raorIU

I’ve got a really nice story for you all:
I just had a Bloomington college frat reunion weekend. A bunch of guys in their 50’s reminiscing. A truly perfect end to the weekend?
Five of us walking down the stairs of the Union after brunch at the Tudor Room at 11:15 this morning.
Waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs in the Union Hotel lobby? Woody and Walsh with Kaanan Carlyle and his mom. We chatted up Carlyle for two or three minutes and congratulated him—shook his hand and welcomed him to the family. He’s got a really easy smile and nice way about him. Looked us all in the eye and had that “Indiana is different” happy look.
Handshakes with Woody: “love you Coach-great month we’re having.” Woody handshake back- “appreciate it guys.” Talked with him for a minute or two. Trailing behind us was Ya, Kenya, and a very wide awake and engaged Armond Hill.
Great stuff.

Spoke to some people. Their concerns about Woody still not being engaged enough in the whole recruiting, especially in the portal are all still there. He's doing a little more but not still nearly enough as people would like him to. He thinks as long as the money is there, he'll be fine. Take it for what it's worth but that was passed along to me. 

Just wanted to add a comment on the bag dropping.
Id recommend the fanbase not villainize the bag dropping from Indiana but instead be happy we can win bag drops now. 
its been going on for eternity in college basketball and for the most part those dropping the biggest bags are winning the most games. 
I can pretty much assure you if we stop dropping bags the fanbase will have a lot more to worry about than we already do.
id recommend embracing it and just leaving it out of the equation. It’s been a part of high level recruiting forever and now it just expands into mid level recruiting as well. 
Be happy we can compete in that for now and cross your fingers the staff uses its salary cap wisely. 

Liam knew the portal haul IU would get so had to go elsewhere…….

You're wrong. It's Ken Nunn! 

Living in Birmingham, I'm friends with several former Bama players, and some other VERY connected people. Oats was contacted at least twice. There was an initial "no", and a follow-up attempt as they were rebuffed by their other targets.

The sniping back and forth and complaining about mods and what is or is not on topic looks a whole like the Peegs boards ha. Regardless, some mostly rambling thoughts on potential roster construction as we see IU's targets emerge and visits scheduled...
-At guard, IU is very close to securing a commitment from Myles Rice. Appears we just need to not screw up the visit this weekend. Rice is a very good first domino to fall. He has a great story (cancer survivor), is a sophomore by year but is old by age so you'd hope he can be a leader with maturity, very good at getting to the basket, athletic, his FT% suggests his three-point shooting could improve quite a bit next season, plus-defender with good size. 
-IU is favored for Kanaan Carlyle. He and Rice are apparently quite tight. High potential with multiple years of eligibility. Not a good perimeter shooter but I do think he helps IU quite a bit. 
-If we succeed and added Rice and Carlyle, that's a big upgrade in the background and then we can swing big to hopefully land Ryan Conwell. I would imagine that would remove Connor Hickman. Heck, landing Rice and Carlyle might remove Hickman anyway. Conwell is a better player but Hickman would be a nice addition as well. The one thing missing from that backcourt (if adding Rice and Carlyle) is a proven knockdown shooter but the ability to penetrate and get downhill with the ball and have some dynamism from our backcourt is a major upgrade from what we had in 2023-2024.
-That brings us to the frontcourt. Nothing is unanimous but nearly all of us want to see IU play more time with one big instead of two. As much as I want to see that for long stretches, it does seem grounded in reality. Mike Woodson told everyone, he believes what IU did systematically on offense worked, we just needed better shooters/guards to execute it. So, with that as a near pre-requisite...I think Oumar Ballo is the best option on the board at center. I know IU's ceiling with him isn't particularly sky-high but he sure does raise the floor (in my opinion). Advanced analytics are not everything but his Box Score Plus/Minus (BPM) is 8.1...the exact same as Ware's was last season. He's a monster physically, an elite rebounder and an above-average rebounder (including a really good offensive rebounder). He's also very good in the lob game on pick and rolls, something that could be really effective with Myles Rice and some with Trey Galloway (don't know about Carlyle with that as Stanford didn't really try that). Ballo is not as good of a passer out of post sets as Amari Williams is but he's better at basically everything else than Williams is (same thing for Payne). The big red flag is FT shooting for Ballo. Ideally, IU lands Ballo and somehow convinces Ben Humrichous to play 20-25 minutes. They could do lineups with Malik-Ballo, Malik-Humrichous, Humrichous-Ballo, Mgbako-Ballo, etc...Lord knows Malik gets in enough foul trouble that there would still be minutes available. Selling Humrichous on that will not be easy though. 
-If IU added Carlyle/Rice/Conwell, the perimeter defense would be SOOOO much better than it was last season. Whew, that's a lot of rambling and it's likely all for naught anyway as the end result will probably look much different than the expectations anyway. Go Hoosiers.

