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Don’t want to get my hopes too high yet but getting a highly rated kid in the front court to reclassify would be exciting and very much the kind of statement people are wanting to see us make.

That’s a fair take for sure.

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Don’t see anybody showering Leal with a bunch of outlandish praise or claiming he’d be a difference maker. Just differences of opinion in how valuable he is as a defender and whether people want him as 12 or 13 on the roster.

There were definitely multiple instances last year where he actively shied away from taking wide open shots. Sequences where going up strong/taking an uncontested shot was absolutely the correct decision but he hesitated and passed it up. Not a huge deal considering his role, but…

Is a ~40% career 3PT shooter in the B10 worth having back? Considering you acknowledge he was trying to pick up the people around him and their inability to succeed as a team is not necessarily his fault, have a hard time understanding why you’d hold it against him that he played on last year’s team (playing for IU was living his childhood dream by the way. Imagine a second chance to do that, with an actually competent coach). His shooting and intangibles would make him an excellent addition to the roster IMO.

Goode regularly got in players faces during timeouts / stoppage of play to pick up their intensity throughout the year. He constantly hustled when on the court, leading by example. When either team shot technical free throws last year, Goode made it a point to bring players together and literally wrap his arms around them. Maybe you missed the Rutgers and Penn State games where that was especially visible/talked about.

Agree we could end up with worse. Don’t see how that’s even a question really… we could add the #500 ranked HS player, theoretically, LoL. I’d much rather Leal than that. IMO the eye test is really the most valuable way to assess D because looking at things like DBPM/defensive win share in isolation can be misleading. Combined with eye test, I think they probably give a good indication and so people saying he’s not good at defense need to take the eye test again lol. Maybe Race or USPS or someone better than me at advanced stats can point to the defensive metrics they pay attention to?

Definitely not saying it’s stupid to call him elite, just that the metric is inherently flawed so it’s not the best supporting evidence to make that case. On the whole I tend to agree he’s a good defender and people who can’t give him that much credit likely won’t give him any at all.

I think to have a meaningful conversation about it, it helps to understand a few things about how it’s calculated. A few points: -DBPM is calculated as BPM - OBPM, box score does a much better job tracking offensive impact than defensive. It’s just a different regression on the same set of counting stats. -It’s a calculation based on average per 100 possessions played, so it’s less accurate on a small sample size like Leal’s -Because it’s literally just BPM - OBPM, assists and blocks get weighted differently based on position. That’s why it usually loves big guys like Danny Wolf and Jokic disproportionately. https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/bpm2.html this is an interesting read if you have the time. I think Leal is a very good defender, not sure about elite or anything, just don’t think DBPM is the KPI to build a strong argument on. Just inherently harder for advanced metrics to capture defensive impact. Eye test is important IMO.

DBPM is kinda a bunk stat

I’m far from a Leal fan and don’t really want him on the team next year at all but saying they’d prefer Dallas James to him is a pretty transparently unserious take, lol

I’m thinking/hoping that you hit the nail on the head with 10 from the portal complicating things a bit and DDV choosing to keep some dry powder ready to make a big splash in 2026 HS/portal. I think we can be a good team next year but have to wait and see. Hopefully we make the tournament, build our culture, and land some really high level guys to go into year 2 with a ton of momentum behind us. I like the staff DDV has assembled. Just gotta get ‘er done.

IMO as someone that’s written these kinds of articles for basketball and football targets in a “past life”… don’t give writers that much credit, lol. Recruitment articles are fairly formulaic. Probably just a writing style thing… nothing to be gleaned from that IMO.

Does the article say when he will visit or has a date not been scheduled yet?

