Open roster spots, don't need a coach, with 6 million to buy players. Maybe you guys that want 18-year-old freshman need to rethink our position.
Consider we may be in a commanding position.
- Thread starter Rockport Zebra
- Start date
No decent player wants to play for a bad coach with a terrible offensive system.
Your opinion is noted. What coach would spend his time and money on a kid who may or not pan out.
I don't like it, but you may be right. Mid-major programs are becoming the place for freshmen to go prove themselves before getting paid to play at P5 schools.
Need a Mixture of both. How many guys has Uconn, PU and UNC went out and bought?
100%!!! IU will not get enough decent transfers to make a difference
I’d argue the short recruitments give the staff and team less of a chance to see if a kid mixes in well. This is even magnified by the fact Woodson hasn’t seemed to establish a real culture (that’s noticeable anyway) since he got here. What type of kid do you go after?? Schools like Purdue and UConn know exactly what kind because they have a culture and recruit to that fit. I think a lot of IU’s problems have stemmed from just collecting “stars” and hoping you can put something together out of that.
Success isn’t accidental, and neither is mediocrity.
This. Look at when so many of IU's high school players are recruited. CMW seemed to get a high percentage of "late" recruits. Bates was a decommit from Texas. MM a decommit from Duke. Ware from Portal. Sparks from portal.
Those are all last minute recruits that he didn't get to know and develop a relationship with. Really get a feel for how they will fit together and fit in his "system." (Ok, I DID laugh to myself a bit when I typed that, admittedly).
But you see what I mean. How many recruits has Woody brought in that there was any kind of real relationship with where he got to know a kid and really vetted him? Got a feel for him? Where the process wasn't rushed?
Last year, IU played like a team of a bunch of disparate parts were just kind of thrown together. It fits how he "recruits" and "chooses" players, doesn't it? And he's doing it again this year. No long-term 2024 recruits. He'll just try to get whichever short-term recruits in the portal he can and throw together another team of parts for 2025.
History repeating itself...
What do you expect? The solution isn’t more of the same, that’s just going to exacerbate the culture issues that exist. Unfortunately the powers that be (whether it is Woodson, or the boosters pulling the puppet strings) see the solution as being as simple as buying more players.
I have heard UConn has three key players from the portal.
Consider a coach on the hot seat big time. Players want stability. But I guess they want money more. lol.
My not so well thoughout position is you can win up to a certain level with a roster comprised of nearly all "1st year to your program" players.
I think a team comprised mainly from older portal kids probably has a little bit higher ceiling than the Kentucky/Duke type teams that are being led by elite level freshmen. Obviously those older guys have to also be very talented. But if I were choosing between filling a roster with a bunch of 21+ year old already established all conference level college players, OR, top 50 level incoming freshmen...I'd choose the portal route without question.
As with anything...a good blend of returning experience and talent with adding HS and/or portal kids to augment and improve what you already have, is the best path.
So for your position... I get your point... but I don't think it will end up playing out well because teams that have as many 1st year players as we're going to have generally have a ceiling on things they can accomplish, no matter how talented they are...and then we don't have a coach that has shown an ability to get his teams to play consistently well, even when he's coached a higher percentage of the roster for multiple years.
Our best hope is that Woody has a much better handle on what he needs than we all are giving him credit for. And he is able to sign guys that will play well with Malik, Trey, hopefully Mack too, and help make those guys better than they have been, while also providing a lot of production themselves.
I think a team comprised mainly from older portal kids probably has a little bit higher ceiling than the Kentucky/Duke type teams that are being led by elite level freshmen. Obviously those older guys have to also be very talented. But if I were choosing between filling a roster with a bunch of 21+ year old already established all conference level college players, OR, top 50 level incoming freshmen...I'd choose the portal route without question.
As with anything...a good blend of returning experience and talent with adding HS and/or portal kids to augment and improve what you already have, is the best path.
