8bucks

Have we had any really big recruit from outside of Indiana visit recently? Don't see how anyone can feel good about Bryant or Thon until they visit us like they are doing with other schools recruiting them. Seems awfully quiet except for the 2017 Indiana kids that have been to some games

I got blasted for this earlier when I suggested Crean had not developed (beyond normal development) a single big outside of our McD bigs. When HP was playing well in the preseason people acted like I was a fool and that clearly HP was really developed. I think It is hard for Crean to have a dominant big because they are limited and if your not a McD big you don't really excel here. Talking bigs only. Wings he does well but you cannot win with wings alone unless you are BW

Doclibby, just between you and me, could you like this post if Yogi leaving is a strong possibility. I promise not to tell the rest of the board

Better to sell them to someone going than to not go right?

Davis was in a bad spot. Most of us grew up watching motion offense and man to man D and any other style seemed alien. When we made the change I liked the interim Davis coach idea and even though I struggled to transition from the style I thought was best I certainly enjoyed the run in 2002. After that though we started to drop off year after year. Promises of "help is on the way" never really materialized. Two tell tell signs to me were Davis lack of comfort recruiting Indiana or being the face of the program in the state. The second was the increasing number of empty seats at games. The results on the court were the most telling but when the admin would voice support for Davis publicly these two signs strongly suggested he would not be able to keep the job.

Well you can't end up over signed really can you? Once you get to a certain point you can't sneak another in.

I may be reading too far into your post but the numerous off court issues got the negative vibes going not the news. As for the preseason hype I would argue there was very little. I thought we could be a top 4 team in the BT and can only remember a handful of others who felt the same. Most of the national pundits predicted us to finish in the 7-10 range so not sure what hype there might be. I am not sure if this is an indictment on Crean though. As suggested it appears to be students who are not showing up. Alumni are waiting to get tickets so if that drops off then that might be more telling. It does bear watching though as that was one of the indicators of Davis' lack of support

You may have been joking but it actually does not work out. We have had too many kids transfer recently that we needed to keep to help us overcome being perpetually young. Sure JH probably had to go and AE is not tearing it up at Butler but we need to find guys that will stay around a few years that are contributors. If we lose even a couple of our top 8 players this year. The lose several of them the flowing year we will be back to being extremely young again.

I think if we get Bryant we are in the hunt. If we do not then we need to combine a strong freshman class in 2017 with veterans like RoJo, Emmit, Colin and perhaps the 16 freshman. We will probably lose Troy and JBj before they graduate but we need the core I mentioned above to not only stay but improve each year. Then we can not only sustain but can build on the success of a couple top 25 years (the second top 25 might be top 10 if we get a very good big).

Exactly. No reason to suspect any of those guys will be gone before then but most of us were pretty confident Stan was going to be a solid 4 year guy too. When we are very young like last year we struggle to be mid pack in the BT so in 2017 I want the freshman we may be in on now to be complimented by 4 or 5 junior/senior kids who can lead well on and off court.

He needs some of them but he equally needs guys like RoJo, Emmit, Collin and Max to become solid 3rd year guys to lead some of those young 2017s. No reason to believe they will not but to maintain success those guys will have to be the keys.

I thought the article was fair. I think Crean is doing a really good job this year and would not be surprised if he is considered for the coach of the year. However, Crean still needs to find a way to get us over the hump and needs to produce teams that regularly compete for the BT championship. We are early in the year but a couple wins this week will really propel us in that direction this year. The BT is down but next year is really the year where we should expect to compete on a national level. So in a way anything better than 5th in the BT is gravy this year. My concern is that after the 2016 season Crean needs to find a way to balance his classes somehow so we do not find ourselves unable to compete for the BT championship because we again young. So sure, this year is fun and next year could be better but we have to find a way to reload vs rebuild every 3 years.

And I said bad luck or poor recruiting. Regardless that large class set us back big time

Working hard I will not question but a big way to show value is to keep a roster spot open for a kid. Had Harris committed he would have bumped someone else. Some insiders claim this was a reason he did. It come. I have no idea but if true and I have said before, it is not my job to ID talent and recruit kids. That is Creans job and call it bad luck or poor recruiting decisions but that class set us way back. You cannot swing and miss on a 3 members of a five man top five class. Especially when half of the remaining two has been widly inconsistent

Crean was on a recruiting role though at that time. The 13 class looked great and we had Zeller in the fold for 11. The 12 class was highly ranked and we did say no to guys like Dunham and did not make Harris a priority. As much recruiting momentum as he had at that time the 12 miss is the one that really hurt. That was a top 5 class nationally and were mostly local kids who we should have known more about. The miss on that class set us back several years. Bad luck, bad recruiting it has hurt the program and honestly might have created to big of a hole to climb back out of in time.

I think your point is fair. It is also fair though to wonder if Crean can manage to balance a roster when things like this happen. Sometimes things like injuries are unavoidable but just last year we had a roster that was woefully lacking outside shooters. Two years in a row where we have a glaring weakness. We addressed the shooters this year but it seems strange to me that we send two bigs to the NBA lottery, have a glaring need and cannot sign anyone for this year.

During the MSU game, when we were down 20+ would his participation have jeopardized the game situation? I would argue keeping HP or Holt in risks injury in a game we were going to lose

I agree with you about the difficulty in replacing those three. However, Cody has been gone 2 years, Luke 1.5 years and Noah 1 year. Perhaps you could assume Luke plus HP is good enough but that plan did not work out and getting two guys this summer who cannot even get on the court in a position we need is frustrating. I do not agree that we are exceeding expectations let alone by leaps and bounds. If you are basing that on the preseason picks those were largely that way due to a lack of confidence in our program. Look at the roster and even the experience. No we are not senior laden but we have a McD pg who is a junior and has logged a ton of time. Several other 4 stars with a season or more under their belt and another McD kid in Blackman. We have the talent to finish top 4 in the BT and anything lower than that, in a down BT, is a disappointment.

Crean mentioned on his radio show, which aired after the HP injury, that April needed to learn to practice harder. I would like to see him get some minutes as I think that will help him see how far behind he is. We took a flyer on him and Priller though so not much was expected this year. I am cool with talking a flyer on a big but we do not have a good track record of developing moderately ranked bigs

I agree except the part about the Indians. But if the Indians can help sign them up.

I may be wrong and would not really get too upset by a small change here and there but I think there have been a lot of other things that have occurred which have caused us to lose our recruiting edge.

Well he is right. To many announcers try and act like every team is awesome.

Holt could be. He seems to really attack rebounds. It would help him to grow a little more or put on some real beef. If our top 8 players return next year I think we are easily top 20 level team. If HP, Holt make a big jump or some 5* big not on the roster join the team we could be top 10.

Ok then how do the Wisconsin's, Spartans, Buckeyes, Duke, UNC, Gonzagas and Jayhawks find that perfect storm of sorts on a consistent basis. There are a lot of teams outside of the UK model that are successful and competitive nearly every year.

I really think we have more talent than many of the teams 2-9. Nebraska last night had two guys we largely ignored on defense. It has been nice to see HP and TWs improvement this year. If those two can be consistent we have a chance for a very good year. I thought at the beginning of the year we had the talent and enough experience to be a top 4 team in the BT. With the BT being down it seems even more likely. Still a very good win on the road last night. Road wins are hard to come by and Crean did a good job making changes last night.