JimmerNoe

You may be right. But just looking at our roster and putting faith in our budget it would make sense they are going to bring in one more big that would be a starter level guy. Only 80 minutes to go around spread amongst Devries, Bailey, Federiko/Miller, and Alexis. I would have to expect Alexis falls at the bottom of those four guys in this hypothetical. Maybe that lands between 5-15 minutes depending on the night.

I could live with that too, and I think that’s probably the plan. I think there is one more big coming and they will each play 20ish minutes at the 5. Then you’ve got Devries at the four and Bailey sliding over at times. there will be some mop up minutes for the bigs like Alexis or Curtis but I find it hard to believe coach is banking on them playing much more than that.

I think more Anthony Walker, but hopefully a bit less minutes than he got. You’ve got 40 minutes to fill at either spot. Bailey and Devries will play the bulk. I do not believe Alexis was brought in to play their immediate backup. 4: Devries (30ish), Bailey (10) 5: PortalBig (20ish), Bailey (15) That leaves 5 minutes left for Alexis. I think the above minutes allocation is very likely so there truly aren’t many minutes left unless we do not get another quality big. In that case we may be a little thin and he plays more.

I expect we will pay big for one of the remaining “good” bigs. We are probably one of the few still sitting on money and have plenty to sell I expect we get Curtis. This would leave us with Bailey, Alexis, Curtis, and one more quality portal big splitting the 4/5 minutes that are not filled by Devries at the 4. I think this will be fine. Not overwhelming but top half B10 frontcourt. I’d like to take a flyer either on a freshman/euro guy or pay a premium and grab one more “stud” of any position.

Fair enough. One of those two will probably end up a deeper bench guy I would expect though. Agree you can never have too many.

Just a brief glance but this guy seems like he would be a deep bench backup to TDV and Miles, is that the sense everyone else gets? I will never complain about loading up on the perimeter but we are getting a pretty full roster with only one 4/5. I know the staff has some bigs on deck but just interesting that we will probably have 7-8 guard or wing players before our second big commits.

Oh I totally agree. I am just going with what we would have currently if those two guys committed. I think Goode and Enright as first two off the bench means that we are in very good shape and got the guys we are all wanting from a talent perspective.

Would immediately change the tenor of the offseason. Would give us: PG: Sun Belt POY (Conerway) SG: 1st Team All-Conference (Wilkerson) SF: Proven Big 10 shooter (Goode*) PF: MVC POY (Devries) C: 1st Team All-Conference (Bailey) that ain’t bad for all the hand wringing.

I’m not here to choose one or the other, but I earned my Bachelors at UK and currently live in Lexington (I know I know). Keeneland spring meet with thousands of southern co-eds in the tailgate lot in sundresses and cowboy boots is incredible. If the weather is right (and it is today), Keeneland is hard to beat. When you take away the girls and the drinking, Keeneland is kinda meh for me. With that being said, I don’t know of any big college events going on there today and I stay pretty plugged in around campus with my fraternity. So I don’t really know how much appeal it would have for a guy like Wilkerson today.

A small Kenny Johnson story: I lived in Louisville for med school while he was getting fired by Pitino and caught in the scandal. I was behind him in line at an BBQ place and introduced myself, thanked him for his time at IU. He asked me to come with him to his car as he took his food out to go and had a trunk full of boxes as he was literally cleaning out his office. Handed me three different autographed pictures of Victor Oladipo and shook my hand. Gave one to my Grandpa and have two downstairs hanging in my man cave. Love this hire. He’s a great dude.

I always thought he looked really stiff and awkward. Like his arms don’t even hang at his sides comfortably looking. Also I thought this year he developed a really mean streak and not in a good way. Always in the mix chirping or bumping/shoving when it’s absolutely unnecessary.

Kentucky is still looking for a shooter too. It makes me feel validated that UK looked at him and passed. How that guy maintained a five star ranking with no one realizing what a dud he was is beyond me.

Just read it as well, very nicely written and needed for the board as a whole to read

I have received a DM from an esteemed member of our group that it is my duty, and only I have this power, to redirect you fools back to the crisis that is our lack of portal star power. I have it on good authority that Flory’s DG girlfriend is transferring to Auburn Kappa Delta after some big NIL offers. Think this points him directly down south to Auburn to play for the shirtless orange man. thank you for the bat signal, @Certified Sunshine Pumper

I think a lot of this will depend on how the portal develops over the next few weeks. There is no guarantee of who will or won’t be in the portal later. Last year there were quite a few guys who got in the portal late, and when you are still sitting on a pile of money that might be a good place to be. However this year a friend and I were just saying that the portal feels different. The big rev share balloon that schools are getting might make it easier to bump up existing NIL contracts and keep the really good kids that would normally seek greener pastures. time will tell but I do think this will be the first time in a long time we have a great likelihood of overperforming the parts we assemble.

One thing that i find interesting is that we haven’t heard a different name yet. I think that bodes well for Murphy. If we had heard he was staying in Alabama or even if there was a risk we weren’t going to get him, you would think there’d be some alternate names floating around.

I did not realize what Flory’s stats looked like for the games KJ Adams was hurt. Get him a summer in the gym and he might be the most important piece of the puzzle. I think he’s maybe one that I would overpay for just based on his ceiling. If we are going to shoot a lot of threes and try to play faster, having a high flying, dunking, shot blocking big is so key to capitalize on the perimeter gravity.

If we somehow add Dix we would have to be top 2-3 and then people would need to start complaining that we still have too many open bench spots and Devries isn’t talking to enough players to fill them. I would expect us to take another 2 high school guys or so, which still leaves like 7-8 more slots to fill from the portal. Insanity.

I have to say, I would be more excited for Conwell, but having dynamic perimeter players who can shoot the p*ss out of the ball is probably my favorite thing about modern basketball and I can’t wait to have it again.

I would like to take this moment to acknowledge that if this was another dude in the same rank range as Tucker we would all be going nuts that we just got a top 10ish portal dude. So let’s act accordingly!!! let’s go! Excited to see some crazy in-motion threes being launched from this guy. Tired of our only good looks being 10 set shots for the last few years and he should fix that.

This is an important list for all of us to keep in mind. I have a feeling if we had Louisville or UK’s transfer classes last year we would all be very underwhelmed and skeptical.

I know it’s not important for us to know what’s going on behind the scenes, and apparently Adams is already working in official capacity more or less, but I totally agree. Seeing plenty of other schools immediately announce even just one or two staff is frustrating. I don’t get the benefit of announcing them all at once, and to me it seems more like we are waiting out some precious portal time trying to get our one or two specific coaches on board. Feels like we are running behind on all aspects right now from our outside perspective.

I think he would be an early frontrunner for my favorite player on next years team if we got him. It has been too long since we’ve had an awesome perimeter player. (I know Tucker can do it too but he’s not a traditional guard)

Do we know if this is realistic? I think he would be number 2 or 3 on my overall wishlist but I know he had zero interest in our system last year. Is he an Indiana guy that would want to come to IU or is he just as likely to take a bag elsewhere?

I think this is very reasonable with all aspects of modern basketball considered. The only gripes I could see about jobs being overall better or above IU would be Arizona and Villanova. Arizona - incredible culture of winning, sustained success, lower pressure externally Villanova - less pressure, more recent success and national relevance, easier conference to navigate than SEC or B10 Otherwise, I think you would be hard pressed to win an argument about Duke, UNC, Kentucky, or Kansas.