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Wilkerson didn’t shoot especially well today; 6-15 fg and 3-9 from three. Yet he scored 26 points on 15 shots. That constant threat of the three opens up the entire court; even on days when we don’t hit that many. The spacing and need to guard us on the perimeter allowed Conerway to cruise to the basket for the game winner. Modern offense + really hard work on defense = a team that was a lot of fun to watch.

The best thing he did was get out ahead of the NIL era. I heard this morning there will be > $250 million in dead money paid to coaches (James Franklin, Brian Kelley, etc) as contract buyouts. That's crazy. In college football, no team can win consistently without an elite coach. There might be a dozen of them nationwide and we have one of them who is happy at Indiana. Scott being ahead of things and finding that coach before everyone else found out they had to changed the game and everything about athletics at Indiana. Basketball will benefit from football's success AND get better on its own. We're sitting in a really good spot and Indiana is most definitely here to stay. We have perfect alignment - for the first time since Ralph Floyd and John Ryan - between coaches, athletic director, and school president. That's rare and we get to enjoy it.

The moment in this game where I truly saw that IU has turned the corner on being a modern college basketball team was when they broke the press and DeVries drained a 3 in rhythm in transition. Beautiful to see. I’m sure they will have some growing pains this year however seeing that play brought a smile to my face. My favorite play of the exhibition

Cig Monday presser: Aiden is "probable" for the Maryland game. Good news.

Here’s the proof: On Tayton Conerway’s winning bucket, where was the weakside help defense? It was watching two guys who were 25 feet from the basket; Lamar and Tucker:

I was at the game yesterday and would like to share a couple of observations: CDD AND the coaching staff were all very active. It's great to see Kenny Johnson up and directing. I don't think CDD has restricitons on the coaching staff like others in the past. Free Throws!!!!....finally Sisley looked like he didn't feel good yesterday. His feet looked like concrete and he looked lost. This was a great game for him to either get the nerves out or realize how big the game is now. We looked better defensively than what I thought we would. Baylor definitely had a height advantage but I thought we held our own. All the guards were dogs on D. Great to see. Our front court needs some work. I think we will see gradual improvement here but we will need to figure out rebounding. Our offense, even though it stalled on a couple of occassions looked much better. Things I saw that were in game adjustments were back cuts, very little one on one, and a nice little slip pass. Basketball IQ!!!! I didn't think any one looked lost and everyone knew their assignments. You can also tell that Tucker provides leadership on the court. I think what we lack in athleticism we will make up in speed and awareness. We will craft some wins that we aren't supposed to. I was pleasantly surprised by this team yesterday.

Wiltfong just logged a prediction for Keys to Indiana

20/21 from the free throw line won the game. Take any of Miller or Woodson's teams and give them 21 free throws, and most likely they make 13 or 14. A lot of Big Ten games are decided by one or two possessions, meaning when you leave 6 or 7 points on the floor, close wins become close losses and you wonder how you only went 12-8 in the conference.

FWIW -- Andy Staples of on3.com was on the Dan Patrick Show this morning. He was mostly talking about coaching openings, but then ... DP: Can Indiana win the national title? AS: Yes. This Indiana team can. This Indiana team is loaded. This Indiana team has a bunch of NFL dudes. Curt Cignetti tried to tell us and we didn't listen. They brought back almost all of what made last year's team special, and then they upgraded at quarterback when they got Fernando Mendoza from Cal. So they can absolutely compete with anybody.

Really happy with this win. This was a really great first test. Baylor is a team that really attacks our weaknesses we were concerned about going into this season. Baylor is a long athletic team known for crashing the boards. The kind of team we don't really have a way to practice against. The fact we grinded this out even after it looked like it would get away from us in the first half is big. If this was a Woodson team we would have been blown out. What's more impressive is this team is supposed to be a great 3 point shooting team and we had an off day .We still found a way to win through our defense and made nearly all our foul shots.

Thank you but no thank you.

A play in 3 acts: Act I: This sucks. Gonna be a long year. Our roster just isn't good enough. Act II: Nice to see some adjustments being made, and some hustle, too. Act III: Can't wait to watch this team grow and develop!

So long, Brian.

Would it be wrong for the IU administration to ask Maryland if we could use one of their stadium offices to sign Keys during his Maryland visit???

Following in Woody's footsteps (extreme sarcasm) DDV at SSAH for the women's exhibition game.

I was there as well. Thought the energy was decent from the tiny crowd, but it was fun and certainly worth the way too expensive tickets. Agree with a lot of what’s noted above, couple of things to add: 1) The difference early in the 2nd half was really good ball pressure and that was freaking Conerway. In the 1st 4 Baylor possessions he forced a TO in the post with a hard dig, helped off on a driver and blocked a shot and just straight pressured a kid on the wing into a TO. Really set a tone. Easy to see why Chris Jans really wanted him. Thought he was the best player on the floor the entire 2nd half. 2) The Bailey thing is concerning. He lacks lower body strength, gets bumped off path way too easily and gets outleveraged. There may not be a lot teams that can take advantage of him on the block. But the ones that can, yeesh. What made him good at Davidson was playing out of the high post with a facilitation piece and I don’t know if that’s how this is gonna go. He may end up being a bit of a misfit. Side note: the “I’m 15 and can sort of grow a ‘stache now” look has got to go. Reed, cut that thing, you’re an adult. 3) Really hope when Dorn gets healthy he can fill that long wing piece that they lacked yesterday. Carr was really good for Baylor, but he’s not super special. IU just had no matchup for him. 4) DeVries said he didn’t call much late in the game. Didn’t appear to me like he called much at any point. Just looked like they were running tons of continuity. Did the same thing against Marian. Would think that will be a fair percentage of their offense, but I imagine there is a lot we haven’t seen. Thought on the whole it was pretty encouraging and certainly entertaining. It was mentioned a couple of times above, but the 2 pass press break into the 1 on 1 Wilkerson 3 was awesome. 20 years ago that would’ve got you a seat.

