Michigan looked sloppy. Mara is a tough presence but they looked very beatable.
@tammany Louisville took 40 threes! IU game might look like a Loyola Marymount type game. We definitely don't have the athletes that many of these elite teams do, right now. But Marquette, and Baylor for that matter, have better athletes than we do... Not many teams we play will have seen a better ball movement or passing team, than IU. I'm sure IU will compete with UL and UK.
Having said that... man, it is hard to envision beating either of them. Not trying to set anything up, one way or another...but I think if we do, its a sign we have a very, very good basketball coach on our hands. And if we don't, its not necessarily a sign that we don't.
@demunn Their size is going to be an issue. But there's no way their 3 bigs will be able to effectively guard our offense, either. By then we'll hopefully have Dorn and Harris back. I think adding Dorn to the lineup, another guy with some length, that is a very good outside shooter, will be very important against teams like Michigan and Purdue. We're going to have to offset their size advantage with having 3-4 guys they'll have to chase and guard that are capable 3 point shooters.
@iunorth if IU can compete with Lou they are a for sure tourney team and no bubble. I Will be extremely impressed if we do. CE on that court scares the shit out of me.
@tammany Louisville took 40 threes! IU game might look like a Loyola Marymount type game. We definitely don't have the athletes that many of these elite teams do, right now. But Marquette, and Baylor for that matter, have better athletes than we do... Not many teams we play will have seen a better ball movement or passing team, than IU. I'm sure IU will compete with UL and UK.
Having said that... man, it is hard to envision beating either of them. Not trying to set anything up, one way or another...but I think if we do, its a sign we have a very, very good basketball coach on our hands. And if we don't, its not necessarily a sign that we don't.
I wish we had one of them at home. I think we could potentially beat anyone at AH. UK at Rupp will be very tough. I think we lose to UL but keep it competitive.
@tammany Louisville took 40 threes! IU game might look like a Loyola Marymount type game. We definitely don't have the athletes that many of these elite teams do, right now. But Marquette, and Baylor for that matter, have better athletes than we do... Not many teams we play will have seen a better ball movement or passing team, than IU. I'm sure IU will compete with UL and UK.
Having said that... man, it is hard to envision beating either of them. Not trying to set anything up, one way or another...but I think if we do, its a sign we have a very, very good basketball coach on our hands. And if we don't, its not necessarily a sign that we don't.
Agree. Whether we like it or not, these just aren't the sort of games you win in year 1 of a total rebuild. So while some will freak out and that is what it is, I just want to see us play well and be competitive.
Year 2 of CDD we want to be serious about winning these sorts of games -- at least the neutral site ones.
It is kinda funny people think UK spent $22M on their roster for this season. I'm sure they spent a lot, like top-3 probably, but no way it's that much ($6M rev share + $16M NIL). I'm guessing they're counting total contract value for the roster, which has multi-year contracts. But, the point is when they lose everyone points to that $22M number and laughs that it's a waste and Pope gets extra heat.
@cavanagh Agree on the competitiveness side. Not overly worried about what CE will look like. The challenge won't be a TON different than Baylor or Marquette were. He isn't going to produce much, but he isn't going to look like a 7th grader out there. He'll be fine, versus what he's already looked like.
Hopefully a couple of the other injured guard/wings are back by then. 12-15 minutes of CE, with Dorn and/or Ritsic playing meaningful minutes as well... is a much better recipe for beating the good teams on our schedule, than 25+ minutes of CE and none from Dorn, Ritsic, and/or Drake.
I'm so sick of this "rebuild" and "Year 2" nonsense; it's simply a way for fans to justify a potentially underwhelming season. Nearly every team is rebuilding to some degree, and a team with strong NIL should compete immediately. There's plenty of precedent.
@iunorth Be a player in the B1G, top five seed in NCAAT, and advance to second weekend.
@gthomas Its not unheard of that a first year coach does those things, but its also not yet become overly common. May accomplished those things, last year. Obviously he's a pretty relevant comparison. But Calipari didn't, Cronin didn't... Kelsey didn't accomplish all those things, as an often used comparison... Pope kind of did those things... It took Golden a couple years to get Florida going, same with Hurley at UConn.
CDD has already beaten two NCAA tournament caliber teams, on neutral courts... now, we'll see how his teams look against legit top 10 level teams. And no matter what they do in those games, what constitutes being "competitive" with teams like UL, UK, Purdue, Michigan, etc...? Beating some of them? Because to me, that implies also being ranked similarly to them...and that's where I think its a bit unrealistic to "expect" CDD to be, year one.
@tammany no chance we are better next year than this year. We lose Tucker and Lamar. You think we will somehow get better players in the portal next year? Explain that logic.
@cavanagh Yea I know we’re doomed. Not sure why you are even bothering to pay attention to IUBB given we are so f’d. We stink now and next year will be worse.
@tammany no chance we are better next year than this year. We lose Tucker and Lamar. You think we will somehow get better players in the portal next year? Explain that logic.
We got both of them in the portal. If we have a good season we should have a little more $ this time.
Michigan looked sloppy. Mara is a tough presence but they looked very beatable.
I was really impressed by their talent, but they didn't fit all that well imo.
The parts I watched, Mara was their best player....at times dominant. I didn't notice many shooters. I know they still have Gayle.....
He would have been interesting for IU. He doesn't need the ball in his hands all the time like Reneau did, and he's very difficult to defend on the lob. You could literally have him spend half his time right under the basket waiting for a lob or rebound and have Wilkerson & DeVries bombing away outside.