Maedhros

This past weekend I attended the Indianapolis Scottish Highland Games and Festival. Ate some fish & chips and scotch eggs, drank some scotch whiskey, and watched big beefy men attempt a 145 pound caber toss. So it's nice to log in this morning and read a No True Scotsman retort as to why Trent Sisley doesn't count as a successful recruitment of a 4* target.

I don't know Woodson, but I know the Hysterics will do and say whatever is in their interest. They should have been cut off a long time ago. The how of it doesn't concern me as much as I'm glad it's finally done. Jeff Goodman out there tweeting support of the Hysterics, as if I needed to feel any better about taking the opposite side.

I think if you give me two sides to a story, and tell me the Hysterics are on one side, I'm going to assume the opposite by default and it's going to take a lot of convincing to get me to switch.

For this rebuttal, you'd have to assume the only change to D1 over the past 40 years has been backfilling teams at the bottom. It's more likely that the same dynamics growing the number of schools capable of taking on a D1 schedule are also working on the schools competing for tournament bids. It's hard to measure, because sports is a zero-sum game, but I'd contend there are more schools of Tournament-quality than ever before. It's why we can have the debate about including power conference schools vs mid majors. There's talent everywhere now. A Final Four team can come from the Horizon, or from a power conference AQ that wouldn't have been in the field otherwise. How we pick teams is a different conversation. Frankly, there are ways to do it which don't involve a committee at all, as John Gasaway has long argued. But you're not going to harm the NCAA Tournament by adding Indiana St, even if it means adding Oklahoma, Seton Hall, and St Johns from power conferences.

In conclusion, where a recruit ranks between the different services is a land of contrasts. Thank you.

Preseason projections for 2025 are up at Torvik, and updating regularly. Indiana currently ranks at 21. It's a huge jump from finishing last season at 83. If that holds, coming in at 21 on the S curve gets you... a 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament. That's from an objective ranking system based on roster alone. Mike Woodson as coach has nothing to do with it.

It was $25 at the door also when I went to see the 3SSB event in Westfield. Definitely steeper than when I've gone to EYBL in the same facility. My big gripe was their web presence, which appears to be next to nothing. I only knew Indiana Elite was playing at 12:40 because of what was shared in this thread. I couldn't find a schedule online anywhere, so I ended up paying that $25 for just one game.

Thanks for sharing! Didn't see this until now, when there were picks on Twitter from the first game. I'm going to get up there for the Sunday afternoon game.

FWIW, Torvik projects Luke Goode for 36% of available minutes if you add him to the Indiana roster. That's 14.4 MPG.

We all want guys who can shoot from deep. But judging a freshman off just his three points percentage, as though that's all he'll ever be, is a mistake. Ryan Conwell shot just 30% from three as a freshman and you wouldn't have wanted him a year ago.

I always appreciate your work on this. If you have the information readily available, can you share those targets we have on the EYBL circuit (and the team they're with)? I love going to Grand Park for this event, though I don't yet know who to scout.

Yes, I would say judging a player's worth off just one statistic over a seven game stretch is being a hater. He was 33% the rest of the season, and that's as a freshman coming off chemotherapy. He's also a point guard that can affect the game in many ways other than just shooting, such as an assist percentage over 22%. He was first team All PAC 12 and conference ROY after all. And the great thing about freshmen is they get better.

Quoting this post, for being the most concisely stated, lol. I generally agree with your larger point, that fans have become quick to find fault in damn near everything. Something must be done. Landing a top guard like Sanon is certainly something. Therefore, it must be done. This isn't a smart approach for every individual recruit. But there's a larger trend that's not nothing. With Sanon, and Davis, I think you're begging the question. We don't know if they're too interested in money, guarantees, or are just bad eggs. Sanon could be asking for the moon, but that didn't scare off Kansas, recent national champion, preseason number one, and the most consistent program of the last 40 years. Davis visited Shrewsberry at Notre Dame before committing to Kim English at Providence. He's still ranked outside the top 100. Doesn't seem like he's one to be asking for a bundle. Maybe his is an attitude thing, but that's something I can't know. What I do know is we backed off Coen Carr, only for him to be snatched up by Michigan State and Tom Izzo, the most accomplished coach in the Big Ten. We backed off Jaeden Mustaf, whose weakness is admittedly shooting, but a 6'5" CG who does everything else well sounds awfully useful. It's not that Sanon, and Davis, are make or break for Woodson. It's that I have no idea what the plan is at the position. We (ostensibly) went all in on Fland, missed that one too, but had no other targets left on the board. Now two names have surfaced, yet we've backed off both of them as well. What's the strategy here? I could trust that Woodson is sagely avoiding potential headaches if I could see the vision, but right now I just don't.