BGleas

I don't remember DD bullying anyone last year. If memory serves me correctly, he got fairly abused down low on the defensive end last year. His rebounding is good, but he regularly got abused defensively on the block.

Agree with your overall point, but those role player, upperclassmen guys need to be more talented than Howard and what many of us are suggesting Priller will be if they're going to contribute to a contending team.

Haha, whoops :). Thanks for the correction.

While I have a great deal of respect for Tim Howard and anybody that's a walk-on, Howard being a contributor was part of the problem last year not the solution. The fact that he at times deserved to play ahead of guys like Hollowell, Perea and Davis, was the problem.

We don't know if Priller can put the ball in the bucket at this level. In high school he was a 6'9" guy getting his shot off against much smaller players and much less athletic than he'll see in the Big Ten. Getting your shot off against guys that are the same size and far superior athletically is an entire different thing.

I hope they play more than one season together. I think they should, but you never know in this era of college basketball.

I just tried to google it, all I found was an article that called him a Top 50 recruit.

I think Moye was actually a pretty highly ranked kid. I didn't look it up, but I remember him being highly thought of.

The problem with comparing people to VO is that athleticism was really only a fraction of why he was so successful. IMO, more important than his athleticism, which is off the charts, is his mentality, work ethic and character. That's what made him, there's ton of athletic guys, but the other things are what make a guy great.

If Crean's smart, he uses it to his advantage. If I'm him and we're recruiting a kid against a traditional football school, I'm saying "remember the atmosphere at their football game? This is Indiana, that's what our basketball games are like. See the atmosphere at this football game? That's what their basketball games are like."

I've been really down on Crean since last season. But in your scenario I don't think the gap is so much Crean vs. Beilein, as it's Perea vs. Jordan Morgan. If Perea averages 9 and 5 and is on the Big Ten All-Defensive Team then IU will be damn good this year. That's the production Michigan got from Morgan in the past. If Perea plays 15-20 minutes a night, averaged 4 and 3 and is constantly fouling out, then we'll struggle.

The thing I have to challenge you on is that you say we can't criticize players who we haven't seen play yet. But, you can say that we can count on Hoetzel to score on a regular basis? How do we know that if we haven't seen him play yet? I'm very optimistic on Hoetzel's potential long-term, but I'm not sure how anyone can say we can count on him for consistent scoring as a freshmen. I'd even say the same for Zeisloft. He showed at his last school that he's not a consistent scorer. He shot well in Canada, but in the 5 games we really only play 2 real teams. Not exactly a Big Ten slate. Using results in the Canada trip is like comparing the NBA Summer League to the NBA regular season.

Full disclosure, I haven't read the Bill of Rights, but my understanding is that the school will honor the scholarship. That doesn't mean it will be a basketball scholarship. In addition, I really don't think the Bill Rights is worth much more than the paper it's written on. If a coach doesn't want a player, or has made it crystal clear that the player will almost never see the court, a guy isn't going to stay. At least it will be really rare for that to happen.

Pretty sure if Crean wanted to sign a class of 13 in the 2015 class he could. He would just have to show (not sure if it's to the NCAA or Big Ten) a plan/roadmap for how he anticipates having the openings.

That was my thought too. Seniors would miss a day here and there to visit schools, athlete or not, when I was in school too.

You can't miss a day of school? I missed a day of school for an unnofficial visit when I was in high school.

Does anyone know if he's extending his OV another day due to the delay, or essentially cutting it short a day because of the delay?

I looked at MSU too, they only have four of what you would deem "tough games", and it could even be three if they don't play well in the Orlando Classic. They have 9 "cupcakes", one more than IU.    While again Emerson14, I agree I'd like to see the schedule that Long Beach is playing in terms of entertainment value, it's not what the other top teams are doing. The vast majority of top teams are playing 3-5 "tough games" and 7-9 "cupcakes". 

Duke has Presbyterian, Wofford, Fairfield, Furman, Army, Elon and Toledo on their schedule.    The tougher games are: MSU, UNLV/Stanford winner, Wisconsin, Connecticut and Temple   IU has Mississippi Valley St., Texas Southern, Lamar, Eastern Washington, UNC Greensboro, Savanah St, New Orleans. and Grand Canyon   IU's tougher games: SMU, Pitt, Louisville, Butler and Georgetown   We have the same amount of "tough" games and 1 additional "cupcake". 

Would I like to see a schedule like that? Sure, it would be fun and make the games more entertaining. But, I don't want IU doing that when virtually no other major conference team is doing it. 

Who knows, not sure what school Zimmerman's mom was referring to (I think it's Arizona), but IU could be getting an official from Zimmerman if that coach was involved in USAB.

It's not just Duke though, it's all the schools who's coaches are involved at the different levels of USAB. Not sure of all of them, but I know Boeheim and Sean Miller are both highly involved.

Didn't Zimmerman's mom directly prove that it's an advantage?

I don't see how anyone could possibly argue it's not an advantage. Recruiting is all about relationships, so how would a coach getting to spend time working directly with a kid not be an advantage? It's clearly an advantage.

The most interesting part is Stephen Zimmerman's mom participating in the debate. She came right out and said they were about to cut a school and then Zimmerman spent two weeks with the coach in a USAB Camp and it totally repaired the relationship and the school is back in play now. Assuming he's talking about Arizona?