Official 2016-17 IUBB Preseason Thread

[Uspshoosier 53,568]

Shots fired by Jeff Goodman


Nice to see Indiana schedule a true road game on its non-conference slate this year for a change. At Fort Wayne.


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Not the first time he has taken shots at iu and definitely won't be the last. Jeff likes to troll fans of certain teams. The one i remember the most was the year uconn won it last. During the season he tweeted the were not a tourney team and had no shot at winning it all. He wouldn't leave it alone. Uconn fans got the last laugh that year. I believe last year he was on Louisville for scheduling weak along with us


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[Alford Bailey 13,189]

May be a fair shot taken by Goodman but really cant take that guy serious.

[HoosierAloha 30,102]

Shots fired by Jeff Goodman


Nice to see Indiana schedule a true road game on its non-conference slate this year for a change. At Fort Wayne.


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There are several problems with his "shot."

1) There are a ton of teams that don't play true road games

2) IU played at true road games at one of the most difficult venues in the country.

Goober Goodman at it again.

[Uspshoosier 53,568]

In Indiana's two exhibition games OG Anunoby is 16-for-20 from the field and 7-for-11 from three. 41 total points. Huge season coming.
@evandaniels


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[Bobman1 2,913]

Shots fired by Jeff Goodman


Nice to see Indiana schedule a true road game on its non-conference slate this year for a change. At Fort Wayne.


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He brings up a point, our Non Con schedule definitely needs to change. We like the UL, UNC, KU games, but the games against teams 300+ RPI wise. There's just no need for those games. Scheduling games against RPI 150-200 instead of 250+ will improve our SOS tremendously.


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[HoosierAloha 30,102]

He brings up a point, our Non Con schedule definitely needs to change. We like the UL, UNC, KU games, but the games against teams 300+ RPI wise. There's just no need for those games. Scheduling games against RPI 150-200 instead of 250+ will improve our SOS tremendously.


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The Butler and IPFW games are opponents I would have on my schedule. The 300+ opponents are the ones that kill the SOS.

There are ways to manipulate your schedule so as a top 25 team you only face a few opponents who could beat you while having a strong SOS. Crean just seems to not give a flip and loves his cupcakes.

[Class of '66 Old Fart 89,727]

Indiana247

High-flying McSwain shows flashes of promise in Indiana debut

Fans gasped and exclaimed throughout Assembly Hall as the ball clanged off the back rim of the south basket.

Junior forward Freddie McSwain’s first shot attempt as a Hoosier didn’t go in, but the moment proclaimed McSwain as one of the team’s most athletic players.

It came about seven minutes into IU’s exhibition win against Bellarmine on Saturday, as freshman forward De’Ron Davis missed a layup and McSwain flew into the paint. When he leapt for the rebound, his head rose above the rim. He snared the ball and threw it back down, but it was a little too strong and banged off the back of the rim.

Still, the junior college transfer who had talked up his leaping and rebounding ability lived up to his word Saturday. That missed dunk was his only shot attempt, but he collected a team-high eight rebounds in just eight minutes of play.

It was his first game action for the Hoosiers after undergoing minor knee surgery earlier in the fall. IU head coach Tom Crean said McSwain will still take a little time to get up to full speed.

“'Rusty' would be a key definitive statement for him right now,” Crean said. “He's missed so much time. Again, when I tell you that he hasn't been up and down until this week, and it was every other day, that's not easy. I mean, that's not easy at all.”

McSwain and Davis are both a little behind due to missing summer workouts while wrapping up academic requirements. McSwain was finishing up at Neosho Community College in Kansas, where he stood out as a rebounder and scorer. He might not be asked to score too much at Indiana with OG Anunoby, James Blackmon, Thomas Bryant and others very capable of scoring in bunches on any given night.

Crean has compared the 6-foot-6, 215-pound McSwain to an NFL tight end, and McSwain is expected to make his largest impacts on defense and on the boards. Bryant said he’s happy to have McSwain alongside him in the frontcourt.

“Freddie brings a lot to the team,” Bryant said, “being able to switch, even how quick, fast and strong he is, he can be on key guys that can help us out a lot, and it really helps with all of us out there.”

Much like Bryant, McSwain has worn a smile during many of his appearances with media members. McSwain seems to immediately be comfortable in Bloomington, demonstrating it as he sat courtside at the IU women’s basketball team’s exhibition game Sunday. Fans came up to him occasionally, asking to take selfies and shake his large hand. Members of the pep band even took notice of him being there, coming over to serenade him with a version of “Hey! Baby.” 

Following his debut Saturday night, McSwain was also smiling as he was asked about his first game.

“Playing tonight was just a great opportunity,” McSwain said. “I'm just glad to be here. It was just a fantastic game. I just wanted to just get my feet wet basically, just get used to the game and the tempo and just playing with the group of guys in the locker room. It was just a great opportunity to just be on the court again.”

