So what is the motivation for someone who says they are a Purdue women's-only bball fan from coming to the IU basketball site? Just to say our team may not finish higher than 3rd in conference or make a F4 without improved recruiting, while your own once-proud program languishes near the bottom of the conference, before adding 2 more top flight women's programs? Just want to make sure I understand this!
Chloe MM announces on Twitter she is coming back.
- Thread starter Shuski
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For me the unbalanced schedule ended the relevance of the regular season conference champion once it started. It's not perfect, nor as meaningful as what the former conference championship used to mean, but now I consider the tournament champion the closest thing we have to a conference champion.
It's odd, if you go back and look at top 25 recruiting rankings over the past 4 years, IU is only in there once, last year with Lamendola and Beaumont, yet there they are at the top of the standings the past 3 years.
While I understand your reasoning, I couldn't disagree more with giving more reverence to a 4/5-day tournament champion. Absolutely not.
Just talking women's basketball, and whether you believe it or not is like to see Moren make a FF. But for someone who's followed women's hoops fit over 30 years, she has some glaring limitations that would take something extra-ordinary for her to get there unless she takes a step up in her approach. Same as Bluder needing a generational player to get her to the FF after 40 years of coaching. Bluder's weakness is coaching defense. I think of the coaches with 5 years coaching in the BT, Moren, Barnes, and McGuff are neck and neck for best coach, but all three are flawed in ways that make them reaching a FF very unlikely without major growth or getting their own Caitlyn Clark.
I've been watching the back and forth about recruiting classes, etc. Ranking freshmen classes as it's already been pointed out, usually depends on the number of recruits coming in. Coach Moren brought in two h.s. players last year and Beaumont was the 2023 Illinois Ms. Basketball, 2023 Gatorade Player of the Year and a McDonalds All-American nominee and LaMendola was 2023 Texas Gatorade Player of the Year and was a McDonald’s All-American nominee. The point being that Coach Moren can recruit top level high school players, and if she wanted to focus primarily on high school players, she would have highly ranked classes.
She has recruited just two high school players this season so far. It's clear she decided to balance her incoming classes with a mix of high school and portal players which many teams do. She has also recruited Europe well in the past. Although Garzon is from Israel, she spent a lot of time playing in Europe and Aleksa Gulbe being another example.
We need to wait for the off-season dust to settle before we start worrying about who's got what. That's my opinion and I'm just going to leave it at that and not worry about what other teams are doing in the B1G.
She has recruited just two high school players this season so far. It's clear she decided to balance her incoming classes with a mix of high school and portal players which many teams do. She has also recruited Europe well in the past. Although Garzon is from Israel, she spent a lot of time playing in Europe and Aleksa Gulbe being another example.
We need to wait for the off-season dust to settle before we start worrying about who's got what. That's my opinion and I'm just going to leave it at that and not worry about what other teams are doing in the B1G.
In another item, IU 2025 recruit Maya Makalusky out of Hamilton Southeastern was named to the core group of the Indiana Junior All-Stars. Here was an item from the announcement: The 6-3 IU commit dominated last season, clocking 26.1 points per game on 50% shooting with a 41% mark from 3 (77-for-188). She also pulled in 5.6 rebounds per game.
Just from the videos I've seen I like Wiseman and especially Makalusky. Both have good size and can shoot. Maya might be a bit more athletic and skillful.
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IU and Purdue should have some interesting battles in the post in a couple years when Makalusky and Purdue's Gordon make their debuts.
There are about 200 McDs game nominations each year, and being the best player in ab weak states class didn't make you a great recruit... Jayla Smith at Purdue is a grand example. Generally the ESPN rankings track pretty close to impact the players have. Just look at this year's freshmen that we're ranked in the top ten and the immediate impact they have had.
The problem with counting on the portal IMO is that it's uncertain if the type of player you want will be available and not come with an excess of emotional baggage, and even if they are you have a limited window to recruit them against all others that are after them. Much of IUs success can be directly related to three top 25 level players transferring into the program to provide the outside scoring punch to compliment Holmes and CMM.
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Recruiting the portal is part of recruiting. This isn’t the old days.
Just for clarification Parrish and Scalia were portal transfers, Garzon was a freshman recruit last year.
I always like to know what the facts are based on what may be good valid points.
USC current roster has 7 portal transfers on the roster
Ohio State current roster has 5 portal transfers on the roster
Indiana has 3 portal transfers on the roster (one of those redshirted this year)
UCLA has 2 portal transfers on the roster
Iowa has 2 portal transfers on the roster.
I guess that might defeat the value of top recruiting classes you talked about being the key to being a top team in the new Big Ten. You may end up being right, but USC has obviously relied on Juju and portal transfers this year. Ohio State also had Sheldon, Codie and 5 portal transfers.
It is so hard to know what roster makeup next fall will be but enjoy the discussion.
No. 1 South Carolina lost all starters from last season and this season they started all portal transfers while hanging on to the No. 1 spot.
Staley really has created a monster at SC. Seems to me she's on another level than even UCONN or UT was during their hey days. UCLA/Wooden might be the better comparison, especially if she stays and can keep it up for another 4-5 years.
and you think they showed up here by chance? I'd agree that to compete at the top tier in the country, no doubt Moren's going to have to recruit better more athletic players, but she's gotten to the top of the B10 from a program that was pretty much mediocre for much of the prior 25 years. She's a terrific "program" coach and while I'd agree USC and UCLA are going to rise to the top when they join, I think she'll raise her game and be competing with them pretty quickly.
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