RaceToTheTop

If Woodson ends up with Rice, Carlyle, Essegian, Tucker, Malone, and Ballo in the spring, I saw we let him have a few days to golf.

Not getting the thinking that Humrichous would be coming to IU. What's the upside for him to do so? He's already wanting to have NBA scouts look at him, why would he come to Indiana and get less minutes?

Mgbako, Reneau, Ballo, and Tucker are players currently who are 3/4/5's. We know we are adding another 4/5 type player. Running occasional three guard lineups. Truth is that Galloway and Essegian can both play as a 3. Essegian was a decent rebounder at the 2 for Wisky.

wIlL BErg iS AlMOsT As TaLl as EdEY, sO HE MusT bE GoOD

R.J. Davis is a pipe dream obviously, but in terms of some guys not playing as much as they want......that is every school everywhere and was so before the portal.

With the recent pick ups, Purdue has decided to tone down their chants to "IU stinks".

We did. But at the minimum it does seem like that the staff is looking at bringing in shooters -- I don't know why you would bring in Essegian for a visit if you weren't because that is pretty much what he did well when he was on his game. My guy says that Rice and Carlyle decided they wanted to play together and sold themselves as such. And if the option is both of them neither, put me down as a resounding yes to both of them. Let's say that they both shoot 35% from three next year -- pretty realistic expectation for the jump from freshman to sophomore year (for an IU comparison, C.J. Gunn and Tamar Bates certainly had holes in their game and neither shot the ball well as all as freshman, but they were at 34 and 37% as sophomores). Rice and Carlyle as 35% shooters from deep are a couple of pretty effective three level scorers.

Gonna have to say if I look back at your post history, you weren’t calling X a good player. And you are trying to compare first season Myles Rice after two years of cancer to sixth year Xavier Johnson. Would you really go on record saying that you’ wouldn’t rather have second year Myles rice over ANY year if X?

Of the top 50 players who have already committed to another school in the portal (using the 247 rankings), just 3 of those 50 have committed to non P5 schools -- and those were to Gonzaga, Memphis, and Duquesne.

Last season IU's freshmen and sophomores played more minutes than their juniors and seniors.

What makes you say that? Shannon gone, Domask gone unless he wins some long shot lawsuit to get a sixth year, Hawkins likely going into the draft, Guerrier gone, Dainja gone.....leading four scorers all gone. Also lost a couple of potential bench pieces in Hansberry and Sinceire Harris who redshirted this year. The current group they have coming in from the portal and from high school don't match up with what they lost.

Nick Pringle, Alabama. 6'10" center. 6.8 points and 5.1 rebounds in 18 minutes per game. 62% from the field, truly a post player only. Also worth mentioning he had one of the strangest shooting lines in history the previous year. He shot....85% from the, making 50 of 59 shots while only shooting 47% from the line, making just 26 of 55 free throws.

I'd say there have been some decent ones entering just in the last day or two. Tyrese Hunter is a pretty good one. Jeremy Roach.

Maybe, but I doubt Humrichous is going anywhere that would only get the minutes that Essegian would be expecting to get as a bench guy. Essegian would be a guy who you could use as a bench shooter for a season and if his game shows anything like he was as a freshman, he's a potential starter his senior year.

If he enters the portal, he could drive what they pay him even more. I don't remember who said it, but there was an insider that had stated that there was someone who was asking for a minimum of 1.5 million and that player wasn't even in the portal yet.