So for your position... I get your point... but I don't think it will end up playing out well because teams that have as many 1st year players as we're going to have generally have a ceiling on things they can accomplish, no matter how talented they are...and then we don't have a coach that has shown an ability to get his teams to play consistently well, even when he's coached a higher percentage of the roster for multiple years.
Our best hope is that Woody has a much better handle on what he needs than we all are giving him credit for. And he is able to sign guys that will play well with Malik, Trey, hopefully Mack too, and help make those guys better than they have been, while also providing a lot of production themselves.
I don’t think it’s one or the other. The better route is recruiting and developing and then using the portal for holes in the roster
He may be able to buy some one year players but high school recruiting is probably dead.
The upside is....IU will be getting players from other programs who have been developed (by others)...the downside is....this coaching staff is what amounts to portal pimps.
I agree. Woody has definitely had some talent on his teams.
Much more than some other coaches. I wonder why he hasn't gotten past the round of 32, though? I wonder...
Can’t build teams though. 3 draft picks and no BIg titles and nothing past the round of 32.
I could cares less if he got 15 guys to the nba if he cannot make the tourney what does it matter. You dont get to hang banners cause you get guys to the nba.
Once this coaching staff gets a hold of these transfers THEY won't pan out.
This. I mean, getting guys to the NBA probably helps with recruiting, but I don't care about this either. It's all about B1G titles and NCAA tourney success and always has been.
It's obviously been very difficult to be an IU fan for a long time...LOL
And what I always appreciated about RMK is that he did a great job of recruiting guys who fit roles. IU doesn't seem to do that anymore. IU doesn't need a roster full of first round draft choices. They need a roster of guys who know their role and play to that role really well.
Successful programs do that really well...
Did this coaching staff improve KW? I think the best thing you could say is they didn’t ruin him. The man had talent when he got here.
Don't forget the many blow-out losses......but who's counting?
Was he being talked about as a first-rounder/lottery pick before he got here?
Can't deny he was a better player this year than he was at Oregon. It's fair to say the coaching and his individual effort (maybe also due to coaching) probably developed him. MM improved throughout the season. Cupps improved throughout the season. MR was much better than last year. How can it be denied that they developed while at IU? Why deny it?
Playing time was also a factor. When Ware got minutes at Oregon he put up numbers.
Yep. I rarely ever agree with Aloha, but he's correct. We've definitely seen individual development this season.
Reneau saw a lot of improvement from his Frosh to Soph season.
Ware was so much better this season than last and, as I pointed out in another post, he continued to improve as the season went along. He was playing his best ball in Feb and March.
MM also improved markely in the B1G over the start of the season.
No question, there was a lot of improvement over the course of the season. I'm a big advocate of Woody getting fired, but anyone claiming that those players didn't improve is being intentionally argumentative and irrational.
Now, admittedly, that individual improvement didn't translate into team success as the team's NET was barely in the top 100, so...
I'd rather have a high 4* guy who's going to be around 2-3 years than these 1 year 5* guys. We've had 4 that I remember....Ware, JHS, Romeo, Vonleh......what have we won with them?
A guy like Ware is great for a program if he takes what is already a damn good team and converts it to a championship team.......teams like KU, MSU, Arizona, In our situation he's just a blip on the radar.
We agree on a lot more than you think. We just don't express our opinions the same way. Most of the time I keep my negative opinions to myself.
They may well be good enough.
But Woodson needs help to mold them into something..
Guy needs to loose his old ego and get two young smart assistants..
Agreed talent, unhoned, which Coach Woodson and staff really put a shine on in 1 season. Ware some much as cemented that very positive today about the coaching he received at IUBB. So yes Ware spoke up very favorably.
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Look, honestly, the best thing for Woodson is to get players from the portal. He coached in the NBA for a billion years prior to coming to IU in his 60s. He had nearly zero experience working with kids straight from HS, other than probably an occasional super talented kid who got drafted from HS.
He's probably much more comfortable with a player who already has some experience and who another coach has already developed some. Maybe this will turn out to be Woody's real skill. Polishing college players.
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