Honkyman

I would be surprised if he goes to Cincinnati. He may go to IU, he may go to Purdue or he wind up somewhere else, but in the end I predict he makes his decision on where he thinks he has the best chance of being developed to make the next step to the NBA. There is no reason to believe that program is Cincinnati.

That will change if the outcome is unclear with 2 minutes left in the game.

Jordan Geronimo entered the portal just once, in 2021, when there was a coaching change and almost the entire team entered the transfer portal. The four IU players who entered the portal in 2022 were Parker Stewart, Kristian Lander, Rob Phinisee, and Michael Durr.

Some of you dour "fans" predicted Geronimo was gone after last season. "Mutual agreement"...what are you talking about? This is totally devoid of any factual basis.

Geronimo played consistently when he was starting while Race Thompson was out. He played well coming off the bench last year but has struggled coming off the bench this year. "Never accepted his role" is pure conjecture.

I agree. Leal is a much more reliable player than CJ Gunn who is shooting a dreadful 8.3% from 3-point range. Gunn should stop shooting threes until he figures out what is wrong with his shot.

That is pretty much a consensus view, although JHS would benefit from another year of seasoning. His shooting and judgment in general is pretty inconsistent and he would likely struggle initially as a professional.. But the NBA drafts on potential and he clearly has NBA potential.

Pretty pessimistic view of Coach Woodson's ability to hold his team together, imo.

As I said, he will likely be a starter. Plus Geronimo and Woodson may have become close. People on the outside have no idea what is going on inside the locker room, though some claim they do.

Surprising to whom? It wouldn't surprise me nor any of my IU friends.

Why would Geronimo and Duncomb not return next year? Geronimo is an almost certain starter and Duncomb will see quite a few minutes at IU. They would be trading near sure things for the unknown. The only IU transfers who transferred and performed well as starters are Armaan Franklin and Al Durham who started at IU. The others did no better at their new school than they did at IU. The reality is transfers tend to get about the same playing time at their new school as they did before transferring--sometimes less.

You are correct. That is why I used the term "arguably" as a hedge. Clearly Xavier at full strength is a better defender than JHS. But there may be a trade-off in terms of what Xavier can do at the offensive end especially when he first returns. And, he may not be as quick as he was before he got hurt. We shall see.

As I said, it is anybody's guess how long it will take for Xavier to come back and play at a high level. You may be right about Woodson. Woodson was out 5 weeks with back surgery, came back and immediately began averaging 20 points a game. He probably assumes every 21 year old is super human like he was.

I don't think anyone knows how much Xavier Johnson might help when he returns. I attended IU-Maryland at College Park. Xavier was out shooting in the early warmups and looked great. The truth is that JHS is playing the same role that Xavier played at the end of last season and arguably better. So maybe Xavier mostly comes off the bench (at least for a while) to give Jalen a breather so he does't have to go 40 minutes. Woodson doesn't need to start him right off the bat--and maybe he doesn't need to start him at all.

Kopp has played well even when his shot hasn't been there. Today he got a key steal at the end just like he did against Northwestern. Even Bates played decent defense against Illinois but his shooting has been awful for several games. Galloway always does things that don't show up in the box score. But yes, the scoring needs to come from more than just TJD and JHS.

Underwood is a good coach. But I have no sympathy for him on days like today.

The difference in the game is turnovers. IU has 13, Illinois has 9. And IU's missed free throws 6 for 11. Illinois is 11 for 14.

Could be too late.

9 of JHS's points were in the last 63 seconds of the game, too late to change the outcome. But it was defensively when NW built a big 17 point lead that the NW guards played especially well, converting Indiana turnovers into 25 NW points. Indiana had 16 turnovers, 9 more than NW. JHS has shown great scoring ability, but his tendency to needlessly turn the ball over has given opponents too many unnecessary opportunities. NW guards are relentless which is why they gave Purdue guards so much trouble and Indiana so much trouble in Bloomington. Indiana has to do a better job protecting the ball to win in Evanston on Wednesday.

Purdue plays Maryland at College Park Thursday (6:30 pm). I'll be at the game rooting for the Terrapins, I guess.

Then why was IU pursuing them so hard? If 5 IU starters either complete their eligibility or move on and one or two more transfer after this season, there will be a lot of room on the roster.

...has better guards than Purdue and kept them in check. Purdue has trouble whenever their guards don't shoot well. Arguably NW beat IU at Assembly Hall for the same reason, i.e., their guards outplayed IU's guards. One of IU's guards, JHS, has been playing very well as of late so that may not be the case on Wednesday.

Hopefully not. The entire starting lineup (counting XavierJohnson instead of Trey Galloway) will be gone. IU only has two committed recruits coming in next season. If we lose more to transfers, the team will have fewer than 10 players. IU can't count on transfers--we lost out on every single target last spring and summer.

I didn't think IU would win going into the game and throughout the game. I especially didn't think IU would win after TJD missed the front end of a one-and-one with 11 seconds left. But our defense was tough and Michigan seemed paralyzed on offense the last five minutes. Good to get the win and on to Northwestern!

Gunn would probably get more playing time if he could hit his shots. He's hitting only 31% of his shots from the field, including an embarrassing 8.7% from 3-point range.