PB1230

Not only does Purdue have limited guard depth/overall talent, but Painter has also almost exclusively utilized a 3 guard lineup for all of his tenure at Purdue, which will just magnify their issues.

Actually, it sounded like at least 1 of the assistants knew about the other players, and effectively asked Trayce/Race if they should tell Woody, and its unclear if Trayce/Race knew about the players before being asked. Although, it sounded very much about it being 100% about breaking curfew and not about smoking which was widely speculated. Relevant breakdown based on the interview No information about how and by whom the initial two players were discovered There was then a team meeting, and 2 were punished (unclear if suspensions at this point) Woody asked if anyone else broke curfew, and no one admitted it An assistant later texted Trayce asking what to do about the other players that missed curfew, and Trayce/Race decide that they shouldn't play Another team meeting is held for additional punishments Unknowns Were the suspensions completely because of curfew, or perhaps the initial 2 weren't suspended, but the lying about it which escalated to suspension for everyone Did Trayce/Race know about all 5 at the initial team meeting, and at the time felt uncomfortable ratting the other 3 out in that setting but were able to take a stronger stance after some time to think about it and backing from an assistant OR were Trayce/Race in the dark about who skipped curfew at first and only found out about it from an assistant Wild Speculation - Fife caught all 5 players, but only told Woody about 2 to prove a point but realizing that 5 players potentially getting suspended would mean a likely loss decided to conceal the other 3 (seems like an MSU thing to do), but someone else caught wind of this and eventually this was a contributing factor for Woody firing Fife.

Fundamentally, whether Reneau’s talent warrants 10 or 20 or even 30 minutes, it’s only going to have incremental impact on the season. IU has 120 minutes for the 1-3 spots. 30ish will go to X, and the season will hinge on what happens with the other 90

The reason IU finished 9th was inconsistent play at the 1-3 spots (with the exception X towards the end of the season) exacerbated by injuries of 2 of the primary 5 players in rotation at those spots. The post talent/depth wasn’t an issue. id say JHS is probably a 20min+ player, but unless Reneau turns out to be a one and done level talent, minutes for him could be hard to come by.

Although, none of the big men had any real competition for minutes, and to a lesser extent neither did Yogi (only other viable guard was Abell). A freshman TJD/Vonleh/Bryant would lose 10-15 minutes walking into our current roster.

Under what circumstances would those teams be totally taken away? In a given year, there are only like 50ish power conferences teams that even have winning records, so you would need to allow teams with losing records for a power conference field of 64/68.

There might be some changes, but I just think it go back to closer to what the tournament was in the late 80's through the 90's. There might be fewer upsets, but generally speaking a lot of upsets we have been seeing in the last decade are mediocre power conference teams that get hot which I don't think does anything for the tournament. For every St Peter's or Loyola upsets/runs (which are good for the tournament), there are 3 or 4 times as many 7+ seed power conference teams doing the same. And when a historically strong program having an off year then falls @$$ backwards into a final 4 (UNC, Kentucky, MSU, UCLA, Syracuse over the last decade), I think it hurts interest in the tournament.

Even a team as a whole doesn't necessarily need to shoot 3's well. Wisconsin won a share of the B1G shooting 30.6% from 3. Auburn won the SEC shooting 31.8%. Baylor won a share of the B12 shooting 34.3%. Texas Tech finished 3rd in the B12 shooting 32.1%. Providence finished 2nd in the BE shooting 34%. Arkansas made an elite 8 shooting 30.6%. Miami made an elite 8 shooting 33.9%. Houston won the AAC and made an elite 8 shooting 33.8%. Yes, 3-point shooting was IU biggest single weakness and is therefore also the area with the greatest potential for growth, but people are latching onto that as the only way to get better. Even without substantially better 3 point shooting, incremental improvements in other areas might very well be enough to get IU over the hump in a lot of games to put IU at the top of the conference and to have a decent tournament run.

But there's more to being on the floor in critical moments than just hitting threes. Galloway (when healthy) was playing ahead of IU's best 3 point shooter Stewart and 3rd best in Kopp in close games down the stretch. And for a guy likes Bates, he would have needed to be shooting 40%+ from 3 to offset is defense to be taking minutes from Galloway down the stretch. (Not arguing what Bates' defense and all around game will continue to look like that, just demonstrating that it will take a lot more than shooting to start limit Galloway's minutes) And Galloway's presence was critical. IU had 13 close games (within 5 points at the end of regulation). With Galloway out, IU was 2-6 in close games (counting him out for St Johns because he was injured early and didn't play many minutes). The 2 wins were against St Johns and Minny, poor teams that IU should have beaten by larger margins - Galloway's presence likely prevents those games from being close. IU was 3-2 in close games with Galloway. And I'd argue that 3's are somewhat overrated. IU had a 33.3% 3 point percentage, better than 3 sweet 16 teams, and were within a percentage point of 4 more.

Important to consider Title IX. If you start handing out more scholarships to football/men's basketball for a competitive advantage in those sports, then you will either need to cut scholarships to other men's sports or other men's sports altogether, or boost women's sports/scholarships. Boosting women's scholarships is probably the more likely scenario as cuts to men's sports could already be happening. Also, with the new transfer rules, increasing scholarships/players is just going to lead to more attrition. In the end, if this gets implemented, I don't think scholarship numbers would change drastically, and if to the extent that it does, its not going to change parity as there will just be more high quality transfers.

I think that there are very few available bigs that would be able to get minutes over Race/JG/Reneau/Duncomb. A guy like Dennis would at least be competing for minutes at a spot with the greatest uncertainty on the team.

I think its more a confidence issue. I think the staff had intended to use him for more than a 3 point specialist, but Kopp just wasn't assertive enough to take the shots the staff wanted him to take

Although, Kopp's minutes were already pretty limited for a starter. While he did average 25 a game on the season, it was probably closer to 20 when Galloway/Phin were healthy. Also, there is a huge misconception that Kopp is a 3 point specialist. 55% of his shot attempts this year were 3s and during all his years at NW it was never above 50%. And 36% is a reasonable 3 point shooting percentage, the biggest issue with Kopp this year was that he was struggling with 2 point shots, and ended up standing around on the perimeter way too much as a result making him easier to guard

I think that is something the university can help with. Direct financial advice might be off limits, but I think universities can and do provide NIL training related to compliance and financial literacy. So they could inform players that you do need to pay taxes on this, that it would be good to consult financial advisor, and what to consider when looking for an advisor, etc.

Ok I think everyone needs to take a huge step back and see the forest for the trees. For all the talk about NIL creating a "free agency" dynamic, its not at all what is happening, at least outside of Pack/Wong at Miami Most transfers aren't happening because of NIL money. Most transfers are happening due to 1) coaching changes (sometimes did try to stick it out for a year or 2 after the coach that recruited them left), 2) players transferring upward to higher caliber schools because those kinds of offers weren't there coming out of HS, and 3) and players transferring downward to get more playing time. For the most part, we haven't been really seeing players chase money, and NIL is having nowhere near the impact that some are claiming