(2017) PF Billy Preston to Kansas

[HoosierAloha 30,102]

I'm curious to know the other side of things with the "we're fine."  Does "we're fine" mean we won't see a drop off next season, will see a bit of a dip, we'll be terrible but we'll be fine?  I wouldn't mind seeing IU land good to great talent that will stay at IU and develop over multiple years but I still think we need the top end talent.  Has Crean won at IU without top end talent?

[mdn82 26,344]

I'm curious to know the other side of things with the "we're fine."  Does "we're fine" mean we won't see a drop off next season, will see a bit of a dip, we'll be terrible but we'll be fine?  I wouldn't mind seeing IU land good to great talent that will stay at IU and develop over multiple years but I still think we need the top end talent.  Has Crean won at IU without top end talent?

I could see our drop off next year being top 5 team in B1G and still making the tournament. That is what a down year at IU should be. We will have the year to year jumps on top of a senior RoJo, junior Morgan. If that is the extent our down year I agree we will be fine. That is without seeing our freshman this year much and our incoming freshman. I think Jones and Green will be really good. We don't know which coaches will get fired or which recruits will open up their recruitments because of that. We also don't know which grad transfers will be available. That said, we have a solid core of good kids getting better.


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[WayneFleekHoosier 50,741]

I do agree we offer too many people. I don't think we necessarily chase players we have no shot in. If that was the case we don't land Zeller, Bryant, and Blackmon. They were all linked to other schools for various reasons and favored elsewhere to be honest. I think you still have to go after them. We just haven't won those players types of battles the last two years.


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Yeah. I like going after 5 stars. I think it's necessary.

I liked the pursuit of Wilkes and Preston.
I didnt like the time we spent on Bamba, Diallo, and others.

I guess it's hard to know which ones you can win. The staff has to be the judge of that.

Past 3 Julys.

#1 watched.
Ray Spalding- quick to Louisville
Goodluck- longer recruitment and lost.
Bamba- never got in the front door.
Wilkes- longer recruitment and lost.

I'm forgetting others. But our primary targets in the July recruiting session hasnt been fruitful.


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[Brass Cannon 25,245]

30 minutes ago, mdn82 said:

I could see our drop off next year being top 5 team in B1G and still making the tournament. That is what a down year at IU should be. We will have the year to year jumps on top of a senior RoJo, junior Morgan. If that is the extent our down year I agree we will be fine. That is without seeing our freshman this year much and our incoming freshman. I think Jones and Green will be really good. We don't know which coaches will get fired or which recruits will open up their recruitments because of that. We also don't know which grad transfers will be available. That said, we have a solid core of good kids getting better.


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I'd agree with this but the caveat is Davis has to stay healthy otherwise we could be in a really rough spot

[8bucks 7,426]

So do you feel we should allocate more of this money to advertising? At this point it goes beyond proving he can compete in conference, develop players (which is only good for players believing they will be here longer than a year), create a good family atmosphere. Games on ESPN or CBS should be good advertising. I don't know. I guess I just don't see it as black and white as some. Each situation is different. We are not pulling 5* as much as everyone would like. I get that. But we are winning with what we got. Every year this time of year this is the same argument we see. We are coming off back to back B1G titles. Morgan and OG was such a disappointing class to many when they signed. Here we are. I think this is just overboard until we see how players develop which happens every year under Crean, and then see what is needed for next year. To answer your statement for a Davis injury I see us going out and getting a grad transfer. There are 300 plus every year if it is what is needed.


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I think your first point about proving he can win in conference needs to become more consistent for me. The two BT championships show he can but the down years with the movement and Noah raised flags that have not been lowered yet.

This years team can be really, really good and is a great mix of diamonds found in the rough, developed 3/4 starts and a great scoring blue chip. I am pretty confident Crean can find some diamonds and can develop a lot of 3/4 star kids. Yet to compete regularly with the best in the country we need that blue chipper too.

