lillurk

This is where Juwan and staff deserve some criticism: IU knew this before he was even linked to UM, then it took weeks after his commitment for he and UM to split? And UM deservedly has a reputation as a tough spot for transfers. All the more reason it was misplayed.

Yeah, I agree there are of course good options. It’s just less obvious who they might be for UK right now than some prior periods.

Late regular season, around their loss to Georgia, I wondered if a Cal/UK split might be good for both parties. They rallied and the noise died down, but I still wonder if that’s the case. One issue right now is I don’t know if there’s a real obvious coach that screams “next UK HC” out there. They’re not going to poach from the reigning champ. Oats and/or Muss make sense, but their current schools would pony up to keep them. Painter is a wild card IMO but I don’t really see it for either side.

My inference from this, the Sharajavmts top 5, and the relative quiet is the staff may not be all in on one target yet. Can’t speak to Hart as a player. But I’d find it hilarious if UK wants him and he ends up at IU, given UK’s thin roster

I was going to post some quotes but the whole thing is worth reading: https://www.insidethehall.com/2023/05/31/quotes-everything-mike-woodson-said-at-hubers-winery/

Here are a couple pro-Sharavjamts morsels for thought: 1. Torvik’s got a player statistical similarity tool. Many, many of his top freshman year comps turned in to really good college players. One of the top comps: frosh Armaan Franklin. They’re different — see @Demo‘s comments on the vision, not really a Franklin strength — but I find that sort of instructive. A guy who wasn’t great in year one, but showed some things that might not jump off the page in his cumulative stats. 2. Torvik also categorizes player position based on size, stats, who he shares the floor with. It tabs Sharavjamts as a PG. Obviously when you’ve got a 6’8” one, you have some lineup flexibility, but speaks to the vision. 3. I know there was some grumbling about why he declared…even if you don’t watch much NBA, surely you can understand why a prospect with his size and skill would still get invited to some workouts. Figure out the shot, add 20 lbs, continue developing, and you can envision at least a productive college player, and maybe at least a chance to play at a higher level than that.

Very complicating to me, too, that he’s good at this

We know Woody loves length and positional size. Would also make sense why things have been quiet, if there was reason to believe he was interested in IU.

Isn’t it an issue that he played in the last half of the season?

The short answer re: height is it’s hard (not impossible) to have a good defense at a size disadvantage. Easy to shoot over, easy to capitalize against switches, tough to rebound. I love a 3 or even 4 guard lineup as a change-of-pace look, but it’s tough to do at the high-major level constantly. The last time I was accused of height obsession it was in the context of Woody’s recruiting. But making that about me, or any other poster, is a category error: Woody’s stated and revealed preference through his entire coaching career is for plus positional size/length.

I believe the original contract was 8 years, and this is the eighth year (it was cancelled in fall 2020). No word yet on a contract renewal. However, as both conferences are Fox Sports partners, I would guess everyone involved has a vested interest in some sort of continuing agreement. Wouldn’t be surprised if potential Big East realignment is the current sticking point — hopefully some resolution on the UConn/Big 12 dalliance comes soon and a renewal gets figured out. The other thing is there’s probably no huge hurry to announce — if they want to maximize earned press coverage they’d announce the week of the games in November, I’ll guess.

Reggie was my fav too. In Mack’s case, who knows if they’ll try to tweak anything but where he differs from Reggie on shot form is his seems repeatable without the low father and start. Don’t break it, I agree. Wouldn’t be shocked if someone (trainer already, IU staff, or some future pro staff) just says “hey, keep it high.”

Right, it would basically require someone to take a sixth man role. Maybe you can sell Abmas that any NBA future for him is probably as a Bobby Jackson/Lou Williams type of high-minute bench scoring guard? “Hey, we’ll showcase you in the role you’d play eventually, we think that will boost your stock?”

Quite a jersey here

I think he’ll either get a nice number of clean looks like Kopp did, which he converts well, or he’ll be hard to leave to help, which is great for everyone else. He tends to start his shot low off the catch, even when the pass is delivered high. I didn’t notice that watching more recent film so maybe he’s changed that — the stroke looks like it could be basically unchanged with a higher start, since the release is high anyway. I wonder to what extent the tunnel vision is a byproduct of the quality of teammate. Wasn’t a terrible case of TV in the first place, but how much of that was being on a team where a contested lane two from MM was a better chance than a catch and shoot 3 from some teammates? If so it may be easily cured playing at a higher level with D1 teammates.

I made a similar comment last week. My take is that quiet is good — if they hadn’t locked onto a mutually interested option we’d be hearing them connected to every available guard

Gotta say, one reason to love this board and specifically this thread is I saw some chatter from Twitter Ball Knowers — even ones I like! — that complained about the matchups. But I agree with you: some really good ones. I’ll try to tune in for X@PU, Marq@Ill, UM@SJU, UMd@VU, and Iowa@Creighton.

Agree, though they’re missing the thing Shrews maxed: shooting

Maybe, my point was more that they do a pretty good job of replicating what made the old Boston Garden or Great Western Forum special

TD Garden and Staples Center make strong cases that IU can build a new basketball arena that captures what makes SSAH great.

Came here to post this but I see we’re already on it. Feels like we may be reaching the end of an epoch

We’ve got a great discussion going here. Think Reneau can fit within Woodson’s desired framework if the jumper comes along OR if/when the other frontcourt players can shoot. So Ware is a perfect fit, in theory. In addition to the sets mentioned I’d add they’ll run plenty of double drag screens with both bigs popping OR one roll & one pop. They’ve already done this in the past but the frontcourt shooting and ball skills should make it more effective and harder to guard than it has been.

Your “Baylor/Houston guard” is a great comp. Between that and Demo’s Cupps :: Jay Wright guard comp, I love where the backcourt is going.

This is close to where I am re: Spencer. However, he played more minutes than anyone else on a Rutgers team that finished 6th in Kenpom defensive efficiency. Maybe we’re wrong.