Juwan Moye

Given our consistent trend of underperforming preseason projections, I like that people are sleeping on this team a bit. Hopefully coach got guys with the right type of character who believe they can compete for a B1G title regardless of what the pundits think.

Given this team will likely have some growing pains, and will attempt a few threes, I’d expect a couple of really bad losses next year. Last year at WVU they had some big wins but also got blown out a couple of times. Fans are going to have to “trust the process” a bit for this first season IMO. Will be interesting to see how fans respond to that first bad loss.

Being a fringe top-25 team to possibly being a bubble team seems like the most likely range of outcomes for this team. Obviously crazy things can happen to go more positive or negative but the Torvik rankings align with my own expectations heading into the season.

We’d get a high level wing defender and, if coach actually runs some plays for him, someone who was a proven shooter prior to getting to IU and get “coached up”.

Grok providing what I think is a reasonable projection for the upcoming year. Aligns with what the predictive metrics are suggesting as well although obviously none of this is perfect.

Given the variability in the off-season it seems like the range of potential outcomes this year is pretty broad with the median outcome being somewhere around where the projections like Torvik have us.

“I know that I told you all to chill, but now that he’s finally gone I’m glad you didn’t”

You’ve never beeeeean!?

The things I REALLY liked about that, as I think this is something coach seems to have prioritized, is that he made sure guys were coming in with the right mindset. I think you made the point earlier about culture, or them playing hard, and if we actually have guys come in that have that "dog" in them, it won't matter what their previous stats say about them, they'll grow together.

Yeah, while I understand AH's point, Federiko isn't some high-caliber talent. If coach really wanted that rim-runner, rim-protector, rebounder he should've gone all-in on Bidunga. But it doesn't seem like we did that.

I had read somewhere that it was unlikely, can't recall where I read this or the source though sadly.

Yeah, I should’ve clarified: I’m not saying this is a final four caliber team, just that I’m expecting more “running and gunning”, so Iowa may be a more apt comparison. We all seem to agree that this team should be solid on the offensive end, which is already a big deal given our last 8 years, the questions are just around how coach can get the most out of these guys on the defensive end. Hopefully he’s running some Kelvin Sampson style practices.

Yep, that's been my thought as well. If some team plays some back to the basket big that's tough to stop, and he may also be a rim protector, he gets nullified by having to guard Bailey out on the perimeter. So we have Conerway able to facilitate a 5-out offense while likely having 3 elite shooters out on the wing. We may see a lot of similarities to 2023-2024 Alabama, just potentially not as fast-paced depending on if coach is actually committed to getting shots up early which he hasn't necessarily done with consistency before.

The point the Debbie downers were trying to make was basically our roster isn’t as good as it could be because we didn’t spend money. (Paraphrasing here) Regardless, this roster looks solid by all accounts, especially on the shooting front. If our main weakness is “rim protection” I can live with that in year 1 of a “tear it down to the studs” rebuild.

I tried explaining this in vain earlier in the thread. A guy like PJ Haggerty, who is really good, reportedly turned down $3m from Memphis as he was asking for $4m. Ole Miss reportedly offered him $3.5m. So the idea that all-conference mid major guys like Bailey or Conerway are making $1m+ should be pretty easy to see why this is the case. Conerway especially given he was the Sun Belt POY, really excited to have him.

Twitter land (Tyme) says it’s about Rod Clark as a new assistant and says they’re still trying to get Goode.

Sure, but then you don't seem to be understanding the basic math that I laid out. If we have 8 guys left to sign, and $4.5m of budget left, that means the AVERAGE for each guy is just north of $500k. But guys like Conerway, Alexis, Dorn etc. are likely getting paid more than that. That leaves a smaller amount, probably in that $150k-$300k range that you mentioned, for guys like Drake, Enright, etc. Example: Tucker DeVries - $2m Lamar Wilkerson - $2m Reed Bailey - $1.5m Conerway - $1m Alexis - $800k Harris - $700k Dorn - $700k Miles - $200k Drake - $200k Enright - $200k Sisley - $150k Goode - ???? The above would put us at $9.45m. I just ordered the new transfers in by on3 rankings for the top-7.

Fair enough that agents are propping up numbers but, to my point, we didn't go and get just 'end of the bench' guys. Conerway and Alexis are both top-100 transfers per 247 as an example. We got a lot of guys who showed meaningful production, who all likely could command reasonable NIL money, so seeing that we could have already spent $10m+ isn't that difficult.

Sure, but as a thought experiment let's assume we had $10m to build a roster this offseason. I don't know the actual number but this seems a reasonable approximation. Given some of the numbers thrown around it seems reasonable to assume we paid something like the following: Tucker DeVries - $2m Lamar Wilkerson - $2m Reed Bailey - $1.5m So that's $5.5m of $10m spend leaving $4.5m left to fill out the other 9 spots that we have which would be an average of $500k per player. Given Cupps reportedly got paid $600k you can see how the budget gets eaten up quickly. If we're closer to having a $12m - $13m budget then there's some more wiggle room here but, even then, it's easy to see how we could have already spent all of the budget allotted.

If the report that Game Cupps got $600k from Ohio State is true then you’ve got to assume that most of our players got at least that. Guys like Devries, Bailey, and Wilkerson are probably closer to $2m than $1m.

Fair enough. But just as I’d mock someone acting like we can’t compete in the B1G without rim protection, or that this roster is bad because of preseason rankings, I’d similarly mock someone saying “final 4 or bust” or something similarly absurd. ”reasonable” is looking at this coach and roster, pros/cons and all, and seeing a team that’s much different than what we’ve seen for the last 8 years, that has a lot of proven production on it, and that should get us back into the tournament. If that happens, which personally sitting here today I believe it will, then the season will be a success in my eyes. I’m also excited to see the team consistently take more than 25 3s a game. Just hopeful that coach can coach them up on the defensive end.

You’re nicer than I am apparently :)

Mocking/snark when people are being unreasonable isn’t… unreasonable. We had people freaking out a couple of weeks ago worried “we wouldn’t fill our roster”. And yes, it was a dumb thought process to have that concern so early into the offseason. People are free to have their concern, it doesn’t mean the concern itself isn’t dumb. Now that we have our roster being reasonable critical of it is fine too, an example being worries about a lack of rim protection. But even that, while perhaps a weakness, doesn’t spell doom for the team as some would try to have you believe.

Outside of injuries, I’d argue that getting 10+ guys that have produced high at the mid-major level also hedges against against the risk that some of these guys can’t handle the step up in competition. The roster as constructed isn’t one Carlyle away from disaster. If we have a few guys who can’t step up, as long as they’re not all playing the same position, we should be fine. We’ll likely be surprised at how well some guys transition while also seeing some guys fall flat on their face when the competition heats up. The hope now is that we have an actual college basketball coach who will not only coach these guys up, but will also make the obvious adjustments when necessary. None of us knows how this will go so “cautious optimism” seems the reasonable place to be.

Look at this mid-major bum, I hope they didn’t overpay.