lillurk

Would love this, reportedly makes $4M/year and has a $4M buyout this offseason. Do it, Scott

Yeah, specifically I think some of the issues Trey and X are exhibiting are based in a lack of trust. They both have limitations but we have long track records displaying their capability.

Missed some of the game but a couple additional thoughts: Mgbako hasn’t caught on to the switching rules. Chris is right, he doesn’t get in a stance, but he’s also literally confused. WSU’s last two threes happened when MM followed a cutter he’d ALREADY SWITCHED OFF and was someone else’s man. Then his man was wide open. I also think we need to get used to Woody not caring much about beating the spread/kenpom. Could the team have been better the last three games? Yep. Does a veteran team that’s played together take care of business in a way that beats those projections? Yep. But Woody didn’t play the type of rotation he’s going to play Sunday.

UC Irvine beat USC while we were sleeping. SC couldn’t throw it in the ocean.

UAB up on Maryland by 5, one FT to come, 3:55 left, ESPN 2

I don’t disagree but I think they’ve looked shaky so far, and they were somewhat lucky in schedule draw and outcomes last year. Probably a bubble team close to .500 in the conference I’d guess?

Yep. I was willing to be impressed by them but so far, nope. So among the B1G contenders below the first tier, I’ve adjusted upwards my expectations of UW & UM — both of whom I’m skeptical of, still — and adjusted downwards my expectations of NW, UMd, and OSU (only slightly in OSU’s case).

JG is in and has looked pretty good, basically the guy we know: pick-6 steal and dunk, nice pass across the zone for an open 3 (missed), late/lost on some defensive rotations. I find it notable he’s at the 4. Slightly small 4 is clearly his best spot, still.

Watching Maryland/UAB in Asheville. After starting UMd’s first two games, Jordan Geronimo begins this one on the bench.

In per-dollar terms, it’s very bad. I understand it’s a demanding job, continuity matters, there’s a market salary rate…but short of like Nick Saban, at some point you’re just throwing money away instead of saving $2M/year and taking the next guy on your list. The other hilarious thing about A&M: this is what they are! Like look. Two titles: 1919 and 1939. 18 conference championships in 121 years of football. It’s vaguely like if Wyoming or La Salle or Holy Cross or someone with one ancient hoops title was pretending their whole history was as a power and not just an occasionally good program

Also by DD’s own metric, he himself falls short of the Army staff. What is he doing

The Willard/UL noise sounds to me like contract jockeying from Willard’s agent more than anything. Maybe KW has interest, but would not guess he’s too high on their shortlist. Billy Donovan, if he’s looking for a soft landing and/or the Bulls rebuild? Jerome Tang or Dusty May making a leap? Scott Davenport, Ryan Odom, some other guy not top-of-mind with more recent juice? All seem as likely or moreso to get a sniff before Willard

They blew a TO to set it up. To me it looked more like something they should’ve run before calling the TO so they could run a SLOB, NBA-style, after advancing it.

Resume-wise, nobody deserves it more. Not sure they’ll make it but they’ll get votes. when they beat MSU, Torvik pointed out that after tonight they’ll be favored in every game until January. Could be among our last unbeatens

Stephen F. Austin @ MTSU going to OT on ESPN+

1. The JMU unis @ MSU were beautiful. These…not so. 2. Kent State ran the “Phinisee beats PU” BLOB to get and hit a corner 3 to tie and send it to 2OT

Double OT

JMU did it

Aha ok so the post-grad year counts as one of his “5 to play 4,” then he redshirted and played 3: that’s 4 seasons that count in 5 years, and his actual 4th season seeing the court is the COVID year. so my amateur evaluation is he’s dead to rights on appeal. He’s still like 2 years older than the typical student who would’ve been leaving HS for a post-grad year…just interesting, I guess.

This is correct and yet I’m confused on a couple points. 1. he spent two years at Evansville (RS, FR) then three at Memphis (SO, JR, SR). 2. shouldn’t he have a COVID year like anyone else who played in 2019-2020 OR 2021? 3. His Wikipedia page says he played a post grad year…that doesn’t account for how he got to be 27. Wouldn’t most guys be 19 post-grad, 20 RS, then 21-24 the four years he played? Did he finish HS at 21?

1. Just exhibitions, but I’m pretty confident all ten guys we expect to make up the rotation can actually do positive things in high major hoops dependably. 2. Frontcourt shooting is going to make it hard for opponents to defend the rim. 3. IU can switch and/or X-out a lot defensively and thus dribble penetration is unlikely to be very effective from opponents. They’ll probably give up plenty of 3 attempts as a result (though they do a nice job of keeping them out of the corner). 4. Probably can’t take TOO much from TO% in exhibitions except to say: 12 TOs in 141 possessions is terrific. 5. I was a little worried that too much of this season’s outcome rested on how ready Cupps and Gunn were gonna be. Feeling pretty confident about that now. 6. Wish we’d gotten to see two games of Banks so far, but he continue to be a sneaky good offensive player by getting to the line. Like Gunn, if the shot is there — and I buy it in both cases! — they’re plus two way guys. 7. Currently a little concerned about defensive rebounding. 8. Walker looks like a better fit with this squad than I thought. Crafty and athletic enough to fit nicely with better scorers, good touch around the rim to maybe keep some bench units afloat if he needs to, better passer than I thought. Wonder how often he’ll guard down the defensive spectrum, as he seems like he could mark some big wings.

I had one personal interaction with Coach Knight when I was a child, and in the interest of maintaining my anonymity I’ll just say it was quintessentially Knight: humorous, slightly too coarse for his audience, playfully gruff, and ultimately about connecting with my brother and me.

No inside info but you’d rather be IU than Maryland here, right? If a ‘24 Maryland commit, his family, and Tipton did this I’d feel pretty bad about IU’s chances.