pumpfake

Personally, I'm happy they ruled this way. From all accounts Joey is a good kid and student. I graduated H.S. with his dad, Joe.

I didn't watch the game, but have been a little bit perplexed at all the love for Minnesota. The game we played them last season towards the end of the year was maybe the worst performance by two Big Ten teams I could remember.

It looks like we are really not well suited to go against teams that excel at 3-pt shooting (or have an exceptional night from beyond the arc). Beilein's teams have always shot the 3, so I guess the result was predictable. Despite the most optimistic hopes, we ARE in a rebuild. New system and players that just aren't that good. While I would be happy as hell to get Romeo L., he'll likely only be here for 1 season. We need players. Period. That won't begin to change until next season, but I still expect to see improvement (and disappointment) throughout this season.

This team definitely needs an infusion of shooting ability and at least two players with size to play down low. I had hopes that Davis would come out this season looking ready to make an impact, but half the time he's a non-factor.

Any player that passes the ball to McSwain needs to run laps.

21st Century Jim Rowinski?

Something just dawned on me - the events of the past couple of weeks with Shittu & Garland have shown that the belief that kids make a decision based on facilities is way over blown. Vanderbilt's gym is garbage compared to even the average Big Ten venue. Secondly, the more I think about it, I kind of feel that the players that VU just signed will actually make RL more likely to come here if he really wants to be the #1 option and boost his draft stock. Perhaps wishful thinking, but I think it does have some merit.

Only 8 turnovers, not relying on 3 pointers, and winning with a comfortable margin is refreshingly new. I don't care that it was against Arkansas State or not - for the past many years we did not do these things against good and bad teams alike. I feel we're still in the early learning stages (especially with playing 3 freshmen) with only a modest amount of talent on the roster, so it's not like we're close to contending for anything, but it's hard not to feel very optimistic about the future.

I don't know if Romeo will go to Vandy or not. I haven't heard any specifics on illegal recruiting at Vandy. On the other hand, the circumstances of them suddenly attracting multiple top-10 players out of the blue is highly unusual and reason for suspicion IMO.

I'm wondering if/how pre-emptive Archie is going to be toward blue chip recruits. As it appears that the NBA restriction on drafting H.S. players may be lifted in the not so distant future, I can see an added emphasis on low 5 stars and high 4 stars instead of potentially wasting time on top 10 players. I guess one would have to gauge players on an individual basis, but it seems every H.S. player that has a chance ultimately wants to go pro (i.e. rarely will a super recruit opt to go to college if he knows he can jump to the NBA).

Yep, I totally agree with your first sentence. I've been an IU fan since before I was in high school, but have a Purdue degree in Engineering, and as you'd expect work with many Purdue people. They know I'm an IU fan, but never started up with me and I extended the same courtesy to them. I did overhear conversations between two PU fans saying things about IU but it wasn't directed toward me and I could not have cared less. More often than not it's the ones that never attended either school that want to sling the most crap. Just don't get me started on Michigan grads, thankfully they're few and far between in my travels but the ones I've dealt with can only be described as delusional zealots (and these were grads with a Master's degrees).

That old saying "Live by the 3, die by the 3" contains a lot of truth. Our reliance on 3 pointers is one reason I never saw us going far under CTC - all it takes is an off night or losing one of your shooters (like Hulls) and you're dead in the water.

The contrast I've been thinking about today is roster and style of play. Tom Crean inherited an essentially empty roster and the team played like it. He eventually got players that had talent and his style of play and the total system was still lacking. Archie inherited a roster that has a modest amount of talent (much more than Crean's first year) that wasn't going to be successful whether he or CTC were the coach this year. Even so, with this team you can see what they're trying to do - the defense is far from a finished product but noticeably more capable than last year. As the freshmen mature and Arch stocks the roster with players he feels fit what he's trying to instill, I think we'll see something we'll be pleased with. Personally, I never saw a structure to the offense or defensive under Tom Crean that I really felt was going to get the job done with any consistency. I can already see elements of what I believe is a recipe for success with this team, but right now we're missing some ingredients and they haven't been blended and cooked yet. Now I shall seek some lunch.

I'm mostly confident that we are going to see the program make significant strides in the next couple of seasons. I've been totally impressed with what Miller has done so far, but the only doubt is that I felt this way when Crean took over.

I'd really like to see Archie pull a rabbit out of his hat and get a Max B type guy for next year. I am confident in his coaching abilities and am quite optimistic about the future, but we need some size up front. From my understanding his system relies on more than just guard play so I'm sure he'll be doing everything possible to reel in some big guys.

Music to my ears. Fantastic to hear we have a coach that understands this and isn't going to focus on stupid stuff like deflections.

We're playing 3 freshmen and averaging 16 TOs a game. That's no worse than last year really. There's reason to believe we can finally begin to improve in that area (eventually).

Davis needs to avoid dumb fouls at all costs - without him we have no answer inside. Juwan was invisible for the first part of the game, then became much more active. Our senior guards were lackluster. I'm pretty pleased with out freshmen as a group and hope they stay healthy and get lots of experience this year. We're not very good right now, but you can definitely see they're trying to implement a system and that's encouraging, IMO. It almost brought a tear (of joy) to my eye when I saw several occasions of immediate pine-time after poor play. And oh yeah, that Rodriguez dude is a douchenozzle.

I'm not overly disappointed in the play of the team as a whole to this point - kind of as expected. We're obviously overmatched, but these refs sure seem intent on making sure there is no doubt about who will win.

The spiteful part of me would love to see Shittu go to UK and Romeo to IU - leaving Garland stuck at Vanderbilt.

That's what I'm thinking. I also believe that the coaches probably get used to judging how serious a player is. Perhaps after the HH visit, Archie phoned or texted and the response was not encouraging.

Perhaps I'm slow on the uptake, but in retrospect could it be that Archie knew (or sensed) that DG wasn't serious about IU and that's why he didn't visit when the others did?

After some thought, and having watched the game last night, I really want us to find a dead-eye shooter (regardless of stars).

Re-confirmation of things I thought I knew, but apparently forgot: - Message board insiders are as reliable as a $2 watch. - 17 year old basketball players make some illogical (to us) decisions - HH and other rally's never seem to sway recruits. Next time let's cheer for the players who've verballed, not prim donnas that have often already decided on another school.

Well, time to concentrate on OUR team and players and then worry about 2019. I'm definitely disappointed and not confident about Langford, but what really bugs me is that we whiffed on 5* recruits while even Illinois has one in the bag. Damnit!