BGleas

Yeah, if a 3rd scholly opens up. If not, then I think we're ok with what we have after getting two wing/perimeter scorers.

I can't say much about McCarty's coaching prowess or ability, but I worked with him for 4+ years with Celtics when he was a player, and he's is a great, great guy. He treated the front office/business staff with as much respect as any player we had, which is a big deal. Most guys either deal with the PR/Community/Business people, and some completely try to ignore them, but Walter always treated us as "co-workers", got to know the front office people on a personal level, and would do all the media/community outreach that was requested of him. I can tell you, Boston absolutely loves him. What that means as far as how we would coach the Evansville, who knows? But Evansville would be getting a great ambassador for the program, that is for sure. I'd also think he could recruit pretty well given his college and NBA resume.

In general, I'm far more concerned with skill, length and athleticism than I am with height. As far as the current roster, while the inexperience of our interior guys worries me, but in terms of sheer numbers of guys and their size I think we're fine. I'm far more concerned with our backcourt and wing positions. While he does give up some size defensively, Morgan offensively creates so many mismatches as a 5, and you mitigate any size deficiency he has by surrounding him with stretch 4's and wings players that are in the 6'5" - 6'8" range with skill, athleticism and length. It's perfectly fine to have a 6'8" center if your stretch 4 is 6'7" - 6'8"ish and your two wings are between 6'5" - 6'7". The problem with IU recently is that we've been playing 3 guards along with undersized 5's. When your wings are 6'2" combo guards, then yes you need more size on the interior. But in this day and age it's about pace and space, and you need multi-skilled guys that can handle, shoot, and create plays all over the court. A guy like Davis for example really clogs things up offensively and then also hurts you defensively because he can't recover from the high ball screen quick enough and he can't switch onto perimeter players. As far as the two open scholly's go, I'm way more concerned with filling out our guard/wing spots than interior spots. I think Race will be good, so we're pretty covered with Morgan, Smith and Race, then you hope one of Forrester and Moore can contribute, and finally you hope Davis can give some minutes as the season moves on. But, we need shooting, skill and athleticism on the perimeter in a MAJOR way, and I worry counting on Anderson and Hunter. I'd love to see Archie lock up Langford and Taylor. That gives us two long, athletic, shot/play makers on the perimeter, which is what we need.

For the last 2-3 weeks it happens to me everytime on my iPad. I've closed out the browser, restarted the iPad, etc., and noting works.

I'll try and screenshot on my ipad later. The revert to some Amazon contest page only happens on the iPad for me, and I'm just using the regular browser (safari) not the app.

You completely misinterpreted my post. I'm not comparing Archie to Crean. I'm comparing Archie to Archie, and how the team improved greatly in several areas during the season, and the strategy he's implementing to turn the program around. We can get into all the areas things have improved in, and all the reasons Archie is a good basketball coach, but you don't seem too interested in that discussion. You can call them "small things that make people smile", but the minutiae and the strategy is how organizations are built and how failing organizations (sports teams, businesses, etc.) are turned around. It's the small things that matter.

Sorry, completely not the correct thread, but since tech issues came up, for about 2-3 weeks anytime I come to the site on my ipad after about 4-5 seconds the site automatically directs me to some spam Amazon contest. It happens every single time. Not sure if anyone else is experiencing this?

You're absolutely entitled to your opinion, and I'm not trying to respond in a way that would make you feel otherwise. I just don't think there is much context behind your opinion. Of course we're all disappointed by the number of losses this season and specifically losses to programs like ISU, Ft. Wayne and Rutgers. It sucked and they were poor performances. But, I would also say that if you didn't see any reason for optimism then you weren't looking very closely and were ignoring very clear signs of really good things. But, I guess it all comes down to preseason expectations and the context we all viewed the season. Personally, I though our roster was terrible coming into the season. We had no shooters, no playmakers, no point guard, no length in the backcourt or on the wings, etc. That's a tough recipe even without the new system/coaching staff. A new coach can't wave a magic wand that turns average at best shooters into 42% 3-pt shooters overnight. With all that said, there are tons of reasons to be optimistic. The defense improved considerably during the season and the players largely really bought in. The turnover issues improved from last season, that was with still very shaky guard play. We consistently got open shots on offense with a much improved half-court offense, just didn't have the shooters to make them. Not only did we not struggle against zone defenses, we excelled against many of them. Numerous times we got good looks out of timeouts. Morgan blossomed into a bonafide big ten star if he sticks around. Justin Smith looks like a legit player. We laid the blueprint for defending Purdue, and Archie did a great job with game-plan/strategy in several other games. We were a consistent perimeter scorer/shooter away from beating Duke, Purdue, MSU and OSU. Archie has locked up recruits from in-state and even if we don't land him, he did wonders getting IU this close with Langford. Also with recruiting, there now seems to be a plan and strategy for addressing areas of need and system, not just handing offers out like candy. Again, you're certainly welcome to you opinion and I appreciate your perspective, it just reads to me that you're going "bad losses, Holtman did good, we stink." There's many more layers and context to it than that. My takeaway from this season is that I'm convinced Archie knows basketball and can coach, now it's just about recruiting and landing the right players which hopefully he can.

