Most teams play a 3 guard lineup these days. You think Smith is a better perimeter defender than Durham? What is Smith going to do offensively with TJD and Davis/Brunk in the game? Again there will be instances where Smith starts/plays a lot of minutes against bigger, more athletic teams, but Durham over Smith gives you a ton of more flexibility.
Interesting topic on the front page: who do you expect to be our leading scorer next year?
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Most teams play a 3 guard lineup these days. You think Smith is a better perimeter defender than Durham? What is Smith going to do offensively with TJD and Davis/Brunk in the game? Again there will be instances where Smith starts/plays a lot of minutes against bigger, more athletic teams, but Durham over Smith gives you a ton of more flexibility.
And you also have to consider that Durham is likely going to be next years glue guy/emotional leader. Can you really afford to keep him off the court in favor of Smith?
I see where we're disagreeing. You're confusing matching with making up. Yes, he can come close to matching Langford's production. However, if he only increases his scoring by 5 ppg then that leaves over 11 ppg for the rest of the team to make up for. To make up for Langford's lost points, Green would need to average around 26 ppg. I think we can both agree that's highly unlikely.
Yes that’s our difference. I was eluding to Green making up the 16ppg lost in our starting lineup. But I think once you factor in both Durham and Phinisee scoring a few more ppg and then a combination of Anderson/Franklin you’re there.
What killed IU last year was front court position outside Morgan. After Morgan you had Smith who was playing out of position, and got virtually nothing from Fitzner, Moore, and Forrester who got a bulk of the minutes the first two-thirds of the year while Davis was hurt/out of the lineup.
I hope that you are right. But I have little confidence that Smith will improve his perimeter and FT shooting. He will need to completely reconstruct his shooting mechanics to be more consistent.
Let's hope so! Reconstruct and then repeat the corrected mechanics until muscle memory has locked in on an improved FT stroke. We can hope!
Smith is a higher potential/talent guy that Durham. Smith can move between and defend 3-4. Davis/Brunk split the 5. TJD will play 4-5.
I agree Smith has athleticism and size to play more positions than Durham. But Durhams basketball skills are far beyond Smith. I would rather have Durham on the floor at the end of a close game than Smith. Smith's lack of shooting ability and fundamentals are shocking for someone who was ranked as highly as he was out of HS. HS talent evaluators tend to over-value athleticism and under-value fundamentals and boost players who play on elite AAU teams and circuits.
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He shot 50% from the field. Durham 40%. If he plays “his” game he can be a very good player for us.
Provided he makes his free throws. Else, it's a hack-a-Shaq type of thing, which will be disastrous for us.
That's lie. I called you a fanboy because you said people are semi-crazy to think IU won't increase it's scoring output next year. Also, you said Green would score 14-15 points, which I do think is very unlikely.
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I don’t see anybody on the team that can score as consistently as Romeo or Juwan did last season. I think our best case scenario is that Green, Davis, TJD, Al, Smith, & Rob all average between 8-12 points per game. That will make for a very balanced attack and not allow teams to key on one or two guys and shut down our offense. The icing on the cake would be that Brunk, Race, Damezi, & Franklin all average at least 4 points per game. That would make for a really varied offensive attack and hopefully see us make the tourney next year.
Based off what? Athleticism? Smith hasn’t shown anywhere near the ball skills that Durham has and really lacks the kind of leadership and cohesiveness that keeps a team together.
Smith is an explosive athlete but that gets minimized the further and further he gets away from the basket. I’ll take Durham guarding a 6’4-6’6 wing out in the perimeter well before I take Smith. Smith, TJD, and Brunk/Davis on the court altogether is a spacing nightmare.
Sounds like you are higher on Durham and I’m higher on Smith. Let’s hope we are both right and IU over achieves and we make the tourney.
I'm hoping Hunter and TJD start - putting Durham and Smith on the bench. I doubt it happens. At least one of them should improve enough to get minutes and they'll need to..
That would be great but let’s hope all 4 perform at a high level.
If Hunter isn’t cleared this year it’ll likely never happen. Take the hardship waiver and get the scholarship off the books.
There have been cases of notable athletes spending six years at a college program, two of which were medical redshirts. Northwestern's Evan Eschmeyer comes to mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Eschmeyer
I agree.
I don't know why Crean recruited guys who could not shoot from the perimeter or FT?
