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I made my Buddy Hield-lite claim during the game the other night. Hield is a generational shooter at his best and I'm not sure why, stylistically, Lamar can't be that type of player.

Bostad getting some credit here.

Well for one the head coach will be on the job for over a year with a full staff instead of being on the job for less then a month trying to put a roster together at the beginning with 1 full time assistant working out of the players lounge since the last head coach still had the keys when he first got hired. Now he has a full year a tape to show portal kids how his offense and defense looks. He can show shooters that a first year transfer has scored 40 or more points twice in his first year(2 or the 5 highest in assembly hall history) and he can show Bigs the whole that the team had at the position and where they would fit. Anyone including me that’s says they can see the future and tell you why is going to happen is lying to you. No one knows until next year what is going to happen.

https://247sports.com/season/2027-basketball/RecruitRankings/?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool up to 26th in the class for 247

Black was our best back down the stretch by far, imo. Rock solid in pass pro, reliably found creases, brought a different punch to the offense. He killed that Miami safety early in the game and set a tone. He's going to test something fierce on April 1st and make a GM look extremely smart. Related: No. 58 Kaelon Black, Indiana, running back One of the former James Madison players who followed Curt Cignetti to Bloomington, the 5-10, 210-pounder rushed for 251 yards and two TDs in limited action. Black vertical jumped 40 inches, bench pressed 415 pounds and squatted over 500 this summer. “He’s our biggest Freak for sure,” said DL Mikail Kamara. “When he lifts, everything moves so fast. He’s ridiculous. I’ve never seen him struggle (in the weight room). I saw him bench press 415 the other day, and it was butter. It touched his chest and went right back up. It looked like a warmup set. And he’s hella fast.”

I think it is the greatest accomplishment. At worst when this conversation comes up we're always going to get mentioned. I think some people will conflate coaching careers vs. a specific accomplishment, but they're wrong and it is what it is. There just aren't many sports leagues where this sort of rags to riches story could happen. The NFL and NBA have too much parity via the league rules, notably the salary cap. MLB has more variance, but it's still not CFB, and no one talks about the '03 Marlins or '15 Royals for a reason. The only instance I think is close is Leicester winning the Premier League in 2016. They're a small club (~1/4 salary spend of the big teams) that usually yo-yo'd between the Prem and the Championship, yet somehow over the course of a long 38 game season won the league. It was literally unbelievable. But, I'm putting them #2 to '25 IUFB because we did it with so much domination (16-0 and +479 point diff)... and I'm an IU fan.

Black is going to be an absolute gem on Day 3. I'm pumped to see his numbers from Pro Day. He already got himself paid at the Senior Bowl and Pro Day will get him another bag.

Some saying Omar Cooper could go in the 1st rd. Lots predicting 2nd rd

ok any big board that has TDV listed and not Lamar should be discarded lol.... burn it. never open that link again...ever. Oh my haha

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/46886245/2026-nba-draft-big-board-rankings-top-100-prospects-players ESPN’s latest draft board update. DeVries at 76 and Wilkerson outside their top 100, so basically undraftable. I’m gonna call my Wilkerson draft shot right now: Dude will get a Portsmouth invite and play well there. That’ll get him a combine invitation where he’ll test ok, not great, and have at least one pretty good game. So he’ll come out with some curiosity and get a bunch of workout invitations. At at least one of them, and probably more, he’s gonna be having one of those days where he’s making everything and then have the added benefit of the perfect workout partner, some 20yo he outweighs by 25lbs, and he’s just gonna overpower that kid taking him to the rim and his defense will play just well enough. Then he’s gonna interview great and some GM is gonna look at his HC and say, “Hey, explain to me why that kid can’t eventually give you a pretty decent approximation of Desmond Bane for a fraction of the money?” And that HC is just gonna nod at him and sometime mid 2nd someone’s taking him and signing him to a 2-way. And then somewhere down the road he’ll be with the NBA team, he’s gonna put a couple of very nice games together back to back and he’s gonna stick and hang for a decent while. I am straight up a believer.

