Kdug

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.

9 minutes ago, iuswingman said:

NIL in the pros is actually about NIL.

Pro teams aren't paying players under the table with fan donations to come to their team and pretending it is NIL because they actual have contracts and rules.

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.

26 minutes ago, Zlinedavid said:

If you look at the first 25 games Rice played in, he's a 33% 3PT shooter.  After that point was clearly the freshman wall, but up to that point, he was respectable and took more 3s than Reneau and Leal combined, so it's not exactly limited volume.

Carlyle is also a 32% shooter on the same volume of Rice's first 25 games. 

That puts us up to 3, and if Reneau has shown at least a little bit of ability in that department, that's what I'd be having him focus on in the offseason. 

Is it an "OMG" level transformation? No, but I think it's an upgrade with a lot of upside. 

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.

1 hour ago, iuswingman said:

Fishbowl doesn't require 7 figures and being paid more than doctors.  Bidding wars is the only reason they get paid ridiculous amounts.  If every school decided they would stick with 6 figures, there would be complaining but very few are taking a pay cut to change professions.

Obviously the talent wouldn't be as good but quit pretending no one would play for just a free education.  

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.

1 hour ago, Zlinedavid said:

Jones for Purdue took almost as many 3s as the next two below him combined and shot 35%. 

For UConn, Karaban, Newton and Spencer all took about the same amount of 3s and shot 44%, 37% and 32%. 

So you're right, this whole idea that we need this 45-50% 3PT shooter or our season is going to be a failure is kind of a panicky reaction.  Give me 3-4 guys that can shoot it at 33-36% vs 2 that are at 40%+.  That's what will keep defenses honest. 

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.

14 minutes ago, DWB said:

Is this guy as good as Ware? (probably not)

So we're now gonna see 2 bigs playing together again, "inside (and hopefully) out". I'll believe it when I see a 4 out 1 in game with 3 shooters on the perimeter. (from IU that is)

So far I'm under whelmed with the committed recruits. Not a huge step forward IMO. If MM gets hurt we got NO shooters on the perimeter.

Cupps: No.     Gallo: No.      Newton: Unknown.     Rice: Not any better than Gallo.

You guys can celebrate all you want. Good for you. But I'm with-holding my excitement until I see the product on the floor.

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.

2 hours ago, Drroogh said:

I would say I want what you’re smoking thinking he’s coming to IU with the thought he’ll be on the bench but my neighbor works at a grow house and said she would hook me up if I ever wanted.

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.

2 minutes ago, Drroogh said:

If that’s what he was sold how long before he or someone else decommits?

Contrary to popular belief, there are a lot of top 20-30 recruits that do not start or play starter minutes. There were only 19 high major freshman who played more than 60% of their teams minutes. About half of those weren’t top 20-30 guys, but instead were guys on bad teams.