McSwain also said that he was grateful for the patience and support of his teammates as he has made his way back from knee surgery. The athleticism and the raw strength are there, as McSwain apparently set the program squat record when he arrived on campus, Crean said earlier this fall.

McSwain hasn’t been here for long, but has already shown bits of promise as to a possible impact for Indiana, and Crean is confident that plays such as that missed dunk will have better endings in the future.

“He's made a lot of improvement in a short period of time,” Crean said “and you're probably not going to see it for a while until he some of the other things there because once I think he gets confident in the pace of the game, the movements, the offenses, playing really, really hard and fast without using his hands, getting some of the techniques down, then all of a sudden I think you'll see his shot go in.”

[Walking Boot of Doom 18,170]

Film session from ITH of the Bellamarine game. First two videos really highlight Blackmon's improved effort and awareness on defense. Does a good job of pressuring, staying in front of his man, and getting/keeping his hands up in passing lanes.

http://www.insidethehall.com/2016/11/07/film-session-bellarmine-2/

[Brass Cannon 25,345]

2 minutes ago, Walking Boot of Doom said:

Film session from ITH of the Bellamarine game. First two videos really highlight Blackmon's improved effort and awareness on defense. Does a good job of pressuring, staying in front of his man, and getting/keeping his hands up in passing lanes.

http://www.insidethehall.com/2016/11/07/film-session-bellarmine-2/

The dream. It's come true. 

[Class of '66 Old Fart 89,727]

From Craig Fehrman at the Wall Street Journal

How Do You Make a Basketball Star?

Fifty miles apart in Indiana, Thomas Bryant and Myles Turner are similar developing stars on completely different paths.

Last summer, Thomas Bryant, the star sophomore for Indiana University’s men’s basketball team, spent a lot of time by himself.

In the mornings, he studied English with a tutor in the lavish study hall built under his campus’s football stadium in Bloomington, Ind. “It was a hard class,” Bryant says.

Afterward, he moved to IU’s even more lavish basketball practice facility, Cook Hall, for a different kind of learning. Alone or with a student-manager, he practiced his post-up footwork or his three-point shot.

About 50 miles north, another young big man—Myles Turner, the second-year center for the Indiana Pacers—had his own summer routine. He would wake around 10 a.m.; eat under the guidance of a personal chef; and then work with a rotating cast of Pacers’ coaches.

Bryant and Turner have come up with different answers to a core question facing NBA front offices, college sports junkies, and above all talented young basketball players: Where’s the best place to get better at basketball—in college or in the NBA?

Bryant and Turner strike similar profiles. Both are just under 7 feet tall, with freakish wingspans. Both can score inside and out, a valuable skill for modern basketball bigs. Turner was born in 1996, Bryant in 1997.

But while Bryant returned to IU for his sophomore season, Turner went pro after only one year at the University of Texas.

The NBA’s age limit means that most players go to college for at least one year. But after that they must weigh many factors. Another college season might guarantee crunchtime minutes and hands-on coaching. But a jump to the NBA will create more time for basketball and certainly more money—not just in the initial paycheck, but in the quicker path to a second, larger contract.

Turner admits that he struggled under Texas’s strict system, with its rigid plays and established upperclassmen. It didn’t help that he came in as the country’s second-ranked recruit. “Guys were saying you’re the next this or the next that,” he says. “It gets to your head.” Turner fit in better as his single collegiate season went along, but he didn’t feel like it was making him a better player. “I had a hard time adjusting,” he says.

Things have gone smoother with the Pacers, where Turner enjoys more freedom on the court and in his off-season regimen. He has emerged as a young star thanks to his last-to-leave-practice drive. “He spent the entire summer here,” head coach Nate McMillan says.

Turner remains skinny, in part because of a late growth spurt. He does not enjoy lifting weights and jokes that once he retires he’ll never set foot in a weight room again. But for now he works hard. “He’s gotten stronger in every area,” says Shawn Windle, the Pacers’ strength and conditioning coach.

The other place Turner works is on the court. Rookies often ride the bench, and many of them hire their own basketball-focused coaches to drill with outside of games. “Especially the one-and-done guys get their own trainer,” Turner says.

Turner has been lucky—he already starts. But he’s also lucky in that his team is paying more attention to player development. The Pacers recently hired David McClure from the Spurs to focus on this area.

‘This program is based on now and later. We want to win now but we want you to win later.’

—Indiana strength coach Lyonel Anderson

This summer, McClure and Popeye Jones, the team’s big man specialist, worked hours each day with Turner, refining his individual post moves and his outside shot.

