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Yeah... almost shocking! Hardly anything can surprise me with this staff anymore... But geez, you'd like to think fielding a full roster is tablestakes

Yep. By all accounts he seems great in the "locker room presence" older guy role who can be surprisingly solid on the floor in a pinch. Expecting him to contribute in a significant way on a winning B10 team is just asking too much of him IMO.

So today is the start of the dead period, which runs until the 11th. I assume no commits this week. When the dead period is over, we'll be coming up on 4 weeks that the portal has been open. Nothing to show for it yet. Deadline for undergrads to enter of May 1, so after the dead period, 2.5 weeks left for any late entries that can be convinced to portal. Then another dead period from May 16-24. From there, it would be only graduates entering the portal + whoever remains uncommitted. You'd hope we land some commitments during that 2.5 weeks before the May 1 undergrad entry deadline, since "we have better connection$ thi$ year in the portal" and what not. I'd personally like to have at least 11 slots filled before that May 16 dead period starts, maybe 10, if the staff truly has someone on another team's roster they're trying to lure into the portal (other than Conwell, I doubt it). Round out the roster with a graduate and a project. Field a full 13. I've seen talk about them likely only using 12 again... if so, would be almost shocking to me the staff hasn't learned that lesson based on this past year. I really don't want us to end up in a situation where we've got multiple guys coming in later than the rest of the group/after summer classes wrap up at other schools.

I think a few could be... But some of them are big-ish accounts that have been around for years. Funny to me because a few were not as optimistic as they are now, during the season. As you've said before... some people tend to forget how bad it was when they're not actively watching it. We may not be as bad as this year... but I don't think that makes them "right" in any way, especially if our ceiling is what we all suspect (R32, big loss)... just makes it hard to be excited right now. Hope they prove me wrong... tired of saying that Edit: to clarify, I kinda doubt Woodson and the IU staff are paying for any bots (or necessarily aware they exist). I think he's got loud supporters and twitter is a cesspool of bots programmed to mimic sentiment, be combative, etc.

Yeah, I see more of them popping up on my twitter feed too. They do seem like younger guys, obviously with different expectations... I try not to engage anymore, leads to nothing except outrage which is just playing into the platform's formula to drive engagement. @BleedCubbieBlue may have some interesting insight about how that all works (or did during his time there... go figure he leaves and the whole company goes to ****!)

If this means something, wonder if that says anything about our chances with Conwell.

They played AAU with DJ Wagner

That's not really the fault of Reneau or the stretch big he was paired with, though. Just a product of Woody's offense. Like it or not (I don't) that's the system. The bigger concern than spacing, for me, in this consideration with Reneau, is rebounding. Rim protection to a lesser degree. Then spacing. Most of this year, we saw the typical bad spacing and clogged lane/post. Toward the end of the year we saw some better action between Ware and Reneau. If that's carried over into next season and Reneau learns how to pass effectively. Reneau also showed he could step outside and get hot... if that part of his game continues progressing this conversation is moot, to a large degree

Since I don't think Woodson is going to change his offensive system much (at all?), yeah I'm okay with paying him 700k because I think we'll pay some big guy roughly that much money. Williams looks to fit the role well... as much as I don't care for the role (as designed) in the first place. With the caveat that this assumes we've got sufficient money to bring in 2 starting quality backcourt players too.

Don't let Amari Williams take any other visits/leave campus without a commitment.

This would be a great haul. If you can add Conwell as an option, I'd go with him and Myles Rice, Humrichous and Williams. Guards: Conwell, Rice, Galloway, Leal, Cupps, Newton Wings: Mgbako, Tucker, Humrichous, reserve who can shoot TBD Bigs: Malik, Williams, portal big TBD Would give you a pretty darn good top 8 with Newton/Leal/Cupps and portal TBDers behind them. I don't really think it's at all likely we get a haul close to this, but would be great to be wrong.

Great question. I'd add Conway to the Perkins, Carlyle, Rice line.

I think I like Amari Williams the most of the bigs we've been connected to... Pay whatever it takes to sign him up! Nice video... good boards and block numbers. Looks like he could play with Malik IMO... hope staff gets it done. Getting him on campus is very good.

That's pretty spot on from the little bit I've seen. You can also see a clear difference IMO in the AAU kids vs his national team background.

I love the way this kid looks on the court. Smooth.

Comes into the McDAA game and hits a deep 3 right away.

God it's going to suck playing against Derik Queen. Hopefully it's just for one year.

Him and Cupps getting their middle school AAU backcourt back together. Cookin

Is there a world where we get both Myles Rice and Ryan Conwell? Too greedy? One or the other + Hickman?

Yeah, saying it's very early is pushing it... The non-graduate deadline to enter is May 1 if I'm not mistaken. The dead period applies to the portal too right? Not sure if that affects entering the portal or not, meaning a potential wave of new entries after the dead period ends? In any case... with 12% of the top 100 committed, I agree seems like we should be among that group of programs with an early commit.

I just looked it up out of curiosity... On 247's transfer portal rankings, of the top 50, six are committed. WVU (following Dad), Gonzaga, Maryland, Miami, Kansas, Bama. Expanding that to the top 100, there are 12 commitments. The additional 6 are committed to: Maryland, Mississippi State, Missouri, LSU, Arkansas, Iowa State. Both of Maryland's commits are guards. Lots of varying degrees of success and stability at these programs. Still very early in the cycle. Seems others are having more early success. Let's see how it plays out...

Saying it's not about being right, but others being wrong... then turning around and shouting about you being right/ahead of other people, is just down right funny. It is very peculiar, what's going on with all these burner accounts lol

Lol... he needs help...

Yep. Hurley, Oats, and Keatts have all been HS coaches for about 10 years each, give or take a few. Just my personal opinion, but I think I'd specify that along with hiring a winner from lower levels... that winner need a long track record as a HC... I know some (plenty of?) assistants have found success as a HC, but to me, I really value high-level HS HC experience over most P5 assistant experiences. To me that's the difference between a guy like Hurley and Archie Miller.