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Rabby just said a potential walk on about him to ease everyone’s minds lol

UConn has been in 3 of the last 4 title games and won two of them playing exclusively with one big on the court. More than one way to win

So we've already got these roles covered: Yigi = Mara Sherrell = Morez Johnson Sisley = Tschetter Ben Winker = Yaxel Landenborg Winner.

Momcilovic? Yes, the single best player in the portal would be a great fit at IU. and for every single team in college basketball.

PG, SF, C, and bench were far greater issues than Tucker, though.

That's because Landenborg was able to guard 1-5 and played some point guard on offense. When you get a very rare 6'10 player like that it opens lots of possibilities. Again; that is a very, very rare player.

An impressive lack of dunks for a 6'11 guy in his highlight reel lol

Former IU basketball big man Andrej Acimovic committed to Missouri State today

A solid back-up 4/5 would give us a 9 man rotation with only Moody being counted as part of the rotation. Karvala would be mop up minutes and Manhertz and 12-13 would be practice players. Not ideal but could definitely work. 5 guards/wings and 4 bigs. Build on that next year with Branham and a couple of additional bigs.

Women will participate in the Fort Myers Tipoff the week of Thanksgiving. https://www.thedailyhoosier.com/iu-womens-basketball-to-play-mississippi-state-and-georgia-tech-in-fort-myers-tipoff/

https://stockrisers.com/s/596/top-50-junior-jlon-lyons-discusses-his-recruitment-development IU one of the schools he talks about.

Karaban was such a perfect fit there. Cheat code. Could hold his own against most 4’s and then destroy them on the offensive end. Shame that Tucker wasn’t even a Temu Karaban for us

Iowa is a top 25 team and has fantastic offensive line development. Programs of that caliber (just like IU) are going to sell development and results, not guarantees of anything. Highly ranked, confident recruits largely want that; not any promises, because they think that they will rise to the top if allowed to compete for a role. So if this kid loves the vibe at Iowa and commits there? I get it. If he loves IU even more and commits to us? I get that too and think it would be the best decision he'll ever make.

Lendeborg was a highly skilled wing who happened to be huge. Obviously a game changer, but there aren't many of those guys around in college ball. Johnson played about half of his minutes alongside Mara, the other half Johnson was the 5. I expect we will deploy Sherrell in a similar fashion. The backup "big" for Michigan was Will Tschetter - Sisley will fill that role for us.

Agree. Yig, Sherrell, and Sisley are likely to eat up nearly all of the 4/5 minutes in an 8-man rotation. We absolutely need another big for depth, but it's only a 0-10 mpg slot we are offering unless someone gets hurt. Best case scenario is to strike gold on someone like Alexis again. But a Sparks type is probably more likely.

Since it's a highlight reel for a young, untested player I was looking for signs of athleticism. Nope - didn't see any!

That's an excellent long form piece. I didn’t know the longer background with Cig. I wasn't around for '75-'76. I always wondered what that was like, especially since that sort of athletics success at IU seemed very unlikely to occur again. I can't believe I got to experience something even more amazing. And IUFB likely isn't done being very good. Thanks Curt!

Went to HS about 10 mins from me and saw them a couple of times over a couple of years. That kid is not even a break the glass big. He is a “Oh God, everyone to the bomb shelter now” big. Strictly cannon fodder for the white jerseys. But he’s not unathletic. If he’s scholly #13 and you want to see what you’ve got after a year of getting his a$$ whooped by Sherrell that’s ok with me. He’s probably got a better chance than Acimovic because he moves better. And the stroke’s alright.

you're such a smart a$$!

To The Rescue

I understand where you're coming from, but Carr is a scouter of talent/fit, it's what he did for the P's and bringing in the right players from the portal -- not just picking guys ranked well in the portal (like Woodson did, regardless of fit) is a type of scouting. It's how their games relate to what staff wants to run, how they compliment each other, how their styles fit. But yes the work isn't done (imo) let's see how their complete roster pans out.

I agree that'd be a nice way to round out the roster. Probably splitting hairs a bit but I don't really view the portal haul as a scouting win per se. Talent acquisition win, definitely. But each of the 6 portal guys so far come from P5 schools and we paid good money to land them, so to me, doesn't necessarily show scouting chops. IF they can find a diamond in the rough or help a couple decent players become solid players, that would show real scouting and development chops and drastically improve the outlook for next year / building on next year's team without as much roster turnover. The ratings are nice but their keep will be earned or not on the floor. Looking forward to year 1 part 2 lol

Pretty clear at this point we aren't adding any players that require a considerable pay day. Every year there are tons of guys from the portal who way outperform their ranking. We are looking for deep value at this stage, not a big name. This is where the staff's scouting / development chops will be tested and where they will earn their keep, or not.

I hope Memphis doesn’t test for grip strength.

I will never have hurt feelings about losing an OL to Iowa. The place is a freakin' hoggy factory.

This is pretty funny.

He’s probably a top priority for Iowa. He might be a priority for us but we might not be willing to stroke his ego. Cig doesn’t promise playing time either. We are going to lose kids who aren’t a culture fit. That’s a good thing.

Agree. It’s in a coach’s best interests downplay how much they have to spend and overestimate how much his competitors have.