With the roster just about finished, we can talk a bit more substantively about next year’s team. My level of pessimism / optimism oscillates quite a bit. I think you can objectively rate the roster anywhere from C+ to B/B+ as it stands today. But of course it could prove better or worse as the season plays out. Think we can have pretty strong confidence in TDV and Wilkerson being “guys” for us. Also think a lot depends on how Conerway and Bailey translate to their roles in the B10. TBD who the fifth starter will be but we need our starting PG and 5 to be real players at this level. Would think Dorn and Miles will compete to start at the 3, and Goode may too. Think we’ll need defense and rebounding in this unit so I tend toward Miles but maybe practice paints a different picture. Dorn could be an X factor / dark horse that elevates the team. Great catch and shooter, smart with the ball… can he pull his own weight on the boards and be a positive on D? Probably will depend on match ups / shake out as the season goes, but right now I’d see the starting lineup being: Conerway/Wilkerson/Miles/TDV/Bailey Very curious how much Alexis and Harris play and are used. Lots of interesting lineup combinations. Not sure how much we’re going to be able to run and score in 12 seconds or less since it seems like we’re going to do a lot of gang rebounding. Plenty of shooting, which makes me hopeful.

Sure but if you add Goode then you’ve got everything Leal brings off the court already.

I don’t want to be pedantic but I’ve been looking into advanced stats more with all our new roster additions. From what I gather, BPM and OBPM are reasonably useful metrics but DBPM is not. TLDR is DBPM gets calculated as BPM - OBPM. So box plus/minus gives a good indication offensively but not on defense. Forgive the bad formatting, I had to copy and paste for a better summary lol. Certain stats like assists and blocks have coefficients based on positions/roles .... e.g. centers get higher coefficient for assists than point guards do, and point guards get higher coefficient for blocks than centers do. Estimating defensive impact from box score is not reliable. The fact that assists count towards your DBPM is silly. https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/bpm2.html It's an interesting read if you have the time.

Bringing Leal back instead of your scenario 2 (which I’d also prefer) would be a “win now” move to me. Based on the roster construction I find that a little odd unless you think you need an insurance policy in the backcourt with all the mid-major guys signed up. I’d hope DDV doesn’t feel the need for that. Maybe he feels Sisley will be ready to contribute at the 4 next year and doesn’t feel a need for another big man this cycle. I’d still tend to want young blood in the program / on this roster next year than a 6th year guy.

Right. And half (or more) the pitch of Leal’s value is about what he brings off the court as a sixth year CBB player. People feel differently about that… and his fit on the roster in basketball terms… so the less than enthusiastic reception to the idea is unsurprising to me, especially after the past four years.

Weren’t a lot of us clowning Chad Baker Mazara and all these 6th year seniors? But we’re thrilled with Anthony Leal coming back for a 6th year? Lol… If he wants to pay his way for another year of school to be a practice player then he’s a real IU guy through and through, I suppose. Seems like a good time to move on after 5 years though, even if he is sometimes pretty good at defense.

IMO the last point is the only one that actually matters. If DDV hasn’t added an entire roster of mature young men … and with all these seniors, including his son, doesn’t feel there’s leadership already… then that’s a problem. I don’t think that’s actually the case. Leal is a positive defender and doesn’t need the ball to be effective. That’s nice, but any playing time he gets would be at the expense of guys who have more eligibility or were presumably brought in to play over him. No problem with him playing instead of younger guys… except for the fact that means A) DDV missed on his scouting evals to the point Leal is playing significant / meaningful minutes B) it means no bigs if we get Goode too. Can’t afford an injury to Bailey / Harris / Alexis in that scenario. Leal is a nice kid but it’s definitely fair to question a scenario where DDV wants him at IU for a 6th year when he already has 11/13 spots filled and we have a ton of guys at Leal’s position (objectively) and probably could use one more big guy (subjective take)

I can’t think of any less insightful way to talk about our season than to ask Grok AI, no offense. Lol

Idk, ask Woody why he could hardly make the rotation throughout his career? Lol. I see your point. That would be nice to have off the bench. At the same time why not focus on developing someone with more years of eligibility to be an ACTUAL All-B10 defensive team and help be a part of the program moving forward? If the roster construction so far were different I’d be fine having Leal as an option off the bench. I’d prefer Goode to him. And I’d prefer another big guy over both.