lillurk

Not sure this has been discussed much but Wilkerson had the second best year of anyone in the portal based on Torvik’s all-in-one metric (behind only Darling). If you’re gonna spend big, that’s the guy to spend on.

Pretty sure @Demo mentioned Overton weeks back.

Several pages of handwringing will immediately be moot if Wilkerson commits. I'm not alarmed yet but I think it’s fair to have some criticisms/concerns, though of course we have imperfect information. I would suggest it’s too early to jump from those concerns to Eeyore though.

Just a guess, but as a HS recruit he didn’t get the typical top prospect song and dance. He’s exactly the sort of guy who should take his time, hear a bunch of pitches, and make a thoughtful choice with input from people he trusts.

Many such cases; Ann Arbor is a great town year round but it’s perfect in the summer too

My guess, too, unless Hurley leaves this offseason

He signed and was officially announced yesterday

Honestly two of the loveliest parts of the country

Almost hard to overstate how bad Archie’s staff was at talent identification. No offense to Ethan Morton, who played 5 more years of scholarship college basketball than I did, but he was putting up dud stat lines in suburban PA and Miller thought he should be priority 1

As you said up thread, it’s gonna be NYK, PHI, or BOS, throw in BKN if he goes to the NBA. Boston is all set. PHI’s problems this year are not coach-driven. BKN wouldn’t hire a glitzy coach at this point in the success cycle. But if you want Hurley to leave this summer, it starts with the knicks losing in the first round or something.

We’re Remembering Some Guys that IU recruited who turned out to be underwhelming. Dane went to Finland to recruit Miro and did not succeed.

Not sure who Kenny helped get to Georgetown but there are some interesting names from their roster: Jayden Epps, Drew Fielder, Jordan Burks, Caleb Williams. Somebody from URI hopped in the portal too, don’t recall who or if he was particularly interesting for IU.

Really like Conerway and feel vindicated that they know they need a dynamic lead guard. Of course they know that.

One reason folks are anxious is that for the last two years of the Woody era, all the anxieties came through. new coach, new era, but old habits die hard, and under Woody everything was as it seemed. His recruiting approach seemed bad from the outside because it was. His roster building ideas didn’t make sense because there wasn’t a good understanding of how you win in contemporary college basketball. His teams took bad shots because he didn’t understand why they were bad. Everything just was what it seemed on its face.

…pieces of it can work, but basketball is much more dependent on your strongest link and football your weakest. Some of that is because you play 5 vs. 11 at a time, some of it is structural game mechanics. If you can ID talent from a lower level that works at a higher one, you can do some of the Cignetti-for-hoops thing.

In defense of Osterman and potentially Dolson, at the time I think everyone really believed there’d be a rush to sign players by 4/7 due to the House settlement. Zach could’ve known that lots of ways other than just being told by the AD. But then it started to become clear that what has come to pass would, which is the House settlement is still coming but wouldn’t be finalized 4/7. In my opinion Zach might’ve wanted those back, and maybe should’ve been as loud about the change as he was about the chance. But that’s not what happened.

Yeah the unsigned here are two of my fav players available

@str8baller Stu was specifically talking about DDV’s guards not necessarily being high-volume 3 point shooters, not the offense overall

I disagree a little here in that part of the difference in bpg is in minutes. UF’s Condon blocked 5.5% of opponent shots while on the floor; Omar Ball blocked 4.9%, but Ballo played 70% of IU’s minutes and Condon 58% of UF’s. WVU C Eduardo Andre, who transferred from Fresno last year to play for DDV, blocked 9.6% of opponent shots but only played 40.5% of minutes, starting 9 of 31 games. For reference TJD blocked 9% of opponent shots as a senior but played almost double that, 78.7% of IU’s minutes. DDV’s Drake teams were hit-or-miss on having a high block% player; a couple of years he had a guy play ~60% of minutes with a pretty good block rate, in the 6% range. Anyway, all told I do expect a rim protector but it might be a 16-22 minute type of guy who screens and finishes at the rim but isn’t gonna post or pass whereas, as you said, Woody wanted his bigs to be rim protectors AND offensive hubs. The two-way big who is an offensive hub is really hard to find at the college level, so I like DDV’s approach. Occasionally a school at IU’s level has a guy like that but you can’t do it every year.

Was hoping you’d have thoughts. The raw defensive stl/blk #s were really low and without watching, I wondered if it was energy conservation for offense, lack of athleticism, scheme, or some combo.

Great post. I’ll add that Goode played well in a system that asked more of its forwards at Illinois, so I don’t expect he’ll put the ball on the deck a lot but he can be more of a movement shooter than he was this year. None of the guards in the mix* yet really make the defense sweat with rim pressure. If/when they add a Wilkerson or similar, I wonder if the next hunt will be a downhill guard. *can’t speak to the Juco guy’s ability on this.

I’m broadly with @Stuhoo on Comer in the abstract but also agree with @Home Jersey that a theoretical Comer/Enright PG tandem underwhelms me. I would think there’s still room for a starting- or star-caliber PG or combo G with those two AND a Wilkerson-type 2. Enright does some good things: guarding 1s, hitting 3s, passing, getting the puppies organized. Comer too; different things: gets to the line, squint at the O #s and you can squint and see a guy who’d be more efficient in lower usage. But in total that’s a bench guard package, I think pretty clearly.

Indeed — believe Bill Self is only Kansas’s 8th coach, and they’ve been around since 1898, even more insane. (They’ve had 9, but the 9th was Norm Roberts subbing for Self for 4 games.)

https://www.noceilingsnba.com/p/defining-dillon-mitchell