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Nice little segment of the seniors coming off the floor. Makes you think, think about the years past coaches and players….we had several players get in trouble off the court and a few personalities that were crappy. Not this team. This is probably one the cleaniest crews we’ve had in some time, and most likable kids we’ve had the pleasure of putting on the uniform, no bad talk on Twitter, no putting down the fan base during a speech, no lazy play . Just wore the IU uniform with pride and actually hustled their tails off, and represented the university well! Go IU!

This season has been fine/solid/good enough: First year of a new coach sitting at 18-12. Bubble tournament team - currently 50-60% likely to get in. A bunch of very likable players - Sam Alexis, Enright, Lamar especially for me. Incoming recruiting class for next year is already strong. Finally playing modern offense. First time in eight years for that. Much of the program buzz is gone because for decades we have been a middling program, we aren't exceeding expectations, and because the fan base is understandably much more into our undefeated national championship football team. But overall? This is better than the past two years of Woodson and pretty much all of the Archie era.

You never count your NIL, When you're biddin' in the portal, There'll be time enough for countin', When the roster’s done.

I lost my mother at 45, and I can't imagine losing her at 21. I would've love to have him in Bloomington, but he made the right decision.

Ryan Carr the Roster Czar will make a huge difference.

I hope we just trust our own eyes, ears vs worrying about what 247/On3 slaps on a recruit ranking wise. Braden Smith - wasn't ranked on 247 and #198 composite--- rated the #9 player in Indiana lol..rated the #33 PG in HIS CLASS... Keaton Wagler- #150 on 247, #261 composite Ryan Conwell https://247sports.com/player/ryan-conwell-46118010/high-school-268570/... The list goes on and on. Cignetti's best skill is him and his staff's ability to scout. Basketball should be no different.

[Rod Roddy Price is Right voice] A new car!

Conerway gave the coaches the blow-by when he came out. All the other seniors hugged the coaches. I had a feeling he had something going on with coaches/teammates since December.

Apparently, the crowd is going out of its way to big time support Reed Bailey tonight. Love that.

Good first half performance from a team still fighting to make the tournament

I’m a big fan of Wilkerson so I hope this is taken in with the spirit it’s intended. If college athletics are to mean anything in this new era, I hope it at least means they get a little help in financial management. We have the KSOB. I saw Dusty May sit on a podium and when his players were asked what they we’re going to buy with their NIL he chimed in “annuities.” Funny but probably apropos. I don’t know Wilkerson or his mom’s financial situation, so I’m not making a judgement here. But if college athletics are to mean anything in this age of NIL rosters they should endeavor to help these 18-22 year olds make wise financial decisions.

In Conwells case I think even if you know he isn’t coming the head coach of Indiana has to try. He was one of the hottest guards in the portal and had Indiana connections. Kind of like the head coach of IU needs to be presence at Indiana high school sectional of final games even if they are not recruiting anyone at that time. Unwritten rule sort of speak. If he wouldn’t have went after Connell he would have gotten blasted on here for not even trying. He was perfect but in this case I don’t think he did anything wrong. Just my opinion

They swung for the fences off the bat with 2 kids that were not going to go to IU from the jump. Conwell they had to go after just because but he was going to Louisville. Kelsey tried to get him the year before but got a late start. Once he went into the portal this year Kelsey had the jump on everyone since he is basically from that area or have a ton a family from that area. Dix they had to go after because of the relationship DeVries had with him but that kid was going to go where ever was closest to his mom that was battling cancer and sadly she lost her battle with cancer during the season. UConn had a moment of silence at their home game against Creighton this year

I was there! Seemed to me that this was an even smaller than usual crowd for a Big10 tournament opening round. Some guy gave me a ticket. It was really high up so I couldn't tell for sure, but I didn't think the IU fanbase was very big either. BUT, I was super impressed with our comeback. Let's be honest, very few of us thought we had a chance going into the second half. Fortunately, the lady Hoosiers didn't think like all of us. This was a VERY impressive victory, especially considering we have probably the shortest bench in the Big10. We got exactly TWO points outside of the starting five. Will be very hard to handle OSU, especially with our lack of dept. But who thought we could beat Nebraska heading into the second half?

