(2022) - SG C. J. Gunn to DePaul

[Honkyman 1,670]

13 hours ago, cthomas said:

I really like this young man and if he is putting in the work, I hope he fills that last spot in the starting lineup. He has the size and athleticism to be that guy that we need. We don't necessarily need a portal guy to make this team better. For whatever reason, we seem to discount the guys we already have.

Gunn is being discounted because this past season he was a terrible perimeter shooter (8.3% from 3-point range). Yes, he has the physical gifts to be a good player but also seems to lack the skills to play meaningful minutes. Part of the reason for Gunn's poor shooting was judgment. He took many poor shots and also hurried his shot. Shooting in game situations is considerably more difficult than shooting in the training environment shown in the video above. If Gunn can settle down and concentrate on shooting when he is open rather than as soon as the ball is in his hands, he can make progress. But getting his 3-point percentage up to 30% (which would be a huge jump) wouldn't even make him a starter. Galloway had the best shooting percentage on the team last season from 3-point range (46.2%) and is almost certain to start at the 2-guard unless a better player from the portal is signed. Jakai Newton may prove to be better than Gunn.

[str8baller 5,233]

16 hours ago, Honkyman said:

Yes, it will not be hard for him to improve over this past season. Gunn was not just bad from 3-point range. At 8%, he was awful.  But to be able to be on the floor in crucial moments, Gunn needs to improve dramatically. We'll see. Gunn may not be ready for meaningful minutes until the year after next.

He’s probably not quite as bad as the 8% would suggest. He was really aggressive and let shots fly. And given most of the minutes we’re clean-up time, that’s a forgivable sin. In the few meaningful minutes he played,  I didn’t think he was too bad beyond typical freshman stuff.  
 

By way of example, he led the team in 3pts attempted on a per minute basis. Lol… Had he not just been gunning up shots he might’ve ended with a more “respectable “ freshman avg of 15-20%.  If he had done that, we wouldn’t be as down on him getting to something like 35% on backup guard type of attempts next season. He could up his percentage most likely by just being more selective.  
 

I wouldn’t rule out a contribution by Gunn next year based on that 8% stat. 

[IUHoosierJoe 1,147]

7 hours ago, MikeRoberts said:

Gunn isn’t starting for IU next season, that is odd to even type. Gallo is better than him at everything  and most here are excited to recruit over him even

Thanks, chief.  Could you give me tonight’s lottery numbers?

[go iu bb 5,972]

6 hours ago, IUHoosierJoe said:

Thanks, chief.  Could you give me tonight’s lottery numbers?

It doesn't take being able to see the future to prognosticate that Gunn won't start next year.

As for the second sentence, what did Gunn do better than Galloway or do you agree with that assessment? 

[IUHoosierJoe 1,147]

I don’t really care about last year.  Players work hard in the offseason and sometimes improve dramatically, especially between their freshman and sophomore seasons.  I get that some people either don’t understand that or have looked into the future and decided it didn’t happen.  So now, about those lottery numbers…?

[rcbowla 7,094]

I don’t really care about last year.  Players work hard in the offseason and sometimes improve dramatically, especially between their freshman and sophomore seasons.  I get that some people either don’t understand that or have looked into the future and decided it didn’t happen.  So now, about those lottery numbers…?

It's not normal for Fr-So improvement to be enough to leap frog a Sr that is trusted by HC and been in the system for going on 3 years though. I'd say it's a safe bet that, to begin the season, Gunn will not overtake Galloway's spot.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

[Alford Bailey 12,375]

It’s a good sign that he is committed to travel to Ga. to work on his game. Combined with the fact he didn’t transfer tells me there is some hope here.

[Loaded Chicken Sandwich 8,672]

Kid has the athleticism and has a good shooting form... Needs to get used to the speed of the game and he's going to be in good shape.

[schoosier 3,478]

Repetition of set shots will do wonders and helped Galloway this year. CJ elevates too much  on 3’s and seems to be shooting on the way down. Clean this up and reps, reps, reps!

[go iu bb 5,972]

18 hours ago, IUHoosierJoe said:

I don’t really care about last year.  Players work hard in the offseason and sometimes improve dramatically, especially between their freshman and sophomore seasons.  I get that some people either don’t understand that or have looked into the future and decided it didn’t happen.  So now, about those lottery numbers…?

