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Ware has like 20 points on dead ball putbacks tonight lol

I think he is a step/half step slow and has ham hands. Guess he didn't play too much football at recess as a kid lol. Doesn't seem comfortable catching the ball a lot.

Around 4:30, I thought it was interesting. Gunn was on the wing and moved to the corner when Gallo came over. Gallo told him to go to the other side, so he runs baseline to the other side. XJ then frustratingly waves him off telling him to go back where he came. Glad Leal is playing well. I'll never understand our rotations. Up 11 is good, nice half overall. Should be more. 20 games into the season and still figuring out our personnel. I guess if we string together a run we can make something of the season. But no confidence in that. Hope Malik is okay.

Iowa 80 Indiana 70

Iowa 74 IU 70

No reason to act like he wouldn't have plenty of options. Especially with another year of training under his belt, he'd be a very appealing sophomore for a lot of teams. Ours included.

Portal. I think the narrative about him/his season has been set already, and the best way for him to reset the narrative is to portal. I personally could see where he would feel he has not been best set up for success so far this year. That said, he has improved a lot... who knows what he is thinking right now/what he will when the season ends. I hope he stays! I just don't see it right now. Would like to think the staff is already on it...

That was before I was seriously following the program as closely as I do now. And it was definitely overreaction at the time too. But man, especially with the benefit of hindsight... that certainly seems to be where things went off the rails for the program. Sure, Mike Davis wasn't a great hire (but you could see why the decision was made). Sampson was a home run, but apparently decision makers were looking for an excuse - either to get rid of Sampson individually or more generally to de-prioritize basketball. And we basically have never been the same since all over stuff that would probably be perfectly legal today. Hard to feel like that's not been the case of the past 20+ years. Hard to have a lot of confidence in the administration's ability to get it right next time around, when it comes. Circumstances are different now... as a fan I try to find reasons to be hopeful, but that's about all that I've got at the moment.

I agree but the staff still needs to try and keep him.

I mean... tournament seems out of question to me. I really don't see any scenario/path outside of winning BTT. Yes keep trying to win and make things competitive. But the staff's focus IMO should be on finishing this year out as a developmental program and doing all you can to retain Reneau, Mgbako and McNeeley. Add in Cupps and Gallo, with Sparks getting limited bench minutes and you've got the outline of a foundation to build in for next year assuming you can land a haul like you need in the portal. Sucks.

Honestly with so many teams joining the conference, it is a bit of a scheduling nightmare. Feels like the B10 could easily take advantage of the trend with pre season charity tournaments and check the box on some match ups while still allowing for more flexibility during the actual schedule. They're going to have to get creative about figuring things out in this evolving era. Sadly my confidence is not high that there are many visionary leaders in college athletics administrations/conferences, etc.

Positive spin on this complaint. At least the game is at 3pm so we don't have to wait all day to watch this likely train wreck

I hear if we lose out we'll get better odds in the lottery for rights to negotiate with the best transfer portal guard. Tough spot for a fan to be in! Lol

I didn't realize Darius Adams is from NJ and went to Manasquan HS, which is also playing in this event. Always curious to see who stands out in games like these. Very curious about the next PU giant... hopefully Edey is as good as it ever gets for them. I'm sick of their gimmick lol.

I literally just realized that! And he's undoubtedly going to be one of the best players on the court. I'm really just looking forward to watching competitive high level basketball games.

I really wanted to get the 3 day pass but sadly have other stuff to get done next weekend. It looks like it's an EYBL event based on the sponsors and Montverde's season schedule landing page. (Just did a lot of googling) Day 2 has LaLu vs. Brewster and Link Academy vs. Long Island Lutheran (Andre Iguodala's son vs. Kiyan Anthony). There's also a bunch of other games sprinkled in with lesser national teams and some of the NJ heavyweights: St. Rose (consistently contend for state titles) but not really a Montverde kind of schedule. They play in the finale on day 3, which is one I really want to see even though MVA will likely win by about 50 I reckon. Blair Academy (Luol Deng went there most notably, but they put guys into D1 every year pretty reliably except for the odd year or two). Roselle Catholic and Gill St Bernard - Mackenzie Mgbako went to both, his brother plays for RC. St. Peters Prep and Red Bank Catholic (more of a story if it were a football game). Plus some other lesser ones. Honestly a really cool event with a fairly wide range of talent. Good opportunity for some Jersey kids from less noteworthy programs to get recognized. Have to give kudos to some of the smaller schools I did not list above for getting onto this schedule.

I just got tickets to the Metro Classic, going to see Link Academy vs Brewster Academy and Montverde vs. La Lumiere. Pretty pumped. Not too familiar with Link/Brewster... if anyone is aware of IU targets on those rosters/LaLu, I'd appreciate the heads up.

Illinois 88 Indiana 70

Always look forward to IUBB game day. But it blows to wake up with 0 expectation of even keeping it truly competitive. Maybe if Ware wasn't injured it would be a different story... When the outcome seems inevitable before it starts, it's a bad season. This is a chance to start turning things around. Not holding my breath... but cheering to be wrong. Lol

What did I say that was conjecture? I guess I am not getting it because I don't see what the last 20+ years of failure has to do with us needing 2, maybe 3 new guards on next year's roster. Respectfully, I only see conjecture in your last statement (which I happen to agree with but we'll never know because we didn't go get a guard). We're in agreement there will be camps/families you don't want to deal with. The very talented players usually do have some level of that around them. There must be some way they assess who is worth dealing with... vibes are probably a big part of that. But there's no denying we need backcourt play. If you don't want to commit to a kid like Sanon for his baggage, as I said, fine... but with our backcourt situation, there's no denying the approach is to rely on the spring period/transfer portal. That also may be fine, but again, bit of a risk if you can make a promise and land a fish like Sanon. No doubt there will be opportunities to do that. Will they have more or less baggage? Can we convert those opportunities? We shall see. They very well may be better options with more experience under their belt. It could work out great. Just gotta wait..... I guess?