I think you’re closer to the truth. You save money by retaining big name guys. By most accounts Edey and Braden smith could’ve got a little more by going on the open market but Purdue ponied up enough that they were happy to stay put with the coaches, teammates and situation they knew. If say Wilkerson were coming back, Duke or somebody might offer him 3.5mil but he’d stay with us for a small bump to 3 mil. But we have role players, at best, coming back. I can’t see them taking any less money. But realistically who is going to offer a Sisley or Miles a big contract? We just have to make much better use of the Wilkerson-Tucker-Bailey-Conerway pool of money.

And it sounded like the fans made up with Bailey......these guys have a good chance to beat OSU!

I think Jasai Miles is going to surprise a lot of people next year. I really like him as a player.

The reason the Northwestern game deflated everyone on here and the coaches and players was because all they really had to do was win that game against a lower team and they are sitting pretty heading into the conference tourney. That loss dropped their WAB from 42 to 48

IU having to beat Ohio St for a spot in the tournament. Rules How does this work? For each game, I will create a Prediction League thread. It's a simple concept: Each game you start with 100 points (only if a prediction is made, otherwise 0 points for the game) + 25 pts if you guess the winner - 25 pts if you pick the loser + 25 pts if guess IU score correctly (Up from 10) + 25 pts if guess Opponent score correct (Up from 10) - The # of points different between the actual and predicted score of IU (over/under doesn't matter) - The # of points different between the actual and predicted score of opponent (over/under doesn't matter) Also, the highest scorer(s) of the game gets 25 pts for a new maximum of 200 points. *** Reminder if you post a prediction and want to change it, please just POST a NEW Prediction, do not edit a prior post as I may miss those edits. The person with the most points (MINUS FOUR (4) LOWEST GAMES) at the end of the season wins. ONLY POST PREDICTIONS IN THIS THREAD, THANK YOU

Probably a WNIT bid awaits, but we'll see. Enjoyed chatting w/ myself again!

Annuities Dusty?

With a full staff working from their offices instead of one coach working from a table in the lunch room, they should be able to target what they need and who they want. That can make a huge difference just right there.

I think we have enough money I’d rather them try and land 2 elite players, PG and SG/Wing. Then get a defensive athletic center. Fill the rest with capable big ten caliber bench players. Won’t be ideal but I don’t think we see ideal for a couple more years yet. After listening to the Ryan Carr interview from a week or so ago, I’m very encouraged by his addition and role. I think he has the right mindset. High school recruiting is like the draft and the portal is free agency. You typically over spend in free agency. So we need to over spend for a few years until our high school recruits get to be upperclassmen. I don’t think we are targeting the 5 star 1 and dones. I keep hearing about this sweet spot of 30-100 range in ranking. Guys with big upside and skill but will stick around 3-4 years. They come in cheaper and then when they are more developed you pay them more.

-3 freshman $300-400k -Miles/Sisley $400-500k -Dorn as potential 5th starter/6th man $500-750k From that group alone you potentially have a starter and 2-3 key depth/rotation pieces and collectively have only spent $2-3mil. Against a $12mil budget, you have $9-10 million to add 5, maybe 6 players depending on how the staff feel about Drake and Harris who will command very little. You have enough to buy an elite big ($2.5-3mil), an elite guard ($2.5-3mil) a 2nd really good guard ($1.5-2mil), a serviceable backup big ($500-750k), and a 4 man.

New Mexico lost st home last night. They are firmly near the cut line. USC lost again and are probably in having to win the BTT territory especially with the 40 year old quitting on his team. Committee can argue they are a different team without him and they have lost every game since he left

I have a Purdue recruiting theory. Painter only recruits big uglies so he can say he’s not the worst looking guy on campus.

I was early money on this. He’s just not a smart player. We play better without him. And once injury cost him his spot it became evident to the coaches and he hasn’t been able to earn his spot back. Gotta wonder how the season would’ve played out if him and Bailey came off the bench from the beginning. Might’ve taken a game like Kentucky or Iowa.

