Silat Player

And having been coached by Painter, you know the kid is going to have solid fundamentals. We can hate on Purdue forever here, but Painter can coach. I have zero idea if Colvin would be interested, but he definitely has a lot of upside.

I've lost track. I know Rabjohns lost access to the program and knew nothing about the coaching search. Does he have any kind of decent track record with recruiting info?

It might be possible for IU to have as good of a season as L'ville and not finish 2nd in the B1G, like they did in the ACC too. That conference was pure garbage last year - other than Puke, of course.

I'm not implying that DDV didn't want Conwell. I'm just saying that we have no idea what DDV's state of mind was. People on this board are acting like the sky is falling. I'm offering a different perspective that we have no idea what's going on behind the scenes. I'm not even tryinig to "defend" DDV, even if that's how it's coming across. I suppose I'm playing devil's advocate a bit here, as the coaching search is still fresh in my mind which showed how little we knew what really went on behind the scenes then. It would be valuable for all of us to keep that in mind during this player scramble...

Well, IU certainly has playing time to offer. LOL

Right. How hard did Devries go after Conwell? Everyone seems to think that DDV was all in on Conwell and is absolutely devastated that he picked L'ville. Maybe he is. Or maybe he isn't. Maybe he offered an amount less than L'ville and that was it. Wasn't willing to go up. Who knows? The point is that IU won a bunch of portal guys who were great on paper last year and it just didn't work out. At all. I would assume that DDV knows who he wants and has a value that he places on every player that he's going after. If that value is exceeded, then maybe he just moves on. After all, he has an entire roster to fill. He can't spend his entire budget on 1 or 2 guys. This year may be more difficult than future years depending on the pending court approval hearing. And obviously this is just all complete supposition.

To be honest, none of us have any idea what is going on behind the scenes. We have no idea if IU offered as much as L'ville. We have no idea what Conwell thinks about Kelsey compared to Devries. We have absolutely no idea what Conwell thinks about how toxic IU's fanbase is. We do know that there are a lot of people here who write a lot of creative fan fiction, though. LOL

Well, Kelsey's biggest problem is that his team plays in the same conference as Duke. Even with all of that talent, they're still going to be undermanned against the Blue Devils

Right? I wonder how much bringing in a player like Enright (along with his son) is for helping to smooth the transition of implementing his system (and culture) with an entirely new roster?

I'm baffled by these type of responses. Of course you're allowed to feel however you'd like. This player was literally coached by DDV, though. I would assume that someone who actually saw him play every. Single. Day. Knows exactly what he will bring to the court and knows exactly what his strengths (and limitations) are.

I thought people would stop losing their minds a bit after the coaching search was done. I stand corrected. LOL

Would you consider the year that L'ville or Kentucky had a "successful" year?

Uh...I'm not talking about politicians. That's an entirely different discussion and I have zero interest in talking politics. I'm talking about the personal savings rate, which generally stayed at or above 10% through the mid-1980s. It declined steadily after that. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT Now let's get back to IU basketball again...

This is true. If the money is similar, I'm much more worried about Austin than L'ville. It's a really great town. And this is a good time of year to visit. It gets deathly hot in the summer, but should be really pleasant in early April.

Wut? My dad was a boomer and when his company offered a bunch of people early retirement to downsize the company, he couldn't take that deal fast enough. LOL Lots of boomers retired early. They were a generation of good savers. I do think we're still going to continue see people in certain positions (politicians, judges, coaches, etc...) who love power and are making a sh*t-ton of money continue to work forever regardless of their generation.

This. The days of just getting the highest ranked player should be over. It seemed like Woodson just went after whatever high ranked player who he could get at the last minute w/o regard for fit. But, IU also isn't Duke, but who is? I mean, they are really the only program at this point that can just about get any player they want. I would expect DDV to prioritize players who fit first and talent second. I've said all along, I don't expect his first team to be anywhere near elite eight worthy. Tourney-worthy? Sure. I expect him to mostly emphasize getting very good players who will build his culture and he'll start to build up a recruiting pipeline and improve the program every year.

The guy was going to turn 69 years old this year. Come on. Taking the Bomba allegations out of the equation, do people not actually retire anymore?

Between the timing of April Fool's Day and all of the Dix jokes, this is one weird portal recruiting period. LOL

If you play 4-out, 1-in and rely on an undersized 4, then you've got to have an uber-athletic 5. As soon as I saw the type of offense DDV ran, I knew that Reneau wasn't going to fit. I would like to see a guy a bit more offensively gifted than Flory in the future, though. I know that this first year is a complete patch-job by DDV, and who knows if Flory is even really in play at this point, but when I saw him play at Kansas, to say he's rough offensively is an understatement. LOL

I thought people would relax some now that the coaching search is over and IU has a competent coach in place. It just seems that some people like drama. Maybe they should stop worrying about IUBB and just watch the Kardashians for the rest of the off-season instead. LOL

In college, that's not really weird. The coach is in charge of all aspects of the program.

Well, no matter what, it looks like the roster is going to be significantly different next year, which is a good thing. I'm glad to see that DDV isn't necessarily worried about trying to keep the roster somewhat entact. That was obviously one of Archie's big problems. He seems like a big culture guy, which is exactly the opposite of what Woodson was, so there's zero chance that the majority of the guys on the roster are going to fit his vision of what the team culture should be. The number of 15+ blowouts are evidence of that. I'm all for him blowing up the roster and starting over. Even if it's not a Sweet 16 team next year, I'm fine with that. Build up the culture of the program. I want a consistent, long-term winner, not a short-term, one-year success. I know with the portal you can hypothetically do both, but if there is a question about whether you have more pure talent or a better culture in year one, you go with a better culture and slightly less talent and win a few less games.

Wow. If that's true, this is going to be an absolutely wild next few weeks...

Right? I literally laughed out loud when I read the comparison to Yogi. There are a lot of players who are Yogi's size, but there are very few players who have the same combination of skill and athleticism that he had. Also, Yogi was very strong for his size as well.

Well, L'ville did have that whole Pitino and strippers scandal in the recent past. They might have been more worried about introducing a coach with so much baggage than even IU at this point. I'm not sure why everyone mentions L'ville and Kentucky in the breath. It's been quite a long time since the Chris Mill's scandal at UK. L'ville's last scandal wasn't all that long ago, relatively speaking. It's likely that they were more risk-averse at this point.