Shooter

Yea. I reserve judgement until the whole roster is done... but I can't imagine playing that kid significant minutes at the 4 here. Olsen shot 40% on 2s in the Sun Belt. His per possession rebounding numbers are worse than Tayton Conerway.

Not to rub too much salt in the wound. But I have a good source that Dusty May was already calling and recruiting Braylon Mullins towards the end of his tenure at FAU. Obviously I don't think he expected a 5-star recruit to go to FAU. But he probably knew he'd be leaving for a big job in the Midwest, and wanted to get started on a key guy early. Can't say with 100% certainty. But IMO, if we had moved on from Woodson after year 3, it is likely that May would have been coaching Mullins at IU this year.

Everything going UConn's way. They are banking in threes and getting crazy rolls. Everything for Illinois is in and out. Just one of those nights

He is certainly that. We'd have to hope his efficiency numbers improve a bit with better teammates, and not needing to score 20+ every night. Can anybody who watched ND tell me how he was defensively?

That would be a bummer. Certainly he is replaceable, but I'd like to have some level of continuity. We only have two returnees who I consider viable rotation guys on a good Big Ten team. If he leaves, it's just Trent.

Fru was a starter for a good team last season. Do you really think he's transferring from that situation to go be a backup for a team that missed the tourney? Let's be real about where we are right now.

He's sort of a combo guard. Definitely a score-first guy. Have watched him play a few times, and I thought he was smaller than 6'4". He's probably a better shooter than the percentages show - he took a lot of tough shots.

Yea, I think Purdue's title window ended the day Zach Edey graduated. They are still going to be consistently good though as long as Painter is there.

Braden Smith was 4-15 tonight. 13-43 in his last three games. Shot 33% in the tourney last year. Shot 36% the year before that, when Edey carried him to the final. Went 2-10 with 7 turnovers his first year when they lost to FDU. Good player, outstanding passer. But was never good enough to be "the guy" on an elite team.

Extremely ill-advised pass there by Smith. Purdue in early danger time.

I think he's a good coach. No argument there. Just saying one unexpected tourney run is no guarantee of future success.

I am pretty high on McCollum, but... Archie Miller made an Elite 8 at age 35. With an A-10 team. Crazy things can happen in single elimination tournaments. I don't feel much differently about McCollum today than I did two weeks ago.

Yea, I look at Illinois and see Jake Davis and Humrichous each getting 20 mpg on a title contender. Just depends on what you have around them. Illinois is huge and has a couple of stud playmakers, so it works

There was some discussion a few days ago about the concept of spending a large chunk of our budget on a few stars, and filling the other spots cheaply. IF we went that route - this is how you would do it. Sisley and Orme at the 4. Dorn + the freshmen at the 3. Spend big $$$ on a Bidunga level big, and two stud guards. (I am not necessarily saying we should do this, just food for thought)

If we were to sign Orme - that means either he or Sisley is the starting 4 right? Not really room in the rotation for two backup 4s.

28% is a made up number you created by removing his good games. If you subtract out his slump in February, his percentage would be mid-40s. See how ridiculous this is? The full truth is Nick Dorn took 158 attempts from three this season. They all counted. He shot 38%.

I'll agree with doesn't create for others and mediocre at best defense. But the argument of "if you don't count the games he played well, his stats actually aren't that good" has always been funny to me. Dorn is a bench piece or at best a 5th starter type at this level. I do consider him a high major caliber player though.

The case for Dorn in general is that he's a good shooter with good positional size. The case for Dorn on this team in particular is that we only have two Big Ten caliber players eligible to return. Not sure we are in a position to run one of them off because he is flawed. (unless he has crazy high NIL demands or something)

I think they've lost their identity in the NIL era. They built a decent team from the portal a few seasons ago, and then some of those kids portaled again after the season for a pay raise elsewhere. Would like to see them go back to their old model, recruit mostly in-state kids and develop them - basically Purdue-lite. If that's even possible anymore.

A little surprising, I thought he might be holding out until he can get a big time job. Like Tommy Lloyd did.

Butler has done this twice before with Brandon Miller and Lavall Jordan. Neither turned out very well. Maybe Nored will be better. Interestingly the new Butler AD was a college teammate of Nored. He might be tying his own future to Nored's with this hire.

Yea, in general I love when coaches think outside the box like this, but I think they outsmarted themselves this time. The real life outcome was something that maybe didn't even show up in their analysis - deciding to foul does not guarantee that your players will execute it correctly. Based on the chart, only Manyawu is a bad enough FT shooter to think about fouling. I can't remember if he was even on the floor.

At some point we have to trust our younger, cheaper guys (like Sisley) to play and develop. Just like in the pros, productive players on cheaper rookie contracts are really valuable because it frees up money to spend elsewhere. And it's almost always cheaper to retain your own good players than to buy new ones. Good news is Ryan Carr should be all over this.

I don't think Golden was lying. He was really trying to foul, and I think that's why Fland was so desperate to deny Stirtz. They wanted to make someone else catch the inbound and foul him immediately. Kenpom article on fouling up 2, including a reference to Golden at San Francisco: https://kenpom.com/blog/the-guide-to-fouling-when-leading-or-tied/ edit: the article is actually co-written by Pomeroy, and current Florida assistant Jonathan Safir

Yea. 7-0, 190 lbs is almost unbelievable. Heck of a shot blocker though.