“Bittle’s Balding!”

Harris has zero experience playing High Major basketball. We don't know how his game, if at all, will translate to Big Ten basketball/High Major...see Bailey as an example. In this era of college basketball, we don't even know if he will be on the team next year. He likely is not going to be our starting 5. My guess is after spending a year in the Big Ten, Devries is going to go after a strong Big to go against some of the 7' + centers we face in league. Sisley is also averaging about 3 minutes a game of recent. It would take a lot of off season progress for Trent to go from playing 3 minutes a game to being a full time starter in 1 year time. My guess is barring tremendous improvement, he won't be starting either. Rotational Player? Yes.

Of those six players that are getting paid well and will be leaving, three; Bailey, Tucker, and Conerway, are in line to be replaceable with better players for a similar price, and three; Enright, Lamar, and Alexis, will be difficult to replace with equal production for the price.

I know this is new for people and lots of college fans don’t pay attention to the pros’s, but this is a big factor when dealing with a salary pool. And it’s not so much a recruiting thing as it is a leveraging the salary pool”cap” thing. 1) you need to get outsized production out of guys you are paying less than average. In that case, it will be our returning bench guys and freshman. It’d be ideal if one pops as a productive starter. 2) you can’t have big misses in the portal. We’ll probably pay upwards of $1-2mil each for a lead guard and big. Getting a big to replace Alexis/baileys production should be doable (mostly because they’ve been average). But even landing a top guard we’re going to be treading water trying to replace Wilkerson’s production. Lots of opportunity out there for IU. Last year we got two productive starters because CDD coached them before. Hopefully there’s some connections like that with the staff.

#predictable

Some of this fanbase is still living in the 80s

Hopefully we never find out, but if you think merely missing the tourney his first 2 yrs will get him axed, I've got some bad news for you. Looks like after all the pearl clutching he most likely has his first team headed to the tourney and his current 26-27 roster looks even more promising.

Just wondering how many married couples are on here going back and forth.

Yea, how Sisley and Miles play out makes a big difference in our spend. After this year nobody should be offering them big money to transfer (although either could for PT purposes). Sisley looks like a guy who could be pushing an all-conf team as a senior. But as a sophomore…hard to tell. He’s currently lost most of his rotation mins but obviously coach still likes him and plays him at the end of games. I wouldn’t be surprised if either him or Miles busted it all off season and one started next year, but I would be worried if the staff was counting on it.

Diego Pavia is in that pic, too... he's in the back row. :D :D :D

Following paragraph is all football related: My wife (unassuming, minding her own business, but in Illinois gear) got ripped into by students in the concourse this year. She was with other members of our group at the time, but I would've had a pretty serious issue if I was around. I'm all for a good ribbing if it's friendly. This was not. I had friends at the Illinois game and Michigan game in '24 and they all had similar experiences with students and adults, multiple said they'd never go back to Bloomington. Season tickets were across the aisle from the student section in 2024 and if the seats and the team weren't so good, it would've been a supremely negative experience. Moved away from there this season and still ran into issues with either students or young alums at every game. Watched IU fans try to start fights with Kansas fans at least 3 times when we went out to Lawrence a few years ago. KU fans, pretty much all gracious, just blew it off knowing they were about to bust our ass but it was embarrassing. Saw a few similar instances at the Rose Bowl with Bama fans and a ton up at Notre Dame last year. Countless road trips for basketball and football where IU fans will "HOO HOO HOO" in an opposing fan's face that's minding their own business. Maybe it's not that big of a deal and this is coming off whiny, but it'd annoy the hell out of me if it was done to me. Of all the places I've traveled I don't think I've ever heard anything harsh thrown at me. Sometimes, the opposing fans are nice to the point that it's uncomfortable (hello, Nebraska). Just my experiences, there's turds in every fanbase, yada yada. Hopefully I'm the only one with these experiences because if it's the norm, then our fanbase blows.