I mean it’s possible to get a 6th year, but if Hunter doesn’t play for a second straight year due to the diagnosis, at what point does it signal his career is over. Jay Simpson at Purdue was diagnosed with a heart condition in the middle of his career and was able to stay on scholarship that didn’t count against their allotted total.
Smith was by a pretty good margin our best player in transition (for the record Romeo was actually pretty bad and got dinged for it by draft scouts).
If Archie really wants to generate more transition points like a UNC, then Smith is your best slasher returning and it's not even close.
However you are right, in the half court offense he needs to figure out a way to leverage his non threatening perimeter play. Either by being more of an active screener, by being in constant motion and attacking the offensive boards (like Troy and OG would do) or developing some kind of mid range game (which is the least likely). He was better in the paint than he was as a freshman so that's something to build on. Outside of 5 feet it was pretty nasty.
So it's probably going to come down to pace. If we are playing a fast paced team like Illinois he's probably playing a lot. If it's a grinder team like Wisconsin who protect the ball, he's probably going to be less effective.
It's all about the matchups.
But being a poor FT shooter means Smith should not be playing at the end in a close game.
I almost edited it and mentioned TJD as at the world games he was a rim runner, and a very good one.
Dare I say he's probably going to be our best running post player since Zeller.
Unfortunately for TJD just like Smith...I expect him to be pretty brutal outside of ten feet and at the free throw line (where I think he was around a 60% ft shooter his senior year of HS).
However of course TJD is taller and much longer than Justin and will be able to play the 4 and 5 legitimately...unlike Smith.
Snow from TOS said he is exclusively working with the posts right now as that's what they want his game to be ready first.
I agree completely.
Wish someone would get that behind the head hitch out of him and have him go straight up and out in one motion.
It can be effective from 5 to 10 feet in traffic but as an actual shot that hitch/flip will never be accurate from decent distance.
I thought that was Schilling's specialty.
I hated Crean but Buckley must have really been a shot doctor as he was called because he transformed a lot of guys. Even Troy Williams was a decent shooter as a junior. Watford went from a power forward to leading the Big Ten in 3 point shooting his senior year.
No. I don't see the basketball potential in Smith. A victim of dominating athletically while growing up with very little skills development. Game on the line, IU down 2 pts, with 2 FT to tie the game to force OT or lose, Durham or Smith? I'd take Durham every time.
A 3 guard lineup is going to be used during games. It will happen more often if Hunter isn't available. Smith has never shown he can play the 3 and he will have to beat out two competitors to start at the 4. TJD and Thompson are bigger and more suitable to play the 4.
Smith may take a leap forward. He could have done that last year if he had continued playing as he ended his freshman year. Until he does step up, others can pass over him for significant playing time.
Green and Romeo combined for 25-26 points. Green won't average that amount or score that in individual games. If Green averages 15 points, Durham, Phinisee, Franklin, Anderson, and possibly Hunter would have to make up the rest.
The same can be said of Morgan's production. Teams lose players every year. They almost always find a way to replace scoring. Leadership, defense, ball security, and team play are the forgotten areas when you lose good players.
In our case, Morgan was a big loss with his experience and scoring. It is somewhat lessened by the return of Davis and the addition of Brunk. From a scoring point of view, we will recover from multiple sources or possibly mostly from one source.
We will score points. Can we defend, take care of the ball and improve free throw shooting? If so, we will be in better shape this year.
Personally I think it’s going to be a lot harder to score than the above matrix indicates. There’s nobody in this offense that needs to be doubled by the D like last season. We will be played more honestly, especially on the perimeter. Unless he greatly improves his stamina and athleticism, DeRon fouls too much to be a player that can reliably be on the floor long enough to consistently score. We’ve been a meh foul shooting team so i don’t expect a lot of points from the line. DeVonte can shoot well from deep, but we need a lot more proof that others can do so consistently.
I think we are going to have a lot of games where our defense will give us a chance because frankly, at least until somebody really surprises, I really don’t see this team consistently generating more than 64-68 pts/game or even fewer against good comp. A lot will be riding on our D for sure.
He showed he can put up numbers. Had a 22 to game and 12 reb game. From What we have returning, Smith has as much experience and and production of anyone. I wouldn’t write him off because he struggled from 3 and ft line last year.
His release is also inconsistent and all over the place. Flip is a good word to describe it.
It will take a complete reconstruction of his shot in the offseason to move the needle in his favor.