Next year, assuming we don't add any 5 star kids should still have enough of the 3/4 star kids with 2-3 years in the program to be a top 5 BT team.

Make that our new basement and then I think the "proves he can coach in conference" becomes "proves he can consistently compete for BT championships".

[mdn82 26,344]

All fair IMO.


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[akhosrof 1,168]

Yeah. I like going after 5 stars. I think it's necessary.

I liked the pursuit of Wilkes and Preston.

I didnt like the time we spent on Bamba, Diallo, and others.

I guess it's hard to know which ones you can win. The staff has to be the judge of that.

Past 3 Julys.

#1 watched.

Ray Spalding- quick to Louisville

Goodluck- longer recruitment and lost.

Bamba- never got in the front door.

Wilkes- longer recruitment and lost.

I'm forgetting others. But our primary targets in the July recruiting session hasnt been fruitful.

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Great post! I completely agree, the worst loss is the wasted time on guys who are clearly not a good fit for Crean's vision of player development. I don't mind the pursuit of Wilkes, but once he started peddling his feet and it became clear he wanted to be a one and done, we should have wished him luck, pulled the offer and moved on. I feel we were kept along as a safe fallback for him. He was always hoping for UK to offer. I don't care if he eliminated them, he would have accepted in a heartbeat if they offered. Thus, we were very vulnerable for a program like UCLA, who would offer NBA exposure at the expense of the team, to come along and nab him. Crean won't offer that to prospects and for good reason. And that reason is why Alford will be canned at the end of the year.

Preston is not a bad loss. We didn't spend much time recruiting him and our chances were akin to a Hail Mary. It was a good try as it didn't cost much, similar to JaQuan Lyle last year. Just didn't workout.

Kids like Tremont Waters are the recruits we need to be focusing on from the start and closing. Waters was the worst loss from 2017. He would have been a great Hoosier.

[8bucks 7,426]

Great post! I completely agree, the worst loss is the wasted time on guys who are clearly not a good fit for Crean's vision of player development. I don't mind the pursuit of Wilkes, but once he started peddling his feet and it became clear he wanted to be a one and done, we should have wished him luck, pulled the offer and moved on. I feel we were kept along as a safe fallback for him. He was always hoping for UK to offer. I don't care if he eliminated them, he would have accepted in a heartbeat if they offered. Thus, we were very vulnerable for a program like UCLA, who would offer NBA exposure at the expense of the team, to come along and nab him. Crean won't offer that to prospects and for good reason. And that reason is why Alford will be canned at the end of the year.

Preston is not a bad loss. We didn't spend much time recruiting him and our chances were akin to a Hail Mary. It was a good try as it didn't cost much, similar to JaQuan Lyle last year. Just didn't workout.

Kids like Tremont Waters are the recruits we need to be focusing on from the start and closing. Waters was the worst loss from 2017. He would have been a great Hoosier.

Mostly agree on targeting realistic kids. Not sure I think we should have done anything different with Wilkes. Him being from Indiana gives us a link and we have to stay with those as long as we can.

We also cannot win at a high level without some 5* in the mix.

[WayneFleekHoosier 50,741]

Waters was a tough loss but not the highest position of need.

Waters did homework on our OV and met a famous rapper on Georgetown OV. Isaiah Whitehead famously tweeted about being bored on his OV.

Food for thought. We aren't going to get certain kids because of our recruiting pitch and that goes as far as OV activities as well. (Cue the UofL comparisons-lol)

We are getting quality kids who are hard workers. I LOVE that. We just need enough of the Blackmons, Bryant's, Zellers to complement the blue collar kids.

It's a fine line but our approach on the 5 stars clearly isn't working.


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[Brass Cannon 25,245]

4 minutes ago, WayneFleekHoosier said:

Waters was a tough loss but not the highest position of need.

Waters did homework on our OV and met a famous rapper on Georgetown OV. Isaiah Whitehead famously tweeted about being bored on his OV.