If Fisher can practice and lead the team he will be out there on Saturday. Football players play football.

That’s better than out for the rest of the season.

Someone just asked at the end: Questionable.

The way Cig describes Maryland, and virtually all of our opponents, they should be ranked top 5…:) He isn’t going to let the team relax against anyone.

He reminds me of Rob Schneider….lol

here is the full game for anyone (like myself) that missed it.

Gonna disagree here, but it's not a knock on Franke: Franke hits kickoffs for touchbacks pretty much 100% of the time. He's crazy good. Warren handled kickoff duties and hit for a touchback on about 1/2 of his kickoffs. He had multiple five yard deep in the end zone kickoffs. On the kickoffs that weren't touchbacks, Warren must be getting some really good height, because none of them got returned as far as the 20 yard line, which is better than a touchback Now admittedly, a non-touchback comes with risk of a big return (it also comes with risk of a fumble or holding/illegal block penalty that would really pin back the offense). For me the biggest void without Franke is that it limits our field goal range to 50 yards instead of about 58. That matters about once every three or four games, and even then there's no guarantee that Franke will hit from that distance. In summary? Sucks to lose Franke for awhile, but it's not nearly as serious as an injury would be to an offensive lineman, another defensive end injury, a serious injury to Fisher, or lord forbid, an injury to Fernando. Those would be every play injuries with notable dropoff.

Haven’t had a four trailing as a distance threat since Watford; that was 12 years ago

Wilkerson looked pretty damn good shooting 11-11 from the free throw line today. Shot 6-15 from the floor and 3-9 from three. Maybe, just maybe, that threat of him launching from deep pulls the defense away from the basket and allows him to get a first step on defenders. Because the kid scored 26 points on 15 shots from the floor. That, Old Friend, is what people seem to call ‘modern basketball’; threes, layups, and free throws. It’s a change that takes some getting used to, and today it was a breath of fresh air for me. Wilkerson shot 33% from three today, just like Myles Rice’s % last year. But he was nothing…nothing like Myles Rice. Wilkerson’s offense was a major factor in a gutsy IU win over a good team.

Kelly should have never left ND. But Irish fans are glad he did.

I scored very well on my SAT, but I got weeded out in college ...

Probably an unpopular opinion here but I would love for Fischer to be available but not play this week

Oh yeah? Then this play is everything too:

Things are looking up for sure. I hope the BB team exceeds my expectations!

It’s never a trap game when your team is playing incredibly well. Maryland has some playmakers and could get theirs, but a Curt Cignetti vs Mike Locksley coaching battle is not a fair fight.

You don’t miss Franke until his replacement shanks a kickoff and the opponent gets the ball at the 40 in a Gotta Have It.

We have at least 3 guys that were the guys expected to make the last winning play of the game in close situations last year. Should bode well for us

Yea, agree from a job security point of view. But like you said top coaches are sickos and LSU is a place where you can win natties. Before Brian Kelly the previous three coaches won 'em (Nick, Les, Ed). No other school has delivered natties that consistently to different coaches except OSU. This makes Brian's failure and firing even funnier, especially with ND doing pretty well after he left. LSU with it's resources and high school feeder system is the first Tier 1 job to open this cycle. But, in this NIL era their old advantages (under the table payments) are reduced and the job gets very political, it's even worse than our basketball program before Scott wrestled control from Quinn and the old guard and fired Woody's sorry behind midseason! Florida and PSU are very good jobs, but Tier II imo. All this stuff is fun to follow. Especially when we've got our guy. Wherever Lane ends up, he's getting a huge arse raise.

He and LSU deserve each other.

Let’s say hi to LSU’s recruits.

Oh I think Franke would be a massive loss

Glad we didn’t hire Scott Drew! Loser! ;-)

Tucker, Trent and Conor also at SSAH for the game.

Pondering going to Bloomington during the championship game. Might be one hell of a party. Thinking of bring a camera crew

yes sir. Cig also said the same early on his presser today.

Given his competitiveness, might have to break his leg to keep him off the field.

weren't those the injured guys?

I am pretty sure those are the injured players and they didn't dress for the game

And playing time will dwindle quickly if she doesn’t hit shots. She’s tough, though. Clearly athletically limited. Will Maryland coach want to figure out a system that will get the best out of Yarden? Not so sure if athleticism issues are at a cost. Sent from my iPad using BtownBanners mobile app

Looking like Kelly is finished at LSU. He is 64 but the good news is that the $53,000,000 buyout he is owed should make it relatively easy for him to delay taking social security until he turns 70.

And he couldn’t get over himself

Woody was the hump.