HoosierX

Agreed. Stewart almost never hit a shot when it mattered, especially at the end of the year. And past the midway point, I would venture to say XJ was the better shooter percentage-wise.

Yep agreed. Which is why I said "in 3 of those games" instead of "3 games" The same math would work in reverse for losing all the games, hence my point.

I'd say we have a 50% chance or better of winning in 3 of those games (sans Kansas), so I don't think I'd say we could easily lose all 4. Unless you would also say you could easily see us win all 4, which honestly is probably more likely (although also not very likely).

Saying something like "his performance was absolute trash" makes it about his play rather than appearing to be about him as a person. I'm sure that wasn't your intent, but it kind of comes off that way.

People that clearly never took finite math. Even if you have a 75% chance of winning every game, over the course of 30 games it's about a 1 in 10k chance that you go undefeated.

I know this is facetious but it reminds how many people were throwing out an undefeated season as a real possibility in 12-13.

I've seen them ranked top 20 in some pre-season rankings, so yeah I would say they are pretty similar to us (pretty consistently ranked ~15). Plus the Armaan Franklin storyline would be an interesting one.

Not a believer in the Illinois newcomers? One poll I saw ranked them ahead of us post-TJD decision.

What do you gain from saying this publicly as opposed to just telling your teammates?

Agreed, everyone said he'd be a great fit at Georgia and he was spectacularly bad.

Did I miss something?

Bell did not test well at all at the combine.

Or as one of my fraternity brothers called it, bringing a sack lunch to an all-you-can-eat buffet.

OK I understand the concept in theory, but again I think it would only benefit a select few. If you are a player who isn't guaranteed to cover the cost of the scholarship, then you aren't going to participate. It just doesn't make sense for you to do extra work for nothing. Then NIL dollars are either not earned or redistributed to the guys that are guaranteed to out-earn their scholarship costs. If that plays out, it would ultimately recoup very little in terms of scholarship costs. Add in all the extra administrative work due to the extra rules, accounting, etc. and you may even end up spending more than you're recouping scholarship costs. I admit, this relies on the assumption that most players in college basketball wouldn't out-earn their scholarships

How do you propose this be run then? The only way the situation you described makes sense is if the player is making more from the NIL than the value of the scholarship. Otherwise it's like your employer telling you, "Hey were going to give you some additional responsibilities, but we're going to pay you more. However, that additional payment will be deducted from what we're contributing to your health insurance." Net net you are in the same economic situation with additional responsibilities. Why would anyone take that deal?

At IU or in general? I can think of non-IU players like Evan Eschmeyer.

Well that’s incredibly dumb. If the student doesn’t make more than the value of the scholarship then it becomes completely pointless, and only a select few would benefit.

Would be quite a meteoric rise for a guy outside of the top 80 in the 247 and composite rankings.

If Kopp is the one, I don't think that will be helpful to TJD's decision. I can't help but think his decision to return would become harder if it meant kicking his good friend off the team. (for all intents and purposes)

Who knew that JG playing the wing would be more polarizing than Dane Fife.

Maybe, although I'm guessing neither were mocked in the 1st round. Purely my opinion, but I think the biggest obstacle to TJD coming back is a sense of failure that comes from not making the pros in a given time frame. I don't think he thought he'd be in college 3 years let alone 4. But moves like Bacot and Tshiebwe lessen the importance of that IMO, and also I'm hoping gets boosters motivated once the number for Tshiebwe comes out.

Dear lord, the dude must be pulling in a boatload of NIL money. How can you improve your stock after winning NPOY? On the flip side, while I don’t like seeing UK improve, I think moves like this and Bacot make it easier for TJD to return.

I was three rows up for that game, and our team was gassed with about 8 minutes to go. TJD was especially gassed - at one point Kopp was screaming at him to come over to the huddle and he could barely muster more than a slow jog. I don't know whether Duncomb should have played, but conditioning was absolutely a factor.

I don't think their win / loss record over that time backs that up. Duren was only out a few games and they won each one. They also lost to Georgia, Ole Miss, and Tulane early in the season while they had both Duren and Williams (and Bates). Gelling over time/getting healthier probably also played a role, but while I didn't watch all their games, I think it's pretty likely they were better without Bates. In some of the early games I did watch him play, he had very little discipline in terms of shot selection and ball control. His Assist/TO ratio for the season was damn near 1/2.

I don't for a second think that Penny is a great coach. However, he was the coach before and after Bates' injury. The thing that changed was Bates' playing time. Obviously there could be 12 other factors playing into their improved play, but Occam's Razor. I think that once these kids get really hyped up, it's hard for people to let go of it. If Lander would have transferred at the end of year 1, people would have been up in arms. But after two full years, people finally realized that he has deficiencies that are hard to overcome in the college game. I'm not trying to comp Bates to Lander as obviously Bates has incredible physical tools, but if Bates was a 4 star coming out of high school, I don't think we'd be having this conversation.