I hate this move. The greed of the NCAA is appalling. Anything to make a buck. While there at it they might as well let all the teams in.

The event is held on May 14 starting 7:30 pm at the Payne & Mencius Palladium in Carmel.

The emcee is the great Don Fischer while Scott Dolson, Curt Cignetti, and Darian DeVries are scheduled to speak.

First, to those of you who, like me, have been skeptical of the BPM as a predictive stat, I looked at the Big Ten teams from this past year---the following are the team leader and team total for each team:  Michigan--Lendeberg 16.7/ Team 10.0; Illinois--Wagler 12.3/Team 8.5; Purdue--Cluff 11.2/Team 8.0; Fears 11.6/Team 7.4; NE--Sandfort 11.7/Team 6.8; WIS--Boyd 9.5/Team 5.9; IOWA--Stirtz 10.2/6.2; UCLA--Bilodeau 8.9/Team 5.6; OSU--Thornton 12.7/Team 5.9; IU--Wilkerson 8.1/Team 5.1; WASH--Steinbach 10.1/Team 4.3; NW--Martinelli 8.6/Team 3.9; USC--Baker-Mazara 8.6/Team 3.2; MN--Tyson 6.7/Team 3.1; ORE--Bittle 9.0/Team 2.6; MD Colt 3.2/Team 1.4; RUT--Francis 4.5/Team, 1.3; PSU--Dilione 4.5/Team 1.2.  I think those #s pretty well reflect what we saw from those players and teams on the floor.

Now, here's IU 2025-26:  Wilkerson 8.1; Alexis 8.0; Conerway 7.0; DeVries 6.9; Bailey 4.3; Dorn 3.2; Enright 2.7; Sisley .2; Miles (2.4).

And IU 2026-27 as things now stand: Sherrill 9.6; Burton 8.2; Harris 4.2; Yigitoglu 3.7; Lindasy 3.1; Mustif 1.1; Sisley .2.

I think a lot of us ended up having fan disdain for Conerway, Bailey, Dorn & Miles.  Just looking at the #s, it looks like only Miles was truly a bad player.  I can't wrap my head around it, but that's what the #s say.  I was always aware of how effective Bailey was on offense, but just didn't care for the guy.

So....are we going to end up feeling the same about Yigi, Lindsay, Mustif?  I liked Yigi's highlights, but I have the feeling he is overrated in the rankings and on here.  Watching parts of the UL game, he looks pretty stiff.  As for Mustif, his BPM was 1.1 on a team that was 2-16 in the ACC.  So, although I like that Yigi & Mustif are both physical guys, we should not overrate them as prospects.

This roster seems to fix the biggest bitch we had about last year, namely, the lack of physicality. Also, there is more balance to this roster in that Sherrell, Mostif & Burton all shoot more 2s than 3s by significant margins, while Lindsay and Harris are both volume 3 shooters.

The other complaint about the '25-26 team is that it essentially quit at the end of the year.  Why did that happen?  Will it happen again next year?

My thought is that the team itself and the fans, at least, expected more success than the team was able to deliver.  If the coaches thought otherwise, they did a good job hiding their doubts.  When the hoped-for success did not materialize, the mercenary nature of the team took over and they ran off the battlefield.  Will this team have greater mental toughness?

I think a lot depends on how Burton approaches his role.  And I don't have much of a clue there, as I've not watched the guy play much.  But I do have some hope when I look at Thornton and Francis' #s above.  Thornton was a near-elite player playing with a very mediocre roster.  Fransis was a very good player playing with a horrible roster.  But when you watched them play, you saw they were totally focused on winning.  They knew what they were working with, but at least did not tear down the team when they didn't get what they wanted.  Contrast that with Conerway at IU.  I hope Burton is sick of losing and is going to do everything he can to win as many games as possible and also build the program.....rather than just shooting at will and spending his $$.  I like that he's an in-state guy for this reason.

I also think its important that we have 3 incoming freshmen.  Those guys will presumably have a close connection to the program.  Also, it is significant that all the incoming players have two years of eligibility.  Hopefully, if things don't click immediately, they'll be less inclined to mentally bail.

Bottom line.....the #s don't suggest a top 5-6 BT team with the present roster, but there is some hope that we surprise.

Charlie was asked if the rumor of him teaming up with Luol Deng at IU was true.  He said it was but then went on to say, "Mike Davis was NIL before NIL."   That's highly concerning. ha  Start at 4:40 into the video. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJvg3vMaiFQ

ITS HAPPENING!