Totally know what you mean about the headache. At the same time, with roster construction and the backcourt specifically being problems that Woody owns, it's fair for fans to question his approach to the recruitment of guards specifically. So it's not IMO that people are viewing it as just one more thing Woody is doing wrong, but concern about how we're going to address the elephant in the room. Landing stud guards would be a very impactful way for Woody to reinvigorate some energy from the fans (not that he's particularly interested in that) but more importantly it's what he needs to actually compete. So it won't work out with Sanon because of his handlers/demands? In this instance, fine, I guess. But we best have confidence in our ability to land strong options in the portal, who are also likely to have a set of demands. Albeit as more of a known quantity. If you aren't willing to deal with any headaches, ever, coaching is absolutely not the profession for you. I'm not saying that as someone who is jonesing to get Woody out the door. But as someone who wants us to address the biggest challenge facing this team. I'm sure he wants that more than anyone... just hope their strategy pays off in the portal/spring. For now we don't have any momentum on the recruiting trail to track and a poor product on the court, so this discourse is to be expected. Only way it changes is when we start winning more games or if we land some studs for next year.

... This may be where the similarities between Dan Hurley and Mike Woodson begin and end, though. Haha. I think that's purely a coincidentally shared view they have and does not speak to any similarities in their approach for running a program. Those UConn boys are getting paid too. Case in point? Cam Spencer. Literally an NIL mercenary. Hurley, like all coaches, likes to paint a certain picture...

I hope we're willing to promise minutes and money to portal guards, since this one looks over. I understand not wanting to make such promises out of principle/as a standard mode of operating... but when you've got roster holes like ours, I don't think there's huge risk in making a "promise" to a high-level impact backcourt player. Odds are nobody on the roster will be able to push them for very big minutes, so you're not going to end up somehow "lying" to the kid. A lot worse goes on in recruiting. It's not letting a kid/their handlers come into your program and dictate terms to you if you're desperate for what they offer. You're shopping and they're selling. Just a mutually beneficial business opportunity. Allocate your investment accordingly and play ball. Seems like we did it for Ware if he needed a number before even visiting. Obviously we'll never have all the info so certainly is info we don't have that is specific to each nuanced situation like this particular recruitment... but how are we not doing the same for a stud guard given the state of our current roster? Must be something about Sanon/his camp turning off the staff, fine. But let's not be overly picky about those things when it's portal season then. There should be plenty of dry powder, you'd hope... Now... if we don't have the $ for a player like Sanon... that is a different problem.

Let's just assume we bring Woody back for year 4... Losing XJ, Walker, Ware. Fair to assume at least 1 of Banks/Gunn/Leal transfer (I won't speculate for now). Bringing in McNeeley (lets hope he stays committed). So could be 3-5 spots to fill? This is removing Mgbako from the equation. I think he's a huge factor in how optimistic you can be about a year 4 of Woody. Very curious how he's feeling about the whole year. Would be sort of shocked if he sticks around, but if you're Woody, I think you've got to make him your top priority and basically be re-recruiting him right now. So, 3-5 spots to fill with Mgbako, 4-6 without him. A core of Reneau, Galloway, Cupps, Sparks ... does not excite me really. You'd need to do A LOT of portal shopping. That's why I think it's so important to return a sophomore Mgbako who hopefully makes a similar improvement to Reneau. If you add Mgbako to that core, plus McNeeley and Queen, now we're talking... The #10 and #11 player in the country is a good enough haul to keep me interested. But that still does not address what we all know has been the biggest, of several, issues this year. Davis looks like a good player, probably different position than Jakai (who knows if he ever plays again?). I would be happy if we took him, considering how badly we need any guards at all right now. I would like if we could land 3 guards, at least 2 proven commodities from the portal. I hope Queen/Reneau/Sparks would be good enough rim protection that we don't pursue yet another big. Roster construction has been the most glaring issue. Style of play is another one. But they're entirely different levels of issues. Roster construction is basically a chokehold around your season from the start. Style of play is where you can adapt. Last year Woody showed he could put together some pretty decent game plans. He's not a perfect coach by any means. There's only a handful of truly great ones. This year is probably a wash... and it would definitely be in Dolson's own self-interest to call it a "bogey" for Woody, unless there is a slam dunk home run available. If we can make this season remotely competitive while developing that core and we open the NIL bag up to land real guards, I'll have some optimism that we can be good, or even great, next year. Just don't think it all falls perfectly into place like that. I can't stand to watch much more of this basketball and see limited opportunities for the program to continue gaining momentum with Woody at the helm. I'm not calling for his job right now because there is a lot of season left and it's more likely than not IMO he coaches us next year than not. But if the season continues this trend and recruiting picture is bleak, hard not to view next year as a lame duck season. That's really tough to swallow halfway into the current season. Would love to eat my words and start seeing some wins so we can have more faith in our ability to have a successful offseason. Otherwise you're swimming in very precarious waters. TLDR: if there's going to be a year 4 with Woody, we need to start building momentum... now. Win some games, return Mgbako, land McNeeley, Queen and open up the bag for the best guards you can find in the portal. Obviously that would be best case scenario for IU, but if we can't win some games this year to help build momentum heading into the offseason, tough to see the portal/spring going well and thus another long season likely laying ahead. Have to act swiftly to prevent that (the staff/team and Dolson, respectively).

If you think Dan Hurley is coming here I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. I mean, Bobby? Maybe... Probably not who you want though. Lol