Hillsdale87

It's the same size or bigger than Virginia's starting backcourt from last year. Green and Al are pretty long, so it's definitely doable. If those guys can all knock down 3s at 40+%, I imagine they'll play together a lot.

I believe Archie said yesterday that Smith was one of the most improved players on the team, so hopefully he's at least good enough to keep teams honest from 3. His defensive versatility is great and gives the team a ton of flexibility, so if he's figured out his role on offense and expanded his skill set, he could be one of our most valuable players. The nice thing is that there's actually depth on the front line this year, so they have better options than Fitzner/Moore/Forrester if he's not performing. But definitely agreed that we need at least 3 serviceable+ 3 point shooters on the court at all times. Archie said that they're going to play a lot of size, which is fine as TJD and Smith are both very athletic, but if we don't have shooters the offense is going to bog down like it did last year, no matter how much size we have inside.

Is Kevin Ollie the worst coach in any sport to ever win a title? He was cheating and still had those results?! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It depends on what he wants to do. If he wants to stay in Indiana, an IU degree plus 4 years of IU basketball would likely be much more valuable than a Stanford degree Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't think he's ever going to figure it out in terms of being able to play consistently under control and run the offense as a PG. But I think Archie can mitigate his recklessness by putting him in the right position for his skill set, and my hope is that they figured that out to close the season. I think a lot of Green's struggles last season had to do with the fact that he had prepared all offseason to play one role, and then because of his injuries and Rob's ascendance, he ended up filling another role. He was clearly pressing a lot early in the season as his role diminished, and he kept looking to make exceptional plays instead of taking the easy ones. It took him a while to get comfortable. That's the glass half full interpretation. It's entirely possible that his success to close the season was a mirage, and he'll continue to be up and down, but hopefully it was a real shift. Next year he should have a clear role as a playmaker. I disagree with some who want him only to be a shooter. He's good at creating shots for others, and he can be effective getting into the lane. He definitely needs work around the rim, as he gets himself to a good spot but then screws it up too often. I wish you could combine his ability to slither into the lane with Rob's finishing. However, he needs to either make a play or get rid of the ball. Things go downhill when he's holding the ball or dribbling too long.

He wasn't recruited as a PG, and I think he only ended up playing there out of necessity because of the bad options we had there after Yogi. I think some plays his freshman year made us think he could play PG, but that's clearly not his primary skill set. He has great court vision, and he's a playmaker, but he's not the type of player to control the game and run the offense. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Burning 3,500 calories a day is almost impossible. A marathon burns about 2,500 calories. Even if somebody is burning that many calories, there's no way they could do it eating at that kind of a deficit. They wouldn't have enough energy. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

He's already done that, just not at IU. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm right with you on Green. I'm a sucker for high ceiling guys and waiting on them to figure things out. I'm still waiting for the Charlie Miller breakout... I wasted way too much time trying to defend Green last year :). And agreed, the negativity can be really frustrating. Making a negative observation and then proposing a solution (i.e. the offense is struggling, I wish Archie would implement x, y , and z) can lead to a fun, productive conversation. Posting that we're losing recruiting momentum and are going to be no better last year, while maybe true, and certainly possible, is just negative to be negative. And that is definitely a minority of posts. But it only takes a few posts like that to derail and bring down the conversation. We all know that last year was bad, and nobody is going to be thrilled if the team is no better this year. But it seems like every time there's conversation about a decent recruit, somebody jumps in with the groundbreaking observation that recruiting momentum seems to have slowed and that Archie is going to have a hard time bringing in recruits unless Indiana starts winning... We all know that. Even those of us who prefer to focus on the glass half full approach to next year understand that another year or 2 like these past 2 would be too much to overcome. Even though the statement is technically true, its sole purpose seems to be to bring down any excitement that others have for the future. And what's the point of following IU basketball without some hope in the future? Following IU is supposed to be fun. And hopefully it's more fun this year than it was last year!

Sure. So has Coach K, Cal, and everybody who has ever coached. These guys can't predict the future, and every high school player is being evaluated on potential. Not all develop as expected.NBA execs know that the 1st round is a crapshoot, which is why teams like the Sixers just acquired as many picks as possible, and so college basketball will be even more so. There's a difference between a top 100 Damezi Anderson not working out and Grant Gelon not working out. One is just prospect randomness, and the other is a bad process. Archie has not proven to have a bad process, at least with recruiting. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

But not every player is expected to contribute immediately. Forrester definitely wasn't, and he was never expected to, but the potential was and still is there. He needed to add serious weight. A year off will probably be really good for him. The fact that he couldn't contribute as a freshman doesn't make him a mistake. Plenty of guys redshirt as freshmen, and nobody looks down at that. Jake essentially redshirted Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Name an offer that Archie has given which seemed like a huge stretch. The fact that Jake didn't pan out doesn't mean he was a stretch offer. Yes, not every guy that comes to Indiana is going to work out as hoped, but if Archie continues to target and attract the types of guys he's gotten so far, he'll be successful overall. No coach is batting 1.000 in recruiting. Jake was always going to be a longer term project, and he didn't want to stick around and wait. That's not a shot at him, he's welcome to do whatever he thinks is best for himself, but I don't think he was much worse than expected his freshman year. I expected him to be the last guy off the bench. But he had offers from 21 schools, including Miami, Seton Hall, Xavier, Virginia Tech, etc., and was a top 150 player. He was an in-demand player. Similarly, Damezi may have had a bad freshman year, but he was a fringe top-100 guy. Nobody said that he couldn't play coming out of high school. Maybe it's Archie's fault that he didn't develop, maybe it's Damezi's, maybe he just needs more time, but he was being recruited by high major schools too. Judging recruiting success by how guys perform their freshmen years is not a good way to do it. Hopefully Damezi turns it around. Maybe he ends up a complete bust, but plenty of guys have gone from inconsequential freshman years to being valuable players.