You need a big in case of fouls or injury but I really doubt anyone that comes in makes the actual rotation. Devries has never played with two bigs before. Splitting Yigi and Sherrel would mean about 20mpg of two bigs together and 20mpg where one of them is the singular big. You can’t get a quality backup big that doesn’t fit in the rotation and just force them on the floor if there’s an injury. Most coaches will just go small at that point. Even 7’ center addict Matt Painter went small when faced with an injury 2 years ago. It would be really weird for a “small ball/4-out” coach like Devries to not do the same if faced with an injury. Woody was committed to 80 mins per game of post play and we still ended up with backups like Hatton, Sparks, and Duncomb. I’d expect something like that at best for our last big spot.

Alec Lasley - Indiana transfer guard Bryce Lindsay is currently on campus visiting -- he committed to the Hoosiers without taking a visit.

20-25 schools over $20M? I’m not buying that Sean. Bit of exaggeration there imo. Maybe 10 are $20M+. That said, #10-20 still have a lot of money. IU needs to start developing and retaining players to help offset the increase in player costs.

Personally, I think that Prince and Karvala are going to get some rotational time. I think the roster construction to this point has been decent.....with the one spot screaming need being a solid rotational big. That's not what Winker is. Right now barring injuries IU is most definitely a tournament team, assuming we get another rotational big. I'm hopeful that Winker isn't thought to be that kind of player and I do assume that isn't DeVries or Carr's plan. I would also assume that IU has at least a little money left, otherwise Wang wouldn't have bothered to visit.

I believe Manhertz was originally a 26 and then reclassified to 27 before deciding to go back to his original 26.

Simply put, if he is brought in to be a back up big instead of a developmental 12/13 scholly, there could not be a worse choice. Why would anyone expect a guy who literally could not get on the court with a middling low major team would all of a sudden be a guy who could be counted on to be a rotational big man on a high major.

Fair. Timing doesn’t indicate a preferred walkon and bigs very rarely take walk-on spots either. All signs point to a back up big option. I know people hate it, but Rabjohns (who is very friendly with Carr) said 2 of the last 3 we’re going to be practice guys. This fits that. And it’s a terrible idea now just as it was a terrible idea then. Hopefully someone can think things over before final decisions are made.

I stand by what I said -- there are hundreds of players sitting at the end of bench because they haven't even shown they are capable of being a low major player. We already have three freshman whom we don't know if they will be in the rotation -- if we have developmental players at the 12 and 13 positions then what you are saying is that we potentially have only eight players that could be valued as rotational players,

Players 12&13 are going to be developmental

Then he can go somewhere and get his a** kicked by us lol

... and one big guy on the floor at any given time. They had Sanogo / Clingan, Clingan / Johnson, Johnson / Reed, Reed / Reibe. Pretty sure each pair literally never shared the court with each other. We are going to start two 7 footers this year. We just need some more depth. Size and length are much improved

Doubt this will have any effect on her decision, but the longtime coach at Ojo's high school (about 10 minutes from where I live) has retired. Won over 700 game and 16 -- yes 16 -- state titles. Think the chances of her wearing cream & crimson are extremely slim anyway. https://www.pilotonline.com/2026/05/04/darnell-dozier-retires-after-guiding-princess-anne-to-record-16-girls-basketball-state-championships/

If it's IU and Iowa...Iowa just put a bunch of lineman in the NFL as well. If that's the ultimate goal vs winning or playing in CFP, then I guess no difference. Sucks we are still having issues closing with in state kids, but we seem to be in on many lineman so hopefully losing out on this one won't be as big of a loss.

In town to sign on the dotted line, meanwhile, he is checking everything out before make it official.

And kept them fresh. Mara and Johnson each played less than 25 mpg. Running Samet and Sherrell out there for 30+ mpg a night is going to be a disaster. You almost have to do it because the drop off is going to be significant.

Shot clock didn't pass. Nil did is my understanding for Indiana.

I agree a solid rotational big is a screaming need. I'm glad we aren't spending whatever we do have left on Wang tbh. His teammate Fuchs is much more interesting to me. Assume that's not a thing though. IMO it's pushing it to say barring injuries IU is "most definitely a tournament team." ... Certainly capable, but not definite IMO. We have a starting 5 that should be pretty to very good. Past that, a ton of question marks IMO

We’ve got an Ivan Renko situation on our hands. Kinda has the look of the default player on any sports game ever made. It’s no wonder why our amazing sleuths can’t ID him.

I thought when he was good....he was terrific. When he was not his best, he was the weak link. Hopefully learns to limit penalties and becomes a solid NFL player. He certainly has the body and skills.

FWIW, Tennessee is currently ranked 22nd on Torvik and when you add Juke Harris in they move five spots to 17. On3 ranks team's transfer portal by looking what they brought in by the portal against what they had go out in the portal. They are a net positive when comparing what they brought in to what they lost, but it's not that big of a margin difference -- overall, they were rated 24th in net gain (IU was ranked 3rd). Overall, On3 and Torvik don't see much difference between Tennessee's roster last year to this year.

Heard some inside stuff here and it wasn’t especially favorable for IU. Not saying it won’t happen but IU’s approach of “we are IU and why wouldn’t you want to be a part of this” isn’t fully resonating.