Magisterium

Personally I would start Conwell over just about any guard IU has (other than Rice)

I wonder if Ballo and Fland are in contact with each other

If nothing else I’m sure Cal feels he can out-recruit IU for any player he wants. Didn’t Ivisic already commit to follow Cal to Arkansas?

nothing official with IU at this point? for me he’d be at least as big a “get” as Ballo (or Carlyle for that matter)

any info re: Conwell’s scheduled visits?

Almost sounds like a combination of Humrichous and Elijah Malone in some ways

fwiw it looks like UK may have lost another 7-footer to the portal? Gonna be interesting to see how many players follow Cal to Arkansas

Evidently so.

Is Howard still on staff? Thought I read somewhere that he was heading to Ann Arbor to work for Dusty May.

What scares me is the prospect of Woodson running things back next season with another version of his double-post offense and in a mediocre B1G 10 he manages to make it to the tournament. If he does, I fully expect that “success” to be enough to convince the people who actually call the shots on IU basketball to let Woodson stay on as long as he wants.

The B1G 10 may slowly start to adapt in terms of playing style now with May and Musselman joining the conference. Not sure if I see IU being part of that adaptation, however. I expect we’ll know soon enough.

He’s not a “shooter” but is a former IU recruit who’s now in the portal fwiw: Arrinten Page, who I guess would qualify as a rim protector.

I’m not sure why it would have to be either/or with Hickman and Humrichous-two very different players who both are good shooters. IU could really use both, especially in a potential class of so-so shooters like Carlyle, Rice, Walker, etc.

I’d like to think they could bring in 3 guards like Hickman, Carlyle and Rice (or someone like Small as 1of the 3). And perhaps Humrichous (sp?) as the 6th guy, if my arithmetic is right with Tucker added. Bringing in guys like Hickman and Humrichous could go a good ways towards fixing the shooting problems. In theory, anyway. Whether it would actually fix those problems on the court or not would depend on more than just the players involved, at least imho it would.

Maybe “shooting guard” in the NCAA’s tallest lineup

Is the big man IU recruited out there? Arrinten? maybe he’ll consider the portal

IIRC doesn’t Xavier have 1or 2 guys in the portal too? Opening for Foster fwiw

I think Marquette extended Smart through 2029 and conceivably he could have a buyout almost as big as Otzelberger’s

Yeah everything I’ve seen suggests he’ll stay on the Coast or maybe go to Gonzaga

If they’re truly recruiting Carlyle, maybe they should re-recruit Stojakovic and even consider Raynaud

Maybe they can at least get a visit out of Amari Williams (unless he’s been scooped up too)

Did the post player from Charlotte that IU contacted already commit? Dishon Jackson iirc—think I saw somewhere that Iowa State may have snagged him.

My point is that I suspect the ACTUAL expectations for Woodson next season will be minimal, possibly to the extent that simply making the tournament will be enough. Exceeding expectations may not even be an issue in that case. It may be that any serious discussion about a change next winter could only be triggered by another instance of missing the NCAAT. And even then we will have the same BOT Chair (until 7/1/2025) and donors (I’m tempted to call them “owners” at this point) in place during any hypothetical coaching search, which imo would not be an encouraging sign.

If Woodson won 18-20 games next season (including multiple blowout losses), finished 6th or 7th in conference and got into the NCAAT as a #12 or #14 seed, then lost during the first weekend, would you feel he should be retained? I suspect he would be (unless he voluntarily decided to retire). If nothing else, that kind of scenario seems more likely to me than a deep tournament run and as such it’s a potential dilemma I’m more worried about than the opposite one.

I agree about IU Admin being historically too timid and/or complacent to approach athletics as proactively and aggressively as other B1G 10 schools do. I hope that changes over the life of the new rights contract, but I’m not optimistic on that front, especially after Dolson’s comments about some of that money being “already spent.” I believe Texas A&M didn’t actually cut Fisher “a check” but the 12th Man Foundation cut Fisher a $19 million check and A&M wil pay Fisher the remaining $58 million from university funds (not booster money) with annual payments spread out over 8 years. Hard for someone as cynical as I am to see IU taking that approach with its own university funds instead of relying on its athletic boosters to bail it out from its numerous hiring mistakes. Which imo is how we end up with a basketball program that needs a serious intervention and change but that also appears to be controlled by a small handful of donors who want no such intervention or change to be made.