Except that there is zero evidence to suggest that Archie would be interested in offering a guy who's no good. Crean earned skepticism around his recruiting offers. Archie has been pretty solid with his targets to this point. Now just needs to land a few more in the next couple years Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I didn't see anybody saying we needed to sign this guy ASAP, just that he was worth looking into. Nobody knew that other schools were pursuing him, but it seemed likely that he was a solid player. Archie's coaching deserved some criticism this year, and missing out on some recruits was not great, but he's not made any desperation offers, and there was no reason to think this one was either. Now that seems to be confirmed. If Archie wants a guy, the track record would say that he's probably pretty good.

Sure there's more competition, but do we really want somebody that high majors aren't interested in? If we're going to get good guys we will have to win recruiting battles against good schools Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Interesting. Clearly not a desperation play then. Never thought it was, but it's definitely hard to know how good he actually is, so good to know other colleges agree that he's worth pursuing.

I could be wrong about IU considering Cross a higher priority than Morton, but I'm going to guess that the rest of the scouting community does too. The fact that Morton was sliding was not a secret as he was struggling in AAU for the second straight year. Cross is not a slow footed power forward. He stretches the floor and moves reasonably well. He's also not a bad shooter. His 3 point stats may not be great, but scouts consider him a bad shooter. Poor percentages based on playing on a terrible team make sense. He took more than 2x the number of shots of anybody else on the team, so he doesn't have much help. His free throw shooting is very good. The 247 scouts did not watch spring ball and decide, "well, he's too short for his position, but he also can't shoot or jump, so let's push him way up the rankings". He was elevated for a reason. Have you seen any of these guys play, outside of a few Youtube highlights? It's entirely possible that Leal and Galloway are better than Cross. I hope they shoot up the recruiting rankings and come to Indiana. But it seems pretty likely that Cross is very good either way.

The collective freak out when Morton chose Purdue is what's not helpful, because it's clear that it was for nothing. Everybody was reacting based off of outdated rankings, even though it was clear that he was being passed on the AAU circuit. People were so desperate to believe that we were losing our recruiting momentum that they were reacting without facts, and as it turned out, getting up in arms about nothing. Morton had clearly become less of a priority, and it's now evident why. Evaluations change, and Morton's changed quickly, both for Archie and for the scouting industry. I was pretty sure before that Archie had backed off, and seeing these rankings I'm almost positive now. He's now nearly the lowest ranked player that we'd be pursuing (Galloway is just 2 spots behind him). If Morton had committed to Indiana, and then his ranking had fallen 60+ spots, people on this board would be freaking out about how Archie prioritized the wrong guy, and now we're stuck with an overrated guard when there are so many others that we could be pursuing. Yes, there's still a chance that Morton spurned IU even though Archie told him he was a top target and chose Purdue. But what's more likely? 1. A guy who had IU listed as one of his top schools and had scheduled a visit then deciding to skip the visit and not even include IU in his top 4 schools, or 2. a coach deciding to prioritize guys that were more skilled and had clearly surpassed Morton? The only way 1 is realistic is if Archie did something to completely infuriate Morton, and that seems extremely unlikely.

The optics look bad to a bunch of people who don't know anything. I'm not taking a shot at anyone in particular, but nobody on this board really knows how these recruits are performing in terms of rising and falling throughout the year until these lists come out, other than some random anecdotes we hear from the Evan Daniels and Brian Snows of the world. It looked desperate to you and others because you were putting stock into static recruiting rankings. You looked at Morton as top 50 and Cross outside the top 200, but Archie and his staff are obviously constantly evaluating potential players. By the time they offered Cross and Morton committed to Purdue, their evaluations had gone in completely different directions. Also, I'm not saying that we should put full faith in recruiting rankings, but Cross is ranked significantly higher than Leal or Galloway. Why would Archie prioritize those guys and then see if he can find a fit for the best player of the 3?

Impossible! Losing out on him was a loss Archie will never recover from! [emoji849] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

People criticize the Fitzner offer way too much. That scholarship is already off the books and was going to go unused last year if not given to Fitzner. While Fitzner was underwhelming, there was no downside to putting him on scholarship. Because of injuries he played more than he should have and got exposed, but he was still more valuable than an empty scholarship would have been.

Agreed. Archie has not been offering scholarships to guys who he doesn't think are worthy. He wouldn't offer Wyndham because he didn't think he was good enough. If he's willing to offer Van Zyl it'll be because he thinks he's going to be a contributor, not to fill up a scholarship.

People on this board are upset that Miller didn't offer Moretti a couple years ago. Nobody knows anything about this guy, so saying this feels like a Crean move is a complete guess Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Any decent player is focused on getting to the NBA. He doesn't look like he's going to be a 1 and done, but if he's good enough to be that, then yes we absolutely want him. A playmaking point guard is probably the most valuable position in college basketball. Rob could handle being the 1A/1B if it came to that. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If he's taking a scholarship that would be 12. When people say we will only have 10 scholarship players they are assuming Hunter won't be cleared. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk