Odds/Thoughts on building top 25 preseason

[Stuhoo]

17 minutes ago, str8baller said:

Alexis led the conference in 2pt FG%.  But he was only getting 5 attempts per game. In fact, our entire team was top 10 nationally in 2pt FG% and bottom 10 in attempts.  
 

There was a serious imbalance in our offense. It was actually almost the bizzaro Woody offense from ‘23 where we were one of the best 3pt shooting teams better never shot them.  I get that the staff is looking to recruit better to what they want to do and that should help. But they have to be better at adjusting to what’s happening. Teams were sitting on our 3pt shooters and giving us high percentage shots inside the arc and we weren’t taking nearly enough advantage of that. 

Reed Baily kept his 2pt FG% inordinately high by turning it over before he could miss a shot near the rim.

[Unexpectedflash]

38 minutes ago, str8baller said:

Alexis led the conference in 2pt FG%.  But he was only getting 5 attempts per game. In fact, our entire team was top 10 nationally in 2pt FG% and bottom 10 in attempts.  
 

There was a serious imbalance in our offense. It was actually almost the bizzaro Woody offense from ‘23 where we were one of the best 3pt shooting teams better never shot them.  I get that the staff is looking to recruit better to what they want to do and that should help. But they have to be better at adjusting to what’s happening. Teams were sitting on our 3pt shooters and giving us high percentage shots inside the arc and we weren’t taking nearly enough advantage of that. 

Lol we were actually number 7 in the country overall in 2 point field goal percentage. I fully agree there are tweaks that need to be done. We played at snails pace even though we struggled to score against half court defenses at the end of the year. We definitely should’ve dumped it into Alexis whenever we got stagnant because he was way better than I expected. If i can see things that need to be changed then Im sure the staff does also. But it’s also really hard to win anything when none of the perimeters players in your rotation can do anything off the dribble. I assume that’s what conerway was for but obviously he fell out of the rotation. Teams just started switching everything on us and we couldn’t punish them for it

[Golfman25]

7 minutes ago, Unexpectedflash said:

Lol we were actually number 7 in the country overall in 2 point field goal percentage. I fully agree there are tweaks that need to be done. We played at snails pace even though we struggled to score against half court defenses at the end of the year. We definitely should’ve dumped it into Alexis whenever we got stagnant because he was way better than I expected. If i can see things that need to be changed then Im sure the staff does also. But it’s also really hard to win anything when none of the perimeters players in your rotation can do anything off the dribble. I assume that’s what conerway was for but obviously he fell out of the rotation. Teams just started switching everything on us and we couldn’t punish them for it

It's not a question of whether they see the same thing.  It's a question of their stubbornness to not make changes.  It took a bit of time to make the Alexis switch -- I'm not sure if that is good or bad.  Good that they saw it and eventually made the switch.  Or bad that it took them as long as it did.  

[Jeff Flabjohns]

On 3/22/2026 at 12:34 PM, Jeff Flabjohns said:

I agree there’s a lot of value coming into the season ranked or nearly ranked.

No chance we get that after the crap we’ve put out the last 3 years. 

IF we get Sherrell, I’ll happily be eating crow on this take. 

I also thought it was better to withhold sizable NIL increases unless we proved we had the right coach. Oof

We’re building a roster that has the juice

[WayneFleekHoosier]

On watch……

[BA47591]

3.6 of his 7.9 are offensive....in 28 minutes per game.

Sherrel is still crucial. If Sherrel still pulls the trigger we just bought a helluva starting line-up for big ten play. Maybe we're not done. 

Did Carr have 20 million????? F it, I'll take Reibe, Khamenia, Budd Clark and Jake Hall to put us 13. 

Again, if Sherrel is still on board, what's happening here? I didn't expect this.....

[AZ Hoosier]

With the addition of Yigi, doesn't that open up the 4 for Sherrill? Or will they be more of a rotation at the 5, despite Sherrill's wants?

[Stuhoo]

20 minutes ago, AZ Hoosier said:

With the addition of Yigi, doesn't that open up the 4 for Sherrill? Or will they be more of a rotation at the 5, despite Sherrill's wants?

Sherrill or Rancik. Either way we good.

[Stuhoo]

Probably want to have some measured expectations for the current roster. 

We have two incoming players that have been proven successes; Burton and Yigi. Only Yigi has been a starter on a (barely) tourney worthy team. Sherrill would be the first addition that has been a starting player on a ranked team. 

That's not to knock the upside of Harris and Mustaf; it is real and having players with real upside is an improvement over last year. But to project this roster as anything more than an intriguing mystery is probably a bridge too far.

[Home Jersey]

22 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

Probably want to have some measured expectations for the current roster. 

We have two incoming players that have been proven successes; Burton and Yigi. Only Yigi has been a starter on a (barely) tourney worthy team. Sherrill would be the first addition that has been a starting player on a ranked team. 

