BGleas

I get it, these are high school kids and they live in their own little bubble, but it's so irritating the way the guys that picked Vandy act like there's only talent in their own class and only if a guy is a McDonald's AA. One guy picked Vandy and said something to the effect of "At IU he'll have to carry the load, but at Vandy he'll have lots of talent around him with Garland and Shittu." I'll take a senior Juwan Morgan, and even a sophomore Justin Smith, over a freshmen Shittu (even if he was fully healthy) every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Heck, Jerome Hunter could have every bit as good of a freshmen year as Shittu. IU is a way more talented roster.

Wonder if Fernando will test the waters, he was in some first round mocks during the season. That, along with Jackson, would be a big loss.

I'll disagree with you a bit on the chef thing. While yes in college kids learn how to function as adults and part of that is getting your own meals, but most (most, not all) kids leave college knowing how to prepare Ramen noodles and order pizza's, etc. With an in-house chef players are being exposed to foods they probably normally wouldn't be exposed to, and are learning about nutrition and what the proper foods, prepared the correct ways can provide for your health, performance, etc. They probably learn more about food and cooking this way as opposed to being left to their own devices.

Agree with your general point on Duke guys in the NBA, though not sure I’d have Brand and Hill on that list. If injuries didn’t derail him Grant Hill is a 10-time All-Star and HOFer. Brand while not on that level, was a multi-time All-Star. Even Laettner made an All-Star game, though I do admit his career in the NBA was not what people had hoped. Again though, I do agree with overall point.

Wow! I broke a big toe playing summer league in high school. It got misdiagnosed by our school trainer as broken blood vessels, so I played about 3 more games (we only had 5 guys for some of them) before my parents took me for X-rays. It was excruciating. I could barely trot up and down the court.

Agree. I love both NBA and college basketball. They’re totally different games, and both have their fun and enjoyable reasons to watch.

On the Beilein topic, he’s obviously doing a great job at Michigan, but I think as we look at IU/Archie and have so many conversations about how long it should take him to get things rolling, Michigan had great patience with Beilein. Michigan knew they had their guy and they gave him time, and now it’s paid off. His first 5 seasons at Michigan Beilein went 92-77, missing the tournament twice and never getting past the 2nd round. Im not saying it should take Archie 5 years, just saying if you think you have “your guy”at a program, patience and giving him time to develop the program/culture are huge.

I'm not a "Crean guy", but I've also never understood this mentality that Crean somehow should have resigned on his own. How many people in your profession walk into the boss' office and resign because they think the job is too hard for them? I'm not sure I've ever seen that happen. You're not the only person I've seen post that sentiment. But, I can't imagine a scenario where someone willingly quits, when they're not going to be fired if they don't, because someone else thinks they're not doing a good job or can't do the job. Mike Davis did resign, but he was going to be fired at the end of the season. He just avoided the inevitable. But, why would you think Crean, or anyone in his position for that matter, would just willingly resign in 2014?

I knew it right when I hit “submit”. My bad...

What was sad after the game, they showed a graphic that this is Kansas St’s 2nd Elite 8 since 2010. IU’s last Elite 8 was 2002.

They’ve been horrendous.

Normally I’d say KSU should foul here, but UK isn’t great from 3 and they have a huge advantage rebounding on the free throw line.

The refs in this UK-KSU game are atrocious.

So happy for Walter! Great guy, and would love to see him do well there.

I’d be fine with everyone staying. To become the program we all hope IU becomes, along with improved recruiting, we need guys like Moore, Durham, etc. to stay and improve and eventually become upperclassmen that contribute at a high level. I just overall the program is better off with less turnover in the roster.

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.

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.