lillurk

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.

Yep, from memory they went to the baseline cross screen for Zeller on all possessions down the stretch and he scored or hit FTs. Just rewatched, that was 2/3 and the other was a high PNR. The other thing that stands out rewatching the end is that M went 1/4 from the line with a parade of guys (GRIII, THJ, Burke) who you’d expect to hit at least 3/4. I’ll also always remember that Beilein played some deep bench guys just briefly, in at least one case because he was a senior, I think. And of course that’s not the reason UM lost, at least not more than the 1000 other things you can point to in any one point game…but man, I wonder if he’d like to have some of those choices back. I’d love to ask Yogi if he got a piece of the tip in that rolled out.

Happens way too much with non-athletes too, and it never goes well even if parents are just pushing an academic major, let alone a particular school, over the student’s wishes.

Why does everyone insist on pretending Ty Rodgers is a guard? This article continues the trend. He’s clearly a small-ball 4

Yep, no reason at all to write off Cupps being a contributor as a backup PG as soon as this year. In addition, IU has the depth for him to get only minutes he earns, health permitting. So if the TOs dry up, he shoots even better from 3, and he tightens up defensively, he’ll see the court.

Would imagine the U of A budget issues may be a concern too: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/executive-leadership/2024/01/31/u-arizona-takes-steps-address-financial-woes

ASU is a good place to go if you’d like your HS All-Star games to be the brightest your star ever shined. Anyone other than Lu Dort played for B. Hurley make an impact on the P-12 or NBA yet? I love Dort’s game but he was there one year as a top ~35 recruit and went undrafted. Not sure I’d even want my son to visit ASU if he was lucky enough to be a coveted prospect.

This AND/OR they have proof of concept that their track record gives them a good shot at the best big in the portal each spring.

If, oh, Northwestern was starting the following lineup and had a typical (read: bad) NW bench, how would you expect them to perform? (Please spare me the coaching discussion, pretend the coach is League Avg B1G coach): Grey Talloway Tony Teal Tyson Brucker Hugh Loode Monmouth transfer C

Also: he’s not scheduled any other visits or even had one of those tweets from a national guy listing contacts/interests

Not sure the best place to put this, but can Dusty May’s first offseason at UM PLEASE put to rest the worst criticism of low- and mid-major candidates for big jobs: “how will he do at big boy recruiting?” Don’t mean to burst any bubbles or say there’s no specific ability involved. But of course a guy who put FAU on the map and only spent one season there after their big breakthrough didn’t have Mark Few’s recruiting track record. If you have any juice at all at a top ~50 program, you’ll get your share of guys. Is it an open question whether he’s more Crean, Archie, Jay Wright, Juwan Howard, or Matt Painter on the trail? Of course. But let’s not pretend that hiring a May-type means you have to settle for unknowns, lowly ranked, transfers only, or punt on the current class.

Illinois went 7-3 in the ten career games Goode played 25 or more minutes, and two of the three losses are @ #1 PU this year and the E8 blowout L to UConn. That’s a high-floor piece to have as your ~7th guy.

Celtics are obviously much, much better than the Heat without Jimmy Butler, but watching that second quarter yesterday I was thinking: Sam Hauser and Payton Pritchard are a great reminder that if you can shoot and try on defense, you’ll get on the floor and have a chance to help your team more than many flashier guys

It looks to me like Goode is a cleaner fit — the guard depth makes it harder to find a spot for e.g. Hickman/Essegian. Whereas Goode can play 3/4 alongside Mgbako, spell Mgbako, play small ball 4, he’s high-level insurance if you need to patch up even up to 25-30 mpg if a starter is dinged up or Tucker isn’t quite as ready as you’d hope. The Kopp comp @RaceToTheTop made is cleaner than lots of player comps. He’s more rugged and capable defensively and on the boards than Miller, and probably a bit less of a shooter (but career 38.8% on 219 attempts is about all you can hope for). Also had a year when he only played 10 games, so I wonder if there’s any chance he petitions for a 5th year after next.