Could Gunn bypass Galloway and possibly another guard brought in via the portal to start next year? Sure, it's possible but the probably if him improving that much is so small that it's realistically zero percent. He would need massive improvements in all aspects of his game just to catch Galloway but he's need even more than that to make up fire Galloway's greater experience. 

[Dhop 397]

Gunn has a lot of good qualities.  Let’s hope he has a great off-season and comes back as a big value add.

[MikeRoberts 6,998]

9 hours ago, IUHoosierJoe said:

I don’t really care about last year.  Players work hard in the offseason and sometimes improve dramatically, especially between their freshman and sophomore seasons.  I get that some people either don’t understand that or have looked into the future and decided it didn’t happen.  So now, about those lottery numbers…?

Apparently only Gunn is working out int the off-season right? 
Galloway will likely be a senior captain who is across the board a better player. You are playing crazy hypotheticals and that is your prerogative.

Not sure I understand your incessant demand for lottery numbers, seems like the wrong board for that

[Honkyman 1,670]

On 5/27/2023 at 3:49 PM, IUHoosierJoe said:

 Players work hard in the offseason and sometimes improve dramatically, especially between their freshman and sophomore seasons.

Yes, nearly all players work hard in the offseason and some occasionally improve dramatically between their freshman and sophomore seasons. The fact that all the players are working hard means there is likely improvement for all of them. Gunn starts pretty far behind Galloway to be able to jump past him--a player who started the previous season and was the top 3-point shooter (percentage wise). Yes, stranger things have happened but I wouldn't bet on it. Hopefully, Gunn improves enough to be able to play some. In the absence of injury, however, he is not a regular starter in 2023-24.

[IUHoosierJoe 1,147]

8 hours ago, MikeRoberts said:

Apparently only Gunn is working out int the off-season right? 
Galloway will likely be a senior captain who is across the board a better player. You are playing crazy hypotheticals and that is your prerogative.

Not sure I understand your incessant demand for lottery numbers, seems like the wrong board for that

I'm not playing hypotheticals at all.  You're the one posting that you're so sure what is going to happen in the future, who won't improve, who won't start.  I have no idea.  I don't know how anyone can know for certain who is or isn't starting next year.  Can we guess?  I suppose so.  But that would require a lot of hypotheticals--who improves a little, who improves a lot, who doesn't improve much at all, who might be injured, etc., etc.  Seems kind of silly to make a definitive statement as to who is not starting without knowing all those hypotheticals.  I'd love to see Gunn make a Tom Coverdale-like improvement going into his sophomore year.  That would help us a lot.  Will he do it?  I don't have any idea.  You have apparently decided he can't, or won't, or didn't.

If you're so certain what is going to happen in the future, maybe help me out with lottery numbers.  I don't usually play, but if you can see into the future with that type of certainty, I might spend a buck.  I didn't think my point was really that hard to understand.  I thought it was pretty obvious, in fact.

[HoosierX 1,565]

48 minutes ago, IUHoosierJoe said:

I'm not playing hypotheticals at all.  You're the one posting that you're so sure what is going to happen in the future, who won't improve, who won't start.  I have no idea.  I don't know how anyone can know for certain who is or isn't starting next year.  Can we guess?  I suppose so.  But that would require a lot of hypotheticals--who improves a little, who improves a lot, who doesn't improve much at all, who might be injured, etc., etc.  Seems kind of silly to make a definitive statement as to who is not starting without knowing all those hypotheticals.  I'd love to see Gunn make a Tom Coverdale-like improvement going into his sophomore year.  That would help us a lot.  Will he do it?  I don't have any idea.  You have apparently decided he can't, or won't, or didn't.

If you're so certain what is going to happen in the future, maybe help me out with lottery numbers.  I don't usually play, but if you can see into the future with that type of certainty, I might spend a buck.  I didn't think my point was really that hard to understand.  I thought it was pretty obvious, in fact.

It’s a message board dude, it deals almost exclusively in conjecture and “hypotheticals.” And give it a rest man, the lottery number joke wasn’t funny the first time.

