mickey one

Looks like an interesting player--she played a lot for a freshman--must have inspired confidence in coaching staff at Arkansas. I wonder what Valentyna Kadlecova could have done with the same amount of PT as a freshman. ??--did Phoenix say in her IG who else she saw at IU on this visit?

Merkle seems to be in the tradition of Audie Crooks or Janel McCarville (if you can remember her from Minnesota), i.e. a "big body" who is surprisingly mobile and effective.

I am all ears.

I think all agree that CTM is a great coach. She has revolutionized IU basketball, all for the better. The mystery is why we have not recruited better. No one seems to know for sure. With IU's stature, it seems like we should be able to recruit on a par with South Carolina and anyone else. But, we are not. One real wild card is the portal and NIL, which introduces all kinds of unknowns. Don't we need more transparency here? Like, for instance, some kind of "salary cap" like in the NFL, so all teams are operating with a common ceiling, and then public disclosure of offers and the "salaries" for all players on a team? You might say "this is a private matter", but not really--it's become a bidding war, and it is only fair to all involved, PLAYERS as well as fans, to make this known. Sad to say that college athletics has come to this. It should be either about "student-athletes" or full-blown professional sports. At present, it is some kind of weird hybrid, and we are mostly left in the dark . . . which doesn't seem fair to anyone, least of all to the fans, and not even to the players.

Glenn Box on portal madness: https://www.daytondailynews.com/sports/archdeacon-transfer-portal-turning-college-basketball-into-the-wild-west/VGKQCVSX6JFSNCADYQXYNMEJGI/ Looking through the entire portal, I don't see a lot that IU could realistically pick up to improve. In a way, I think IU would be best off if the 5 leaving players would just come back. But, these players may pick up more PT elsewhere, so I can see why they are leaving. I really think that CTM needs to be more strategic in doling out PT to give players a sense of hope and development, and perhaps she could avoid this kind of mass exodus in the future. The portal has changed the "power balance", like it or not, for better or worse (from the team perspective).

Are there any good examples of "culture" vs. "talent"? The idea seems to be that some talented players would be disruptive, or bad for the locker room, or bad teammates, but I'm not sure who that would be? Was there a concrete example of where IU could have gotten someone really talented, but passed on them due to "behavior" or "culture" issues/factors? For instance, Hannah Hidalgo, Olivia Miles, Kate Koval, Sarah Strong, Joyce Edwards, Page Bueckers, Juju Watkins, Lauren Betts, Mikayla Blakes. As far as I can tell, they are all great, and great team mates, and good for their school. Are there any examples of disruptive players that IU would want to avoid?

That's the problem. A lot of them seemed invisible.

Seems like people are "whistling past the graveyard" or rationalizing the situation. To me: 1. Moren is a great game coach. It's amazing how she can take an outmanned team and play schools like South Carolina or Ohio State even, or even beat them. That is a feat, BUT 2. Being "outmanned" to begin with is her own fault for recruiting fails--Blakes, Howell, Lauren Hurst, Zania Socka-Nguemen, et al. Can you get all of them? Of course not. Should you get more than what IU does? Look at USC or Ohio State or Maryland. Someone on this forum said earlier that CTM at Indiana State had a reputation for being hard to play for, and drove people off. Seems like there is SOMETHING at work here, to lose so many top people. Are people being scared off by something? Does she tell recruits that they are expected to be in the gym for 6+ hours a day or something? To say that you only want people who "fit your culture" seems like a dodge for outright recruiting fails. 3. CTM was like daring the subs like Lex, or Faith Wiseman, or Valentyna to transfer. In a down year, there is no opportunity for them to get minutes? Faith Wiseman is so hopeless that she does not deserve some extended playing time, just to see how she can do, and develop? I don't know why she would not transfer to some place that will give her a shot. Sad to say, in college basketball, recruiting is half of the game, and IU has come up short. I question whether it is "people not fitting our culture". The solution? Maybe face this fact (that there IS a problem), and get a crackerjack recruiting coordinator, on par with this guy CTM brought in from the Indiana Fever. Just saying . . .

She put up some big numbers at times this year, but also misfired a lot . . . and her team did not do all that well. It was a good opportunity for her to be "the man", but I don't know where she goes from there.

Just need to seal the deal on recruiting. I am assuming Mikayla Blakes and Avery Howell are great people--IU just missed on them. IU plays great with what it has . . .but it would be nice to recruit on the level of a Texas, or Notre Dame, or USC. How did USC become such a magnet? They don't really have the history (other than Cheryl Miller ages ago). Was it just the coach?

Is Archie Miller still available?

Kentucky IS doing a good job of recruiting. IMHO Dawn Staley is like Pat Summit--she succeeds more on stockpiling top players than on coaching skill.

IU loses 3 starters next year + little of the bench has had significant minutes this year. Portal was no miracle worker last year. Need a big turnaround to remain competitive.

