Blue 2 Green

I concur. My fondness for NIL rivals Dane Fife's but now that the ship has sailed IU should go all in. Michael Durr only averaged 7 minutes a game but IU probably wouldn't have split with Purdue in 2021/22 without him. Has anyone brought up Javonte Brown-Ferguson? Is he still available? He's never lived up to his potential but Hurley was once pretty excited to get him. I don't know the story with his redshirts but he originally reclassified like Ballo and has two years of eligibility remaining. He and Kenya were pretty tight. A kid getting fifteen minutes a game coming off the bench at Western Michigan shouldn't throw the locker room into turmoil. Another option would be to "hire" a kid like Favour Aire to come and fill Payton Sparks's role? That is - without all of the playing time. Why not buy a kid's redshirt year? I don't think he's committed anywhere. Why not recruit him to be a practice body for Ballo and let him come in and work on his body and his free throw shooting? The caveat would be if IU were hit with a major injury in the front court his redshirt would get burned. Aire's a major project but he's long and athletic and was expected to be a good rebounder and rim protector. There's not much film to look at but Larranaga and Rhoades both saw something they liked, as did Kenya. Anthony Walker might be helpful in selling a bench role. Neither of these guys are used to getting a lot of minutes and neither would scare off Malachi Moreno or any of the bigs in the 2025 class. Why let that 13th scholarship go fallow or give it to a walk-on who won't ever see the floor? It makes a lot more sense to bring in someone like one of these two and let them audition for a future roster spot, knowing Johnny Dawkins will take him off your hands if it doesn't work out.

I brought up Coleman-Jones (Coleman-Lands to his friends) because I thought he might be versatile enough to play with Ballo as well as back him up. A stretch 4 with the length and strength to defend the rim could get more than 15 minutes a game backing up two positions and allow IU to bring in a more talented player. Those who are wary of playing two "bigs" at the same time should be wary of Ballo breaking his foot in the second game of the season and having to start a guy who was just hoping to find a school to offer him 10 or 15 minutes a game. Losing Ware for just two games in the middle of the season probably cost IU the Illinois game and MSU's invite to the NCAA tournament. The alternative would be starting Reneau with only five fouls to go up against Steven Crowl, Danny Wolf, Aaron Bradshaw, Nathan Bittle, Matthew Nicholson and three or four other seven-footers in the Big Ten ranks. Not all of them will be world beaters but using up his fouls trying to push these guys away from the lane will put him on the bench. What happens if Reneau gets injured? Don't get me wrong, I do like the idea of putting Mgbako at the 4 situationally to exploit match ups. However, until he shows he can guard a big forward in the B1G consistently I don't like the thought of the Hoosiers being one injury away from him getting all of his minutes there. All of that being said, I like your wish casting concerning Baye Fall, Demo. I don't know anything about the kid's situation or character but there's a lot to like there.

I'm not shouting, just not very proficient. My humble apologies.

Thank you gentlemen. Long time lurker - first time poster. It is probably more wishful thinking than reading tea leaves but based on his CV and a few highlight videos Coleman-Jones looks really intriguing to me. There are a lot of big bodies that might help IU but if there is no personal connection to them it probably gets more difficult to sell a kid on back up minutes at a school or in an area of the country he's unfamiliar with. Thanks for connecting those dots, Demo. Perhaps he and Myles Rice are acquainted. I was thinking he moved around a bit; was he in Georgia for his freshman or sophomore years?

Jared Coleman-Jones from Middle Tennessee had a nice year. He would check a couple boxes if he could be incentivized to accept a reserve position. He has good size, decent range (44% on 3s with limited usage) and he hits his free throws. There is some versatility to his offensive game and with help from Cliff might be able to steal minutes at the 4. He played his freshman year at Northwestern with Miller Kopp and played high school ball a half hour from Atlanta, so Ya might have some familiarity with him.