Jones often showed Turner video clips to illustrate not just what to do but why to do it. (“He’s a millennial,” Jones says.) But Turner’s efforts are paying off. “He doesn’t want to be good,” Jones says. “He wants to be great.”

While Bryant shares the same desire, he decided a second year of college was the best way for him to achieve it. “I knew halfway through last season I was coming back,” he says. “I knew there were key things I needed to work on.”

The NCAA has made it somewhat easier for players to stay in school. A 2014 tweak to its “meals incidental to participation” rule has allowed schools to provide more food to their student-athletes. At Cook Hall, players can find Greek yogurt and fresh green smoothies.

Most important, it allows coaches to actually work with players over the summer, which they were banned by the NCAA from doing before 2012.

Now coaches get eight weeks of interaction, with a maximum of eight hours per week, two of which can be “skill-related instruction.” Even incoming freshmen can participate so long as they’re enrolled in summer classes.

IU head coach Tom Crean uses his eight weeks in June and July. His program prioritizes developing NBA talent; the court in Cook Hall includes both the college and NBA three-point lines.

During this summer’s “skill-related instruction,” Crean frequently put Bryant with the guards and not the big men, to improve his quickness. In the players’ downtime in May and August, the program still guides them. IU’s strength coach, Lyonel Anderson, sent each player home with a detailed packet of voluntary exercises. One was titled “Grind or Get Ate,” and for each day it specified the movements and reps—even the type of surface he wanted the players to run on.

Anderson says that IU’s coaches always think about the next level. “This program is based on now and later,” he says. “We want to win now but we want you to win later.”

He points to their emphasis on three-minute runs, a drill where players sprint up and down the floor as many times as possible in three minutes—and a drill NBA teams often use to measure prospects. Yogi Ferrell, a recent (and speedy) IU star, made it 27 3/4 court lengths during a workout with the Phoenix Suns.

When Bryant first came to IU, he could manage only 22 1/2 lengths. Now, after his second summer of hard work, he’s up to 26 1/2 lengths. That endurance will help him score fast-break points for the Hoosiers, but it will also impress future NBA evaluators.

Turner, who enrolled early at Texas and experienced part of a summer there, remembers his college workouts acutely. “You definitely work a lot harder in the off-season in college than in the NBA,” he says. “They’re trying to kill you. They’re trying to prove a point.”

But for an NBA-minded coach like Crean, the point, at least in part, is that good summer habits should last. “I’ve rarely coached a player who went on to the next level who didn’t have the desire to be in the gym,” he says. “I think that starts in college.”

[Class of '66 Old Fart 89,727]

Humorous tweet of the day:  James Fraschilla Verified account ‏@jamesfraschilla

Say a quick prayer for my seatmate to Honolulu @DDavis2016. 6'9 in coach on this 8 hour flight

[Class of '66 Old Fart 89,727]

Rob Dauster - NBCSports:   College Basketball X-Factors

http://collegebasketball.nbcsports.com/2016/11/08/college-basketballs-x-factors-14-storylines-that-will-determine-champions/

And hello, Indiana: The Hoosiers have a pair of potential lottery picks on their roster in Thomas Bryant and O.G. Anunoby, so I understand why they’re showing up in the top 15 of national polls. I have them there myself. But I think that we are all undervaluing just how much Yogi Ferrell meant to this team last season, and just how much his absence is going to cost them. Can Robert Johnson and Josh Newkirk adequately fill in that role? And if they can’t, who on this Indiana team do you trust to have the ball in their hands on a critical possession when the Hoosiers have to have a bucket?     [Dauster has clearly been following btb very closely- LOL]

[Class of '66 Old Fart 89,727]

From Alex B. and Inside the Hall

http://www.insidethehall.com/2016/11/08/espn-analyst-jay-bilas-talks-kansas-indiana-og-anunoby-and-more/

[WayneFleekHoosier 50,975]

I don't like Bilas' 'coach protecting' but i like his basketball analysis.

That article pretty well sums it up.


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[WayneFleekHoosier 50,975]

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[HoosierAloha 30,102]

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Sooo 8/13 noncon opponents have a less than 1% chance against us... Wow! I get Crean wants wins but this really needs to be addressed going forward.

[HoosierAloha 30,102]

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To compare..

[Walking Boot of Doom 18,170]

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Remember when I said we should only expect to win one of those big three games and kenpom has us winning none of them? Interesting. I don't agree with him, but interesting


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[Brass Cannon 25,345]

1 hour ago, Walking Boot of Doom said:

Remember when I said we should only expect to win one of those big three games and kenpom has us winning none of them? Interesting. I don't agree with him, but interesting


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Statistically we should win 1 of those 3. They way probabilities pan out. 

[OliviaPope40 7,436]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/2016/11/09/usa-today-sports-all-america-college-basketball-team/93543322/

Bryant is a 3rd team pick.