lillurk

Right, and the assumption it's bad in this case is predicated on the idea it'll be a pro-VU crowd. That's...not a great reflection of Nashville, imo.

I think it actually pairs nicely with the "known where he wanted to go for weeks" comment.

Right, but there are other options: Daniels, Meyer, local newspaper reporters...

I tend to think it's good news they keep talking to Rabjohns.

Perhaps best to consider this just another + on one school's ledger, not a deciding factor, especially given what @Chris007 said.

Do you think this moves the needle with Garland?

So the best 2021 (freshman) in the country according to Future150 and Coast2Coast will be at Archie's first game at IU.

This is a good argument for talented teams to play faster and vice versa: more possessions should widen the gap.

This is all speculative, but reading the tea leaves, I think Arch would've paid Darius a visit if he expected him to announce during the dead period. IU plays Friday, Sunday, and Wednesday (11/15), the last day of the signing period. Brentwood's first game is Tuesday, the 14th, and we have reason to believe Darius announces before that. He has a scrimmage/exhibition game (?) Saturday. It seems obvious Arch will visit after the dead period, probably knowing Darius won't announce until then. I'm guessing Arch is in TN Saturday or Monday, and Darius announces sometime between Sunday and Tuesday.

Left some points on the FT line, too

Shooting under 40% as a team. There are things to glean from exhibitions (McSwain looks good, guard play good overall, defense improved) but it’s not like Johnson forgot how to shoot. Cannon is right.

Salmon for dinner at the Lurk household. I’m talking about the fish, are you?

Update: https://sports.yahoo.com/source-indictments-expected-next-week-college-hoops-scandal-184948225.html In summary, indictments expected next week, no one seems to have reached a plea bargain yet.

Yeah I think the feeling most of us had last year was more "this relatively lowly rated guy really may turn into something" and less "he should be playing over Rob or Newkirk." I believe he had the highest turnover rate on the team, and as detailed elsewhere, both Rob and Newkirk played well down the stretch.

As I’ve said before, the staff has more information about the roster than we do. Maybe they’re already well aware someone’s not returning for next year for whatever reason.

A day later and I’m still dying laughing at this turn of events

Yeah, I think you want the best players who fit your scheme and culture. The state of Indiana produces a ton of talent, and there are obvious secondary benefits to recruiting close to home. You have to supplement from elsewhere, whether because the in-state talent sometimes produces knuckleheads or, as in this example, it doesn’t meet your needs.

With respect to Rob, I think some of us are reading far too much into one poor shooting night. I'll watch the BTN replay, but we have three years' worth of evidence of who he can be, plus a summer in which he was perhaps the most lauded player by his new coach. He's a career 39.6% 3 point shooter on a lot of attempts. He was 0/5 last night, and someone mentioned he missed five layups. I'm glad he was cold against Marian and not against Duke. He had five boards, four assists, and a steal, with no turnovers. If a normal number of shots fall, his numbers would've rivaled Green's. Let's not write him off just yet.

Back to DG...things still looking good?

Additional evidence:

These are up there with the Louisville and other adidas teams’ zubaz from a couple years ago for the worst uniforms I’ve seen.

To your original question, @Hoosier Roots, when the Kansas info seeped out last week I did a little digging. Other than a Self in-home and Doyel’s tweet, I don’t think there were any real or substantiated reports about anything. I dug around, and even KU boards were sourcing the Kansas rumor to Doyel. Doyel does some things well, but covering the ups and downs of recruiting is not his main beat. Could Romeo end up there? I mean, sure. But the recent “he’s close” rumors all seem to come back to Doyel.

Agreed. Maybe Seton Hall or ND isn't as good as expected, maybe there's a little Assembly Hall magic there for Duke...but I think we should be ecstatic if we split 'em. Win two, don't drop a game you should win, 10-8 in conference, and you're 20-10 with some good wins. That puts you somewhere between a six seed and a nine most years, I think.

I tend to think this is a tournament-caliber team, as @Stromboli says, given the experience, depth, and pretty evenly distributed roster construction. (As an aside, I think we'll see some creative workarounds to the lack of a clear backup 5: against less threatening interiors, some combo of two or three of Morgan/Hartman/McSwain/Smith could provide serviceable spot minutes, and I like the possibility of Moore's skill and height challenging oafish bigs like Haas to defend him out to 24 feet to shoot or drive.) In general I think IU's probably seen as roughly a bubble team at the moment: some reasons to believe, some reasons for concern. There aren't a ton of statistical models projecting the year publicly yet, but T-Rank is a decent-enough one and has IU in a mid-conference logjam just a couple games out of third. I don't think there's any adjustment for the coaching change there, though, so if IU's the team he projects on offense but a bit better on defense, they'd jump more comfortably into that Northwestern-Iowa-Minnesota Maryland tier, as all those teams' offensive projections are in the same ballpark as IU, with defenses a point or two better per 100 possessions. If IU wins a couple or more of the four tough non-conference games (Seton Hall, Duke, Louisville, Notre Dame) without dropping any others, they'll be in a good place. My hunch is the most likely outcome is they win one of those and have lots of work to do in conference but once we see the team we'll know more. There are some winnable road conference games on the schedule (Illinois, Ohio State, Rutgers, Nebraska, maybe more), so even if they drop a couple at home, if they otherwise hold serve they should be able to get to 18-12 (9-9) or 19-11 (10-8). I don't think the above is wildly optimistic but it isn't a shoo-in, either. Assuming you win a conference tournament game or two, that's probably good enough for an at-large bid. The upside this year, theoretically, is in maintaining Crean-era offensive efficiency (roughly top 30 even in a less-than-great year) and adding an equivalently good defense. That's maybe a top 20 or 30 squad, so you're comfortably in the tourney. At that point things can break all sorts of ways.

I like Cujo but I'm curious what kind of player the board hive mind envisions he could become. Last year he seemed a bit unaware even in the Kansas game: lots of shots that looked like bad decisions went down. So I ask, what do we think he might become in a somewhat rosy scenario? Blackmon-esque 2 with limited off-the-dribble effectiveness? LeVert-style skinny combo guard who can shoot a little, pass a little, and handles it a lot even as the nominal 2? Jamal Crawfordish 6th man? Some variety of PG?