T-Cal is predicting a blistering 40 time.

My guess on the OL.... LT Smith LG Evans C Lynch (although his snap against Oregon was very worrisome) RG Ajani RT Brunner (who's listed as 6'7 on our roster)

I think (?) they are both foot/stress fracture injuries.

I enjoyed the fact that Cooper played his high school football just a few miles from where I live. Would enjoy watching Sales do the same. But I'm way past worrying about who we get or don't get. Cig's talent evaluation is second to no one and our roster be just fine.

They were at City of Palms in Ft Myers right before Christmas. Now I believe they’re down to their year end city/state tournaments.

I think it's too soon to say next year looks more promising already, but there's plenty of good reason to believe it should and will be better. 6 seniors departing, 3 freshmen coming in. Should have plenty of funds for the portal. And a full strength staff. Dorn is the only returning starter. Hopefully Sisley improves a lot over the offseason. Don't know if we can count on him taking a big enough step to be a starter or not. Miles likely also will have a bigger role, but probably not as a starter right away. PAM may be in the rotation as a freshman. Manhertz probably redshirting? Maybe Karvala too (maybe not)... Then there's Harris/Andrej and Drake/Ristic. You probably need at least one of each pairing to be able to play off the bench. If we need to free up scholarships for the portal, I'd think it comes out of this group. Assuming these guys can be serviceable, the bench is in fine shape and plenty of dough to add difference makers in the portal. 1 - PG transfer 2 - CG transfer 3 - Dorn 4 - Stretch big transfer 5 - C transfer Bench: Sisley, Miles, PAM, Andrej/Harris, Ristic/Drake With the freshmen, if we add 4 transfers, someone needs to transfer out. If we add 3 transfers, we probably need Sisley, Miles or Harris to surprise us and step up as a starter.

It's interesting that even with a long of 82 vs. Kaelon's long of 40, Kaelon had a higher ypc, even though Hemby clearly had more breakaway speed. And as the season progressed Kaelon was more often the featured or even split of carries back. He led us in rushing for the OSU game and all three CFP games.

Dorn, Sisley, Miles are solid returning pieces that should all improve along with other younger pieces with a year of college coaching vs 0 returning players from the previous season. Three top 100 HS recruits vs the single Sisley commitment. Class rank 100 spots higher (17 vs117) A coaching staff that is already in place scouting transfers and making connections with future recruits vs DeVries working alone trying to recruit, scout, and hire a staff at a card table in a broom closet in mid March. Now, how does it look to not be more promising?

Haha. Conor Enright x JLab Collab.

Yikes. As genuine and fully transparent as Tang seems to be here, this ultimately and completely falls on him: Jerome Tang is the one that assembled this roster, and with above-average resources. Jerome Tang is the one that assembled the staff that is tasked with delivering the message of the head coach. Jerome Tang is the one that sets the culture and is the ultimate voice to communicate to these 18-23 year olds. Jerome Tang is the one that game plans and schemes each of these blowouts. Jerome Tang is the one that has produced successive conference records of 11-7, 8-10, 9-11, and 1-9. So who is the one person in this program that above all others should not be at K State next year? Jerome Tang.

Spot on imo. It's an extreme example, but Keaton Wagler as a #200+ ranked HS kid isn't getting paid much this season, he's got to be 3% to 4% of their roster cost, but he's delivering huge production. And retained players cost something like 10-20% less than their portal replacements. What makes Cig's player retention so damn great is it saves IUFB something like $3-5M/yr, which he can turnaround and spend on very productive and impactful guys. Good scouting and player dev is still as vital as it ever was. And lastly, Kenny and Rod need to earn need to earn their $ in the portal this year. Our staff budget is top-10 and needs to produce.