Food for thought. We aren't going to get certain kids because of our recruiting pitch and that goes as far as OV activities as well. (Cue the UofL comparisons-lol)

We are getting quality kids who are hard workers. I LOVE that. We just need enough of the Blackmons, Bryant's, Zellers to complement the blue collar kids.

It's a fine line but our approach on the 5 stars clearly isn't working.


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Let's go hard on the high 4 stars. Get 3 of those every year and you can compete on an elite level. 

If we could get Brown in 18 for example a front court of him Morgan and Davis would be deadly. 

 

[WayneFleekHoosier 50,741]

I can't project forward and expect us to land any 5 star we are recruiting.
In any class.
Garland maybe our best shot.
What we are doing isn't working.
Until we land our next 5 star, my recruiting confidence in our program is squelched. (For 5,stars)

We could try to be a Villanova but even they land 5 stars. (Brunson/Spellman).

Idk. I'm sure we are due to eventually find our match.



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[AKHoosier 7,612]

6 hours ago, hoosierpap said:

 

AK, you couldn't be more wrong. Wayne, same. I know, at least Wayne, doesn't believe me on Wilkes which is TOTALLY fine but for the masses this is truly conjecture in it's definition. Just don't need the Wilkes thing feeding the larger narrative...

Can you expound on that at all?  We targeted Wilkes for years so he obviously knew he was a priority for us, so I'm not sure what more we could have done.  All of what I said was based on what I read on various boards, which I know shouldn't always be taken as gospel, but I feel like it can't be that far off.

[hoosierpap 14,300]

5 hours ago, MikeRoberts said:

our recruiting is a mile wide and an inch deep. It gets us on the radar of many recruits but a more concentrated approach could be more efficient and more effective. We make a lot of players top 5s but close very few of those. As you have pointed out, we are not getting it done in our own state. We recruit here but aren't the draw we should be. If we could get an assistant or two that has a great rep with players and coaches here we could get more done and save time on flights.

While it's not a science, it is safe to say, anyone approving a budget or T&E expects results to correlate with spend. It's a business and ROI is important

 

 

 

Since we're all talking about budgets in the past, unrelated to 2017...here is the ROI...

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/rankings

 

 8 hours ago, AKHoosier said:

I think it's pretty clear that Wilkes just wasn't ever going to come here.

What more could Tom Crean have done to try and land him?  His message was duly noted, but it was largely falling on deaf ears.  You can move into his family's guest bedroom and recruit a kid until you're blue in the face but ultimately, Wilkes just didn't want to come here.  I don't fault Crean for not landing Wilkes, I fault Wilkes and his questionable logic for choosing UCLA.

 

 

 

 

Expand on how you were wrong? Well, Wilkes seriously considered IU. Idk if you think having IU in the top three was for show or what, but it wasn't. IU got beat, fair and square. Wilkes had his heart with IU but head told him UCLA was a better basketball fit. I'm not questioning Wilkes' logic at all. 

 

 

[Brass Cannon 25,245]

3 minutes ago, hoosierpap said:

Since we're all talking about budgets in the past, unrelated to 2017...here is the ROI...

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/rankings

 

I think it's pretty clear that Wilkes just wasn't ever going to come here.

What more could Tom Crean have done to try and land him?  His message was duly noted, but it was largely falling on deaf ears.  You can move into his family's guest bedroom and recruit a kid until you're blue in the face but ultimately, Wilkes just didn't want to come here.  I don't fault Crean for not landing Wilkes, I fault Wilkes and his questionable logic for choosing UCLA.

 

 

 

 

Expand on how you were wrong? Well, Wilkes seriously considered IU. Idk if you think having IU in the top three was for show or what, but it wasn't. IU got beat, fair and square. Wilkes had his heart with IU but head told him UCLA was a better basketball fit. I'm not questioning Wilkes' logic at all. 