I was at the game. If any of those last 3 three-point shots had gone in, there definitely would've been a court storming.

I was at the game. If any of those last 3 three-point shots had gone in, there definitely would've been a court storming.

I was at the game. If any of those last 3 three-point shots had gone in, there definitely would've been a court storming.

I was at the game. If any of those last 3 three-point shots had gone in, there definitely would've been a court storming.

It's getting to the point where I don't know who the bigger joke is Woodson or Dolson. 
Woodson for someone whose job is on the line and is doing nothing different than he has before. We are the best team in the country at getting visits. But here we are final four weekend and not a single commit besides an HS kid. He's not changing the offense, not changing how he recruits. Yes, we might still get a decent roster by the summer but he will still be the one to coach them.
Dolson to sit back and think we're going to find gold by just throwing more money at the problem. We don't recruit the state, we don't contend for BT championships, and we have to fight to make the tourney every season, usually only qualifying for the NIT. He has let the program we love just go down the drain and has done nothing to fix it. Woodson said I'm not going anywhere and Dolson hid in the corner and cried. Sad state of affairs.
My ramble for the day

Why are people worried about what a former poster that nobody listened to anyway or agreed with in the first place enough to post screenshots of their Twitter account? Just let him post his noise elsewhere.  I hardly paid attention to it when it was on here I’m certainly not going to go out of my way to find it elsewhere.  

I'm seeing a lot of this so I want to explain why I think we NEED to play MR at the 5. It's true that he's not a lockdown defender, but he has elite offensive potential. If we put 10 more pounds on him I think he's an important piece.
Yes, he's a tweener, but there are plenty of tweeners in the NCAA, look at past champions.  Sanogo on UConn last year was the same height as MR and had a low block rate and it didn't hurt them. Baylor's starting big wasn't huge when they won either. Going back to 2019, Diakite on UVA was an inch shorter and skinnier than Reneau. Spellman on Nova was a textbook tweener. He doesn't need to become a great defender, look around the NCAA. Teams are increasingly using back to the basket big men who are skilled passers to run their offense. Hell, Burns at NC ST is a perfect example. You all love Schertz so much, that is how Indiana St. uses Avila. MR had a 20% assist rate this year in his first year starting. Think about that, he had a 20% Asst rate as a back to the basket big, meaning most of his passes are to cutters or spot up shooters, he's kicking to shooters on a bottom 20 shooting % team in the nation. Meanwhile, Cream Abdul Jabbar himself had a 24% assist rate on the number 11 3PT% team in the country. MR and MM would be a complete mismatch for nearly every other frontline in the country.
MR will always be a huge mismatch on offense, and there is evidence to suggest he won't be quite as bad of a defender. He was playing out of position and his foul rate was still cut by a third this year compared to his freshman year. His base is incredibly strong, I think he holds his own best in the post. There will definitely be times when he is overmatched, so we also need to go get a huge guy with a 5%++ block rate, to come off the bench,  eat fouls, defend the rim, and to play alongside Reneau for certain matchups. Go get Amari Williams from Drexel to plug that hole, and maybe one more body behind them and I'll be happy. 

Just now seeing Foul Ming being used to describe Zach Edey. That’s poetry. 

I think it's outside this board.  I'm being attacked but honestly who cares. Ever since I was kid I was sadly raised to question things.  There is kind of an inner peace that comes with trying to be objective in front of the biased whole.  It starts with yourself and having the capability of being ok with being wrong and having the ability readjust appropriately. 
I've seen this administration being a mess for 30 years and I think in order to eventually change the state of things more people need to face some hard truths. More people are starting to get it. We'll get there one day but it comes from people in a respectful manner trying to help others to open up their vision instead attacking them.  

Things have been silent on this front, but there were some medical complications here afterwards. 
Hopefully all ends up well. I think it will turn out ok. Will keep you guys updated to the extent that is appropriate. 