[BGleas 7,903]

3 hours ago, IUHoosierJoe said:

I'm not playing hypotheticals at all.  You're the one posting that you're so sure what is going to happen in the future, who won't improve, who won't start.  I have no idea.  I don't know how anyone can know for certain who is or isn't starting next year.  Can we guess?  I suppose so.  But that would require a lot of hypotheticals--who improves a little, who improves a lot, who doesn't improve much at all, who might be injured, etc., etc.  Seems kind of silly to make a definitive statement as to who is not starting without knowing all those hypotheticals.  I'd love to see Gunn make a Tom Coverdale-like improvement going into his sophomore year.  That would help us a lot.  Will he do it?  I don't have any idea.  You have apparently decided he can't, or won't, or didn't.

If you're so certain what is going to happen in the future, maybe help me out with lottery numbers.  I don't usually play, but if you can see into the future with that type of certainty, I might spend a buck.  I didn't think my point was really that hard to understand.  I thought it was pretty obvious, in fact.

I mean, they're pretty educated guesses, not just random guesses. There's a reason Trey Galloway started 25 games last season and averaged 28mpg. There's a reason CJ Gunn only played in 20 games last season and only averaged 7.5mpg.

Can CJ Gunn improve? Absolutely. But, we also know he's starting with a pretty wide gap between he and Trey Galloway. We also know that Woodson tends to lean toward veterans in these cases and that Woodson definitely believes in and trusts Galloway. 

Things can change for sure with improvement, but we know heading into the offseason that the coaching staff thinks Galloway is clearly ahead of Gunn. If not, Gunn would have been in the rotation last season and Galloway wouldn't have played 28mpg. 

By your posting standards on this topic then we can't project any starters for next season. I guess we can't project or assume that XJ will start at PG? He and Gabe Cupps are starting at a level playing field? We can't assume Mgbako will start? We can't project anything?

[HoosierHoopster 6,966]

1 hour ago, BGleas said:

I mean, they're pretty educated guesses, not just random guesses. There's a reason Trey Galloway started 25 games last season and averaged 28mpg. There's a reason CJ Gunn only played in 20 games last season and only averaged 7.5mpg.

Can CJ Gunn improve? Absolutely. But, we also know he's starting with a pretty wide gap between he and Trey Galloway. We also know that Woodson tends to lean toward veterans in these cases and that Woodson definitely believes in and trusts Galloway. 

Things can change for sure with improvement, but we know heading into the offseason that the coaching staff thinks Galloway is clearly ahead of Gunn. If not, Gunn would have been in the rotation last season and Galloway wouldn't have played 28mpg. 

By your posting standards on this topic then we can't project any starters for next season. I guess we can't project or assume that XJ will start at PG? He and Gabe Cupps are starting at a level playing field? We can't assume Mgbako will start? We can't project anything?

But what about the lottery numbers!!

:)

[Honkyman 1,670]

On 5/27/2023 at 8:54 AM, str8baller said:

I wouldn’t rule out a contribution by Gunn next year based on that 8% stat. 

Well, of course, anything is possible. But part of securing playing time is playing smart. Gunn has a long way to go in that department. The fact that he led the team in 3-point shots per minute while also having the lowest 3-point percentage on the team underscores that point. Gunn's problem now is that Jakai Newton is competing with him for playing time and given Newton's potential that is a competition he might win. But the shooting guard position is arguably IU's weakest so if IU doesn't land another 2-guard who is a starter, there will be opportunity for both Gunn and Newton (though Galloway has proven to be valuable in a variety of way--defensively, 3-point shooting, leadership, and all around hustle).

[Class of '66 Old Fart 84,744]

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/college/indiana/2023/06/29/indiana-hoosiers-basketball-is-cj-gunn-breakout-season-on-the-way-iu-might-need-it-big-10/70363935007/

[8bucks 6,438]

If you had not listened to the HH podcast with Gunn it is a must.  CJ played against my kids HS team in sectionals a couple years back. It was my first time watching him and I came away less than impressed.  Could not hit anything and seemed to be a hot head when he lost his cool a few times. 
 

He was probably the best interviewee the HH guys ever had on. Very engaging, even with those idiots, and you just come away wanting him to blow up in the best of ways this year.