If they play defense like they did tonight, they should beat them.

Looks like I only missed the Gophers score by about 30!

The 3 freshman coming in + the possibility of Sisley, Dorn, Miles and maybe a few more aren’t going to command anywhere near the pool of money that it would if you were building a roster from scratch. That’s 6-8 guys who are depth/development pieces on next years roster. We’re likely paying our 6th and 7th players (Conerway/Bailey) this year close to 7 figures each. IU is going to have more money to spend on less players this coming portal season because they aren’t starting from scratch.

That was fun!! The 12 assists and Alexis made me happy.

Good close to the half. Now, let's not Northwestern this second half.

I didn't know Tuck could dunk! LOL. Nice run to end the half!

Is this @LamarCheeks guy good or is he really good?

I dont think it would be. We will see how we come out of Columbus this weekend. Although Minnesota was short handed and not good, we still beat em and there were a lot of adjustments made. we really let Alexis go to work, and didnt take a ton of stupid shots. now.....Martinelli is a good player, but hes not anything we cant handle. I think as long as we hit our shots, dont take stupid ones, work the ball down, and drive to the basket...I think we have the tools to beat them. What wont work is taking a logo 3 with 5 seconds off the shot clock, not letting Alexis have the ball and work with it, and most importantly is not getting easy rebounds.

That reeks of amateurism. You have to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em. Thank goodness Carr is here. If the same thing happens this year, then we have a problem.

He's definitely not questioning the money paid to Wilkerson. See a bit of hyperbole in this post but I agree with your general sentiment... I don't think anyone believes he should've been able to get 9 "top players" in the portal this past go round, but that he could've assembled a much better top 9 players with the budget we have. Obviously easier said than done, but CAM's train wreck certainly had nothing to do with it. I think an easy critique of DDV would be, why didn't we press harder to keep Reneau? Maybe that's not fair but he was a JR already on campus, we probably could've enticed him to stay. But that wasn't part of the vision. So we should've gotten someone better than Reneau for the system, but we didn't. We overpaid for Bailey. Referring back to the graphic I shared earlier, look at all the teams with a lower talent rating than ours who are overachieving. And all our peers in the "meeting expectations" area... we probably could've constructed a better roster with some of those players, and they were not "top players" in the portal or commanding more money than we could spend. Of course, you're right DDV was not fully staffed for the portal, which was a huge impediment. He made a choice to build the roster from scratch. He hasn't really done himself many favors with this first year, but I don't think he's been atrocious and want to see what he does differently heading into year 2.

Same. Even early in the season he was getting abused against tougher competition. He plays so slow and has no idea how to control pace and tempo as a point guard. Enright has his own set of issues, but his tempo with this team is miles better than how Conorway plays. He walks it up the court and takes forever to get into any set or offense, then add in the bonehead turnovers. Seems like a nice kid, but just didn't pan out at this level.

I would want Northwestern in that first game. Gives you a chance to get one back against them and even with them being a bottom feeder their net is in the 70s so it’s a Q2 win if you win it

I'm happy the crowd made it up to Bailey. It wasn't his fault the evaluation was off. He always seemed to try.

I was as frustrated as most fans with Bailey's play this year. The frustration probably had more to do with the team results that I and others directed at him. To his credit, Bailey plays with effort. I hope he and the other seniors consider themselves Hoosiers and enjoyed representing IU.

Love Alexis having a big night But Dorn hitting 3-8 from the arc is encouraging. We’ve badly miss the third outside shooting threat during the losing streak. Now just maybe they take this level of play on the road and beat OSU and then maybe dancing gets back in the picture

I'm probably wrong, but it felt like Archie never won on senior night.

It was a terrible loss!

We held them scoreless for 7:15. Not bad for a team that couldn't stop a nosebleed recently.

Don’t want to smash them too bad and drop it to a Q3 win. IU needs as many Q2 wins as they can have. Only half joking on not killing them

He is filling some big shoes in the second half!

Reed Bailey drive to bounce pass for a Tucker dunk won’t even be believed by AI when the play-by-play comes out.