North Carolina State? Florida State? Mississippi State?

Don't worry . . . . be happy.

Possibly the only thing more depressing in the State of Indiana than being an IU women's B-Ball fan at the moment would be to be a Purdue women's B-Ball fan. The Boilers are really floundering. Their "Freshman of the Year", Mary Ashley Stevenson, transferred to Stanford, and is stuck on the bench there. The Boilers have all kinds of recruits, and can't seem to beat anyone in the Big 10. Don't know how Gearlds keeps her job long-term.

For me, it would be more entertaining and refreshing to give some of these bench players some minutes to see how they can do. IU isn't going anywhere this year anyway, so it can be "rebuilding mode". To religiously stick to the "top" players, and still get beat AT HOME by Illinois by 14, that's sad. It's like "we are doing our very best with our best players" and it still is woefully short. It's like an ultimate dismissal of the team as being mediocre. You can't say "well, we weren't really trying", because we WERE really trying, and looked very AVERAGE. And ARE very average.

Lauren Betts looked like a giant. Reminded me of Kamilla Cardozo from South Carolina last year. How do you handle 6'7", other than with a double-team, and against a decent team, that opens up easy lay-ups. But Betts is everyone's problem in the Big 10 this year. With that said, IU is going to struggle this year. We'll have trouble getting past Minnesota, Michigan State, & Iowa, let alone Maryland, Ohio State, and the West Coast teams. This could be painful. Given that state of pain, it seems to me that CTM would vow, come hell or high water, to recruit the hell out of the portal and next year's prospects to get athletic TALENT in the middle. As a perfectionist, it has to bother CTM greatly to get run over. Her coaching is fine. Do whatever is necessary to RECRUIT.

I get the feeling that some of the people on the IU bench--if they were playing for USI today, they would have 10 points and 5 rebounds. There is something suffocating or limiting . . . . and definitely uninspiring, about the IU team this year. You look for overachievement; but what we are seeing is woeful underachievement. Don't know exactly what is causing it, but it seems to be a wet blanket over this team/season.

Also, what about Faith Wiseman? She had great numbers in HS, and in the Indiana-Ky All-Star game, played great defense. How come she also seems to be a "3-years, then maybe she will play a little" project, and is glued to the bench? Grace Berger & Mackenzie Holmes played as freshman. Look at other players, like Kate Koval, Syla Swords, Hannah Hidalgo, even Elina Aarnisalo (at UCLA), Kayleigh Heckel at SoCal has that potential --they all have come charging out of the gates as freshmen. Why do other teams get these "immediate impact" recruits, and IU has "she might be good some day, maybe, if she develops" recruits? I am hoping Maya Makalusky & Nevaeh Caffey can come charging out of the gates. (also, a player is never going to develop, if they are permanently glued to the bench)

That was one embarrassing and horrible loss (& it came after the Harvard & Butler losses), particularly for a team with national aspirations. Maya Makalusky & Nevaeh Caffey cannot arrive soon enough. BTW: I for one would like to see what Currie-Jelks can do with more playing time. Was she late for practice or something? Given how the other "bigs" can absolutely disappear in a game and get run over, it seems like CTM would be willing to challenge Sharneece to go out there and give it a try. The way things look now, it may be a long season, in a downright tough Big 10.

Calling for a change in coaches at this point is ridiculous. More worrisome, though, are the recruiting failures. Places like Maryland, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Southern Cal (i.e. our rivals) and now Kentucky, are bringing in all kinds of of talent. UConn poaches Indiana talent at will. We even missed on Reagan Beers (why wouldn't she look at IU?). If it were not for Parrish and Scalia transferring to IU, and CMM taking a 5th year, we would really be in the wilderness now (if we aren't already). Punching above your weight is one thing. Seriously competing to get in the Final Four or win a National Championship, sadly, takes high powered recruiting. It depends on the program's aspirations.

With the woefully uninspired performance of the regulars (Meister 1 of 8 from the field with 2 rebounds), why not give Currie-Jelks (all-OVC) and Kadlecova (Czech national team) a shot? There seems to be something very rigid sometimes in CTM--if you're in the top 10 nationally, that's one thing; if you're getting beaten by Butler by 10, that's another. I saw tape of Stanford taking out UC-Davis. Stanford-IU could get ugly fast. I hope it's competitive, but I don't know . . . .

By the way, I saw Quinnipiac University take out Harvard last Sunday, 76-53. Harvard played full-court press from the beginning, but Quinnipiac's freshman point guard, Gal Raviv, handled the pressure superbly. Quinnipiac's bigs pretty much neutralized the middle, and Jackie Grisdale hit 7 three's and totaled 33 points. Harvard had no answer for her. The eventual margin of 23 could have been worse for Harvard. I was probably the only one in the stadium who viewed it as payback.