BGleas

There have also been players much less athletic than Cupps that have been really good high major players. His issue right now is strength. He needs to continue to develop in terms of body maturity and add strength and he'll be fine. But, we do need to see Cupps add something offensively. We need to see him bring something to the table. Create, hit some shots, etc. It's not enough to just get the ball up the court and add nothing else.

There are reasons Cupps is getting more time than Gunn consistently. It's not necessarily because of what Cupps is doing, I'll grant you that, but right now Gunn is a hot mess on both ends. Any coach would take the guy he can trust over the guy he can't. Right now, Gunn can't be trusted consistently out there on either end. Honestly, it's a bigger indictment against Gunn that he can't overtake Cupps right now, because its not like Cupps is doing that much out there.

Agree. He needs to watch for awhile and get to a place where the game slows down for him. He also needs to find or understand his role offensively. He is not a shooter whatsoever.

Here's my thing on the Cupps, Gunn, Leal stuff. Yes, Cupps and Leal are going to give up some points due to lack of size and/or athleticism. They just are. Cupps will add size/bulk as he develops and will be fine, but yes right now his strength is an issue. Neither really contribute much offensively, though Cupps does provide a reliable ballhandler that can give Galloway/XJ a break. But, they also don't really take anything off the table offensively. With all of that said, I'll take the above and I think most coaches would too, over Gunn right now. Gunn has the length and athleticism, yet constantly gets out of position and beat defensively. I'll take the guys that are mostly in good position but get beat because of athleticism over the the guy that has the tools but is causing our defense stress because he's out of position and flying by shooters, going for pump fakes that allow penetration, etc. I'll take the guys that might not be adding much offensively vs the guy taking things away offensively. I'll take Cupps 0-for-1 in 20 minutes while providing extra ball handling over Gunn going 1-for-4 in 12 minutes with three bad shots. Gunn and Cupps both have upside, but a coach is always going to pick the guy he can trust more.

Completely agree. Yeah, it wasn't an avalanche of slashers or anything, but we did hit Banks on a backdoor cut in the first half and I think Gunn got one in the 2nd half. Maybe 1-2 more and probably doesn't happen if both bigs are in the paint.

Completely agree. I like the horns sets too with two bigs high. But yeah, I think we saw some positive results of those changes, just need more shots to start dropping. We had more movement, got some easier baskets and got some open jumpers that didn't go.

Great call by Woodson and the staff to go zone! While it didn't completely turn our offense around, I was really excited to see Woodson swith up our approach and to an extent system. We largely went away from the 2 low post offense. First possession and throughout we went with a horn set and then we also went with a 4-out/1-in a lot too. Again it didn't result in drastic improvement, largely because we didn't shoot well, but we did have a bit more space, got XJ and some others into the lane more and had a few more buckets hitting slashers. Really liked seeing those adjustments.

I think for now the rotation should be: Guards and wings (1-3): XJ, Galloway, Gunn, Cupps Forwards and bigs (4/5): Ware, Reneau, Mgbako, Banks Sparks as needed if we have to have some size.

They need to be better, completely agree. But, I'd also argue a bit that the system isn't really set up for them to do much currently. The lane is completely clogged. Our most used offense right now is to drop it to a big on the block and stand around while they make a move. There's not much space right now and we're running almost everything through 2 bigs in the paint. They definitely need to do much, much better on the defensive glass at minimum.

We're not that good in the halfcourt. Our 3pt defense sucks. Our pace is terrible. Reneau and Ware won't be nearly as effective or dominant when we're going against power 5 conference teams. What we're doing barely worked against FGCU and almost lost us a game to one of the worst teams in D1 basketball. Again, we don't need to lead the Nation I'm 3pt attemps, but we need to shoot more to compete once the competition gets better. Our bigs constistsly miss completely wide open shooters when double and tripled team all game long. There is absolutely no reason we can't and shouldn't shoot more.

Again, nobody said "jack 30+ 3's". If we continue to be sub-300 nationally in attempts we're not going to win to the level we all want.

Nobody is saying to take 3-pointers for the hell of it or to lead the nation in 3pt attempts. But, being ranked sub-300 in 3pt attempts isn't a winning strategy either.

I honestly have no clue what you're seeing or talking about? Have you watched him over 4 games (including the exhibitions) completely riding "supposedly quicker" guards up and down the court? Constantly making them change direction and almost never blowing by him. I mean, his defensive pressure literally changed the entire FGCU game around. He's probably our best defensive guard so far this season and that's on a team with XJ and Galloway. Defense and his ability to pressure at the point of attack is literally the reason he's gotten the minutes he has so far.

I think MM needs to get time at the 4. He clearly a college 4 and needs to be in that role. We're wasting his offensively by having him in the "Kopp stand in the corner role". On Cupps and Gunn we couldn't disagree more. Cupps has shown more in two games than Gunn has shown in 1 year and two games. It's not even close. Cupps has All-Conference potential. I'm don't want to write the kid off, but Gunn has massive, massive improvements to make.

I dont care who the better athlete is, I'll take Cupps defense over CJ Gunn's every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Cupps is going to be an excellent Big Ten player over his career and a key player this season. Granted we haven't played the good teams yet, but at this point in terms of staying in front of his man and creating defensive havoc, I'm the least worried about Cupps.

And just stupid! If he's really comparing basketball resumes, Woodson's towers over both of them. But what's worse is just this clown continuing to trash Woodson, IU players and IU recruits.

Dakich is straight trash!

Great breakdown, and the worst part is Donta Scott, a 5th year senior' trying to blame other guys after he single handedly screwed that entire defensive possession up.

I'm not really worried about rebounding, at least compared to last year's team. Ware is a 7-footer, Reneau is a big upgrade over Race interms of rebounding, Mgbako will be am upgrade over Kopp in terms of rebounding, Galloway is Galloway, and XJ is an upgrade over JHS in this area. Yeah, we lost the leading rebounder in program history, but we weren't really a great rebounding team last year, and we've improved at every other spot. Agree with most of your other comments.

Not sure specifically, but I'd be really surprised if they don't regularly have security talking to the team about how to be safe, etc., on a college campus, just like they have PR training.

My question would be, what would they have to do with this? It's not like athletes hangout as a team 24/7.

This is not a "sour grapes, we didn't want him anyways" post. I absolutely wanted Fland for both his talent, position and the perception of getting two 5*'s in one week against KU and UK. We need to be stacking high-end talent in these classes, and especially in the backcourt. I wanted us to land Fland. Just making it crystal clear. With all of that said, I am perfectly comfortable with a sophomore Gabe Cupps as our point guard next season. I was hoping to have Fland and Cupps together, but I'm perfectly comfortable with Cupps running the show next year. I'd even argue a sophomore Cupps has more potential to impact winning at the college level next year as a point guard than a freshmen Fland. Now, we need to add more talent in the backcourt. More playmakers, more creators, etc., but I'm good with Cupps

I can't stand Cal as much as the next guy, but Wall was a muti-time All-Star before suffering a slew of injuries. SGA was 1st All-NBA last year. Jamal Murray was the 2nd best player on the team that won the title last year. DeAaron Fox is the best player on the Sacramento Kings and got them to the playoffs (an amazing feat in of itself). Regardless of how ready all of these guys were coming out of high school, Cal's UK players have made over $1B in the NBA. Players don't look at it like, "well those guys were already good, who has he develop?"

I would love it if we had the guard/wing depth to play Mgbako at the 4 in smaller, more skilled and athletic lineup.

Subtle thing, but I like that these are pro basketball titles. Shows we're serious about creating an atmosphere to prepare these guys. That's attractive to the top players.