That's not to knock the upside of Harris and Mustaf; it is real and having players with real upside is an improvement over last year. But to project this roster as anything more than an intriguing mystery is probably a bridge too far.

Very much agree. At the moment, we don't have any proven volume shooting threats. Adding Hall would change that. And we'll have to hope Darren Harris can be at least a solid contributor. Defense will be a bit of a question mark, I think. Should have pretty solid rim protection now though.

[WayneFleekHoosier]

1 hour ago, Stuhoo said:

Probably want to have some measured expectations for the current roster. 

We have two incoming players that have been proven successes; Burton and Yigi. Only Yigi has been a starter on a (barely) tourney worthy team. Sherrill would be the first addition that has been a starting player on a ranked team. 

That's not to knock the upside of Harris and Mustaf; it is real and having players with real upside is an improvement over last year. But to project this roster as anything more than an intriguing mystery is probably a bridge too far.

I was going to post something along these lines yesterday but stopped myself because I didn’t want to dampen the good moods of the board.  Getting Sherrell if it happens goes a long way to legitimize the roster but we are outside looking in at the top 25 still. And probably by the end. 

[Stuhoo]

19 minutes ago, WayneFleekHoosier said:

I was going to post something along these lines yesterday but stopped myself because I didn’t want to dampen the good moods of the board.  Getting Sherrell if it happens goes a long way to legitimize the roster but we are outside looking in at the top 25 still. And probably by the end. 

The team will be interesting as heck, and with top tier unproven guys like Mustaf and Harris the ceiling is pretty high. So not necessarily likely that it'll be probably unranked at the end. Could be a bust and could be a massive success. Not nearly as much meh-middle ground as last year was.

[WayneFleekHoosier]

4 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

The team will be interesting as heck, and with top tier unproven guys like Mustaf and Harris the ceiling is pretty high. So not necessarily likely that it'll be probably unranked at the end. Could be a bust and could be a massive success. Not nearly as much meh-middle ground as last year was.

Current roster Rothstein puts us at 43.  Sherrell will bump that maybe 8-10 spots.  Not sure we are adding another starter. Seems like 20-30 range based on where we are headed.  
 

What’s interesting is Bidunga, Shelsted, Knox is seen as top 5.  Burton, Sherrell, Mustaf is quite a bit lower.  I can squint and feel like this is closer than it appears on paper. 

[Uspshoosier]

5 minutes ago, WayneFleekHoosier said:

I can squint and feel like this is closer than it appears on paper

It is closer than it appears you don’t even have to squint.   Kelsey probably gives more access to Jon than DeVries does.  Kelsey gets a Jon catchphrase while I don’t think IU has ever gotten one from him which is a good thing in my opinion.  All gas and no brakes was probably in his top 10 last year

[WayneFleekHoosier]

13 minutes ago, Uspshoosier said:

It is closer than it appears you don’t even have to squint.   Kelsey probably gives more access to Jon than DeVries does.  Kelsey gets a Jon catchphrase while I don’t think IU has ever gotten one from him which is a good thing in my opinion.  All gas and no brakes was probably in his top 10 last year

Yes, I understand that. And agree. We will see what he does when/if Sherrell is officially added. 

[Hovadipo]

22 minutes ago, Uspshoosier said:

 Kelsey gets a Jon catchphrase while I don’t think IU has ever gotten one from him which is a good thing in my opinion.

We got grandfathered into "Archie Miller: more locked in than a CPA on April 15th"

 

Related; I loathe Jon Rothstein.

[Uspshoosier]

1 minute ago, Hovadipo said:

Related; I loathe Jon Rothstein.

 

[Asha’man]

Adding Sherrill will give us a starting 5 that is top 25. Id expect them to be in that 15-25 range, even if they don’t start the season ranked. The ceiling could be higher if a player like Harris breaks out in a starting role.

[J34]

CDD took a much less talented team to 9 wins in conference, which barely missed the tournament. I'm encouraged with more proven talent, he will at least lead us to the Dance. 

[BGleas]

Obviously Michigan was led by their "Big 4" of Yaxel, Johnson, Mara and Cadeau. 

But what I felt took them from good to great was the other 4 main guys around them. McKinney, Cason, Burnett and Gayle, Jr. 

Those were legit power conference role players. Replace those guys with Enright, Dorn, Miles and Bailey and Michigan isn't winning a title. 

All that to say, of Sherrill commits we have at least 3 (Burton, Sherrill and the Turkish big) of our lead guys. 

Question on how good we'll be is whether we can add another "lead" guy and then our role players are Mustafa, Harris and fill in a couple more (maybe Moody)? 

Can we get one more "guy", or are we starting both Mustafa and Harris. Can we push Harris to a shooter off the bench role?

Great start, lots to still figure out.