lillurk

Oh yeah Milton’s another example of a line cooling

I’m here. Any time things get quiet after they were loudly optimistic I’m a little worried — I’m probably misremembering but if I recall the Malachi Richardson, Theo Pinson, Darius Garland, and Goodluck Okonoboh sagas all went that way and the player ended up elsewhere. Now the folks in the know seem to think things are promising here, and I would take it as a positive indicator that we haven’t moved on to a similar 2022. But who knows.

How do we feel here?

1. Get the impression that neither is really a player dev guy. 2. Arizona has a lot going for it: weather, somewhat a “basketball school” by the standards of its relative popularity vis a vis football. 3. Seems like Nike knew how to get its dudes there. 4. I think Nike — via access to sponsored recruiting events, USA bball youth team events, etc. — and Millers have good relationships w/national bball media. So some of the UA recruits may have been scouted with sympathetic eyes. 5. And these are five star players I’m taking about, so they’re no slouches, they have physical tools and so on. But that brings us back to #1 above.

I had a similar perspective re: Sean. And Sean had enviable results at Arizona for quite awhile. One thing I find interesting about Sean’s recruiting/development at Arizona: a looooooot of “can’t miss” level dudes went there 2009-2020 and drastically underperformed their rating. Count how many top ten or top 25 or whatever guys on this list didn’t play up to the ranking. There are some hits, of course. But I count four top ten players from the S. Miller tenure listed there who were fine college players but nowhere near top ten in performance either at AZ or later in the league: Johnson, Tarc, Mannion, Jerrett. I have a theory but this post is already long. Anyway, this is only loosely related to the topic, but if I wanted to hire a coach to develop players I’d rule out both Millers.

I don’t see this link in here yet, SIAP: https://www.insidethehall.com/2021/10/22/video-class-of-2023-iu-commit-jakai-newton-summer-highlights/ IANAS (I am not a scout), but the variety of interior finishes here is remarkable for a guard: both hands, off one or two feet, “wrong hand” finishes when it’s best (e.g. right hand from left side to gain an advantage), floaters, OREB tip dunks, off glass or not, always in control. Of course it’s highlights, but as @HoosierX noted he’s going both ways and you see a range of ways he succeeds here. Seems notable for a player who hasn’t played a game of his junior season yet.

Ok I edited to correct.

editing to point out I underestimated how much better Woody has been. Banks and JHS are also top 100, as others pointed out. By my count Archie recruited two out-of-state top 100 recruits to Indiana: Jerome Hunter and Logan Duncomb. Woody has matched that before he’s coached a game at IU: Tamar Bates and Jakai Newton. (Justin Smith was a Crean recruit who played his whole IU under the next coach, as Duncomb will be, and Geronimo was 247 composite #105, so he was close.)

Shoutout Coach Rosemond

I can see that. Shooting is maybe the swing skill here, as it was with Ayo too.

I’m sure Ken wouldn’t personally rank Iowa 23rd, they’ll fall quickly if they don’t perform. Surely a byproduct of his system’s weighting of program continuity and recent relative success

You know what in-state recruits want? Good teammates and a good team. Seems like Woody et. al realize in-state relationships will pay off but talent grows other places too.

I don’t know that it’s really “eating our own” to critique the methods. I will say, the willingness of current players to work with these guys has made me a little more tolerant of the shtick.

I think @Stuhoo makes a good point that some folks are more willing/able to take risks and succeed. Like Stuhoo, that’s not really my style, at least not in a marketing sense. But I think it’s possible to have the business/creative risk without the weird recruit engagement.

I picked every game. I don’t think Purdue is really head-and-shoulders above everyone this year but I think they have a unique mix of experience and skill that makes them formidable in conference this year. I also think this would be near the high end of IU’s range…they could win more games than the ones I picked but I’d expect 11 or 12 wins as much or more than 13. 1. Purdue 18-2 2. Michigan 15-5 3. Maryland 14-6 t-4th. MSU and IU 13-7 t-6th. OSU, Rutgers, Illinois 12-8 9. Northwestern 7-13 t-10th. Nebraska and UW 6-14 12. Iowa 5-15 13. Minnesota 4-16 14. PSU 3-17

Im impressed with his game and his character, at least to the extent it’s possible to know those things through my computer.

Man, when he missed that visit because he was “sick,” I thought something was up with Bama and almost posted my suspicion.

If anyone has a plug on the adidas/Eric Emanuel shorts and long-sleeve shooting shirt, please PM me. I’d happily pay and I’m worry they won’t get sold en masse

I’ll defend the 4th decision: the problem was the playcall. You’ll almost never be closer to the end zone, and if you fail, PSU has a long field, so should be less likely to score and/or punt back to you in decent position. Late, In a tie game, and/or as a favorite, maybe you kick. But a similar call beat PSU in OT last year, and it was the right call both times. PSU scored even with the long field. If we assume IU takes 3, the only thing that changes is they aren’t shut out last night.

Probably repeating others here but the defense is excellent and played well enough to win, even short handed. The game plan and execution on the other side of the ball was embarrassing. I love Mike Penix but he’s clearly not the best QB on this team at this time and in this state. And the offense is like playing the CPU on easy mode in Madden. I don’t think being a college OC is easy. But I don’t think it takes years of coaching experience to know if you’re watching a good one. IU runs to start every drive and most series of downs. They don’t spread the field well with screens. The DeBoer short passing game left with DeBoer. I thought the UC game was interesting in that the big picture OC work was poor, but the special situation calls were pretty good. Last night made it seem like those were just dead cat bounces.

It’s possible there are other reasons the staff backed off but size/length are a clear emphasis. Clearly this is a talented player but it wouldn’t surprise me if Woody’s staffs mostly avoid smaller guards based on everything we’ve seen

24-20 good guys win, and we are loving each other

Turnout looked awesome, well done. I can’t make it to Btown for games much but love to see it.

Good idea for a thread, Stuhoo. From the outside the vigor and success that we’ve seen from Walsh since the regime change signals good things for the program: not to impugn the prior staff or Walsh’s prior work, but it tells me Woody etc. will empower staffers (and by extension players) to expand their abilities, contribute, and receive credit for their efforts. That’s good leadership.

Per the 247 story, I presume his parents are American, so they may be able to contextualize Indiana for him somewhat. That could help, or at least help lead to a visit. And yeah — this is a guy you really want on an OV for a 9 pm Saturday game with some stakes.