str8baller

I don’t even know what to say. I liked him though, I hope he does well. That was a puzzling transfer to me. I know he got more NIL money. But Wisky probably had a tourney team returning with him and Gard let him “be the man.” A few hundred thousand dollars more in NIL money will seem like chump change if he plays 15 minutes a night and kills his draft stock costing him millions.

Probably the biggest surprise for me especially how bad they were defending at times.

Butler in a dog fight with cuonzo martins Missouri st squad. Mcaffery looks like a solid pick-up for them.

Complete inversion for this year‘s Purdue team from last. Good perimeter play and almost nothing underneath. Corpus Christi didn’t even look very good and Purdue had to shoot the lights out just to keep the lead for most of the game. With that said, they can really shoot it and that’ll be enough some nights and I expect their defense will improve over the next couple months.

7/10 now and CC hasn’t made anything that wasn’t basically a layup since I started watching. Purdue has some shooters. Still an 8pt game

IU 91 Siue 59

I like that one. I was always impressed with his transformation from HS where he was a high scorer, a lot coming from the outside. That he was able to contribute largely in the post doing small things and the “dirty work” as a senior in college showed a strong desire to be on the floor and contribute to winning basketball, imo.

Yea, I think we’re on the same page. Wouldn’t be Neil Reed for me. To wit, he was quickly supplanted by a frosh Guyton as the best guard on the team when he was a junior. His sophomore year was probably his best chance at being effective as he was the best guard on the team and it always felt to me like like Evans carried that team on his back. He was talented but not very effective, imo. Like Collier, I don’t think it was entirely his fault. Lots of poor fits in roster construction. Those teams were frustrating all around.

Pretty much everyone but IU fans a few diehards watching these games this time of year. Last year MSU and Tennessee played a real high level exhibition (better than this past game) and it turns out that Tennessee ended up being really good and MSU was pretty average. They looked to be equals in that game at the time. Hopefully we’re Tennessee and Rice is Knecht in that scenario. But I really wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock in it. It did shed some light on some offseason questions us message board types had, but I wouldn’t go any further than that.

I’d probably be more worried about Reneau going out in a critical stretch. Woodys offense going through the post to a guy like Ballo scares me. Reneau at small ball center would hurt defensively but woodys scheme already collapses the guards into the post. We’d probably make up a lot of what we lose on defense by hard to stop offense with a small ball lineup and reneau in the post. Here’s hoping we have an injury free season either way.

This is the most promising thing I saw. I posted about it a lot in the off season and said to play small you have to be able to stagger your two bigs. Woody did that pretty well. They have to add a wrinkle to get Galloway and tucker in there (I’d guess less Goode, spotty mins for Cupps and almost no leal or Hatton mins) but that shouldn’t materially alter how he constructed his rotations last night. Other things were classic Woody faults but fixing those lineups should pay dividends.

Starters

No shocker Reneau was our leading scorer. I’m still surprised by the people that sleep on him. I know Ballo will get post touches, but everything down there should start with reneau.

I mean…did you watch him at Illinois. He’s purely a spot up shooter in a system that doesn’t really reward them. I assume galloway will be getting most of those minutes.

Too bad it doesn’t count. Still…the talent is there for this team. What happens from there…who knows.

About as slow and grounded too

I’m actually a little more dismayed at our spacing when we go “small”. I think one consistent complaint I’ve had about woodys offense has been spacing. It’s consistently bad. Amazing he is a Knight disciple.

I’ve seen a little more small ball. Otoh, the ballo post ups are brutal.

I signed up for espn +. Wasn’t going to do it cause it is usually a pain with that stuff but apple makes it pretty easy if you have apple pay setup

Sphere basketball would be wild depending on what they put on the screens

I would disagree mainly because those teams weren’t very good and didn’t win much. Not entirely his fault but he was one of many “square pegs in a round hole” on those teams. It’s pretty easy to pinpoint the era where knight stepped back from recruiting. A team with an upperclassman frontcourt of Evans and Henderson should never have been as mediocre as they were. And it was almost entirely due to their laughable backcourt. Reed, Miller, Hermon (started 6 games…lol), Hart….jeebus. Reed was only a frosh and probably the best of the bunch but I never felt he was contributing to winning a whole lot. At least not more than anyone else.

lol….lies, damned lies, and statistics. But I’m not going let Woody off the hook by saying these guys can’t shoot. I think the makings are there with this team. So if they’re not an above average 3pt shooting team (average at worst) that’s on Mike Woodson.

After Hurleys last two years you’d be hard pressed to convince an unbiased observer that Stevens is a better college coach in the modern game than Hurley. A lots changed in the college game since Steven’s was around. I have been a big Steven’s supporter since way back but I think I’d choose Hurley given the choice for IU. I don’t think I would have to think about it very long either.

Aggressive illness that led to a surgery that went bad according to that article. I’m not a doctor so have no idea what that could be. Way too young and a guy that seemingly just came on the scene as a rising star. Very sad.

He was our pg and it was mainly because edey can’t defend, especially a PnR. I’m not sure I place the same value in that attribute in a frosh wing. This will be a good opportunity for him to learn to find scoring opportunities off the ball. Also, he’ll get some opportunities at the end of the shot clock to take 15footers off the bounce but otherwise those chances should be few and far between.