 

 

You know full we the ROI for these recruiting a classes will be reflected in future rankings. Our current state is a reflection of past recruiting successes

[hoosierpap 14,300]

Just now, Brass Cannon said:

You know full we the ROI for these recruiting a classes will be reflected in future rankings. Our current state is a reflection of past recruiting successes

Thats my point? I think I'm reading what you said right

[Brass Cannon 25,245]

3 minutes ago, hoosierpap said:

Thats my point? I think I'm reading what you said right

You are saying we are getting the ROI by stating our current rankings?  Is that correct?

But that won't be known until the future. 

The ROI for 2013-15 was great obviously these last 2 years are undetermined and not particularly promising. 

[hoosierpap 14,300]

5 hours ago, BGleas said:

Curious as to your thoughts on whether offering the local kids (8th/9th grade) so early is an effective strategy? I've always wondered if the better way, at least for local kids, would be showing interest of course but holding the offer until later in their careers. Add some "specialness" to it. 

You you always hear of kids holding out for that UK offer or Duke offer, almost begging for it through the media. While we're not UK or Duke, there should be an element of that for IU with local kids, but I'm wondering if Crean comes on too strong, too early with the local kids? Instead of offering them in 9th grade and being all over them, make them wait/hold out a bit for us. Make them really want us. 

The risk of course is that someone else builds a strong relationship and we're top late, but what they're doing now clearly isn't working. 

Thoughts?

 

This is actually an interesting conversation. I think IU has recognized this and there has been sommeeewhaatt of a change to the early offers both in and out of the state. The weird thing about the in-state crowd is whatever strategy you go with, you have to go with. Right now I know of one 2018 situation they've gotten themselves in some trouble with by offering others. These kids all know each other in-state and if player A has and offer player B at the same position sees it as a slap in the face, per se. 

Also, the early recruitment has some backlash with some recruits. For some, it's totally positive. "IU was the first to believe in me, they've been there since the beginning, I'm a hoosier." Others, it gets stale. How you read that going into a recruitment....idk. But there is room for improvement from this staff.

I'm not sure I have the empirical data to support that IU is changing the early offer philosophy- someone could certainly figure it out- but I've heard it's something the staff is aware of.

[HoosierAloha 30,102]

36 minutes ago, mdn82 said:

I could see our drop off next year being top 5 team in B1G and still making the tournament. That is what a down year at IU should be. We will have the year to year jumps on top of a senior RoJo, junior Morgan. If that is the extent our down year I agree we will be fine. That is without seeing our freshman this year much and our incoming freshman. I think Jones and Green will be really good. We don't know which coaches will get fired or which recruits will open up their recruitments because of that. We also don't know which grad transfers will be available. That said, we have a solid core of good kids getting better.


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Like I said before, if that is where we fall I won't be happy but won't be too upset with that as our lone down year.  The issue we would have is replacing even more talent with Newkirk and RoJo graduating and leaving the program (McSwain would be gone as well).  We would then be in a position to have to land to end talent to stay in that top 5 of the B1G.  It's a snowball effect

[WayneFleekHoosier 50,741]

The weird thing about the in-state crowd is whatever strategy you go with, you have to go with. Right now I know of one 2018 situation they've gotten themselves in some trouble with by offering others. These kids all know each other in-state and if player A has and offer player B at the same position sees it as a slap in the face, per se. 
m from this staff.

I'm hypothesizing here....
The whole interview from Wilkes about Crean keeping it .
I always assumed this was the difference from what Wilkes was hearing from staff vs. what other recruited players were hearing. Comparing notes and thinking, hmmm?


IDK. But it makes logical sense.


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[hoosierpap 14,300]

6 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

You are saying we are getting the ROI by stating our current rankings?  Is that correct?

But that won't be known until the future. 

The ROI for 2013-15 was great obviously these last 2 years are undetermined and not particularly promising. 

1

That is what I'm saying. People are referencing IU's "wasted resources" based on recruiting budgets from previous years. IU is ranked 5th or 6th in the country. That is the return on investment. They complained then about the same things. Idk if you're agreeing with me or what the issue is