Think you need to dig deeper than that on stats. First off, if you are talking about the comparison of last year's team to next year's the fact is that Xavier Johnson wasn't our point guard. It was a combination of Johnson and Cupps because of Johnson's injury. I assume you are wanting to compare to how much we improved since last year, so that is the only thing that is important. Cupps and Johnson combined for 1228 minutes, or 37.2 minutes average for Indiana's 33 games. Rice averaged 33.2 minutes for Washington State. To put them even, let's prorate Johnson and Cupps' stats -- give them 90% of their combined stats to even it up. This yields: In 33 games at 33.2 minutes, the Cupps/Johnson combo made 80 of 201 shots (40%), 25 of 69 threes (36%), 52 of 77 free throws (67%), had 111 rebounds (3.4 rpg), 72 assists (2.2 apg); 237 points (7.2 ppg). Rice shot 44%, 28% from three, 81% from the line, 3.1 reb, 3.8 assists, and averaged 14.8 points. So Cupps/Johnson isn't even close to what Rice did. As I said, what Xavier Johnson did previous in his career isn't relevant if you are looking toward amount of improvement. Now, for Ware and Ballo: your comparison lacks a couple of items. First Ballo put his numbers up in 25.9 minutes per game. Ware put his up in 32.1 minutes per game. If Ware had played Ballo's minutes, his scoring would have been actually LOWER than Ballo's -- 12.8 points/game. Same with his rebounding -- in Ballo's minutes, he would have had 8.0 rebounds per game compared to Ballo's 10.1.

Honestly, this one I find shocking with the assumption that Carlyle is committing this weekend. But he's a really good buy low option considering his season last year.

Cliff Omuryi cuts his list to ........12. North Caroilna, UCLA, Kansas State, Georgia Tech, Georgetown, Baylor, Alabama, Oregon, Washington, Georgia, St. John's, and Mississippi State. All of which means he will probably end up at Arkansas.

Yeah, they and Arkansas will look pretty different from their 2023-24 teams. In Kentucky's case it won't be by choice.

6'10" stretch 4/5 Carey Booth transfers from Notre Dame to Illinois Ranked 55 in class of 2023. Freshman year at Notre Dame averaged 6.4 pts and 4.3 rebounds. Originally committed to Penn State but followed Shrewsberry to Notre Dame. 6'6" J'Vonne Hadley transfers to Louisville. Good pick up for them. Was very efficient at Colorado. 11.6 pts, 6 reb, 2.4 ast. Shot 54/42/84. ....and Brandon Newman in the portal once more Three years at Purdue, last year at Western Kentucky. 10.1 ppg, 5.3 rpg. Shot 41/33/73.

Merrimack guard Jordan Derkack, NEC player of the year, has transferred to Rutgers. 6'5", 17.0 ppg, 6.0 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 2.1 steals. 47/28/72 shooter. Is there any team next year that is going to look more different than they did last year than Rutgers? Incoming: Eastern Michigan guard 6'4" Tyson Acuiff. Averaged 21.7 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.8 assists. Shot 43/29/81. Merrimack 6'5" guard Derkack. Princeton 6'7" forward Zach Martini. 8.4 pts, 3.3 rebounds. Shot 45/39/83. Bulk three point shooter. small forward 6'8" Ace Bailey, #2 player in the class shooting guard 6'6" Dylan Harper, #6 player in the class power forward 6'9" PF Lathan Sommerville, #103 in the class small forward 6'8" Bryce Dorstch, #148 in the class power foward 6''7" Dylan Grant #177 in the class outgoing: 6'11' Center Cliff Omuryi, 10.8 ppg, 8.3 rpg, 2.9 blocks/game 6'7" forward Mawot Mag, 9.1 ppgs, 3.8 rpg 6'3" shooting (challenged) guard Derek Simpson. 8.3 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 2.9 apg 6'8" G/F Gavin Griffiths. 5.8 ppg, 2.2 rpg 6'9" forward Antwon Woolfolk. 3.3 ppg, 3.1 rpg 6'9" forward Antonio Choi. Only managed to play 56 minutes in two seasons 6'6 forward Aundrae Hyatt (graduated). 10.5 ppg, 4.6 rpg. 5'11" guard Noah Fernandez (graduated). 6.4 ppg. 6'4" guard Austin Williams (graduated). 4 ppg, 2.7 rpg.

My hot take.....Roddy Gayle > Meechie Johnson. That one was a step back. But I like Bradshaw's potential.

Incoming freshman 100% need to not ask for much. Proven commodities trump devloping a player at this point, particularly when a school may see the fruits of their development go elsewhere after a year.

His dad has indicated that one and done isn't what he is really looking for. His dad has been very development oriented. Plus he's only 17, won't turn 18 until June. Two years is most likely.

Purdue fans (probably): Yeah, but he's not as tall as Will Berg.