Completely agree. The largest pain point on this roster is shooting, scoring, length and athleticism from the perimeter/wing. We need shooters/scorers from the perimeter. Adding Taylor and Langford would make IU really good next year. We just need our bigs to defend pic and roll, rebound, be athletic, etc.

Especially considering what had just been called on the other end.

Agree. This is why I hate when people say refs don't decide games. No, they don't decide them alone, but they absolutely impact the outcomes, sometimes in big ways. Towards the end of the Zags game there was a position where a Gonzaga player penetrated and barely got bumped at all, and the refs called a foul. Chris Webber went on during the free throws about the new "freedom of movement" rules. Very next possession UNCG penetrates and the defender completely blocks his path and reaches in to knock the ball out, and the refs call nothing. The play-by-play guy said something like "I guess that wasn't freedom of movement". The UNCG guy got mauled, while on the previous possession the Gonzaga guy barely got brushed with a bump.

Wait, is that more impressive than have 20,000 posts on a college basketball message board over a 10 year period?

Morgan is plenty for the post offensively. He absolutely draws double teams down there. I agree we need one of the bigs to develop, but more for defensive purposes so Morgan doesn’t have to try and guard other dominant bigs that have a huge size advantage on him. We need bigs for defense when we play schools like MSU, OSU, Duke, Purdue, etc.

I love how you said “probably”, as if there’s a chance some posters have a better handle on IU recruitments than Archie!?!?

Because we don’t have a guard even remotely close to as good as Carr is, and we don’t have a wing that can get baskets like Lamar Stevens can. If you put Carr and Stevens on IU Carr would be our best player and Stevens a close 3rd to Morgan.

Guys, he played Juwan at times this season in the first half with 2 fouls. Not all the time, but there times it happened. Let’s not create a narrative that isn’t there.

There were some games where Juwan had 2 fouls early and came back in to play in the first half. I think tonight with only 5 minutes left, you hope you can weather it until the half.

Also, Tony Bennett went 15-16 and 16-15 his first two years at UVA. Coaches need their guys.

We need to outbid the G-League. Honestly, without Morgan back we probably miss the NIT again, and I’m an Archie fan.

Sean Miller will be at the press conference, so doubt he's getting fired.

They need to hope that freshmen big, Fernando, stays, but even with Jackson, Huerter and Cowin they'll be good. I've seen Fernando in a lot of mocks in the 1st round. I think it would serve him well to come back and try to become a lottery pick, but I don't know his situation at all.

Agree completely. The two biggest things IU needs right now are consistency (Morgan, McRoberts, Green, Smith, Durham, Thompson) and a talent upgrade (hopefully Langford, Hunter, Phinisee, Anderson and hopefully a good grad transfer), and those two things need to be balanced. Losing too many guys from the current team would not be a good thing.

I've been saying these same things. Since Gatorade sponsored the D/now G-League. That's the way to begin to clean some of this up. I guess it just rubs me the wrong way when you have guys like LeBron and Van Gundy out there ripping the NCAA and calling it corrupt, wen their organization and in some cases LeBron personally, are a big part of that corruption. It's just hugely hypocritical IMO, and I wish someone would call them on it.

I don't know that it really makes sense to punish a program for players leaving early. Now you're in a situation where those one and done type kids can't go to the NBA and the NCAA is essentially colluding to for schools not to recruit them. Then what happens with a kid like OG? Is IU basically punished because he exceeded expectations and was able to leave early?

If I was the NCAA, Mark Emmert, and college coaches I would be going on a PR offensive against the NBA, especially after Stan Van Gundy's rant the other day. I'd be putting things in the media about how poorly the NBA is vetting prospective agents and then monitoring them. How NBA agents are preying on poor, uneducated families, etc., etc. What are college coaches supposed to do when agents are essentially selling recruits? Put those stories and the one and done rule thing front and center in the media. Force the NBA to come to the table. Just to be clear, I'm a big NBA fan as well as college basketball fan. This isn't me trying to defend the NCAA, it's me trying to get all of the parties involved at the table to fix this mess, and the NBA is a huge part of the equation. I also don't like all the NBA coaches and players acting high and mighty in regards to college basketball, when their organization is a huge part of the problem. But again, I love the NBA just like I love college bball.