Silat Player

Yep, Race is the kind of junkyard dog player who is necessary to win in the Big Ten.

It's good to see some leadership being shown by TJD. That's something that IU has been missing on the court. It would be nice if CMW created a culture where new recruits come in and realize from day 1 the correct way to do things around the program.

He absolutely did underachieve. But have any teams underachieved more than Duke and Kentucky this last year? Not to even make the tournament with the myriad of 5-stars. You've really got to coach that type of talent down...

Certainly more effective than the giant fatheads...

Yep. Nothing like wasting 10-15 seconds on the shot clock slowly bringing the ball upcourt and pounding the ball at the top of the 3-pt line. What was baffling was that IU wasn't a good shooting team. One of the ways to remedy that is to push the ball quickly up court after a made basket and try to get a quick shot before the defense is set.

Totally agree. If you really want to talk about recruiting, then be honest about it. To expect CMW to come in and pursuade every one of the holdover players to remain is a bit unrealistic. After all, recruiting is done over a long period of time (usually) and involves creating and fostering a relationship with the player being recruited. CMW has literally spent only 2 weeks on the job, not enough time to truly develop a relationship. Yet, in spite of that, he's kept the majority of our players who entered the portal. That's a tremendous job on his part. Let's see how he does with the 2022 recruiting class, but it's probably not until the 2023 class that will really show how he can recruit, as he will have had a couple of years to cultivate a relationship with players, AAU coaches, high school coaches and parents.The one advantage that he has is having a couple of coaches on staff who were already recruiting players, and of course, Thad Matta, who already has relationships with AAU & high school coaches. People need to calm the f*** down. Rome wasn't built in a day...

I personally would be surprised, at this point, if Franklin came back. I think he's deciding between a couple of other schools. It will be nice when CMW convinces another shooter to come to IU from the portal.

It's comments like this that indicate how horrible next year would have been if IU had kept Miller. The program would've been in even worse shape after another year of him coaching.

In all honesty, no one has any idea how Woodson's tenure will be. It's not like he has any college record to look back on. I think his hiring is either going to be a home run or a massive strike out. I would be shocked if it is anywhere in between.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Keion Sr. wants to get paid whether his son goes pro or not.

Yep, and this is one of the reasons why I could see Race not come back. There's no way that they can play in the same frontcourt together at the same time. I think having 2 guys playing at the same time who couldn't hit a midrange shot consistently didn't work last year, and I don't see any reason why it would work next year. I'm not saying that their outside shots can't get better, but IU needs shooters on the floor. Besides maybe wanting to be closer to home, it makes me think that Race is wondering what his place would be on this team running more of an NBA offense. I would love to see him return, though...

I'm really happy that TJD is coming back, but tempering expectations might be a thing to do right now. These players were 10th in the BIG the last 2 years. 10th. Just getting into the NCAA tourney with an 8-seed or above would be a really nice season for this team.

And it will be interesting to see if Beard is a great coach over a longer stretch vs a flash in the pan with just the right mix of players for a 2 year run. After all, in the two years after TT reached the championship game, they finished 3rd and then 6th in the Big 12. He should get all the talent in the world at UT, but the question is whether high-level players want to play in that system, when they have wide-open offenses available at other schools.

The one nice part of the "free year" and the ability of players to jump into the transfer portal with immediate eligibility is that CMW will be sure to only have players on his roster who are buying into his system. In the past, when players to sit out a year when they transferred, you would often worry if the new coach was really going to have "his guys" on an existing roster of players. In CMW's case, he knows that anyone who doesn't want to buy in can leave. I think this is actually a big blessing in disguise for him. I think Franklin is a good player, but I don't want him at IU if he isn't buying in. There's obviously been something wrong with the fit of these guys in recent years. Maybe CMW would be better off with a significantly different roster.