hoosierbgh

No one is forcing you. There's also very little chance that Woody won't be back next year unless he chooses not to be. I'd much rather the staff focus more on convincing talented guards and wings with experience and shot making ability to come to IU than worry about the nonsense of playing two bigs at the same time. If anything last night's game was an example of both needing better (or even just more consistent) guard play and having a 2nd quality big when one has an off night.

As much as I dislike him, Izzo has earned his fair share of gushing but this team this year was never very likely to match the hype that it was getting. I wonder how many still think Xavier Booker was a huge miss?

I have no inside knowledge but I'd highly consider making a significant bet that all of the following happens before Malik transfers to a different school: 1. The IU fanbase unites behind and agrees upon a coach. 2. Purdue wins a natty. 3. BIG refs call at least one out of every 5 fouls Edey commits on him.

If the BIG insists on hyping him as anything more than a above average player, then he needs all the help he can get. The other schools and even the conference certainly won't benefit from it in the long run though. My chocolate lab thinks I'm the source of all food and that I make the sun rise in the morning and he still doesn't look at me as lovingly as the BIG refs do Edey.

It seems there are a couple threads dedicated to exactly that... they predate and have nothing to do with the Iowa game though.

The Big 12 has long been expert at gaming the system. You don't have one really good but not truly great program so thoroughly dominate the league for so long if it is as deep and competitive as the metrics show it to be.

There are bench players that are the first and second subs into the game, who are often near starting quality that are pushed to the bench due to fit or need for development. Then there are bench players that are farther back in the rotation, who are often either inconsistent or situational players. Sparks is a near ideal example of the latter. He really wants to be here, he plays really hard, and, most importantly, he provides a big strong body, that will be needed in conference play. Right now, he's here to primarily provide a big body to throw at the big goons in the BIG and other games where that is necessary. With another off season to develop he may be able to provide more in more situations but even if that is not the case, he will still be a player with a role to play.

I wonder how much NIL money the Hunter Dickinson level of officiating from the refs costs? I'm assuming the Edey level of immunity from calls is too cost prohibitive.

An offseason of training like Reneau completed this past summer could do wonders for Mgbako's athleticism.

People are jumping to conclusions a bit but based on the timeline and recent events, I think there are reasons for optimism. If I were a Maryland fan and Queen sets a commitment date relatively soon, I certainly wouldn't feel very good about my chances.

There's no point bringing a guard in just to get a benchwarmer if the coaches don't feel he'll be able to contribute and contribute relatively soon. Especially when we appear likely to only have two or three open schollies and one of those will almost certainly be held open for Queen. IMO, more care and consideration is needed not less. We don't just need a guard, we need a good guard that can contribute right away. I think Davis could very well be that guard but I don't think there is a reason to rush into anything here.

The fact that Woody hasn't immediately made a snap decision on this kid, could possibly mean he's a coach doing his due diligence and carefully considering offers instead of a fan overreacting into knee jerk offers. You know, the same kind of desperate, knee jerk offers that many of us fans complained about previous coaches handing out? Or As has been suggested by at least one source, IU is just slow rolling this in public to avoid the appearance of tampering.

I'd rather listen to the students on BIG+ than Walton, Dykes, Marshall or Burkes. Walton is by far the worst by a mile and probably the worst "professional" to ever get paid to announce a basketball game. Dykes somehow manages to combine the smarminess of Bilas/Hummel along with a complete lack of awareness of basketball outside of the SEC. Burkes is just incredibly boring with little apparent personality. Marshall is both boring and largely unaware, seems like he is just collecting a paycheck for as little effort as possible. I can tolerate the rest, even Bardo, and a few are actually enjoyable likes Settles and Kellogg. I still miss Kitch and Laz, though Kitch was definitely in the mode of a know it all like Bilas.

What did you expect to happen after we landed A 5 star? "Good job"? "Way to go"? "Keep up the great work"? "Marry my daughter"? You've got to remember that these are just simple complainers. These are people of the forums. The common clay of social media. I take it as a good indication that there is less than anticipated/hoped for to complain about this year's team so far.

Walker has been a very pleasant surprise so far. I expect there will be more than a few games this year where he sneaks in to kill the opposing team while they are focused on stopping Reneau, Ware, or MM. This team has a lot of length and athleticism to throw at opponents and having someone with Walker's experience and energy as one of those guys coming off of the bench only magnifies the impact. This team has a long way to go and a lot of things to improve upon but there are a lot of pieces to like.

RIP Coach Knight. I was at IU when he was fired and was fortunate enough to attend his last game in Assembly Hall. It was my first game in person and fittingly enough, a solid win over Purdue.

Sure you can. In fact if you primarily go after the highest rated recruits long enough, it is bound to happen sooner or later. In the era of transfer-palooza, it can even be done with relatively little real risk. However, I think you're making a faulty assumption. I don't think IU just randomly decided to narrow the focus down to these 3. I think they did so with a high level of confidence, confidence that they would likely land most of their primary targets and that they could rectify any misses with transfers and de-commits.

It is possible that some kids set a date to help spur them to make a decision between two choices when neither choice has gained any separation. Possible but not likely in most cases. In this case that would be totally out of character from what we've seen from this recruitment so far. Boogie has consistently sought out whatever information he needed to make a decision even up to creating an event where the 3 main coaches come and speak at an event, in addition to standard recruiting visits, to finalize or confirm his decision. A kid that does that level of due diligence is unlikely to set an announcement date before knowing what he is going to announce. Of course a kid can always change his mind and there's plenty of cases where that has happened. That again, would seem to be out of character for this recruitment.

I'm sure Cal is pulling out all the stops but I think it is more than that. Cal is compulsive about trying to control the narrative even when he doesn't get the recruit. It is much better look for Cal and UK if it is seen as a close, back and forth battle this last week with Boogie deciding on IU at the last minute than it is if the decision has been IU for some time and UK was little more than an also ran. All it would take to promote that narrative is for Cal, his staff, or someone close to the UK program to 'express confidence' to a few insiders. Instant smoke. Kind of similar to what appears to be happening.

If Woody wasn't ok with it based on the improvements of Trey and CJ, then he certainly got over it after landing MM, lol!

That is a big stretch. That might be what they are selling Queen but there's very little chance he is used in the same way. His skillset is not even close to Walker's.

It makes sense that Maryland could be the leader, they are the home state school and make good use of their bigs. The bit about Houston is more suspect to me. What talented big wants to be relegated to rebounding and doing the dirty work while the rest of the team jacks ups threes? It wouldn't surprise me if he may have been promised he will be one of those jacking up 3s but it still seems like he would be less of a focus in Houston's offense than either Indiana or Maryland's.

Wow, maybe that explains why Woody recruits Montverde so hard too!

With all of this recruiting, I'm starting to worry about Woody's golf game. When does he have time to play any more?