Long time reader, first time poster. 
Coach Portal should have been shown the door at seasons end and definitely after his lone recruit left. It’s obvious that coach Portal and his staff doesn't want to put in the effort that it takes to be a good recruiter, let alone a great recruiter. The writing was on the wall when MM’s mom contacted coach Portal about her son wanting to play at IU! 
Now the team is going to go from a $hit show to one of a liquid form next year and a new coach won’t have a chance at getting his hooks into the 25’ class of in state players. It’s sad. I’ve been an IU fan for over 40 years now and I’ve never been so down on any team that I support in any sport, btw I’m a Cubs fan. I feel it’s only going to get worse because who would want to play for a lame duck coach that has split the fan base? I’m not a rocket scientist nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn, but I’d guess there aren’t very many! 
Btw Chris 007 keep doing what you do! Who cares if someone is butt hurt over something you said!

Not sure if I should share this or not but the feedback IU is getting from the portal so far, from kids who should be a layup for IU is not going well. When a player's camp tells you that you need to change your offense and pay them a lot of money to get them it's not good. 

I hate viewing the NCAA Tournament this way because it means IUBB is not in a good place but I must admit that I watched each NCAA Tournament game through the lens of "what about this coach for IU"? My sincere hope is that IU has a good 2024-2025 season, makes the NCAA Tournament and Mike Woodson pulls a Keith Dambrot and announces his retirement in early March. All of that is very unlikely but a man can dream. Anyway, I've put way too much into a decision that will ultimately be made by a few people that clearly have motives much different than just putting forth the best program possible and they are clearly judging things based on different metrics than things like "Wins and Losses" and "Program direction" and "health of recruiting". But, who would be on a list?
I think we can remove the following based on them just taking new jobs (and they may not have been on any list to begin with): Dusty May, Darian DeVries, Mark Byington, Danny Sprinkle. Josh Schertz can probably be crossed off shortly as well, either to St. Louis or Louisville.
Candidates like Will Wade and Chris Beard won't be considered by Indiana. You can believe that's wrong or right but it is reality. The rumors about IU talking to Bruce Pearl might or might not be true but we could have hired him before and have not so I doubt IU changes course and does what makes sense.
Options that I would love to ask and they'd probably say no: Shaka Smart (he's from Wisconsin but not Marquette/Milwaukee), Greg McDermott (he's 59 and if he's going to move, next year could be it), TJ Otzelberger at Iowa State.
They'd say yes and would not be bad options: Mick Cronin...if UCLA is bad next season, we don't even call him but if the Bruins are good and their NIL is still a mess, this could make sense. Micah Shrewsberry...if Notre Dame has a good season next year (as they should if they hold onto their roster), Shrewsberry will be an attractive option. 
Take a swing on unproven options: Amir Abdur-Rahim (USF)...if the Bulls have a strong 2024-2025 season, he'll be moving on somewhere and I have enjoyed listening to him talk when I've heard him interviewed. He is an impressive guy, he's only 43 and he is from the talent-rich area of Georgia. Bucky McMillan (Samford)...he's 40 and from Alabama, Samford was awful his first year and has moved up to 21 wins, 21 wins tied for conference title and then 29-6 and should have beaten Kansas. If they validate that with another strong 2024-2025, he'll be a hot name. There will be others that ascend.
All in all, there will be good options if and when Indiana makes a move at head coach. Do I have any faith that the IU administration, Scott Dolson included, will handle this in a way that most of us would be happy with? Nah. The next 11-12 months are going to be an absolute circus.

Nothing he did as a player has anything to do with Mike Woodson, bad basketball coach. I haven’t said anything about Mike Woodson as a player, because I never saw Mike Woodson play basketball. I have only watched Mike Woodson coach basketball, and Mike Woodson is not good at coaching college or NBA basketball. This is a really strange argument right now you guys are having lol. Fire Mike Woodson. 

Rusty June is hell of a coach for Michigan 

“Good game Rusty.”

That’s why I was hoping the black hole would have transferred.  He offers 0 rim protection, too slow to guard a stretch 4, playing him and another 5 together clogs the lane up, often makes poor decisions with ball, often gets into foul trouble.  I think Reneau and Galloway should come off the bench but we all know Woodson probably has promised them starting positions.