lillurk

Mendoza too

Mgoblog produces tons of film- and data-intensive preview content, and of course UM just played MSU. So check their thorough previews of MSU from last week: MSU’s offense — https://mgoblog.com/content/fee-fi-foe-film-michigan-state-offense-2024 their defense — https://mgoblog.com/content/fee-fi-foe-film-michigan-state-defense-2024 and the preview of their MSU game, least relevant for us — https://mgoblog.com/content/preview-michigan-state-2024

Meant to add that Mgbako was probably a plus on D which is huge growth.

Was in the building, have not read the whole thread, but a few takeaways: 1. Thompson-Boling is quite nice, and it filled in quite well. Would guess they sold the whole lower bowl, which was basically full, and there were some folks in the top deck. 2. This was a real road environment: not as good as T-B can be, but MUCH louder and fizzier with energy than e.g. Crisler. Other than Kohl, Breslin, Mackey, @UI, and @UMd, I’m not sure how many B1G road environments would be louder or more intimidating, even at ~80% capacity. 3. Anyway, the game: Rice had 20 and 4, 0 TOs, played good defense, against one of the best defensive backcourts and defensive teams IU will play all year. Reneau was terrific. Both teams played to win, which is only noteworthy in validating the result since it was an exhibition. 4. I would really fade the rough start in your predictive heuristic given the circumstances. 5. When we got there and saw not just Jakai and Trey but also Tucker in street clothes, I was interested to see how much IU went to the one-big arrangements, or two PG lineups. Pleasantly, the answer was plenty. I’m pretty encouraged with that given the roster and injury limitations. I was encouraged by CMW’s comments about Jakai on Friday, but I’ll be worried until he checks into a game. Easier to believe the other two were sitting out mostly as a precaution. 6. even without that crew, the bench was dependable. Adding even Trey will be a big boost. 7. Rebounding was stout, and UT really pursued them. That will help the D finish possessions. Ballo clears space and has good hands; Reneau hasn’t been great in that regard with consistency in the past but looked engaged yesterday. 8. Ballo and Reneau have such different games that there’s a great changeup between them. Ballo REALLY clears space, which opens driving and passing lanes in ways the box score doesn’t always display. 9. Wanted to see more horns sets. 10. Not deeply worried about the shooting yet; the % hasn’t really been the issue under Woody but the volume has. IU got to the rim quite well yesterday and didn’t settle for tons of bad or timid shots vs. a great defense.

I will be there and promise not to overreact regardless of the outcome. I will say historically Woody has coached exhibitions pretty closely to to how he would a standard game, which means you can learn at least a little more than if you see lineups that will never play together for 40% of the game.

I want to be excited about Tucker but I’m a little worried about his shooting. Since he didn’t play summer ‘23 AAU there’s less data than lots of guys but what data there is looks shaky, the scouting has been positive but not effusive in that regard, and any praise of a perimeter player’s midrange shooting is damning with faint praise that he’s not taking and making 3s. Now, I hope I’m wrong, players get better, and the lack of data can work in his favor: small sample may be distorting his numbers AND the scouting.

I thought they looked bad in the promo this week but on field? Yeah, they’re good.

Someday there will be another coaching search, and he should be a consideration, absolutely.

Even in the portal era, missing this big in back-to-back years is probably a good way to get fired. There are ways to mitigate it of course, and this year’s team has the talent to have a chance to do it. But the miss here is in part because CMW misperceives where IU stands in the hierarchy, when to push in, so on

Absolute guess: we got matched.

We’re being naive if we think some recruitments haven’t always worked that way.

If there’s any truth here I wonder if he was looking for a lifeboat when it seemed like there might be major turnover.

Interesting — reclamations with legal trouble haven’t really been his stock in trade before unless I’m forgetting some things.

Per Trevor Andershock’s Twitter, he had 48 of his team’s 77 in a 3 point win over Attucks today at IU’s team camp. Andershock is glowing about his game today. The word has been that if IU pushes its chips in, he’d be interested, no? Because I’ll remember this performance if they push for him and he commits.