Heck…go find the money and bring back Lamar and Sam. This is all ridiculous.
@mushroomgod why does it matter if they recognized it awhile ago? Think they've gotten into practice, or maybe a staffer finally got through to CDD, but suddenly they recognize they could use another roster piece and have the ability to address it. Not at all like someone window shopping. You've never gone shopping, gotten home, recognized you forgot something and had to go back to get it? Think that's more akin to where we are.
Trying to comprehend the Colorado judges mumbo jumbo ruling. .
Enjoining this, and enjoining that.
It seems like that eligible players are at this time only allowed to return to their former school and if they attempt to ghost transfer, the heavy hammer of the NCAA will come down on the school they go to.
Anybody else understanding the logistics better than I?
A little dose of realism, this morning... then some optimism.
A lot of IU's better games last year, Reed ended up being the most impactful big. Even though in many of them, Sam started, Reed often got more minutes and was in the game late. That isn't a universal thing, Sam had some really good games too, in some good team wins. But also, Sam's emergence as the primary big late in the season, also coincided with our late season slide. Coincidence? Probably a little. And I'd put more blame on Reed's play falling off a cliff, than Sam's. But it would be realistic to say Sam struggled, and wasn't overly impactful, much of the time the last few weeks of the season.
Now... optimism... Having guys like Sherrell and Yigi, is a completely different dynamic for Sam. Whether he ends up starting alongside Sherrell, or being both of their primary back up. In that secondary/support big role, he's an ENORMOUS upgrade.
He also showed a ton of fight last year. And of any of the guys, you could see he had great buy in. Those things are just as important as his on the court abilities.
Very excited this seems to be happening!
@iunorth - I know this is all conjecture for the sake of something to talk about, but as you sort of alluded to, I honestly don't know if it makes sense to use last year's results as a comparison to how that would transform this year. Last season it felt like Sam became IU's primary rim protector, and I don't think he is built to be the main guy in that position. If he is the secondary rim protector behind Sherrill or Samet, I think he can excel in that role, and it only elevates our ability to keep people from getting easy buckets.
IMO, the best comparison is using his time at Florida during their run to the national title. He got about 12 minutes a game. Clearly, he is going to be 2 years older so we would expect to see that tick up over 15mpg but he always felt like the perfect complimentary player. Over the last 8 regular season games, he avg 14pts 6 rebs 1.5blks with an 88% fg%. It's not blowing your socks off but that's great to have coming off the bench.
@yothn For sure! I was going to dig in and type something more in depth about his stats getting better, and our play as a team getting worse. But I lost interest in it.
But... that did happen. His strengths were not really a great match to how last year's team needed to play, to play their best basketball. As weak as Reed was, he fit their style and potential better.
So... remains to be seen how Sam Alexis will help this next team. But whole heartedly agree, that not relying on him as much to be a main focal point big, should help make his minutes more helpful and impactful, no matter how this next team needs to play to be successful. If he can defend the paint, rebound, and finish around the rim (he should be able to), but not be relied upon to anchor the 5 spot for long stretches, he's a very, very, very good addition to the team this late in the process.
Maybe it was Alexis style, if so, then it was our coach blowing it, if he used the wrong guys... Alexis played OK. Seems like teams knew how to play him and Wilkerson at the end. I remember it was TD and Dorn and a few times even Wilkserson going cold from the field. Maybe Conorway sulking contributed.
Anyway, it all comes back to coaching. Devries second year, we should see what he's got.
Pretty sure if Coach has chops, then it will help having a guy back who he already trained for a year. It didn't seem like it with his own boy sometimes... except his kid had to force it, since we lacked talent, and playing out of position too often due to lack of bigs.
@openwheel Tucker has gotten a bad rap on this board, and maybe by IU fans in general. He ended up having to play mostly as our "4" man, guarding and defending quite a lot of size and length in the process. He was probably our best rebounder, and certainly the best passer, on our team. For a guy to transition from mainly a primary scoring threat, to that role, in the B10... it was very impressive, to me. Obviously he got paid handsomely to do that. But he sacrificed quite a lot, shots/scoring/usage wise, versus what he had been used to in the past. I thought he handled that pretty well, overall, as well.
I don't know that he changed his game much more than would be expected when transitioning to a tougher conference. He was not fleet of foot and able to create his own shots as easily, so it should be expected that he would transition to rebounding and defending more.
His rebounds went down from his numbers at Drake, and up slightly from West Virginia. His 3 pnt percentage of attempts went up at Indiana, from WVU, while his 3 pnt make percentage went significantly down. I don't see from those numbers it had all that much to do with needing to play more as a big. He just found it tougher to get shots, so he missed more. He did try to play an all around game and pitch in. But he was supposed to. All our guys would've been better with a good big man around them. But I don't think that's why TD's outside shooting went mental...
Anyway, yeah he banged for us against bigger guys, out of necessity. I appreciated that. He competed for IU! I think he gets ripped more based on some of us having expectations of him being an elite player, but when his shooting percentage came down toward reality, he was only a decent player.
@openwheel I would say there's zero question he became more of a facilitator, and catch and shoot guy, than THE guy with the ball in his hands. And he spent long stretches guarding the opposing teams actual best post players, to cover up for Reed Bailey's inadequacies in that regard. He came to keep playing for his dad, he got a lot of money to do it. It is what it is. But pure basketball fit, and performance, and maybe even enjoyment of the game of basketball wise... he would have likely flourished more at places like Purdue, Michigan, Duke, etc... where he wouldn't have had to distribute the ball as much, would have had more room to make plays offensively, and wouldn't have had to guard and rebound with opposing bigs nearly as much.
His WVU stats are kinda irrelevant as he only played a handful of games. Though he did look pretty good in those games.
But you are right, his role and game was always going to look different, at IU, than it did at Drake. I think he deserves to be commended for how he played, and how he battled, is all I'm saying.
@openwheel I would say there's zero question he became more of a facilitator, and catch and shoot guy, than THE guy with the ball in his hands. And he spent long stretches guarding the opposing teams actual best post players, to cover up for Reed Bailey's inadequacies in that regard. He came to keep playing for his dad, he got a lot of money to do it. It is what it is. But pure basketball fit, and performance, and maybe even enjoyment of the game of basketball wise... he would have likely flourished more at places like Purdue, Michigan, Duke, etc... where he wouldn't have had to distribute the ball as much, would have had more room to make plays offensively, and wouldn't have had to guard and rebound with opposing bigs nearly as much.
His WVU stats are kinda irrelevant as he only played a handful of games. Though he did look pretty good in those games.
But you are right, his role and game was always going to look different, at IU, than it did at Drake. I think he deserves to be commended for how he played, and how he battled, is all I'm saying.
I'm with Wheel on this. One of the most overrated players ever. He wouldn't have seen the court much for Michigan or Duke.
It's a bit scary that any player from last year's team is coming back. But, we did finish in the middle of the B1G, not last or something. And he did do things we appear to need.
It just breaks down that Sam is a piece positive to this teams needs for better results. I'm quite certain he'll make practices more productive just for starters. His addition is 1 of those "ya he fits us".