There is some logic to next year looking better given the job is not has hard as it was a year ago: March 18, 2025: We effectively had no staff and no team. Basically had six weeks to assemble a whole program. Pain in the @$$ until the last moment Woody had not moved out of his office yet and CDD had a makeshift office in the lounge. March 18, 2026: We will have a whole staff in place and, while still thin, a small core of a team. That's a big difference. We should be more prepared for the portal. We don't need as many players. We should be able to do more advanced scouting in terms of who's available (via agents) and their fit. And we should be more prepared to sell them on IU. And IU looks reasonably appealing right now with our style of play. Will this matter? Logically I think it will, but who knows, I can only guess and there are so many variables. I don't know what our roster budget will be next year (I'd think at least similar to '25). We could have repeat errors like Reed and miss on top targets. We also need our returning guys and freshman to work out. We'll just have to wait and see...

Wishful thinking and good vibes. It’ll be a fight for real impact makers amongst all the best schools. We need about 3 of them. 34 minute type guys. We return very little and have a recruiting class with good long term projections. We aren’t starting square 1 but without serious portal wins we won’t sniff preseason top 25 next year. Lots of schools will be WAY ahead of us with what they return. Many schools will have more cash to spend. I guess we will see what the portal giveth.

Anyone who says that has absolutely no idea why Cignetti and IU succeeded. It's an easy take....lazy, but easy

Always go for the home team in that situation. Puts USC behind IU in the standings and IU doesn’t play them again but will get a shot at OSU at the end of the year. Both are bubble teams. Buckeyes still don’t have a Q1 win. That can change on Saturday. They have a non conference game against Virginia. Huge game the buckeyes

- Is that from a regular drip coffee maker? - Already ground in a can, or did you grind the beans- and if so when when were they roasted? - Do you keep beans in an airtight container or (God forbid) it’s like Folgers ground straight from the can? - have you considered pour-over? Happy @Stuhoo? hahaha

I feel like we have a sneaky good class coming in next year. The type of class Villanova would stack year after year back in the day with players that weren't good enough to go pro right away but ended up being great college players.

I don't know if it's true, but I saw on social media that the Seahawks had more G6/FCS guys in their starting lineup than FBS guys. Curious if accurate. Winning a football natty at IU has to be one of the greatest accomplishments in sports history, if not THE greatest? Never going to get old celebrating this year and team.

Here is Bryant talking about the Broyles Award (for best assistant in CFB). The winner is announced tonight.

IMO the student section should be absolutely brutal to the opposing players/staff. Referencing Mom's & Donkey's or whatever, just being as savage and vicious as possible....but not visiting fans. They are real people, players & staff got it coming.

I think Landino can be an all conference guy. I'm a huge fan. Plus he has a great sack celly... I would also mention, specifically he and Ndukwe.. they have been YOUNG vs their competition-- true FR/SO playing against a lot of RS SR, etc. It wouldn't surprise me if Landino is moving to the NFL after this season, in truth. I think he's that good.

Pure conjecture, obviously, but how do the assumed position groups beginning 2026 compare to the beginning of 2025? Better, worse or equal? Without too much thought my 2026 projections: OL better, RB worse, QB worse, WR equal(!), TE worse. I think the offense should still be very good, even if individual groups aren't as good as this past season. I am counting on Marsh to be all he can be. DL Worse, LB equal, DB worse. I am putting a lot of faith in Hardy & Jones, because Fischer was a machine. I think Moore was the unsung hero of the secondary in '25. Tough to replace him and Ponds. I still expect an excellent Defense, but a step back from the historic '25 squad isn't shameful. Spec teams equal. Hopefully, because they were flippin excellent.

Would be pretty shocked if he’s not in rotation day 1. Nice skill level, fearless and the mentality of a killer.

I really hope this is instant coffee from dollar general! Am I right @Stuhoo? Only the best belongs in a mug like that!!!!!

My gut also tells me that Tucker is going to go on a heater late in the season...

It’s absolutely proper and planets-aligned that the only touchdown of the Super Bowl is scored by: