were probably only 3-4 teams all year that did that. If that is the criteria 1. That's fine 2. Of course, our shit team didn't reach their ceiling, no teams did, essentially. 

Respectfully, the bold, no we weren't. Not at the beginning of November, hell no. Did you watch the exhibitions? For real, I would totally understand if you didn't watch those lol... just didn't know if you were able to check them out... we didn't blow out two D2 schools. We weren't just going to somehow fix those issues within a week and start blowing people out. In fact, UIndy made us play an entire 40-minute game... 

Maybe Army. 🤷‍♂️

Ultimately-- it seems you, and some others valued our talent more than I did. Which is fine, maybe that's where differences lie and explains our difference of opinion. Lack of talent, lack of experience, and poor guard play is how I saw our team. That's a disgusting combination. 

Should have been vs. the reality of where we actually were? 

With regards to the part you bolded, idk how you can say we weren’t talented enough to blow those two teams in particular out. Army lost by double digits to Stonehill, Marist, Central Connecticut, American (twice), Bucknell (twice), Colgate, and Holy Cross. Respectfully, all of those teams suck. The FGCU list isn’t quite as bad, but they were also missing one of their best players.

I think I agree that we just see the level of talent differently, which as you said is just a difference of opinion. Most rankings had us in the 80-100 range, which was near the bottom of P6 teams. Imo we were “talented” enough to be in the 40-50 range. Not good, but not as bad as we were.

8 minutes ago, btownqb said:

19-14 wasn't far at all from our ceiling, if not, at our ceiling. 

As soon as XJ was a NET zero or worse, we were f'ed. 

Maybe the record wasn’t too far off what it should’ve been, but we massively underperformed in a lot of games which is why we were nowhere near the bubble.

The end of season run showed that we could have solid performances, and XJ was still playing poorly in that stretch. We weren’t good enough to be elite or anything, but we were good enough to blow out army and FGCU. We were good enough to not get blown out by bad Penn State or Rutgers teams, remain somewhat competitive in games against good competition, or not need a crazy run to sneak by Morehead state.

1 hour ago, btownqb said:

Other than PSU at home, were we even favored in ANY game we lost? 

Pretty sure we weren't. 

In trank and kenpom we dropped about 40-50 spots from the start of the year to the end of the year. I’d say that signals underachieving, or at bare minimum we didn’t hit our ceiling. Part of us being underdogs in some big ten games was due to massively underachieving in the non-conference.

59 minutes ago, 13th&Jackson said:

Malik was smart enough to get the ball to Ware, so he averaged 2.7 apg, essentially tied with XJ. He averaged 2.8 TOs, versus 2.3 for XJ. For a second year 4, those are pretty good numbers. I don’t think his decision-making of shoot or pass to Ware was bad, given the other options. 
He does need to learn to stay out of foul trouble, but I think he’ll start to get the upperclassman respect from the B1G officials 

Yeah, offensively I thought he was good, just getting that TO number down is the next step. Felt like a lot of the TOs were from trying to force something that wasn’t there, instead of passing to the open man. Maybe it was because he didn’t trust our shooters, we’ll see this year. Even with no offensive improvements he’ll still be good on that end.

Imo the fouls were more of a symptom of the defensive issues rather than the actual cause. It felt like Malik got beat a lot which is why he fouled. He has to learn to just let it go when he’s beat, but that doesn’t fix the defense. That’s the end of the court, along with rebounding, he needs to improve to take his game to the next level.

2 hours ago, btownqb said:

Agree. Then I mentioned, "I don't care if Cupps transfers on BTBers" (with the context of Hemenway committing) and it was like I told them to learn Spanish.  

Some guys catch flak, some get passes. Idc that Cupps was a FR, he wasn't good, at all. Malik is a stud and needs more coaching and skill development. 

Malik SO eFG%- .579

TJD SR eFG%- .581 

Don’t know if I’d go as far to say idc if Cupps transfers, but I do agree he was bad last year, but for whatever reason seemed to get a pass.

Malik’s issue wasn’t scoring. On offense his issue was poor decisions leading to turnovers. There’s a reason Malik’s ortg is well below TJD’s in the season’s you referenced.

His bigger issue last year was he was a liability on defense and wasn’t a very good rebounder for his position. Still a good player, but imo looking at shooting % or points per game will overstate how good he was.

1 hour ago, Maedhros said:

FWIW, here are the current projections at BartTorvik:

• 6 - UCLA
• 9 - Purdue
• 15 - Michigan St
• 16 - Indiana
• 20 - Nebraska
• 21 - Michigan
• 25 - Rutgers
• 27 - Northwestern
• 29 - USC
• 32 - Wisconsin
• 34 - Ohio St
• 39 - Maryland
• 41 - Oregon
• 54 - Iowa
• 65 - Illinois
• 66 - Minnesota
• 78 - Washington
• 85 - Penn St

And filling all that out just confirms the Big Ten has entirely too many teams.

Teams will continue filling out their rosters over the weeks to come, so with a mostly set roster it's possible we could get jumped. Michigan adding Goldin today gave them a big boost. Also, I suppose the portal is still open for another day or so, and you might still see guys leave; Illinois lost another just today.

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

2 hours ago, dgambill said:

I have a ton of faith in him. He has bulldog mentality on defense and he has a high basketball iq. I believe his confidence will grow this year and he will excel in this role. Galloway had a different role when the ball was in his hands but I think we all agree he played best off the ball his junior year shooting well and the floor opened up without him having to over dribble to get by his man. It will be best for him to go back to that role imo. 

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.

24 minutes ago, FKIM01 said:

Great post.  I'm right there with you.  I absolutely hate the NIL and the farce it makes of amateur sports, but since it's not going away, I'm at least appreciative of how it's leveled the playing field and taken away the biggest cheating element in college sports.  I find it laughable that the NCAA has a tampering "rule" that appears even less effective than the pro version.

Now, all that's left is to eliminate the requirement for the athletes to attend classes.  Let the ones go that want to and let the rest stay in the gym.  If you require ANY class,it should be of the personal finance variety.  Help these kids hang onto the money they make and otherwise, let them learn their sport.  It's silly to pretend that most of these elite athletes have any interest in the classroom. Eventually,  I could see teams only affiliated to schools via sponsorship.

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

1 hour ago, 13th&Jackson said:

Exactly. They will be more talented than nearly any team they face. May take some time early for it to gel, but by late December there should be no excuses. They should at least be on par with Illinois this past season (26-8, 2nd in B1G, 3 seed, Elite 8 (not less than S16). 

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.

4 hours ago, Hoosier4Life53 said:

That’s quite a roster….probably the most talent we’ve had since Zeller and group.

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.

28 minutes ago, Seeking6 said:

AJ Hoggard leaving Sparty. Just entered the portal. 

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?

13 minutes ago, OGIUAndy said:

The whole "victory lap" thing is being blown out of proportion especially relative to the number of people who have been critical of the program and Woody on a daily basis starting in January/Feb.  Most aren't saying "We"re back" or "I told you so". Most people understand it's about success on the floor. That being said, you can be critical of Woody or whatever and enjoy things about the program too, including the new guys being brought in by "donors". 

 

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.

3 minutes ago, FKIM01 said:

I could see it in spots, especially when you need to draw defenders out of the land, but I sure wouldn't want to start a Kopp/Goode at the 4 in the Big Ten.  I could see on occasion, running two wings and two guards and keeping someone like Ballo back under the rim.  That would certainly provide a nice change of pace and make some space for shooters.

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. 

3 minutes ago, Zlinedavid said:

So the fact they didn't outplay a first round draft pick, an established senior PG, an upperclassman glue guy and a 4th serviceable D1 guard as freshmen means that they automatically aren't worth it?

Take hindsight out of who they turned out to be.  You've got two 4* rated guards, one of them top 100 sitting behind the 4 individuals I just mentioned. 

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.

Just now, IUFLA said:

You GIVE the chance, you EARN the minutes...

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.

30 minutes ago, IUFLA said:

So you coach...You never give kids a chance?

 

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

4 hours ago, thirdgenhoosier said:

Portal highlight video

sorry…don’t know how to embed…but for those interested…

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.

10 minutes ago, tdhoosier said:

Like others have said, I’m guessing it’s a combo of him being a Freshman and being on a bad team. I don’t disagree on the upside that he has and am glad to get him as a sophomore. However, I think some are projecting his impact next year to be a little greater than it will be. For fun, Tony Adragna created a minutes projection on his portal page for fans to fill out. Yesterday he had people share their minutes projections on twitter and many had KC between 25-30 minutes per game. Many are slotting in him into the starting line up too. He averaged 25 minutes on a pretty crappy Stanford team last year. 

IF he truly is capable of getting those minutes and making that big of an impact, then that is a great problem to have. I’m no professional scout, but after watching a few clips (that aren’t highlight films) he does not play great defense and the TO numbers aren’t great. Again, nothing he can’t clean up in his college career, but Woody has a short leash when it comes to defense and turnovers. 

Overall, good get. Great upside. Keep expectations in check. We still need another shooter or 2.

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.

4 minutes ago, IUFLA said:

I only compared his numbers to Mgbako 's and they are similar in overall shooting percentage, 3 point shooting percentage, and points...

That's it...

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

4 minutes ago, IUFLA said:

With similar numbers, Mackenzie Mgbako was Co-Big 10 Freshman of the Year...

People act like experience doesn't matter...it does...a lot...

Carlyle, Rice, and Mgbako all have a year of college basketball under their belts, and they're physically more mature...they'll improve...

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.

1 minute ago, bluegrassIU said:

He was a top reccruit, missed several games due to academic issues. 

He was a freshman point guard on a very bad team, in a power conference.

His percentages increasingly.got better as the season went on.  If you look at the game logs, you can see steady improvement and he was very good the 2nd half of the season. Including 31 against Washington St and 28 against Arizona, two really good teams.

Top 50 recruit with high level performance against strong competition, with little support from teammates.  

It's much more convoluted than looking at season total percentages. 

He is very very talented and showed growth throughout the season.

Very high upside.

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.

9 minutes ago, IUFLA said:

He was a freshman 

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.

1 hour ago, Zlinedavid said:

Actually, it's his position that makes him valuable.  Contrary to what some want to believe, we can't just roll Reneau and 4 guards out on the floor.  Power has the size to play as a stretch-4 alongside either Reneau or Ballo, or if MM runs into foul trouble or if we just need the size on the floor, he could play alongside both Reneau and Ballo as a wing. 

Essegian is just another decent shooting SG.  Power gives us both shooting and flexibility. 

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.

10 minutes ago, 13th&Jackson said:

That would have put them third and tied for fifth on the IU roster ahead of Cupps and Leal. I wasn't basing it on 100 minimum attempts. I'd love to find a young transfer or two who shot 40% plus, but didn't get a lot of playing time on a very good team. 

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.