hoosierbgh

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?

Wilkerson got kicked off the team for domestic battery.

Bailey was probably too successful to fit the parameters set for this thread but as good as he was, his chronic knee problems kept him from reaching his full potential. He's probably the headliner, along with Evans, of the accomplished a lot despite constant injury club though.

Thus far Self has not been nearly the threat he is purported to be, at least to IU during the Woodson era.

I was wondering what appealed to Queen about Houston when they don't seem to play a style well suited to his skills from what I've seen of them.

To be fair, Archie didn't seem to be much of a motivator and playing that pack line defense had to be fairly stifling and de-motivating for TJD. Getting big blocks really seemed to energize and motivate TJD that first season under Woody.

It's certainly true that the best team doesn't always win in March but what in the world does that have to do with Purdue?

Did they even add at least one good guard? Have they learned to play really good defense? Is their biggest/only real offensive threat no longer a significant liability on defense? The Purdue is UVA narrative is so lazy and uninformed.

You forgot #4. Have BIG refs every game in the tournament.

"The court ruled that a driver in front of McCaffery's vehicle had waved Hite across, and the jogger had not stopped or looked for traffic in the left lane. " It is unfortunate that the jogger made such a costly mistake but there lies the real problem. I've seen it numerous times with vehicles, a good Samaritan with no situational awareness waves someone out and that person frequently goes without even looking.

His recruiting work ethic alone is impressive, lol!

No need, we're already stuck with West Lafayette.

I'm not a fan of whining at any time but it makes a whole lot more sense to whine in February if that were to actually happen than it does to peremptorily whine now that it could possibly happen. Ideally, it would be great to have a clear backup for each position plus a couple other backups capable of covering multiple positions. In reality, recruiting is not like a NBA 2K draft, the players ultimately decide where they want to play and "come be a back up likely playing 10 minutes or less per game" is a hard sell. It is an especially hard sell in transfer portal recruiting.

I don't pretend to be an expert but it seems like this kid could do especially well if he were to play beside a tall wing that can shoot and create, a big that can score, pass, and handle, another PG that can shoot and run a team, and for a coach with a long, successful NBA career. Seems like the others would benefit from this arrangement as well. Now, I wonder where that all could possibly happen...?

I'm looking forward even more to Edey slamming into Sparks, being forced to take a much longer shot when Sparks doesn't go flying out of the way and then pouting when Ware swats his stuff into the 3rd row.

Simply becoming a sophomore eliminates a lot of fouls since being a freshman post in the Big is worth at least two fouls per game.

Treloar voluntarily stepped aside in favor of Davis. Probably a smart decision on his part.